Bikeride to La Jolla

Ever since I got my cruiser bike (the one we saw at a garage sale for $15), we've never been biking all that far really. What we do is bike down to the bay, along the bay, to the boardwalk and along the boardwalk, and to the Farmer's Market on Saturdays. And that is it! Apparently though, San Diego is a real Bicyclist's Paradise.

Today, I asked C how long he thought it would take to bike into downtown La Jolla. About an hour, he thought. There even was a bike path half the way or so. I decided this bikeride would be our activity for the afternoon. To make it even more appealing, I decided that the gelato store on Prospect Street would be our endpoint.

The minute we were out on our bikes, I started regretting a little bit. The sun was strong and relentless and the ride out of PB was all uphill, although only slightly, most of the time. But, it wasn't too bad. Once we reached Tourmaline, there was a bike path following side streets and hidden trails. It steered us to a quiet wide street with a bike lane, just above the La Jolla Boulevard. We took this street through the old, beautiful residential neighbourhoods of La Jolla Birdrock, then turned more into the hillside, where we continued on a bike path again. It had a steep part as we went over the edge of Mount Soledad, then went downhill again to land us on Nautilus Street. Once we had crossed Nautilus, we were on a nice quiet road again, with bike lane, that took us past La Jolla Highschool, over Pearl Street all the way into downtown. The whole ride took us just under 50 minutes.

We locked up our bikes in a side street, and walk down to the cove. I was actually too worked out to have an ice cream right away, so we just sat down on a bench overlooking the beach cliffs and did some people watching for a good while. The park was packed with picknickers and people that had visibly come to spend the day on the lawn, listening to some bands playing. Lots of families were bathing on the beach. Many looked dressed up for the occasion (Labor Day). It was actually fun to be there and watch the scene.

We hung out for almost an hour, then walked back up to Prospect and our Gelateria Frizzante. And my-oh-my was it good! We both got sherberts, C got blood orange and mango, I got lemon and green apple, then we shared. They were all great, but the blood orange probably came out on top. The milk gelatos looked pretty tasty too. That's for next time.

We biked back in about 40-45 minutes. The ride back was more downhill. Maybe not tomorrow, but we'll certainly have to do that again ...