Amtrak Century+

My daughter and I rode from Anaheim Amtrak station to San Diego Amtrak on Friday after Thanksgiving. We had planned on starting at 8am and getting to San Diego by 6pm to catch the 6:15 train.

We're both very familiar with the route down to Oceanside - less so south of there.

We didn't get started until 8:45 - partially because Amtrak required us to purchase tickets before we started the ride. They had a reservations-only policy over the holiday weekend. It was foggy and cold (57F) when we started - perfect.

About 10 miles into the ride Amber crashed while turning onto a wooden footbridge. The wood in the fog was super slippery. Fortunately she was not going fast and only bruised her knee and got a little road rash off the wood - no splinters. We made an unscheduled stop at the Newport Beach corner market for water and neosporin to irrigate and sterilize the road rash. To compensate for the stop we skipped the ferry at Balboa island and just powered down PCH. The ferry is much nicer but adds several miles.

Laguna Beach traffic was light which is always a blessing and we eventually stopped to eat at the Carls Jr just South of San Clemente. The teriyaki turkey burger was great. Continuing south we met up with a couple of retired guys who were tearing up the trail like 20-year olds. We were able to ride through Camp Pendleton marine base which is so much nicer than riding along the shoulder of the 5 fwy.

To avoid that dangerous stretch of PCH through Leucadia where Jim was killed we went inland on La Costa and Camino Real. That was probably a bad idea on Black Friday. The area was jammed with shoppers at all the stores along that road. In addition, there must be twenty extra stop lights on that route - most of which were red. That detour probably added 30 minutes to the ride even though it was only 5 miles longer. Next time I'll try Vulcan/San Elijo. Interestingly, as soon as we headed inland we lost the fog and it got quite warm. As soon as we got back to PCH it got foggy and cool again.

Further south is Del Mar with it's dangerous merger of Hwy S21 and Jimmy Durante Hwy (yes, they named a road after him). Next time I'll try 15th St instead. It looks much safer.

Next was Torrey Pines - the infamous 1.5 mile 6% climb that kills the legs on the Santa Ana century. I knew it was coming - I still suffered - thank goodness it was foggy and cool. After Torrey Pines there are several route you can take into San Diego. We stayed on Torrey Pines road and then climbed Nautilus. That's even steeper than Torrey Pines - topping out at 10% for half a mile or more. The ride through Mission Bay Park was very relaxing but next time I'm going to stay alongside the ocean.

We got to San Diego Amtrak about 5pm with plenty of time to spare and some very good ideas on how to improve the route. Total distance ridden was 111 miles. Great ride.