Over an Overpass in a Yellow Surrey, Oxnard CA

The sight of the yellow canopied two person surrey parked out front of our hotel lobby brought us relief. All we had to do was rent it at the front desk, hop in, and start roaming around Oxnard, CA via pedal power.

The day before, we left our home in the San Francisco Bay Area excited to start on our weeklong vacation in Southern California. During the first few hours of the drive down we soon discovered mounting traffic delays were holding us hostage from enjoying our vacation.

Our estimated five and a half hour drive became an agonizing eight hours. Our cold-hearted GPS continually announced 15-minute increments being added to our ETA.

So, we weren’t eager to get back in the car upon reaching our destination. A surrey was the perfect mode of transportation for us. The surrey fit two people side by side on a bench seat, four wheels guaranteed our stability, and we each got a steering wheel.

I turned my wheel and tried pedaling, but the surrey seemed just to be listening to John’s steering. I looked at the mechanics behind our wheels and saw that his was hooked up to the steering and mine was decoration only. My right side foot pedal was bent, making it hard for me to keep my foot straight.

After a little parking lot practice, we pedaled to the harbor front path running in front of our hotel and condo complexes lining the harbor. A friendly maintenance man driving a golf cart slowed down so we could pass. A jogger, people walking their dogs, a girl in a stroller, smiled at us as we cheerfully made our way along the shaded waterfront.

A quarter of a mile later, we neared a monumental obstacle, Channel Islands Boulevard overpass linking to the other side of the harbor.

We approached the traffic intersection. My first thought was to stay on the sidewalk, but it was too narrow for the surrey. A single bike rider came toward us and could tell from my furrowed brow and hands on my hips that we needed some assistance. He told us that the lane we were in was the bike lane, we wouldn’t have figured it out otherwise because the bike lane signs were on the other side of the overpass.

So we pushed the surrey up over the overpass hump, got back in at the top and rode the brakes down. While on the other side of the harbor we stopped at Channel Islands Maritime Museum. Our surrey dutifully waited for us outside as we explored inside. John was delighted to see that they have an impressive collection of maritime ship paintings depicting dramatic sea voyages and battles going back to the 17th century.

As we pedaled our way back to the hotel, it was high noon in the beach town, with warm beating sun overhead. John was sweating…a lot. He stopped cycling for a moment, and suddenly I was tasked with taking up his slack, which I couldn’t do for long. I think he was trying to show me just how hard he was working to move us both.

Back over the overpass, we went. This time when we reached the top, John wanted to take a selfie from the summit as we were quickly going downhill. I had to remind him that we were on the road, with cars and didn’t want to do something dumb just for a selfie!