San Diego 9 March

John and I are beginning our second coast to coast bicycle ride tomorrow morning, 10 March.  We plan to finish on 30 April. We are riding with (cringe) Bubba's Pampered Pedalers from San Diego to St. Augustine, Florida. There are 35 riders and 12 staff. It is a tent ride (mostly) with on-site cooking (mostly). Bubba's staff sets up the tents and breaks them down again-- we will have a cot, an air mattress, a chair, a towel but sadly no toilet.

At the introductory session we met Crash, Flash, Clutch, Sunshine, Snowflake, WEB, NBC, Bebe, Gogo, Gigi, Gaga (me), many others temporarily forgotten, and of course, Bubba! By Bubba's decree everyone must have a nickname sooner or later-- I offered my "grandma" name in a preemptive strike hoping to avoid something worse. One guy is called "Batteries" because his first and last names begin with "A". Another is called NBC because his last name is Peacock!

Bubba was a policeman for 28 years and is very safety conscious but we weren't required to have a doctor's okay for the trip, and didn't need to sign a vow not to do various bad things (on our 2010 trip we had to promise never to drink while riding and never to make rude gestures toward drivers, among a long list of other no-nos). He also never mentioned listening to music and while I don't make a habit of it, I like to think that one earphone discreetly hidden in my right ear is a handy Plan B if the miles of desert start to get me down. Speaking of which I have discovered that I now hear absolutely nothing in my left ear. Strange how these things sneak up on one.

We had an amazingly good trip out here thanks to an upgrade to first class and a lovely flight attendant (gay, male, very funny) who instinctively knew that things go better with gin. We got a personal tour around San Diego with our friend fron the ABB ride, Phillip White who lives here, took a couple of great bike rides and spent an afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. Tomorrow we leave San Diego on a short but somewhat uphill ride to the ominously named town of Alpine, California.