Saturday, August 1st.
Today we left Wikieup, Arizona with a goal of making Blythe, California.
We were so thankful to find that the weather had cooled off significantly. There was a nice cloud layer and we had very light rain for the first few hours. The desert we rode through this morning was like a botanical garden. I've never seen so many healthy saguaros, ocotillos, chollas, and mesquite in one place. Believe it or not, the desert seemed very lush!
I couldn't pass up the chance to snap a photo of the dancing saguaros!
There were a lot of sand washes today. This was similar to our home turf and we've done a thousand miles of sand washes so this was a lot of fun for us.
It surprised us, but we came up on a water crossing today! We dropped down into a valley that had a large oasis, complete with trees and a stream. We had to cross the stream three times, but one section was particularly wide and deep. We found some trees and sticks forming a dam that looked like they were chewed by a beaver. Could that be true??
The water was deep enough to almost cause the bike to suck in water which would have been disastrous!
The bikes made it through OK but our boots were filled with water and our pannier bags were pretty soaked as well. Somehow the computer in my bag came through completely dry (there was almost no update today!).
Another 40 miles or so, brought us to Parker, Arizona for lunch. From there, we headed south along the Colorado River. That's California over there!
At times, the road along the river was reduced to a barely discernible trail with deep silt. The light tailwind added an additional challenge: If we slowed down too much, the blinding silt cloud would overtake us.
There were also miles of farms on the Arizona side of the Colorado growing all sorts of crops including our favorite: Hay!
Hitting the Hay
We crossed the river at Blythe and entered our home state of California! Two more days will get us to the Pacific Ocean and the end of our adventure.
Tomorrow we leave Blythe, pass over the northern end of the Salton Sea, ride through Ocotillo Wells OHV Park and Borrego Springs, and end up in Julian (Shown in green on the map). The forcast for tomorrow is 111 degrees!!
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