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2011-02-25 tl;dr: With neither time nor inclination to bicycle across Los Angeles I boarded an Amtrak commuter train. My time in Temecula was productive. After contacting four different bicycle shops I found the chain ring necessary to gear down my bicycle. I finally got a haircut. I saw a real live Segway. And I discovered something really nice: A grocery store called Von's sells a beverage called Cup-pa Mocha Cappuccino, which is just chocolate milk with coffee flavoring mixed in.Friday morning I realized that I had forgotten to do my backups, and I had a conference call, so I was a little late in getting out of Temecula. I needed to be over the mountains and into Oceanside in less than 4 hours in order to catch a train. Though the hills were steep (good thing I put on that chain ring) and the wind was against me I made it with time to spare. It's always a wonder to me how you can jump over a single mountain and suddenly everything is green. I neither had time nor inclination to bicycle across Los Angeles. So I boarded an Amtrak commuter in Oceanside and got off in Oxnard (which I am assured is pronounced Oxnawd). Each car has room for three bicycles to be hung up. It was a comfortable ride aside from the awful smell of machines and chemicals (which was probably just as well as I had worked up quite a sweat getting to the train station on time). From the surprisingly clean windows of the train I could see miles and miles of urban jungle, colorful graffiti, artificial rivers, mountains, some agriculture and even what looked like a movie set. Of course it was raining in Oxnard. And it was already getting dark. I peddled a few miles out of town before finding a patch of...well, not woods exactly...off the highway where I could set up my tent. It rained most of the night. Sometimes I could hear the cars on the wet highway. Other times I could hear the surf pounding the nearby coast. |
   it is greener on the other side  Oceanside CA  all aboard!  Navy cargo ship  Los Angeles   |