Week 12: Harbor Island to Grape Street

We're getting a late start this Saturday, in part because I drank way too much beer last night and have been battling a stomach hangover most of the day (another story there).  While the beer consumption may not have been so wise, I did have the smarts to leave my car at the party and take the bus home.  This meant however, that I had to ride the bus back to where the party was today to pick up my car.  Riding the bus with a stomach hangover is not particularly fun.  We ended up not getting out the door until it was nearly 4 PM.

Some of the beer that led to today's really bad hangover

 Given that most of today's journey was occurring along bike paths, time constraints, etc . . . we did the entire journey on our bikes, figuring we wouldn't miss much.  Timewise this was probably the shortest leg of the journey from when we left the house to when we got home, though there have been several legs of this journey on which we have covered less distance.   This is about as close as the coast gets to our house.

Sun Dog at Hawthorne and Pacific Highway

We were dealing with limited daylight and I kept finding myself wanting to rush it at every step.  Traffic lights were not being particularly cooperative.  You're supposed to "let it be"  "Allow"  "enjoy just being alive," I couldn't quite reach that state of mind.   I was sort of all over the place mentally.  Probably still hungover a little.  This section of the coastline is also really close to the airport and downtown and there's always a good bit of traffic here.  It has its charms for sure but, being immersed in nature is not one of them.

Anita along riding along the harbor

There's the airport.

The coast trail here

The Harbor Police hold jurisdiction here.

 So this path is under the jurisdiction of the Harbor police, and while I've always seen their vehicles I wasn't sure where they were actually headquartered.  Apparently I've passed their headquarters many times and never realized it.   Indeed this is a theme of our journey:  all the places we pass by and never notice.  So we reached Harbor Island just in time to see the sun go down over Point Loma.  The topography is such that the light continued to linger over downtown a few minutes longer.  My battery went dead around this time and Anita took many of the following photos.  It was hard to let go of the picture taking myself, but I like the way Anita sees the world and how it's reflected in her photography.

I somehow never got a shot of this sign last week

Brilliant sunset

That glow on the boat is from the sunset reflected by the downtown skyscrapers.

Anita standing where the water meets the land.

Downtown and the clouds

Brilliant colors

Coronado bridge

Another shot of downtown. 

more sunset

Harbor Island trail

Another perspective on the city and clouds

There's me!

I love this silhouette

Sunsets are lovely, but also perilous, as the precede darkness.  I have often found myself out and about mesmerized by the sunset light taking brilliant pictures only to then find myself in darkness.  On a bike the problem is that other drivers are less likely to see you.  It would have been nice to linger and watch the lights of downtown reflect off the water, but we needed to get back while we still had dusk light.

It was pinker in real life

The rental car return road follows the coast.

 It turns out that the closest road to the coast here is not the bike trail, but the rent-a-car access road.  We probably weren't supposed to ride down this, but it seemed like good fun, and no one seemed to mind us.  Perhaps there was a safety issue with all the jet-lagged drivers operating cars with which they are not familiar.  Indeed a few months ago some unfortunate soul was driving a car rented here and listening to the GPS turn by turn directions when he suddenly found himself on the railroad tracks.  technology may wonderful but no substitute for critical thinking.

If you poke your head over the wall by National Rent A Car.

A nice metaphor for hazards of our remaining journey.

Lights reflecting off the water

Cinderella's wagon

 Rejoining the footpath along the harbor we made our way home as the city lights replaced the daylight.  One of the more delightful manifestations of this was citing a horse drawn cinderella wagon along Harbor Drive.   Unfortunately the camera really couldn't do it justice.  indeed a lot of our pictures came out blurry in the waning light.   We turned inland at grape street and made our way home.  Total time from door to door: 90 minutes.

Lights of the city

Grape Street end of journey.