Saturday, February 18, 2012

Almost done!!!!

We are officially in California! It was so nice to finally cross the border. the computer i am using does not have shift capability so i will be typing in all lower case. i think last time i updated we were still in tucson. so here is what has happened since we left tucson. on monday we did another loop in the cactus forest in saguaro national park. i can't get enough of that thing. natalie and i both loved riding through there and just looking at all the cool desert plants.  i would love to have that route literally in my backyard. spencer and his wife stephanie were awesome to us all week we were there and made sure that we had an awesome time. it was nice to stay in the same place for a while and relax with friends who are more family than they are friends.  although we love staying with strangers it is so nice to be able to see a familiar face in the middle of AZ. on tuesday we hitched a ride with stephanie to go back on our route. she was doing business in phoenix so we were able to ride with her and get back on our original route out to san diego. we rode along the canal in phoenix which was very fun. the bike path on the canal even goes under the roadways so you don't have to cross any traffic. that was about the only thing we liked about phoenix. i had never been before and didn't know much what to expect. i wasn't impressed by what i saw. all of the cool stuff i like about tucson, phoenix lacks. it is a lot of concrete and buildings and very little outdoor space compared with tucson. tucson seems to be built around its natural surroundings and it is a much prettier city in my opinion. phoenix is also just way too big. it sprawls on for what seems like forever. it took us almost two hours to bike through the city. that bike path was huge though because it saved us having to go through traffic. after we left phoenix we went on to wickenberg, az. wickenberg was kind of cool. it was an old mining town that still looks like the old west. had a pretty cool downtown. we ended up staying at an rv park there that was pretty decent. they had a nice rec room where we could make dinner at least. it was warm in there too. pretty cold outside still. temps in the 50s today and it rained on us a little bit coming into town. also a random dust storm happened out of nowhere. i tried to take pictures of it but it was kind of hard to do. we were eating dinner and all of these elderly folk kept pouring in. we were wondering what was going on and then got invited to play bingo. grand prize was a whopping four dollars. we politely declined. the next day we woke up to 25 degree temps. we were wondering what the hell is going on. arizona has been pretty cold so far. from wickenberg we went to on to salome. a good 60 mile ride or so from wickenberg. it was another kind of cold day outside. we opted to stay in a motel that night that had been recommended to us (good call too; it started to rain as soon as we got there. and its only our fourth motel of the whole trip). the owner talked us into it when he told us about the tempurpedic beds and the fireplace in the rooms. he had us sold and we slept so well that night. from salome we rode onto blythe. bylthe is in california!! we were so excited to cross into CA. also, it was a beautiful day out so the riding was excellent. we stayed at a pretty atypical place in blythe. we found wayne on warmshowers. he owned a baitshop and had a spare room in back that he let us stay in. he offered us some beer as soon as we came up on our bikes. they were an awesome crew there. there were about 10 people over the age of 60 all slamming beers at this place and chain-smoking cigs. natalie and i joined them for some beers. they all had some pretty funny stories. some of them were telling us they didn't intend on even coming there and had seven beers crushed under their chairs. i had to laugh. wayne was so awesome though. he offered us any food that he had in the bait store. they also ordered pizza for us later that night. we had a pretty sweet barrel fire as well that kept natalie warm. from blythe we called troy (who we stayed with in globe, az). he told us to call him when we got close to glamis and he would set us up with a dune ride there. i gave him a call and he was happy to set us up with his friend, joe fab, in glamis. i will let natalie tell the rest of the story on to glamis. it gets pretty insane.

drew

how to even begin to explain glamis... so we left blythe and everyone at the bait shop warned us about the horrible road that we had to take into glamis.  there is only one road, and we didn't have a choice of going any other way.  78-west is probably the worst road we have been on this whole trip.  there is no shoulder and it is a very narrow road.  unfortunately our timing was not great either because we were heading into glamis on a friday before a long weekend.  everyone and their brother was going to glamis and bringing their rv, truck trailer, and cars with them.  getting passed on a narrow road (with no shoulder) by an rv pulling a trailer and a car is not fun at all.  so after 65 miles of far too many near death experiences, we got into glamis.  needless to say, we got there in record time.  we were peddling like mad.  we got into glamis and we saw the glamis beach store, which is the only store in glamis.  glamis is not really a town, it's just a store in the middle of the sand dunes.  it was so wild biking into glamis and seeing the huge sand dunes from so far away.  so we get into the store and we see everyone coming into the area with their huge rvs and sand buggies.  its so loud!  unfortunately we had just finished a major ride and what we really wanted was a nice quiet place to de-stress and mentally get back into it.  nope.  got into glamis and there were tens of thousands of people riding all their sand toys around.  obviously drew and i did not fit into the regular crowd there, since we were the only people there who looked healthy and sober.  people were shocked and amazed that we had biked there from florida, and we were shocked and amazed that they were so many beers in and still driving their giant atvs around.  we even saw a couple driving a dune buggy with a baby seat in the back.  whole different world here.  drew and i got a pizza at the glamis store for dinner and we got more of our regular stares and "where are you from?" looks.  some 50 year old drunk guy kept hitting on me.  gross.  the cool thing about this whole cultural lesson was that we got to stay with joe fab, who is basically the king of glamis.   joe fab builds these insane trucks and dune buggies, and he also fixes all the sand toys that people break while driving around drunk all day.  joe fab is this awesome character who has a bleach blonde mullet and a great personality to match.  he told us all of these great stories that had us laughing all night.  he even sells dune buggies to royalty in dubai, india!  joe fab also gave us a test ride in his truck, and it was amazing.  you can look up some of his regular tricks on youtube under "sand limo by joe fab".  after an exhilarating ride on the dunes from joe early in the morning (while everyone else is sleeping off their hangovers), drew and i hit the road.  we were really ready to get out of glamis.  after another stressful day of riding with more bad roads and traffic, we got into imperial, ca.  we were so happy to be with a warmshowers host!  we just chilled in his backyard and enjoyed the sun and the quiet for hours and it flew by.  then we watched a movie and had some dinner and now we're headed off to bed.  we're both still mentally exhausted from glamis, and we're both so happy to be so close to getting to san diego!
love and miss you all,

natalie

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