Day 8 of #ridingeverydayinNovember

There was even thicker fog in San Diego this morning,  luckily it didn't last long.  Dave and I need to be in Sacramento this evening so we didn't want to wait too long to get started. We finally shoved off around 8:30 AM for a ride around San Diego Bay to Coronado. I had biked around San Diego Bay a few years ago. Today's route would be only about half as long, but that was okay, we have a long drive ahead of us yet today!

We made our way down to the bay front.

Dave and I stopped pedaling long enough to take in some of the sights along San Diego Bay.

We started turning pedals again and began making our way around the south end of the bay.

As we rounded the south end of San Diego Bay we came to a salt works, where sea water was evaporated and the salt was harvested.

We continued our circumnavigation of the bay while discussing the effects that a tsunami would have on this low lying spit known as The Silver Strand.

As we were riding today's route I was looking forward to recreating this photo that I took of the Hotel del Coronado the first time I rode around the bay.

Following Debra, the San Diego Tour Guide, around the bay

Alas, in the ensuing 7 years, those palm trees have been replaced with condos.  The view of the hotel was not to be had. The best we could come up with was a photo of this associated property.

and this glance back as we rounded the corner.

The Coronado Bridge, (an interesting structure that boasts signs advising potential jumpers to call a help hotline, but has no call boxes) does not allow cyclists so a ferry ride is required. A foot ferry runs hourly beginning at 9:30 AM.  We were planning to be on the first ferry so that we could be on the road northward by noon.  With our tourist activities, we were cutting it close. Dave and I pushed hard through the city streets toward the ferry terminal.  Dave doesn't trust Garmin as much as I do. He was tiring of the zigging and zagging that we appeared to be doing.  At one point, we could see the waterfront about 10 blocks ahead.  I relented and headed straight for it, only to arrive and find that there was a concrete Jersey Barrier dividing us from our intended direction on the 4 lane road.  We turned around and pedaled hard. It was going to be close.

We got stopped by several long red lights. I finally rolled onto the waterfront, very near where I knew the ferry terminal had to be.  I didn't hesitate to ask a park worker where the terminal was, only to find out that his English skills, and my Spanish skills, weren't a good match.  I hurriedly made a choice to travel on sidewalks on the water's edge in search of a ferry terminal.  Luckily, it wasn't far away and didn't take long to arrive, and equally lucky was the fact that the ferry was running two minutes late.  It seems that the elderly couple in line was having trouble understanding how the ticketing operation worked.

They raised the gang plank as we rolled our bikes across it.  We made it!
We parked our bikes in the ferry's bike rack and went on deck to enjoy the ride.

After the short crossing we pedaled quickly, arrived back at our motel, showered, loaded our gear, and hit the road.

It was a good ride.

.........Road Bike.....Rollers.............MTB..........Lifecycle......Total
Today ...........35................0..................0.......................0............35
Jan...............0................0...................0.......................0............0
Feb..........124...............0...................0.......................0...........124
March......277................0..................0........................0..........277
April......559................0..................0........................0..........559
May.........414...............0..................0.......................0...........414
June........337...............0..................0.......................0...........337
July........310...............0..................0.......................0...........310
August.......40.............0....................0......................0............40
Sept..........100..............0...................83......................0...........100
Oct.............29...............0....................0......................0............29
Nov............186..............0......................0......................0...........186
YTD...... 2353.............0...................83.......................0..........2496