Date: 9/10 – 11/10
City: Phoenix, Arizona
Miles ridden: 0
Cumulative miles: 13026

Not much happening, so I thought I give this post an intriguing headline 😛. We mostly tried to finalized our bike setup, assembled a list of German and Australian Embassies in Central and South America, got all our copies of the official documents done and had a couple of happy hours where we meet a nice couple, Tom and Liza, with their adorable daughter Thea from Arizona and Shelly from Saskatchewan(Canada).

We were sitting in the hot tub, having some drinks, talked about the world and enjoyed our company. Shelly was asking if she could get a ride around the block so we arranged it the next day.

The last day we went shopping, it’s amazing who you meet nowadays in a shop; by the way, I’m the guy with the short sleeve shirt J

 

Date: 12/10
City: Twentynine Palmes, California
Miles ridden: 264
Cumulative miles: 13290

We got our bikes ready and packed with the new dry sacks and left around 11AM.

We had a nice day, the landscape was flat but surrounded by high mountains.

When we arrived in Twenty-nine Palms, we could see where the name came from. The streets were framed by palms, not sure if that were really twenty-nine, we didn’t count them. We booked into the El Rancho Dolores, it was a nice Motel with a pool, hmmm, the pool was not heated, so no swimming for me.

 

Date: 13/10
City: El Cajon, California
Miles ridden: 209
Cumulative miles: 13499

It was not very far to El Cajon (San Diego) so we decided in the morning to take the more scenic way to El Cajon – we’d ride through the Joshua Tree National Park.

We have seen a valley of Joshua trees before, but the trees here were larger than the ones we had seen

Our next stop was at a short walk at the Cholla Catus Garden. The cacti looked amazing with the different colours. Turns out you can also use them to scratch your head when the scalp is itchy….

We couldn’t figure out if they were at the beginning to flower or if it just has passed

When the cactus dies, it leaves a wooden spine with amazing patterns.

After we took plenty of pictures, we continued on the scenic route 74 and passed through Indio and Palm Desert. It felt warmer here and when I looked at my GPS I realised that the Cities were 200 feet below sea level. When we left the cities we started to climb and at the top of the mountain pass we stopped at a view point. The view was stunning.

We arrived at El Cajon just before dark. Tomorrow is the day. We go into Mexico.