Touring - San Diego to Glendale, CA advice needed

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed has informed me that we are to spend Thanksgiving with her sister in Glendale. So, on turkey day, she intends to load our three kids into the family car and head north, spend the night, and return on Sunday.

I initially was less than enthusiastic about the plan. Then I had an epiphany . . . I would ride to Glendale, and ride home on Friday. The ride is a little shy of 150 miles, which I normally wouldn't mind, but if I leave on Thursday, I will never make it in time for dinner. So, I have decided to ride about a hundred miles to Newport Beach on the day before Thanksgiving, and then head to Glendale the next day. Does anybody know of a decent and relatively inexpensive motel / hotel in Newport?

Also . . . heading north through LA, I seem to recall a bike route that follows a concrete river channel, but I can't find anything about it on Bikely. Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks!

From Seal Beach you can get on the San Gabriel River Trail and at some point before reaching the Santa Fe Dam area you need to cut across heading towards Pasadena/Glendale.

BTW, you'll find answers to specific routes to take once you're in LA by posting your question in the SoCal sub forum. We rode from the San Fernando Valley (Glendale/Studio City area) to downtown San Diego Amtrak Station last year but did not take the SGRT. We left before 5 in the morning and arrived in SD before 6pm that evening just in time to catch the train back to LA.

Newport is probably the worst choice trying to find a cheap hotel. Keep going up the coast another few miles to Hunington Beach and the prices will drop in half.