Yesterday we moved up from Coronado to Seal Beach, where we’ll be for the next few days. We’re in a FamCamp on the Naval Weapons Station, and the area around the base is not very bike-friendly. Nevertheless, we’ve been riding every day and want to continue that practice, so Patrick located a Starbucks not far from the base and plotted a route to it. We had to ride on and turn left on a busy highway, but we got through that okay. We turned into the parking lot for the strip mall where we thought Starbucks was located, but it wasn’t – Patrick figured out it must be the next driveway down.

In getting out of that parking area and back onto the busy street, I wasn’t able to negotiate that tight right turn into the bike lane and saw myself headed out into traffic, so I slammed on my brakes and ended up in a heap. I was pretty much inside the bike lane but with cars whizzing by just feet away and the bike on top of me. Patrick stopped and came running back to me as I started scooting myself back toward the curb. I couldn’t tell yet if I could stand up or not; I could feel that I had hurt my left knee and my right ankle. A very nice lady in a car pulled over and stopped and offered to take me to the ER, and a man on a bike also stopped to offer aid.

Once I was on the sidewalk, I stood up and figured out that my left knee was just scraped and my right ankle wrenched but not too badly. I was able to limp with my bike to the Starbucks, where Patrick got me a bag of ice to put on my ankle. I was really distressed and emotional. Those cars whizzing by – whew, that was scary!

I was able to ride back to the base, finding riding actually less painful than walking. Fortunately there was no damage to my beautiful new bike except for a smashed mirror, which can easily be replaced. It could have been a lot worse.