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Brawley to Blythe–Crossing the Dessert

Posted by Tim on March 5, 2012
Posted in: Tim.

The worst night’s sleep of the trip.  Woken up by people above us in the Travelodge Motel at 11 pm and again at 4 am.   On the way out of town at 7 am passed by a brand new Best Western.  Wished we had stayed there.

It started off cold but we knew it would warm up as the day progressed.  Fortunately it was overcast so it never got as hot as forecast.  This was expected to be a hard day crossing the dessert with no services available for at least 70 plus miles.  I had three water bottles and we refilled at mile 50 when Beth came along to restock us.  All three of us were totally out again when we pulled into Blythe.  I don’ t how people do it when they don’t have any support network.

Some interesting people along the way.  Met a fellow named Jack Watson who was pulling  a little cart with his gear.  He is retired and planning to ride all the way to St. Augustine camping all the way.  He camped in the dessert last night and plans to camp every night if he can.  Mark said he would like to try it sometime but Brian has absolutely nointerest.  I might be persuaded to try it for a two or three day stint.  We’ll see.

The second interesting person were the three border patrol officers when we had to go thru a checkpoint.  They were probablybored and there wasn’t any traffic.  They were very friendly once we engaged them in conversation.  We stayed and talked to them for probably 10 minutes and we asked them to be on the lookout for Beth (Hawaii license plates) and be sure to give her a hard time, in jest, of course.

Best of all was the scenery, especially thru the dessert.  We switched it up a little and took short stops (5 min or so) every 10 miles or so.  The stops in the dessert were so quiet.  There were no man made  sounds unless a car passed us and no animal sounds.  Lots of sand dunes along the route for 15 miles and then minimal vegetation until we got to Riverside Co. where irrigation started again.  A long butsatisfying day pedaling over 90 miles.  Tomorrow is a shorter day but has moreclimbs than today.  Feeling more confident as each day passes.

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