Bob on BAC Santa Barbara to San Diego 2010

I was looking forward to breakfast this morning because the hotel advertised “real” food starting at 6:30. So I got up at 6:00 and was ready when they opened. It was a decent buffet with scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, juice, fruit, yogurt and coffee. This was after eating too much the night before.

Outdoor Missile Museum

I started the day’s ride around 8:10 with partly cloudy skies and cool temperatures. There were eight of us that started together. Soon there were two of us riding together. Deborah Chamitoff from Victoria joined me as we pulled away from the rest of the group. We had good tail winds and were pushing 20+ MPH on level pavement. As it turned out, we rode the entire ride together – a first with me on BAC trips.

Our first stop was at Point Mugu Missile Park a few miles south of Port Hueneme. Although I am not a weapons advocate, I felt that I should record something for the day just to prove that I stopped once in a while.

Stunning Landscapping

We traveled another 2.5 miles and turned onto “The PCH” where we stayed for almost all of the ride. We made a short detour at the Pt Dume area known as the Malibu Riviera where we passed some nice houses with beautiful landscaped yards. Before turning onto the optional route detour, we stopped for coffee and a snack at a Starbucks where we were supposed to see some movie stars. We might have seen one or two but we wouldn’t have known it.

We rode through the middle of Malibu on “The PCH”. I have ridden this stretch a couple of times and have run into a few dangerous situations between all of the parked cars on the right, speeding cars on the left and very narrow shoulders. This time it wasn’t so bad. We had a scare or two with cars backing out of driveways and Deborah had a fright when a little dog (she said it was a pit bull) stuck its nose out of a car window and barked at her.

Entering Santa Monica, we got onto the bicycle path and followed it past the pier into Venice Beach. The wind had picked up and sand was accumulating onto the path. We managed to avoid it. It was fun riding along Venice Beach looking at all of the characters (similar to Telegraph Ave in Berkeley) and to see all of the storefronts selling T-shirts, tattoos, medicinal marijuana, pizza, etc. We stopped at a decent restaurant where I had a Venice Beach club sandwich – salmon, bacon, lettuce, tomato and more on rye bread. It was very good.

After lunch, we aborted our attempt to find the Venice canals and struggled against the wind back to the pier and the Ocean View Hotel. We arrived at 1:30.

Santa Monica Pier from my Room

My room looked out to the ocean and the pier. The wind was so strong that it blew through the edges of my balcony door. It was vibrating the un-weather stripping making a sound like a motorcycle. I folded up an advertisement flier and shoved it into the crack on the door frame to stop the sound. After that I just get a nice fresh breeze. I didn’t have to open a window tonight.

After cleaning up I walked two blocks to the Third Street Promenade. I bought a smoothie and then wandered into the Apple Store to get a demo of an iPad. It’s an impressive computer.

For dinner tonight, I wanted small potion comfort food. Others were going to an Indian restaurant and other places that I was not interested in. So I walked 1 1/2 blocks to Il Fornaio. I had rigatoni in a tomato sauce with sausage, etc. It was just right.

Here is today's route. Click on "View Path In Full" to get a better look at it.