Fill up your water bottle…

Cycling, a great way to lose weight


The true news today is that we had no flats or mechanicals. A first for this trip! Also a beautiful sunny day with a tailwind at times and temperatures in the low 80’s.

 After a great night at our warm showers host house, including a egg sausage and hash brown breakfast, we got on the road at about 9 AM. I’ve been carrying a jug that I had filled half up with water. We got about 2 miles out of town and I went to take a drink of water from my bottle and it wasn’t full. Oh shit! I filled up my jug halfway  and forgot to fill my water bottles.

Let me tell you, you feel like a real dumb ass when you don’t fill your water bottle up before you head out into the desert.  I took a quick look at the map and decided that I had enough water to get to the next area where there was a gas station. Luckily, about an hour down the road I found a VFW that was open and was able to get some water there. Thank you VFW!

We were on a busy  highway for the first eight or so miles, then headed back into a large agricultural area in Done Valley where it was much more quiet with some good scenery. And no traffic which was very nice for a change. After that it turned into desert and we had long stretches of road with absolutely no traffic.

The best scenery of the day was a small mountain pass with some good views. Lots of trains going by on the tracks which parallel our route.

Dome Valley farm

We are cowboy camping tonight in the desert- a couple hundred yards from a busy train line.   We’ll see how that goes. The Milky Way is in full view and we’ve seen a couple of shooting stars.




Tomorrow: Gila Bend

Observations

Arizona roads are much better than California roads

Gas is over a dollar cheaper in AZ than CA

The desert is comprised of vast flat plains separated by jagged mountain ranges- you can see forever

Most of the water in the free world goes down irrigation canals

Milkshakes are an important source of vitamins

Flats (trip total):   Brain 3, Tom 2

Rack failure: Tom 1, Brian 1

DateDayWhereDistanceTotalVertical
10/23/21SatSan Diego-Lakeside32321414
10/24/21SunLakeside- Jacumba61.993.96211
10/25/21MonJacumba-El Centro45.3139.2614
10/26/21TueEl Centro-Fortuna76.61215.811093
10/27/21WedFortuna-Dateland69.28285.09958

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