Danny’s Ride

By arriving in San Diego during the early evening yesterday, we were able to get a great night sleep, which was desperately needed. Once again, before 7:00 a.m. we were all wide-awake and ready to start the day.

We took turns showering and by 7:45, I was showered and on the computer working away to create business cards that we will hand out along the trip. Although relatively simple to do, it took me a little longer than I expected and by 8:30 I had saved the file ready to be printed and we were on our way to Kinko’s.

When we arrived at the Kinko’s, we explained what needed and that we are on a tight budget. Kinko’s offered to give us a discount and printed 1,000 business cards for us. While they were printing and cutting our new business cards, we walked down the street to Subway.

As we were eating in Subway, we were so nervous, we didn’t utter a single word the entire time. We just sat in nervous silence, each focusing on our respective sandwich. When we finished, I stepped outside to make a quick call to Jim Anderson (the man behind this great website) and when Ken and Danny finished, we headed walking back to Kinko’s.

While waiting for business cards to be finished, I called the North County Times, a San Diego newspaper, to do a phone interview about the trip. When I returned to Kinko’s, Danny was nowhere to be found. Ken and I called Danny’s cell phone over and over without success.

After fifteen minutes, we began to think something had happened to him. After five more minutes and three phone calls later, Danny came strolling up. He had left his cell phone in the motor home and had walked over to a nearby bike store to grab some last minute supplies. Just as Danny showed up, our business cards were ready. 1,000 freshly print business cards for the trip. I wonder how long those will last.

We piled into the motor home, made a quick stop at the hotel to pick up Ken’s camera and we headed to the beach. I called my aunt, Joan, who lives in San Diego, and after a couple wrong turns, she met us and guided us to a beach where we could put our back tire in the Pacific Ocean.

When we pulled up to the beach, each one of us was nearly shaking we were so nervous. This is what we had been working towards the past couple months. With putting our back tire in the Pacific Ocean, we would be starting a very long and difficult journey – biking across America.

With my aunt videotaping and Ken taking pictures, Dan and I carried our bikes down the beach and walked onto the wet sand. We nervously waited for a wave to trickle in that would allow us to dip our back tire into it. However, after twenty seconds, we impatiently gave up waiting and walked too close to the water as a wave came pouring in soaking our feet. We didn’t mind. We had waited for this moment

With our tires dripping with salty seawater, Danny and I hit the road. Over the next four hours, we climbed up, up, up. We went as fast as 33 mph and as slow as 3 mph but the views from the mountains were worth every second. There was one point as I was enjoying the wind in my face during a rare decline when I let out a big long laugh. I was having so much fun, I just couldn’t help it.

The most surprising part of the first day was the great bike lanes San Diego has. On top of that, many cars even slowed down or moved way over when passing us. The weather was perfect biking. It was cool by San Diego standards but just right by ours. We biked a tough 30 miles to Ramona, California.

When we finished the four-hour bike, Ken picked us up in the motor home and we headed to my Aunt Joan and Uncle Jim’s house. It was great to kick back, relax and tell stories. We enjoyed a fantastic lasagna dinner with garlic bread and salad. It was a feast. Danny said on the way home, he has never felt more comfortable in someone’s house he barely knew.

Tomorrow, we hit the real mountains. We are meeting with a photographer from a local newspaper to take a picture and then we will drive to Ramona and pick up right where we left off. We have been told that the mountains we climbed today were only around 2,500 feet and tomorrow’s mountains will be 5,000 feet. Today must have beenjust a warm-up. It will be an interesting day! Being a day ahead, we are planning on doing 60 miles tomorrow.

This pictures is Danny with Joshua Frias of VagaBond Inn.  Joshua was the main reason we were able to stay at such a great hotel in San Diego.  Without his help, we would be forced to spend a lot of money on a hotel that could be going to cancer research.  Thanks Joshua!

We will be posting video of Danny and Drew dipping their tires in the Pacific Ocean tomorrow night!