We had a surprise when we reached San Diego - much of our gear wasn't there to meet us. The bicycles were present, but three of five boxes of panniers were missing. We set about assembling the bikes while the Amtrak staff investigated the location of the missing boxes. The Amtrak staff promised to send the boxes to our motel once they tracked the boxes down. We pedaled over to the Tin Fish to test deep-fried fish tacos.

We followed a shoreline bike path most of the way to our motel. One sailboat caught our eye. Instead of aconventional sail, it had something like a airplane wing mounted vertically where one would expect the mast to be. Whenever the bike path passed under a roadway, there would be a few homeless people taking shelter from the cold wind. The wind was fierce enough to make our steering wobbly.

Michele and I met up with our son-in-law Andrew's mother (is there a word for that relationship?) and Andrew's brother and his wife and son. More fish tacos at the Pescador Fish Market.

By the time we returned to the motel, Amtrak had delivered our stuff. We got our bikes put together and looked forward tostarting in the morning. I noticed thatmy handlebars had gotten a little crooked since my assembly of the bike. I corrected the problem, or so I thought.

This morning, we woke up to a cold drizzling rain. The television warned that Highway 8 was closed at Alpine for snow and icy conditions and high winds. Our intended destination was, ta dah, Alpine. The forecast was for the stormto pass over San Diego by 9:30 or so. We trudged over to Denny's for another breakfast (after wolfing pastries at the motel's breakfast bar) to wait for the storm to blow over. By 10:30, we had read the paper twice and we were worried about the motel's check-out time so we decided to start riding in spite of the continuing drizzle.

We pedaled out to Dog Beach to wet our wheels in the Pacific surf. We promptly regretted that gesture as we all had sand in our brakes. Photos were taken and we started pedalling east at 11:23. The sun began to appear intermitently, cheering us. The pile of ensolite sleeping pads and tent and sandals on the back of my bike collapsed. Order was restored, and a few miles later, the tent fell off. Order was restored again. Then I noticed that my handlebars were crooked again; eventually I realized that I had forgotten to tighten the two bolts that clamp the handlebars to the steering tube! Oops!

We could see snow on the ridgecrests ahead of us as we pedaled. We crawled into Alpine about 5:00. No sign of the snow here - maybe tomorrow when we climb another 2000 feet. There are two motels here, one priced at about $110 and the other at about $70. We set off in search of the cheap one. It turned out to be a collection of kinda cute little cabins ashort distance off the road. There's no management on site. You call a telephone number and give the person your credit card number. If the credit card number turns out to be good, he calls you back to give you the combination for the key safe hanging on the doorhandla of your room.

Alpine has what claims to be the fourth-best small brewery nationwide. Since tomorrow will be a tough day, it's probably just as well for is that it was closed tonight.

Tomorrow will be a tough day because ther is a lot of climbing. On top of that, our plan was to stop at Jacumba. We are informed that the Jacumba Hot Springs Spa, the sole place to stay in Jacumba, is now closed. We think we will be too cold to camp until we descend from the mountains, so we may have to make one additional climb and ride sixteen additional miles to Ocotillo. I'll let you know what happens.