Wednesday 6/08/16 Catalina to Dana Point

Tuesday 6/07/16 thru LA to Catalina

Monday 6/06/16 to Santa Monica

Today began with a early start from our gorgeous camp site on the beach and a hearty breakfast taco and strong coffee in town. 

We were headed down the Santa Barbra coast along and beside the ocean, generally along Route 1, also know as the Ventura Highway. Although whenever possible we looked and sometimes found less travelled and more scenic parallel roads or bike paths.

With that being said I will digress to document, solely for my own benefit, some thoughts and comments on my, up to now reliable and totally trusted Guide. Kevin had made this trip before, several years prior. His knowledge and reliability in the sparsely populated, remote and occasionally dangerous northern sections was legendary. Not only in taking care of me, an otherwise possibly self destructive and at risk companion but in finding and educating me on local sights and history and otherwise making the trip far safer and more comfortable and interesting.........but today as we approached a much more densely populated area my total confidence in El Capitan my Giedde was shattered!!!!

It began with this entirely excusable mistake, because he bozo, dumb Engineers built this nice bike path but didn't put up any signage for an out of town, through rider to find it.

We ended up on the wrong side of the fence for a few miles with no way to get on the better side.

....ther that's better.

Next we thought we were on a nice parallel, quiet, more scenic road........until a dead end.

Confidence in El Giedeee began to waver.

.......but ever strong and in good humor I followed my trusted friend.

All along this stretch do beach there was "camping" California style. A numbered slot on the highway, where for a fee you could park your Mega RV and get to enjoy a sliver of beach for a week of vacation. Now I know where all of those giant RV busses and trailers that frightened me to death along the narrow stretches of road were headed. 

We found some friendly locals who as usual were happy to give guidance on the best route.

Another of the areas of expertise in which my very experienced Guide was always top notch on was bicycle maintenance and reliability. We were totally dependent on the sometimes frail and fragile bicycles that we rode. And a failure could at any moment lead to disaster. 

So when my, up to now trusted Guide (pronounced Geeeeede) had his 2nd flat tire of the day and needed my spare tube to bail him out, I was worried.

Fortunately the flats were in comfortable, safe spots where for the second I could fetch us some lunch while he mad the tire change.

And we're we could find a bike shop and get spare tubes so we didn't have to ride without a spare.

We rode past one of many military installations we encountered. They were usually in really nice scenic locations on some of the best prime real estate. But as Kevin explained......they got here first and had certainly had big guns.

This one was Magu Point and Navy. We also saw Air Force, Marines and Army along the way. Our tax dollars at work.

We descended back to the coast.

Here is some precarious real estate that was not long for this world with the current state of GOP climate change denial.