I really hate Caltrans

I had a good idea for beating the heat on Saturday. It was over 100 in the valley, Amber was working Friday night so she couldn't ride Saturday, and Sherry and I were scheduled to attend a 'Celibration of Life' event on Sunday so when could I ride? I called Amber at 4pm on Saturday to ask if she wanted to ride The Crema starting at 6 in the evening? Sure.

We met at the Anaheim Amtrak station which kind of shares a parking lot with the Angel's baseball stadium. They had an evening game so it was a bit crowded but we found parking spaces anyway. It was 71F at the start - perfect - but I was a little worried that I was under dressed for when the sun went down.

We had the usual headwind down to the beach and then a tailwind up the coast to Seal Beach. The Crema closes early so we ate at a Mediterranean restaurant called 'Athens West'. It wasn't as good as the Phoenician but I would definitely go back there. By this time it was 65F which is still very pleasant even without arm warmers or leg warmers.

We turned back into a headwind around 8:30pm. The wind was being surprisingly persistent. When we got to Huntington Beach and turned inland we had a strong tailwind. Amber took the lead and we hammered all the way back to the trucks. There's a detour that forced us to use the bike path on the South side of the river between Hamilton and PCH. Nicely signposted, it was no problem.

We got back to the trucks at about 10:30pm and the temp was still a pleasant 65F. That was a nice surprise. Unfortunately the game ended about the time we finished so getting out of the stadium area was a nightmare.

What was really annoying is that Caltrans practically shut the 91 freeway down so that it took 90 minutes to crawl about 5 miles. I tried to use the Lakeview exit because I needed gas but they had it shut down. It took 45 minutes to get to the Imperial exit two miles down the freeway and that was closed off too. By now I was desperate for gas and I knew I couldn't get to the Green River exit five miles further on so I ran over a few cones and used the exit anyway. I got home about 1:30am. It should have been midnight.

I really hate Caltrans.