San Diego Quickie

Kiki and I are headed to San Diego next weekend to spend a couple of days on the boat. This is also a big race weekend in Tucson with the El Tour De Tucson. I have pretty decent fitness right now but I would rather enjoy some down time relaxing on the water. Plus, I'm finally starting to feel like riding after suffering a fair amount of burnout from too much training.

That might sound strange to my friends back in the Midwest where, if the weather is halfway decent - you ride. But in Tucson the weather is perfect 350 days a year. If you're not careful you can ride the fitness right out of your legs (or the desire out of your heart). So in November it's OK to opt for vacation over racing.

We'll arrive on Thursday evening and probably hang out at the marina Friday. Saturday there are two great training ride options. 1) The Swami's Ride in Encinitas 2) The UC Cyclery ride in La Jolla. Typically I go to La Jolla because it's closer. Both rides have a lot of "stop and go". As soon as the light turns green everybody does a drag race to the next red light. Once out of town, the roads and scenery are outstanding, and you can get as challenging a workout as anywhere in the country.

It seems like everyone who lives in SoCal is a cyclist. And they all have $10,000 bikes whether they race or not. On Saturday mornings along the Pacific Coast Highway there are literally dozens of group rides and thousands of cyclists. Too bad the state is so frickin' crazy liberal. I'll probably never buy any real estate in California - but it's a great place to be a "sunbird"

After the morning ride we're going to cruise over to Glorietta Bay and spend the night on the hook. There are always plenty of maintenance projects on the boat and this weekend I'm going to build a make shift wine cellar in the lazerette. Right now I store wine in one of the bilge areas which works ok, but two weeks ago when I got caught in some big water I worried that I would find a bunch of broken bottles when I made port. The lazerette is located at the stern of the boat and is low to the water line, so it should ride pretty well. I think I'll build it as a top loading rack that holds 24 bottles. Storing wine upright is usually not advised, but I don't keep anything too long on the boat.

Here are some pic from 2 weeks ago at Catalina Island that I didn't have a chance to post.

Sitting on the cockpit of Joyride just after sunset looking at the town of Avalon.

One day I took a hike high into the mountains. This look looking down on Avalon.
Joyride is one of the boats you see in the harbor. Between Memorial Day and Labor day this place is packed.

This is a pet cemetery. For dogs, cats, birds and everything else you could call a pet.