Finally! After three months of cycling we have reached the Pacific Ocean! For the past two months, I have had the pleasure of cycling with a good friend and brother, Clive Rogers, and at 7:02 PM, October 13, 2008, we cycled our way to the beach at Marina Del Rey, CA.
We chose Marina Del Rey because we were supposed to meet a friend of a friend there, but that never happened. So after we arrived, we decided it was too dark to take photos, so we went to a local coffee shop (The Cow's End) and had a celebratory drink.
The day started off like most of the other days. We got a late start leaving Fontana. We knew that we were going to have a cross wind and sometimes even a tail wind. We had about 70 miles to go, so we decided to not drag our feet any longer. After a few hours, Clive had one flat tire and then another. He thinks it's because he's jinxed us the day before and said that we would not have any more flats. The second flat would turn out to be the last one of our journey.
We would have made great time, but we encountered way too many traffic lights. It seemed that every light on the way to LA was out to get us. We would sometimes get up to 20 mph between lights, but the lights were on just about every block.
Just as it was getting dark, we made it to downtown Los Angeles. We still had about 20 miles left to go and we were fighting LA Dodgers traffic. At this point, we knew would never make it before the sun was completely down so we stopped and turned on our inadequate lights for the remainder of the ride. We decided to take Venice Blvd because it went all the way to the beach, we made a left on Lincoln and then a right on Washington and before you knew it, we were there. Marina Del Rey, at the beach and our ride was over. We still had a little bit of an adventure in front of us, but that is another story.
I would like to thank each and every one of you who reads, or has read this blog, sent in donations, encouragement or thoughts and prayers. I never would have been able to do this without your support. And I would like to thank Clive, my cycling brother who made this adventure one that I will never forget!
