I'm 90% in at this point, just need final confirmation from my boss that I have the day off (that confirmation should come by the end of today).
Some thoughts about meeting place/time:
1) I'm 15 miles north of I-15 and Mission Road, so my proposal would be to meet further north. There's a big Shell gas station off of I-215 at Los Alamos Road with a nice parking lot that would work great. My suggestion would be to meet here. If you guys still prefer to meet further south, I'll just have to try and join up with the group when you're passing through Murrieta (we'd be in contact on the radio anyway, so this is do-able).
2) As far as timing - there will be some pretty bad traffic going through Riverside, especially near the 215/60 interchange and UCR. Unfortunately, the best time to get started with the day is also the worst time for traffic. That being said, I still think our best bet is to get started as early as possible and just suck it up as we sit in traffic for 30 mins or so. How does 7:30 am sound to everyone? That would give me a comfortable time-line to get the boy dropped off at preschool, get some food in my belly, and still meet up with the group.
Final thought - do we need to make the AAT folks aware of our plans at this point? We could end up having the trail obstructed for the better part of a couple hours, and I just want to make sure we're not causing any more headaches than we need to. That being said, it would also suck to have unnecessary "oversight" breathing down our necks the whole time, so it's a double edged sword for sure. You're call Randy, just something I was thinking about.
