Day 3: Brawley, CA

Day 3

May 19, 2015

Miles: 62.5

Jacumba Springs to Brawley

Steve and I both had blueberry pancakes for breakfast again today, but something was missing this time. When the waitress gave us our pancakes she commented - oh there's one.  We both looked closely.  After she left, I ask Steve how many did he have; he replied one. So she was right, one blueberry.  My pancakes were made from the same batch.  It's odd.  Ordering blueberry pancakes and getting only one blueberry in each pancake. Nonetheless, they were just what we needed; we had a lot of miles to ride today.

We left Jacumba at about 8:30a this morning after a short delay; we had to perform general maintenance on our bikes - basically pump our tires; we experienced few pump problems that were quickly resolved.  We had hoped for an 8:00a departure, but time got away.

Finally off; It was a cool morning.  Just a bit though, 55 degrees - mixed with sunny skies.  Just perfect!

Morning climb

 Leaving the mountains behind

After a short 400 ft climb this morning our descend was almost 4000 ft.  It was a fast 15 miles down the mountain.  A bit windy, through devil's canyon, but manageable.  A real beautiful, and sometimes scary, journey down.

Welcome to Yuha Desert

Steve with a wind farm behind him

We were now in Imperial Valley.  With the mountains behind us and the desert in front, we still had over 40 miles to ride.

At this point we started shedding some layers.  Notice, not as green as in the mountains, but still some green as you can see.  A little.  We rode on Old Hwy 80 mostly.  A road less travelled with lots of cracks and bumps.  It was rough riding, but we had the right bikes considering the conditions.

We rode through a few desert towns.  We knew they were desert towns when, well, there was simply nothing to see.  Pretty deserted. We past through one town named Plaster City. No restaurant.  No gas station or convenience store, just a big plant.  We later found out it was a drywall plant, connecting it with the town name.  We also rode by a hay packing facility.  This picture doesn't do it justice.  Acres and acres of hay blocks.

This is a man made irrigation channel, which explains why some of the color change.

After about 2 hours into riding through the desert, plants started getting a lot greener.

Finally we got to El Centro.  It was hot and we needed to cool off.  We took a short break at a Subway.  We ran into a local man. He asked if we saw any lizards in the desert. Earlier we had seen a pure white lizard about 12 inches long running across the street.  He asked if he was carrying a stick.  We asked, a lizard carrying a stick? He said yes.  He then said because lizards carry sticks around with them so they can stand on it when they stop running about. He then said because it is too hot to stand on pavement in the desert.  True story.  Really, we can't make this stuff up!

Despite being 88 degrees, Steve (above) wore his under armour to protect himself from the sun.  As long as we stayed on the bikes and continued to ride, the breeze was enough to cool us a bit; therefore we stopped very little.  Steve (below) pretending he had run out of water.

Not to worry, between both of us, we were carrying almost 1.5 gallons of water.  Heavy (12 pounds), but better than running out.

Nice pic of Steve

Tomorrow is our first day off from riding. We plan to hang out in Brawley.  Probably sleep late, explore around and wash some clothes.

I will end with this picture of Buddha.  We called out for Chinese food tonight. While waiting for our order the waiter said rub his belly for good luck ... So I did!

Oh, by the way, the man who told us about the lizard carrying the stick actually confessed he was kidding us!  Steve thought it was necessary for me to mention this.