Day 3 - Indio > Brawley, CA (78.9 miles)

 May 7

Another great day today...I was excited about it being a dessert day and was disappointed to find one less 's' when we got started. Dad joke...sorry. The desert is hot, and it is rather deserted. We dressed like Brian Moran and all looked like mimes on bikes, but you are in an oven for the day and need to drink and drink and drink. This was the image I was thinking of while we roasted (continuing my bad movie references):

For those that have ridden to SGI with us, I would describe the terrain as flat as a flitter (quoting the Ogletree's). See the map and elevation below. 

You can see that we started near Joshua Tree National Park and rode along the Salton Sea for much of the ride. This sea was created when a dam broke on the Colorado River and flooded this area; subsequently, it became a toxic mess from pesticides, arsenic, etc. Now, they are saying that it might have the mother lode of Lithium in it, but I am pretty sure you would regret swimming there. It looks like a sea in a desert to me:

The rest of the scenery today was more desert, some miserable cows, and palm trees. The roads were decent for riding, traffic was not too bad until the end, and right of way was good size but full of debris. For the non-riders, debris is bad news because it can have glass, screws, wire from steel belted tires, and many other foul things that can cause you to get a flat tire. Please keep your debris to yourself. Stuart had a flat on day 1 and this morning, and Bill had 2 flats today while we were standing in the oven with the temperature on BROIL. We had a local guy named Hector stop while we were changing Bill's tire, and he was the nicest guy in the world just looking out for us...we told him he was our hero of the day! The good news is that Bill and Stuart could work in a pit crew for cyclists, and for our Griffin riding folks: yes, Stuart makes the same sounds in the desert when he fixes flats. We had a rest stop at mile 26 and one at mile 58; when we arrived in Brawley, we waited for everyone to finish, and they drove us to Blythe, where we will spend the night. We were originally supposed to ride to Blythe, but part of the route on I-10 was closed to bike traffic. The ride organizers thought it would be cool to let us ride around the Salton Sea, which was great on their part and required serious logistics for them. We kept a good, steady pace line going most of the day with the 4 Griffin boys and a Political Science professor (Mark) from Chicago. Now that we know what Mark does for a living, I am sure the conversations will be lively.

Funniest meme sent to Raff and I today was from an adult child named Pierino that all IBM'ers will know; he sent this and asked if we were done playing yet:

We did have amazing views of the mountains much of the way as we traversed the desert in between the two ridge lines, and this was a treat. Best quote of the day was from Drew B, and I thought about it and him much of the day: "You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth." Evan Egar...I have no idea who this guy was, but he had wisdom; so does Drew and a big old heart. 

Ok, off to bed now as we are back in the oven tomorrow for one of the longest rides of the trip: 115 miles. Week 1 is the hardest week of this trip, and we have serious climbing to do at the end of the week. Thanks for reading, praying, and sending funny text messages, riddles etc. Talk tomorrow...