We’ve settled into daily routines over the past few weeks. I don’t want to post repetitive accounts of our days, so I took a couple of days off. This weekend was anything but routine, so I need to catch up.
On Friday, I decided to ride a more challenging bike route. Instead of making my usual loop of Mission Bay and the beaches, I went inland. I started with the Rose Creek Trail which begins just outside the De Anza Park, next to Mission Bay Golf Course. I don’t like this trail. It’s bumpy and narrow in places. But it’s safer than the busy streets in that area.
At the end of the trail, I crossed over Damon Street to Santa Fe Street. Santa Fe runs parallel to I-5, on the east side. It has a few businesses and an RV park. The traffic is light because it is a dead end after a couple of miles. At the end of the road, the Rose Canyon Bike Path starts.
This bike path is paved. It follows Rose Canyon along I-5 and passes under Highway 52. This is the junction of Rose Canyon and San Clemente Canyon. When I was young, we would ride dirt bikes and explore around San Clemente Canyon. Other than the bike path, the area hasn’t changed much. However, the surrounding areas where we used to ride dirt bikes are mostly filled with houses now.
The bike path ends at the junction of Gilman Drive and La Jolla Colony Drive. On the left is Gilman Drive. If you follow that up the hill, you enter UCSD. On the right is La Jolla Colony Drive which takes you through neighborhoods to University Town Center. Both roads are wide with marked bike lanes.
North end of Rose Canyon Trail at Gilman/La Jolla Colony
I went right and followed the bike route to Genesee Avenue. So far the ride was fairly flat with a gradual climb to University Town Center. Genesee Avenue isn’t flat or gradual. Heading back south, I immediately descended a steep downgrade back into the canyon. This was followed by a climb up the other side to Governor Drive.
I took Governor Drive to Regents Road. This drops down into San Clemente Canyon, then climbs up to Clairemont Mesa. Although I’ve become stronger on the bicycle these past few weeks, these climbs were a challenge for me. From there the ride was fairly easy. I went down through Bay Ho to Morena Boulevard and followed it to Clairemont Drive and back to East Mission Bay. The total distance was about 18 miles.
The Clairemont High School class of ’73 and ’74 reunion was held last weekend. On Friday night, a no-host Happy Hour was arranged at Offshore Tavern and Grill about two miles from our place at De Anza. The happy hour began at 5pm in a reserved section of the tavern. Eventually more than 100 people were there.
Name tags were provided and in many cases were needed to jog memories. There were many people I didn’t recognize and a few that I vaguely remembered. Then there were others I couldn’t mistake. Back in the early ’70s, our school was large. The school was comprised of 10th, 11th, and 12th grades and had more than 2,500 students. My class alone had more than 800 kids. I couldn’t possibly know or recognize everyone.
I had a great time visiting with old friends. I talked with Jim Barry and Terry McMahon. These were guys I spent a lot of time with when I was teenager, but lost contact with them. I heard the happy hour extended to closing time for some of the people there. Donna and I said our good byes around 10pm.
On Saturday, I rode the same route that I did on Friday. Gearing down and spinning my way up the hills wasn’t any easier. This time I stopped to visit an old friend along the way. Mark and Judy Fredin live on the route above Morena Boulevard. We talked for about an hour, catching up on each other’s lives. We last saw each other in 1992, when Mark and Judy visited me in Washington.
Saturday night was the formal class reunion at the Wyndham Hotel at the San Diego Embarcadero. Donna’s sister, Sheila, left her car with us for the weekend while she was away. This was convenient for us to have our own wheels to get to the reunion and back. We had a fun night. This time the name tags included our senior photograph from the high school annual. This made it much easier to recognize each other.
We shared a dinner table with John and Bonnie Swingle and shared stories of days gone by. We also learned the whereabouts of a few other friends that we lost contact with. It was a fun time. We had all the fun we could stand by about 10pm and headed home.
Bonnie and John Swingle at the reunion
Yesterday was a lazy day. I kicked back and watched NFL football. I entered a football pool this week that added some interest. This pool has a twist I’ve never seen before. It doesn’t include the Thursday night game, so there are 14 games in the pool. If you add the numbers from 1 to 14 together, it totals 105.
When you pick your teams, you have to assign a number from 1 to 14 to each team (using each number one time only). Everyone starts with 105 points for the weekend. Each time one of your teams loses, the number you assign to them is subtracted from your total. So you want to assign the higher numbers to the games you think are a sure thing, the lower numbers to the games that could go either way.
I picked New Orleans over the Patriots, but used number one on that game. I picked the Broncos over the Jaguars and put 14 on that game. I didn’t win. With 87 points at the end of the day, I was tied for fourth.
Tonight, Donna will drop me off at the Offshore Tavern while she attends a professional organizer’s meeting. I’ll watch the Chargers play on Monday Night Football there (since I can’t get ESPN in the RV park). I’ll walk home after the game.