Sunday, May 14. Needles, CA
Yesterday we left Ludlow at 6:15am! Wheels up and on the road. That is a new World, and American record for the Eaton's. We knew that the temps were expected in the 90's and we are in the Mohave Desert after all. We ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal, PB and tortillas at the gas station and headed out. The night before we had talked to two couples who were doing a ride from Fresno, CA to Albuquerque. They had two cars and three bikes. So they were taking turns riding. Three of them left some time before us. We were expecting rough roads for the next 60 miles or so, but were pleasantly surprised to find new smooth pavement. We even had a tailwind! There was some question of a detour ahead. But after talking with some locals decided we could walk around the new bridge, culvert. What an awesome ride! Smooth roads, tailwinds and sunny skies! We got to Amboy, our only water resupply for the day. The other cyclists were also there so we chatted for awhile before they took off. Amboy is an interesting place. Roys Motel/Cafe is there or what's left of it. A man bought the "town" several years ago and just sells water and snacks. There are small cottages there that are empty. But he does let touring cyclists sleep in them if they need to. There isn't anything in them but it does get you out of the heat.
When we left Amboy, we ran into the detour around the bridge. There was a construction road around it that we were able to push the bike through. Good thing, because it would've added an additional 11 miles to our route. We had an awesome ride in the desert. Very peaceful with few cars. Probably our best day since leaving San Diego. While riding I asked Hap if he liked this year's ride on Route 66 better than last year up the east coast (Charleston SC-Bangor ME). We both agreed we would rather have the wide open spaces than the honking and watching our back to the traffic. So much fun! We had a small climb over Cadiz Summit, the only real climb of the day. We caught up to the other riders and road along with them until one of their drivers was waiting for them. We ate some snacks, and drank some water before taking off again. Hap and I are carrying four 24 oz water bottles, 2-1 liter bottles water and a 1 1/2 L Camelback full of water.
We got back to Interstate 40 and the drivers exchanged riders again. We planned to stop at the Oasis Truck stop to spend the night. They let you camp in the parking lot for $10 (actually it was a nice campsite under a palm tree!). We went inside, ate and decided we were both still feeling good. So we decided to ride on into Needles CA. There was a KOA campground there that had showers! After the Oasis we had a bit of a climb before we headed down into town. Fantastic downhill! We spent a lot of time counting rail cars on all of the tracks. We saw 15 trains, with either two or four engines. The longest one had 125 cars! About ten miles before town we stopped under the only shade tree we had seen for the last 100 miles. The temps were starting to really get up there into the 90's. We said if the KOA doesn't have any shade, we are going to a motel. Sure enough when we got to the KOA it looked like a parking lot with zero shade. No way! After 112 miles we headed to a motel. After the milkshake...... We had some trouble finding the motel because of a bunch of construction detours. We finally found it and guess what? Yep you guessed it, at the top of the last hill...... We were hot when we got there and happy for the AC! The other riders texted and offered to pick us up and take us to dinner. Didn't take long to answer! We had so much fun talking with them! There trip sounds like an interesting way to bike travel. Maybe in our future??
This am we got up planning to go to church and then ride to a campground south of town. But when we looked at the planned 90++ degree weather the AC won again. Today has been a relaxing day. Only issue today was the church we walked to wasn't the church we expected, wasn't at the time we thought and was almost over. No problem! Google sent us to the right church for a great service. Well, perhaps it wasn't google. Tomorrow we head for Oatman AZ and Kingman AZ and cooler temps at a higher elevation.
