Date: 2008-03-02
From: Pacific Ocean - San Diego, CA

To: Blythe, CA
Miles today: 0.0

We spent an extra day at my sister-in-law and bother-in-law's home in Del Mar, Ca because of the rain that came in on the 24th of February. We had planned on starting that day because it was Mrs Gorp's birthday. John drove us to Dog Beach near Sea World. That's the official start of the Southern Tier Bicycle Trail. It was a beautiful day to start with mild temperature in the 60's and sun forecast for at least a week. We thanked John and took a few pictures and headed east for Florida at 9:30am on Feb. 25th. San Diego was very easy to ride through because of designated bike lanes. We rode through Mission Trails Park and took a break enjoying the weather and the fact that we were really underway with this ride. We ended up in Alpine on the first day after about 2000 ft of climbing. Poor ol' Mrs Gorp was sooooo out of shape that it took all day to get there. ;-) I was hungry and hadn't eaten much all day, so we got a room and went out for some barbecue. Hippie Long Stockings came out to bring us a Yuengling beer. They don't even sell it out here, so she must have it shipped to her. We talked for a couple hours before she had to leave. It's always great seeing her again. We climbed over 4000 feet all together to our next desitnation. We crossed the PCT at Boulder Oaks Campground. Mrs Gorp remembered it from when she walked part of the PCT way back when I was a young pup. ;-) We had planned on staying in Boulevard, but met a long distance rider that recommended Jucumba, so we rode on to there. Jucumba is about 100 yards away from the Mexican border. We could see the barrier and lots of border patrol vehicles. Jucumba Spa ended up being really nice. I was thinking back to just over week ago when I was still walking.....and now I was swimming in an 80 degree pool before going into the 96 degree hot spring. We rode down to the desert floor the next day and ended up over 100 ft below sea level. We rode through a beautiful area called Yuha Desert. It was a little off route and about 8 miles longer, but we were told it was well worth it..... It was a very nice ride. Glad we took that instead of the rough road through Plaster City. We made our way through some agricultural back roads into El Centro. Mrs Gorp's GPS finally paid off. We stayed in El Centro that night, then did a short day to Brawley, CA to set us up for a long desert ride without many services the next day. I saw some large fish in one of the agricultural canals and pushed my bike closer to get a look. They were carp. When I pushed my bike back to the road, I had stickers all over my tires......and 5 holes in the inter-tubes. Lesson learned! Brawley is about 150 ft below sea level. Mrs Gorp kept holding her breath. ;-) We got our earliest start yet because we had 70 miles through the desert with maybe only one stop with sodas....maybe. The map said not to rely on it though. We left Brawley and headed into the Imperial Sand Dunes. It was Saturday and we were being passed by lots of big Ford trucks pulling dune buggies. When we got to the dunes, it was like a scene out of Mad Max with all the futuristic dune buggies everywhere. I remember the old Volkswagen dune buggies from the 70's, but they are bigger and way more powerful now. There must have been a thousand trucks out there. The area they can ride is only about 7 miles along the road we were riding, but we could see for miles out into the dunes and see buggies everywhere.We met a bike rider by the name of Adrian who was heading west and was out to ride across CA in one day. We got to Glamis, the one place with services along the way and we were like the freak show because we were riding bikes.....without motors. When some of the riders found out we were riding bicycles to Florida, they couldn't believe anyone in their right mind would do such a thing on a vehicle without a motor. We really enjoyed riding along and seeing the Chocolate Mountains to our north. They did look like chocolate too. We pulled into a border patrol checkpoint and I told Mrs Gorp to let me do all the talking, since she got us pulled in at the Canadian border last year. ;-) We rode through Palo Verde where we originally planned on staying, but didn't see much reason to stay. It was just another 20 miles to Blythe and we knew there were good services there. It ended up being over a 90 mile day....our longest by over 40 miles so far. I rode slow so Mrs Gorp could keep up and I beat her to town by 15 minutes Ha! We got a room, showered off all the Imperial Sand Dune grit and went to a steakhouse and ate till it hurt. We ended up staying in Blythe because the wind was blowing over 30mph with gusts over 50mph and it felt like we were being sandblasted. I found some fried chicken to make me happy. It's been a long time since I've had any fried chicken. L We are 3 miles from the AZ border and are planning on riding into Quartzsite tomorrow. One state down and seven states to go. :-) Hopefully Mrs Gorp will get in better shape so she doesn't embarrass me so much. Ha! ;-)