Day 5 - Wickenburg, AZ > Prescott, AZ (59.7 miles)

 May 9

The route that we rode today:

Today was another great day with perfect weather for what had in front of us. Riding to Prescott, AZ had two very long climbs with some others that were not as long. The first climb was 7.5 miles, and the second one was a little over 9 miles; we were also gaining decent altitude overall going from 2,000 ft up to 6,000 ft. Everybody did well on the ride, and nobody got hurt. Stuart missed the SAG stops, but we brought him food/drink; he does not like to follow rules, which I have mentioned already. I hate to be complaining about traffic so much, but we had a couple of drivers today that should not be on the road. Raff felt the exhaust of one of these vehicles buzzing us for no reason. Please be courteous to bikers when you see them on the road: either move over as far as possible or wait until oncoming cars are not coming or the road is straight. If you are 15 seconds late it will be ok. Rant has ended...A confession from me: I do not like to descend, and we had a ton of downhills after the climbing, and I was the old man riding his brakes...it is bad enough going 40 mph on winding roads with cars and then you get wind bursts. Makes my palms sweat thinking about it again. A little perspective: we've ridden 428 miles, which means we are 12.6% done. 

A couple of pictures:

This was from Wickenburg early this morning before we left (subtle humor):

Desert photo and some of the mountains we were in today:

This is the ride that we needed:

We descended into Prescott around 1 pm today and found a good place for lunch and dinner. Prescott is a cool town. 

A quote for today is one that I have been contemplating..."Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that do not really matter." D.L. Moody

A bonus quote for the day from Robert P that hit the nail on the head today: "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn." John Muir

Tomorrow is a shorter day (44 miles with a climb) as Saturday will be tough heading into Flagstaff. We have a rest day in Flagstaff, and we will need it after this week. We are having a great time, but we miss our people back home...talk tomorrow. 

Your messages and prayers are always so timely - thanks for following this adventure!

Day 4 - Brawley, CA > Wickenburg, AZ (115.1 miles)

 May 8

Route view below:

Today started off terribly and finished up fantastic, and most of the in between was awesome! We were all a little anxious about the distance today combined with crazy town winds and riding 30 miles on I-10. You're a little stressed when you start each day trying to make sure you have everything for the ride, plus you have to pack up your luggage for the vans to carry to the next hotel,  plus you have to feed your face, etc. Once you start pedaling, the stress disappears, and you just ride and try to not do anything stupid. Well, the cycling Gods conspired against us today as Bill had a flat about 2 miles into the ride, and we needed to replace the tire, which meant waiting for a support van (as you watch everyone else ride off...). We finally got rolling again and made it out to I-10 where we had skipped pergatory and went straight to cycling hell: road conditions were awful, 30+ mph cross winds, 18 wheelers were non-stop, and Stuart flatted about 4 miles after we got on the highway - look at the nail coming out of his tire (I wish the photo captured the mood better and the thought clouds above our heads):

Check out the flags where we had a quick rest stop to gather our wits after fixing the flat:

The four of us have ridden in some pretty sketchy situations, and I have now placed the time on I-10 in my top 5 worst segments of a ride. Trust me, it was not good. If Dunaway had done this ride with us, I bet they would have closed I-10 while we rode down it today to make it safer. Ok, enough drama and scary talk...the rest of the ride was pretty spectacular. We had rest stops at mile 38, mile 68, and mile 88, and the good news about having mechanical issues early on, we were at the very back of the group. This meant that we got to play Pac Man eating up all the other riders as the day wore on. The rest stops are fine here, but our wives have spoiled us as anyone who rides to SGI can attest. The rest of the ride was much better on road conditions, traffic, and the wind became our friend as the day wore on. We were riding mostly east and a bit north, and the wind was screaming out of the north early and shifted to a west wind after 1 pm. This meant we rolled fast for the last 45 miles, and the finish was about 5 miles downhill with a STRONG tailwind...Chuck C would have been wagging his tail. We had a bunch of the other riders jump on the Griffin train, and the last couple of hours was a magic carpet ride. One thing that has been crazy is the amount of fluids you have to take in since you're in the desert and riding all day - duh, you say? Yes, we expected this, but I  drank 9 liters of water and 3 liters of gatorade today. 

Ok, the funny meme that was crowd-sourced from Greg D made me giggle. If his job at Cat gets eliminated, he should try comedy...Greg claims that he fed ChatGPT info from my blog, and this is the graphic that it gave him:

Quote that seems appropriate for today is from one of favorite books: Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius - "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." 

If you are not making this graphic large enough to read it each day, you might be missing something funny or important:

Ok, tomorrow is another day that I circled on the calendar as a hard day. The mileage is not bad around 60 miles, but we begin climbing with 6,100 ft of ascent. Today, I wish I weighed more because of the wind, and tomorrow, I will wish that I weighed less. Yes, curly haired girls want straight hair and vice versa. Thanks again for your photos, memes, prayers, text messages, etc. 

Talk tomorrow.

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...

Day 2 - Moreno Valley > Indio CA (89.9 miles)

 May 6 - Yesterday's entry was too long, so I'll try to go shorter today to make the average work for our shrinking attention spans. Obligatory views of the route first (I combined the GPS and the elevation view):

It was another great day! We had a flat route for the first 25 miles, and then we had a pretty good climb for 5-6 miles; Stuart was our pace car up the climb, and he was a diesel engine. The rest of the day was flat or downhill, and the only variable was the wind. When it was behind us, it was a magic carpet ride, and the rest of the time was less fun. We had a rest stop around 38 miles where we waited for the whole group to come together so we could go through an Indian reservation under police escort. The reservation was like all reservations that I have seen: depressing. At the risk of being slightly political, one of the worst chapters in our country's history is what we did to the Native Indians...first, we pushed them West, then we killed their buffalo, and then we put them on reservations to make ourselves feel less guilty. I know that most developed countries have the same version of this , but it still sucks, and any reservation will make your soul hurt. 

Ok, let's be more upbeat now...we saw pretty flowers and clouds and mountains and the sun. Once we got through the reservation, we had a pace line running like a train to Palm Springs, and it was fantastic. We debated eating lunch there, but it was still 30 miles from our hotel, so we decided to keep the express running to Indio. We came in hot and did our daily chore of primitive laundry in the shower and draping our clothes in the best fashion possible to have them dry out - see below:

Stuart, Bill, Raff, and I had a great dinner at one of the previously mentioned Casinos. Great steaks, short ribs, and adult beverages made the sad chapter fade a bit. We tried to put it on the Underhill's account, but it seems to have been closed - if this is not familiar, please watch Caddyshack.

Ok, I have to award the winer, winner, chicken dinner award for best quote of the day to Linda N..."And to those who say adventures are dangerous, I say, try routine; that kills you far more quickly." Paulo Coelho. This is powerful and made me think about one of my all time favorites from Thoreau: "the mass of men lead quiet lives of quiet desperation".  This speaks to an empty life caused by uninspiring work, lack of leisure time, and misplaced values around money, possessions, and pleasing others. Ok, I am not trying to be heavy, but find an adventure and go do it. This is our attempt. If you knew my Dad, you knew that he loved being outside, and I am convinced that this is because things were more uncertain and less predictable outside. I get this, and we experienced this from the time we stepped out of our hotel this morning with our bikes to find it 44 degrees; we also saw a huge, live rattlesnake warming on the highway as we rode by it. We also had people honking at us and greeting us throughout the ride curious about where we were going; yes, we also had many knuckleheads driving too fast and hating on lycra clad bikers. This is the risk that you take on an adventure, and it is absolutely worth it! See the views (memory dividends for Clay) below:

I failed on researching what is unique about Indio, CA, so if anyone is familiar with it or just retired, pls send me something cool about Indio, and I'll improve my Yelp rating. 

Daily spreadsheet:

Tomorrow, we have a desert day, which will be interesting...79 miles, and we are required to have white arm sleeves and Camelbacks. We have knocked the nervous jitters off and are ready to get through each day. Yes, we are laughing and enjoying ourselves - that is THE POINT! Thanks again for your messages and encouragement!

Day 1 - Manhattan Beach > Moreno Valley/Riverside, California (90.7 miles)

 May 5

Cormac McCarthy wrote "All the Pretty Horses", and he has a quote that sums up the beginning of this trip: "Between the wish and the thing, the world lies waiting." We've talked about doing this trip for a long time, and we wait no more.  

See three views of our route below for perspective... (the last one is for the bikers!)

We had a great first day! We put our rear wheels in at Manhattan Beach pier to start with the Pacific Ocean, and the front wheel will hit the Atlantic in late June. This beach was famous from one of the cheesiest movies of all time (but worth watching): Point Break with Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, et al. A great quote from that movie comes from Swayze's character, Bohdi, when he says "Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst dreams to come true." Spoiler alert if you watch the movie: Keanu has always been a bad actor so do not expect a surprise performance. 

Ok, back to the ride: See Raff and I below at the water and the four of us on the pier...not sure when we got old, must be recently. 

Raff, Bill, and I decided to be overachievers and ride an extra 6'ish miles today...we can blame it on technology as our GPS devices were struggling a bit when we transitioned from roads to bike paths. We did not yell at each other, and we managed to work back into the group before the next SAG stop. Stuart followed the rules (for once) and rode the right route. The official ride was 84.5 miles. Counting matchsticks - every 34 miles that we ride is 1% of the total ride, so we completed 2.5% of our odyssey today - sometimes I hate math. Once we got out of LA proper, we rode along some of the canals and through some beautiful orchards as we had a final climb towards the finish. We finished in Moreno Valley/Riverside today, and it is famous for citrus farming- specifically the navel orange trees. Trivia time: in 1874 a few orange trees were planted from Bahia, Brazil, and these Bahian oranges thrived in California while they did not do well in Florida - (I am sure that Ron DeSantis has an opinion on why this was a fluke)...Anyway, one of these original Bahian trees is still alive in Riverside; we actually might have 'watered' it today on one of our pit stops. Why is it called Riverside? Yep, there is a river here called the Santa Ana. The last piece of trivia on Riverside is that it is the home of the world's largest paper cup. 'Wow', I know. It is 68 ft tall and sits where the Dixie Cup manufacturing plant used to be. It is actually made of concrete, and if it had been full of beer at the end of today, we would have consumed it.  Drum roll please for the most exciting part of the daily blog...spreadsheet to summarize the day:

Day one was fantastic, and your messages and texts are so cool. I need to crowd-source from you all for trivia and great quotes...I have a bunch, but you'll be sick of me before this ride is done. Lyla gets the gold star today for her trivia on California: there are more people in California than there are in Canada. Gina gets the quote of the day: "It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end." Tomorrow, we have 92 miles to Indio, CA...

T-1 day: Orientation and get organized!

 May 4 - For our Star Wars geeks out there: May the 4th be with you. 

We had a great day today as we prepare to leave tomorrow. I think we adjusted quickly to the time zone change. Stuart knows this area since his daughter lives in Burbank, and he guided us on a cool ride to make sure our bikes and legs were ready. We rode a leisurely 31 miles checking out some of the legendary surfing beaches: Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Marina Del Rey, and Santa Monica. Bill said it best that it was "sensory overload"...too many bizarre things to see, and some that I would like to 'un-see'. Below is a picture Raff took of Stuart, me, and Bill near Manhattan Beach, where we will start tomorrow:

Here is the famous Manhattan Beach Pier (flowers in the foreground to curry favor with Gina):

Last photo of the day is from breakfast at The Cow's End (smoothie and egg bagel is amazing). I am a simple being and believe that a bulldog standing in line with me is a positive omen for the journey ahead. Go dawgs...

We had our orientation session after the ride and got to meet the rest of the folks doing this trip. We also ate tacos and spent time with a nice guy named Luca from Italy that we thought was doing the ride; it turns out that he just wanted free tacos and to see if Stuart's Spanish could sound like Italian - hard to make this stuff up. We have a great group of folks from Phoenix, California, Ohio, Boston, Minnesota, NJ, Maryland, Chicago, Indiana, Florida, and Washington. It was really cool to hear everyone's story on why they are doing this ride, and it confirms what we have all said many times - we are so fortunate and grateful to be able to do this. We are also ready to stop talking about it and get going! The folks that put this tour on are very good, and we all feel great about the decision to hire out versus doing it ourselves. 

One of the cool things about retiring last year is being able to read much more and for pleasure. I read most of the time that I am on the bike with Jawbone earphones. I read the Tolkien trilogy last summer, and a classic quote that makes me giggle came to mind at the meet/greet today. This was from Bilbo's birthday party in The Fellowship of the Ring, and he said "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." Yes, I am a child in adult clothes. Wheels up on Sunday - let's go! Thanks for all the messages...I can see short text messages on my Garmin while I'm riding, so be brief and be witty.

T-2 days - Beginning to begin....Heading West

 May 3 - Raff, Bill, and I flew out on the same flight today; Stuart enjoys driving across the country and made the trek last week with his bike and Raff/Bill's in his truck. See his fancy bed cover that he built just for this trip: (yep, we will be this classy all the way back across the country).

No issues heading to this coast, but I sense that more effort will be needed to get back to the other side... The weather in LA is good, and there is very little humidity. We will meet the other riders tomorrow and have orientation, bike check, etc. Special thanks to Drew for helping me get my bike properly packed and secured for the plane - everything looks fine, and we'll ride a little tomorrow to make sure all of our bikes are ready after travel/packing.

The quote for today comes from HG Wells: "Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the human race." So, if you see a cyclist, wave to them and smile!