San Diego to Anza-Borrego State Park

I want to write about this day because it was a day that was extremely difficult but in the end very rewarding and well worth the effort. It's like the message of the book of Hebrews, endure until the end. So let me start the story. We woke up about 5 am and started biking around 8. We starting to learn how to use that time in the morning so that it doesn't take us three hours to get going. That meant we were leaving during rush hour traffic in hilly, and that day, wet San Diego. There were a couple of close calls coming down a very steep hill in traffic with a stop light at the bottom of the hill, not a great place for a light when you're on a bike. We had only one spill there and it wasn't too serious, Tyler fell over but he wasn't moving at the time...Anyway we were keeping up a great pace for the first 14 miles until we took a wrong turn (our first of several) and simultaneously had a wreck. Anthony and Josh collided and they were both fine but Josh's front rim was bent and he was done for a while. The wreck meant we had to sit and wait for the van to pick up Josh and that's when we discovered our wrong turn, when the van couldn't find us. Erin, (who was driving at the time) eventually did find us and we got some food and were off again. Our next adventure for the day was biking up Wildcat Canyon Road, great name for a road and also our first real hill test, there was one hill on that road that was about 5 miles long and fairly steep and we really had to fight over the top. The good thing about hills is that usually when you get over the top there's some down hill and we get to coast! At our next turn we had a decision to make which turned out to be, well, I'll get to that later. The deal was we were riding in a group of 7 (Anthony, Jacob, Deb, Me, Tyler, Brian, and Cody) and there was a group of 3 riders (Brady, Bethany, and Seth) out there ahead of us. We called the other group to see where they were and they had taken a wrong turn somewhere and were in the town of Ramona, which was not on our map. There was a sign pointing to Ramona and we again went the wrong way according to our directions. There was a two mile long hill up into Ramona and when we got up there we called the other group to see if we could find them. Meanwhile, they had gotten directions of their own and told us they were going to find their own way to the camp site since they were so far off the directions we were given in the morning. We thought they were kind of silly at the time and headed back the way we came making for an extra 8 miles. We got some lunch and headed the right way down San Vicente Rd. until, surprise surprise, we couldn't find the road that was printed on our map. There was a fire station and we asked the firemen how to find our road, (it was called West End Rd.) They told us that was not a road at all but a dirt hiking path and there was no way for us to take our bikes that way. You know what that meant?! The only way to get to our camp site was to take the road through Ramona! The town we had already biked into and out of once. That was about it for some of us, the frustrations of taking the wrong roads, maps not leading us the right way, the hills and heat and the thought of how far we still had to go was almost too much. We still were not even half-way through with our day! Somehow we mustered the courage and will as a team to bike back into Ramona and start following that group of 3 who had somehow accidentally found the only right way. The next 30 miles or so was a blur, I think because we just put our heads down and pedaled. Oh and by this time Josh had gotten a new rim and rejoined our group. We ended up in some beautiful country with mountain peaks and rock formations and eventually made to our last turn at which point we were about 17 miles from the end and we stopped to eat the last of our food in our pockets. That last road, Montezuma Valley Rd., was up hill for about 5 miles and at one point we passed a sign that said we were at 4000 ft. as well as passing a giant statue of big foot. We crested one last hill and all of a sudden there was nothing below us but a road going downhill as far as we could see. All the way to the desert floor more than 3000 ft. below us. We took one look and with a yell of delight headed down. I got my bike up to 44 miles an hour and didn't pedal for 11 miles! We had made it, what was supposed to be an 80 mile trip ended up being 100 for us because of all our wrong turns and backtracking. When we got to the end all we could do was lie down on the blacktop as the sun was going down and soak up the heat into our weary bodies. But those last 11 miles downhill made us forget all the trials of the day and we would have gladly done it all again just for the experience of that downhill. It was quite a day and one that we won't forget for a long time.