Valentine Ride Around Town 3: Sunset Cliffs onto Cabrillo!

Part 1: Through Mission Hills to the River

Part 2: Ocean Beach via OB Bike Path

Part 3: Sunset Cliffs to Cabrillo

Ocean Beach is truly the hippiest part of San Diego, and I do mean that both figuratively and literally! Much of the place seems stuck in the free-loving flowery 60's. Bungalow houses with surf boards stored on their balconies, street cafes patronized by laid back sun bronzed locals, cheeky paraphernalia shops, and a healthy population of resident homeless hippies singing protest tunes on their guitars at street corners. You can say that the place is sort of stuck in the Woodstock Era. Riding around town you smell sea salt when facing west and smoky weed when facing east... well, sort of.

They aren't shy here in Ocean Beach!

I love Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, Carole King, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, etc, but the city streets and scenes don't attract me the way simple nature does. I went walking around the river mouth a bit, said a few hellos to the beach evening primroses (one of my favorite flowers. They're so friendly!) and made a few unsuccessfully attempts at ambushing a rock gopher. Pulled out a granola and started to refuel when a couple of sea gulls shoved by and landed on a lamp post a few feet away plotting for ways of finishing the sweetened bar of health for me. Luckily a toddler on a bench nearby dropped his hot dog bun on the ground trying to prevent his mom from spoiling it with pickles (moms... they're always trying to sneak the green stuff into your food!). The gulls went battling after it instead and I got to finish my snack off in peace before heading off for a mandatory look over the landmark fishing pier and making my way toward Sunset Cliffs Blvd, the region's main coast-side thoroughfare.

The inland section of Sunset Cliffs Blvd isn't all that bicycle-friendly, I'm afraid. The road is narrow, and there are always cars parallel-parked on the streets. Once I turned the corner south and gain the Pacific Ocean on my right flank, however, the traffic eased off and the ride became much more easy-going. It was tempting to go off road onto that dirt trail that people walk on between the road and the cliffs, but that would be pretty hazardous with a clumsy mountain bike to take care of. You never know where the cliffs drop off... It gets pretty unstable close to the edge. You can actually see cemented posts sticking out of crumbled sections of the cliffs that used to be where the paved boardwalk and other things were.

The corroded shoreline is a geologist's nirvana, I imagine. Looking at the cliff face you can actually see where the seafloor used to be about 120,000 years ago from the line, about 20 feet above the sea level, where the orange-ish soft sandstone 'Bay Point Formation' layer (it glows magnificently just before sunset) meets the dark old shale of the 'Pt. Loma Formation' bed rock. If you are lucky you might even run into a fossil or two (though this being a part of a nature reserve, collection of fossil - or anything else, for that matter - is NOT allowed! Leave it for others to enjoy, too!).

Crumbly Sunset Cliffs

Toward the southern end of the road are two 'landmarks', so to speak; the arch and the hole. I'm afraid you'll have to dismount and walk onto the cliffs a bit to see them. The latter is easy to find now that the city had put chain-linked fence around it. It sort of ruined the view, though I can't argue with the rationale. With such spectacular view around you it would be easy for people to step right into the huge sink hole and become part of the scene rather than just its admirer. I mean, it would be quite bad enough to fall into an open manhole while walking downtown. If you fall down this particular hole on the cliffs you might just get washed off all the way to China on an extra-strong rip current... or something like that.

At the end of Sunset Cliffs Blvd I had some not very nice options to make; retrace to Hill St and ride up that murderous slope to Catalina Blvd that runs along the crest of the Pt. Loma Peninsula, or drag my mountain bike up this short but pretty steep hill along the dirt path to the Nazarene University in the distance. Being averse to retracing (and uphill riding, when it comes to that) I went for the latter and scrambled my way up the hiking trail.

Sunset Cliffs Park and its many trails

A nearly regrettable decision, as it turned out. The hill was way steeper than it looked from below, and the bike was a most uncooperative partner in crime ever! And when we finally got to the parking lot at the end of it, there was still this quad-busting wiggly hilly pre-crested part of Lomaland Drive to pedal up. A college dude walking down the hill to collect his car gave me a smirk and urged me to ride faster. I would run him over, but didn't want to have to pedal back up the ground I had already lost my breath laboring over. So here I'll let a smiley do it for me by proxy...

The Cross and the Theosophy style building at Nazarene University and southbound on Catalina Blvd.

The Nazarene University is really a beautiful campus! It used to be the hotbed of the theosophy movement in the early 1900's. The Theosophical Society of America had its headquarters here before its leader, Madame Katherine Tingley, crashed out from a car accident and the society migrated north to base in Los Angeles instead. Alas, the unique Theosophist Hotel and the Temple of Peace were not preserved. Where the temple used to sit now stands the Church of the Nazarene... From Palestine to the Lomaland, people really like to build their churches/mosques/temples on top of the others'!

After spending a few minutes catching my breath by the ocean-overlooking cross, I cruised down the hill to pick up Catalina Blvd and headed south to the biggest attraction on my cycling hit list: Cabrillo National Monument. Most of the tip of Pt. Loma peninsula belongs to the navy. After passing SPAWAR and the barracks the road is flanked by the white-specked green lawns that make up Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery. It's been the final resting place of America's fallen soldiers since the battle of San Pasqual in our 1846 war to claim California from Mexico.

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery

On a clear day here you could see almost forever in many dimensions. There is hardly a better spot in town to sit in the view and reflect... and when you get bored you can always walk around checking out the headstones and their markings. The Christian interns have got a cross on theirs, and the Jews the star of David. There are a few other markings for those who didn't belong to either, though. There was even one that had a flower carving on it... I wondered if that was a Pagan?

But I loitered and the afternoon wore on! Back on the road into Cabrillo National Monument. It costs $5 to go through in a car nowadays, and $3 for each cyclist and hiker. The ticket is good for multiple entrances for the next 7 days, though. A great deal for a whole lot of history and marvelous views!

I had already visited the Cabrillo Monument many times, so I went straight down the hill to the famous Cabrillo tide-pools instead (I used to come up here by bus, which made tide-pooling here very inconvenient. It's a long downhill walk to the shoreline and the hike back up to the top is hideous!). Winter is the best time to tide-pool around here since low-tide tends to occur in the early afternoon instead of at night like it does during the summer months. Want a sneak peak at the tide-pools? Check out the park's webcams!

Downtown San Diego from Shelter Island

I huffed and puffed my way back up to Cabrillo Monument at 4PM, an hour before the park closed. Huffed and puffed some more up the more manageable hill back north on Catalina Blvd. Luckily, once you've crested just a bit north of Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery it is all downhill from there... A really rewarding cruise down twisty Canon Rd down to Rosecrans Blvd, and a scenic little side trip onto Shelter (not-an-island) Island for a beautiful view of Downtown San Diego, then a leisurely ride along the Embarcadero bike/hike way into Downtown rid me of the remainder of those tummy-friendly chocolate bars (there are always tons of homeless lazing around the waterfront during the day). 

My sporty readers will forgive me for being such a wimp after 28 miles on the bike. I caught a bus the rest of the way home once I got back to Downtown proper... Gotta preserve some chubby pudginess to my physique else I'd have to adopt a sleeker moniker to live up to, you understand.

Part 1: Through Mission Hills to the River

Part 2: Ocean Beach via OB Bike Path

Part 3: Sunset Cliffs to Cabrillo