Life on the road is now life for the next few months.
I'm laying on my sleeping bag on the ground of what used to be a motel room. Some of the windows are broken, but we have a roof over our heads. This is Amboy, a desolate town comprised of a small post office and a diner/gas station/rundown motel. One woman works at both the post office and the diner, and she is the person who let us sleep in the motel. She says it's only used for movie sets now, so they let cyclists sleep in the rooms if any come by. After two days of dragging ourselves through the desert, this is a godsend; but let me get back to day 1.
Our first day was brutal. It was 100 miles that included long uphills, near heat exhaustion, and slogging our way through sandy fire roads. It was all pretty straightforward until we got to Morongo Dr., which is apparently closed to through traffic. We had to backtrack and look for a road that would connect us to Cabazon. As we stood on the side of the road, a Scottish man pulled up and asked us if we were headed to Cabazon. "Follow me!" he told us. He said the reason he helped us was because "a Dutchman, an Englishman, and a French woman" had been trying to find their way through the same area for half a day before he steered them in the right direction. He pointed us down a dirt road and off we went.
A couple hours later we found ourselves at the base of the 62 towards 29 Palms. We had a little over a bottle of water each and a daunting climb ahead of us with at least 20-30 miles of no water. Luckily we passed a couple construction workers on the side of the road who were happy to fulfill our request for more water (note:Construction workers are your friend if you're bike touring. They always have water). After many more miles of riding through the desert, we finally got to Indian Cove (in the dark) where we made camp and slept.
Day two was hot! We did a lot of riding through empty desert roads. We came across a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, but it was closed. We stayed there for a little while to savor the shade, and a car rolled up to throw something away in the dumpster. We asked the driver if she knew where we could find any water. Not for 40-50 miles she told us, but luckily she was an employee of the bar and sold us 10 cold water bottles for 5 bucks. After quenching our thirst and stocking up on water, we rode 40-50 hot and grueling more miles to Amboy, where we are now.
Two spots allowed us some shade; here they are.
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