‘Soledad EverQuest’: Book set in La Jolla is part fantasy, part bike routes

While on his quest to bike all around La Jolla — making pictures on a map with his routes along the way — La Jolla resident Robert Yedidsion has seen some of the area’s coolest streets to ride  and find hidden landmarks.

Now he’s challenging others to take similar on quests. Yedidsion recently authored a fantasy picture book with chapters set in La Jolla, and it comes with routes people can bike or hike that are featured in the book.

“Soledad EverQuest: The Muirlands” is now available as an e-book and can be purchased on Amazon.

In the story, Yedidsion said, “there is a curse on La Jolla, so the reader can read these chapters and then go on these journeys [at locations featured in the book] to ‘save’ the town.”

To do so, readers are encouraged to scan a QR code at the end of each chapter that sends a route straight to a personal device such as a phone or smart watch or to a GPS system such as Garmin. From there, the routes can be walked, run or biked.

The routes get more and more challenging as the book progresses, ranging from two miles to around 30 miles. Some send users to local landmarks such as the cross at the Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial or to hidden ones such as sculptures fronting private property.

“Anyone that wants to be active in La Jolla could use this book,” Yedidsion said.

Though the locations are real, the story is fiction. One of the chapters, he said, is called “A Night at the Theater” and transforms an area of the Muirlands neighborhood into a “theater,” culminating at El Camino del Teatro, which means “theater road.”

“So it is a theater-themed quest … and you ride the route and see the street names and realize that’s what they are in the book,” Yedidsion said.

As part of what he calls his extreme cycling, Yedidsion in recent years has been riding routes in the outline of animals, plants and other shapes across San Diego County and uploading the maps online.

For Christmas, he created and rode a route in the shape of a reindeer and the word “merry.” For Easter, he created the outline of a rabbit.

“As a cyclist, it’s easy to burn out from the sport, and this was a fun way to avoid burnout,” he said.

His book originally was intended to showcase the cycling pictures he makes and “inspire more people to get into cycling or walking,” Yedidsion said. But it soon evolved into an anime-inspired fantasy tale.

Now he hopes the book will be the first in a three-part series focusing on three areas of La Jolla.

“Each will have their own unique art and be all differently themed,” he said.

Down the road, Yedidsion said, he hopes the books will be converted into an anime show that also would showcase La Jolla.