Thursday, July 30, 2009

California Dreaming

Current location: Blythe, California
Total Distance Traveled: 3363 miles


Still in the desert. Still hating this heat. Yesterday we left early from the fire station and made record time to our next town. We got to a little breakfast restaurant around 10 am, just before it became unbearably hot. Luckily the waitresses there were very nice to us. The place started filling up and before we knew it we were both asleep in the booths. Apparently a few people tried to get us kicked out, but the waitresses said "where would they go?" Nice women!! These hot places in Arizona are all destinations for northerners to come in the wintertime so in the summer everything closes early. They closed at 2 pm. i quickly saw that we were in a dilemma so I started to talk to one of the waitresses and mention that sometimes people will just invite us back to their houses. This girl then said she had a pool! She ended up inviting us back for a swim and her mom made us dinner. The family loved us and we ended up camping out in their backyard.


the common view out here

We woke up at 5 am and started out towards California. We were pretty stoked. The only thing we were slightly worried about was that we had to ride on the interstate today. We have avoided it previously because there were always other roads, but now there was nothing except the interstate. We got on and it turned out to be great. There was a wide open shoulder and the road was recently paved. It was all downhill too so that's always nice. We get to the state line and take millions of pictures. We had some people honking congratulations at us. Sadly, I got a flat tire about 20 feet after the state line, but that's not a big deal.

3360 miles

We made it to a McDonald's at like 11 am and this is where we've been all day. It's currently 8 PM. We're just happy to be in a place that is air conditioned and open until we can leave at night.

The problem with this area is that you can only ride at night or early morning so you don't get much sleep and then you can't do anything in the day except sit inside.

Our plan is to leave McDonald's when it gets dark. I found a pool at a hotel nearby and they don't lock the gate so it's pretty much open to the public so we'll just go sleep on a lawn chair for a little while and then head out.

Three days to go. 229 miles. We'll be arriving at Imperial Beach at about 1 PM pacific time on Sunday, August 2nd.

if you want to see the route we're taking for the rest of the trip just click this link.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=191+s+lovekin+blvd+blythe+ca&daddr=Brawley,+California+to:I-8+W+to:I-8+W+to:I-8+W+to:Old+Hwy+80+to:Imperial+Beach,+California&geocode=%3B%3BFZTF8wEdlaUX-Q%3BFVz78QEdjIUT-Q%3BFRhb8gEdEs8S-Q%3BFSZo8gEd9c4R-Q%3B&hl=en&mra=dpe&via=2,3,4&dirflg=h&sll=32.687931,-115.74234&sspn=0.421865,0.699692&ie=UTF8&ll=32.737039,-116.148148&spn=0.421633,0.699692&z=11

1 comment:

  1. ongratulations upon your accomplishments. I was pleased to meet you guys at the McDonalds in line in Blythe.

    God Bless you both and have a great trip home.
    Joe.

    ReplyDelete