A beautiful day in Chula Vista. Today we started to explore the bike routes in Chula Vista. With the temperature in the mid 60's and bright sunshine, we left the coach and rode over to the Marina where we checked out our put in for kayaking. Looks like its going to be pretty easy. From the marina we continue south on Bay Blvd past several corporate parks. Once over the "J" Street/I-5 access we were into a more industrial area with a huge power station, South Bay Power Plant (owned by Duke Energy), followed by the South Bay Salt Works, a division of Western Salt where we passed several large piles of salt.
Eventually we entered the Bay Shore Bikeway (http://www.efgh.com/bike/bayshore.htm) that runs along a berm separating marshlands from the bay. This is a really well developed, paved recreational trail much like the Green River Trail in the Kent Valley. As we followed the trail around the south end of San Diego Bay and onto Coronado Island we came to the junction with SR 75 which runs up the island, eventually crossing the San Diego-Coronado Bridge into San Diego. This is a route we plan to ride next week doing a complete loop of the bay.
We decided to turn around and return to the coach for lunch as we planned to take the kayaks out for an inaugural paddle. With lunch over and the kids walked we drove over to the south breakwater where we could launch the kayaks. Taking them down from the car, donning our life vests and grabbing the paddles we carried the kayaks down to the dock. We lowered the kayaks into the water and as I held Tina's she climbed aboard and held my kayak as I got in. We paddled out into the marina to get used to our new toys, With the wind blowing at about ten knots we decided to just stay in the marina area rather than going out into the bay. A good idea as it let us get comfortable with wind and waves.
After spending about 45 minutes paddling around we returned to the dock. I climbed out first, hauled my kayak onto the dock then stabilized Tina's kayak as she got out. Everything went well if not gracefully. Carrying the kayaks to the car, it only took us a few minutes to load everything up and return home.While Tina took a short nap, I went down to the pool for a swim and some sun bathing. This is a really nice facility! After a short swim and soak in the hot tub I stretched out for a fifteen minute sun soak.
Then it was back in the pool and a return to the lounger, this time face down for a little sun on my back. Finally deciding to not over do it, I grabbed my stuff, hooped on my bike and rode back to the coach just in time to receive a call from our good friends, Joe and Marsha.Marsha works for Estee Lauder as a regional manager and had several meetings to attend in San Diego. She was wrapping up her day and as they were staying overnight in SD wanted to get together.
They arrived around 5:00 PM and we sat around and visited until the resort security people asked us to move their car to the visitor parking area.
This gave us an excuse to head into town for dinner. Joe drove and eventually we ended up at "La Quinta Grill" on E Street. We all had really excellent dinners, the best Mexican meals we've had so far, and lots more time to visit.
After dinner Marsha invited us to stay at their place for the Long Beach Grand Prix April 16 to 18. Since we'll be in Hemet at that time it will be an easy drive to their place. We also made plan to visit in early May. After they dropped us off and we thanked them for the visit and nice evening we pretty much called it a day.
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