Day Forty Seven

It was another long day. We rode 126 miles from Needles, CA to Twentynine Palms, CA.

We woke up to find that bikes weren't allowed on I-40. We knew they were at some points, so we we trekked as far as we could on backroads, and then there was no sign prohibiting us at that exit.

Jason got a flat, so we fixed that. We passed an exit where we were asked to leave the freeway, but we pretende we didn't see the sign, and kept going.

It was insanely hot today. Like, probably around 110, maybe 105. We climbed 2000 feet until we exited the freeway. We didn't get kicked off by the police, though we almost wanted to so that we could get a ride in an air-conditioned car. We mostly weren't kidding.

After we got off, we sat to take a break. A nice guy stopped (probably because we looked haggard) and gave us some water. He told us he owned the auto shop in the next "town" (population around 10 maybe? His shop was the town,) and that we should stop to get water. So we made it the 11 miles and stopped. We chilled in the shade and drank water and ate snacks and chatted with the old man napping outside. He was nice, and very interesting, just incredibly quiet.

After we left, we trekked the 34 miles to Amboy. It was still hot. but we made it, and sat in the air-conditioning for a while. We drank some drank, filled water bottles, and headed out.

The sun went down, and it cooled down considerably. We climbed a gigantic hill, which, combined with my dehydration (it's literally impossible to stay hydrated) and hunger, made me very unhappy. Near the top, I "realized" that the hotel was 20 miles closer than we'd thought. That turned my mood around, and got me up the rest of the way. We had an epic downhill, which is always nice. At our turn, we realized that the hotel was not in ya new location, but actually in te original location. Bummer.

We rode another 19 miles into town to our Motel 6. We rolled in at about 2:45. Of course, we were on the third floor. No worries though, there was an elevator. Then our key didn't work. I went back down, got a new key, and am now crashed in bed. We've got 140 miles to Los Angeles, and another 15 to the beach.

Tomorrow: Somewhere a few miles east of Los Angeles.