BUS STORY # 398 (San Diego, Part Five: Coulda, Woulda, Didn't)

Options! Downloaded from the North County Transit District website.

You can read Parts One, Two, Three, and Four here, here, here, and here.


Day Two.

We could have taken the 8 to the Old Town Transit Center, then the 10 to La Jolla, to the stop on Gilman Drive and Eucalyptis Lane where we would have caught the 101, the route number a signifier for state highway 101.

We could have ridden the 101 to the stop at State Beach and gotten off the bus to a glorious view of the Pacific Ocean rolling into a long sandy beach, and behind us, across the road and only half a mile away, the entrance to the Torrey Pines State Reserve, one of our shared top priorities of the trip.

And afterwards, we could have walked back to this same spot and caught the 101 to Del Mar, further north, and just two short blocks from an excellent meal at Cafe Secret.

And we could have taken the 101 back to either the 150 or the much-closer-to-home 30, depending on what Google Maps told us was the closest to the current time.

By taking the 101, we could have managed to use regional transportation -- the North Coast Travel District, or NCTD -- as well as the SDMTS. We saw the 101 a few times: we could have ridden the “Breeze.”

We could have, but we didn’t.

We didn’t because late the evening before, as I was plotting out the trip on Google Maps and looking at the way we were directed to return to the stop after a day of hiking, I had a sense that this might be pushing it where Mrs. Busboy was concerned. Plus, the 101 ran every 30 minutes, and I would have little control over what time we reached the stop. A tired Mrs. B would not be happy to see the 101 rolling by before we got to the stop and knowing we now had another 30 minute wait.

I had been on a roll ever since San Francisco, and I didn’t want to give her a bad bus day.

As it turned out, it was the right call for a couple of reasons.

One is that, once you enter the park, it is a steep two-mile climb up the road to the visitors’ center. Mrs. B would have been done before we could have begun. (Yes, we both were acutely aware of all the young folks running, biking, power walking up that road. We didn’t so much envy them as feel a little wistful that we were now beyond even the opportunity to get into that kind of shape.)

The other is that we had time to go to breakfast in La Jolla, on the way to the park, at The Cottage. Our two shared priorities were Torrey Park and good food, and this was the only day both our meals ended up in our “best” category. (We drove up to the well-named, nondescript looking Cafe Secret after we’d finished at Torrey Pines.)

Torrey Pines State Reserve was also a “best.” We spent the afternoon covering all the trails, from the panoramic view at the end of Razor Point Trail, to walking on the beach in a little cove at the end of Beach Trail. We read about the rare Torrey Pine and about Guy Fleming, the man who saved the pines and was the driving force behind the reserve. And I did a little birding.

If I’d have been on my own, I would have taken the bus. If nothing else, I would have saved myself the parking fee which turned out to be equal to the cost of one of our four-day bus passes. But I think the bus gods must have been watching over me when I decided to pass and use the car this trip. As it was, Mrs. Busboy got all the exercise she could handle. We both slept well that night.

The night time is the right time to ride with the one you love, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.