USA - Day 15 - Joshua Tree National Park - Rancho Mirage

This is the route we biked today

We got up at 06:00 because we knew that we needed to cycle 80+ km today. We were also hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. But the sun was behind Ryan mountain so we only saw the mountains on the other side light up, which was also really cool to see.

We cycled the first 10km on asphalt and then turned on Geology road. It’s a sandy road which is only suited for 4x4 vehicles. The first part was pretty ok but then came a sandy downhill. At first things were going ok and I was trying to keep steering to a minimum. But then I steered a bit too much and the sand was too deep and I took a (small) dive to the side. Nothing hurt expect my pride 😉

We continued on and reached a wide open plateau which was really desolate. It was cool to see as I have never seen such an expanse with no man made structures. After a while we came across a sign warning us to proceed at our own risk. It’s there because it can get really hot in this place but today was pretty ok.

This road was sandy as well but as long as you kept to the tire tracks it was doable.

After a shallow climb we reached our highest point and we descended into a canyon. It looked really cool but the sand was even worse here. Bart had to wait a lot for me because I had to go slower with my smaller tires (or maybe my fall made me more prudent? I blame the smaller tires 😇).

We had to descend 1 100m on this road so it took us quite a while. So we had lunch in the canyon. We skipped coffee because we knew we still had a long way to go.

When we came out of the canyon we noticed a lot more garbage. At a certain point I saw a guy ahead with a M16 looking weapon. He started shooting it and it made a hell of a noise. We stopped and when he walked to the target we continued on. It smelled like gunpowder.

While continuing we noticed other people shooting as well and it seemed we were entering some kind of area where people come and shoot guns? It was weird to experience.

After this area we hit asphalt and now we needed to cycle another 40km. The first part was a looong straight road with lots of small hills. Bart took the lead and then I took the lead, etc. As the road went mostly downhill we made good progress and we were near our hotel around 13:30.

We went to the supermarket and on the way we talked with somebody in a Tesla and he said that we should check the weather because a storm was coming. We checked and there is indeed rain coming tomorrow, especially in the mountains we’re heading into. So we decided to book another night at the hotel to try and minimise the amount of rain we have to tackle.

We took a walk this evening, got dinner at Denny’s and now it’s time to read a book in this nice and comfy bed.

See you tomorrow!