What. A. Day.
After two days of cranking away in the Imperial Valley, which Ryan I agreed was trying to kill us slowly in a fiery inferno, we were quite sore and tired when we woke up this morning.
Little did we know one of the most difficult stretches of our trip, The Imperial Valley, had a cherry on top in the form of a 2,100 foot climb out. Whipped cream was the strongest wind we have felt yet that tore in at strange intervals through the curvy hills. It took us nearly 3 hours to go just over 10 miles.
After this climb, we were through the inferno and up high enough to enjoy 80 degree weather the rest of the day. We climbed at least another 2,000 ft c interspersed with lots of good downhill stretches on the outskirts of San Diego County.
To make things more exciting, we rode past two people who had stopped their truck and were out looking at something on the side of the road.
What were they looking at? What was so exciting? A snake?! Whoah! Big snake! “Hey Ry, did you see th-“ and that was how I ran into his braking bike, taking us both down.
This was the first accident we have suffered on the trip. The second to the last day. So close to being done.
My bike has a bent front wheel that Ryan worked some magic on and now has it to a very slight wobble while I ride. My back wheel now sports a huge gash in the rubber and somehow has remained full of air despite this injury.
Ryan got a good bend in his back rack. We were able to bend it back so no harm done!
Other than this… All is well! I am sure I have a bruise forming on my hip, but nothing to cry about. We managed another 30+ miles after the fall. It also turned out to be a rattle snake that distracted us and caused the accident. I think that is a worthy snake to have an accident over.
We also saw a long lizard roadside later in the day, this time coming to a safe stop to examine him.
Currently we are in our tent in the beautiful Cleveland National Forest. Amazing to go from so hot and dry to dewy and cool in one day. Tomorrow… we hit the ocean!
Route info for interested readers:
We had another stretch of interstate on I8 as highway 98 came to an end. We took I8 to an exit onto Old Highway 80 and followed that until it merged onto highway 79.
There and Back Again 