Confident, stronger, and proud is how I feel today after completing a 90 mile ride today. We all got up early before dark to prepare for this long day and luckily tailwinds were with us most of the way with blue skies and comfortable riding temperatures in the 60's and 70's after the sun came up. It is just an awesome feeling to be out on the road and watch the quiet rise of the sun and gently wake up as the mud swallows sing and dart about the canals and croplands. The traffic was light and the air was clear and filled with of spring and the whir of thin tires on the shoulder of the pavement.


One of the features of today's landscape that I recall the most were massive rolling dunes around 28 miles out. I guess this is a big area for dune buggy racing especially on the weekends outside of Brawley. One side of the road is protected and has some vegetation, shrubs and a few cropped trees while the other side is devoid of most vegetation due to the traffic of the dune buggies.I noticed after a "Nature Call" at the side of the road that the area was fenced off due to a bombing area and possible unexploded ordinances just outside the area that the dune buggies can go on.

Wheeling along at a bike pace you really notice patterns in the sand swirled out by the wind and you could hear the tss, tss, tss, of the grains of sand as they reached the others side of the asphalt and landed on the accumulated piles of sand. As we traveled along the road dips and hills tiny streams of sand would scoot across our path at odd acute angles like sandy ghostly whisps of smoke .

This was a day that we all had grains of sand embedded in our faces, like a free dermal abrasion therapy, from huge trucks that zipped along the same roadways. You do have to hold on tightly so you don't get swept to the side and you also have to carefully watch for any small piles of sand that may have built up which makes for very unsteady bike control.

We also passed through the Chocolate Mountains and they did look as if they were sprinkled with Hershey cocoa powder. The color was so different from the beige, flat, open expanses of the sand dunes a few mile before. Looming ahead in the distance the deep brown was an interesting contrast. Another contrast are areas of the desert that had access to the canal system fed by the Colorado River. Alfalfa, and sugar beets were common crops interspersed with desolation and scrubby terrain on the other side of the road.

The Border Patrol is very active in this area of the county. I cannot begin to total all of the trucks and personnel we have seen traveling across California. Imagine all the money spent on manpower, equipment and this enormous fence erected. I find it odd that we as Americans were so offended by the Berlin Wall, yet we have spent millions building one ourselves. A rider yesterday did see a Border Patrol pointing a gun to someone down in a gully and we were waved through a security checkpoint today as well. (I guess they didn't think old ladies on two wheels were a threat to our security...) By that time of the day we really didn't want to be inspected either, full of grit in our teeth, hair, eyes and body.

My riding buddies and I stopped often, ate lots of snacks, drank lots of water to get through the day and felt a true sense of accomplishment at this particular challenge. For many of us is was our farthest mileage in one day on a bike. My mini group left at 7 am and we pulled in to the hotel parking lot around 4 pm. It was a long but fruitful day. I am looking forward to our layover day. There is a tire changing workshop and an opportunity to clean our bikes, our clothes, our minds, and rest our bodies and our bottoms for at least a little while...Perhaps I'll even send some items home that I have not used yet as my bags are heavy and sometimes have to be lugged upstairs along with our bikes that we keep in our rooms.
Love to all,
Robin