Day #47 Ocotillo, CA to Pine Valley CA 45.9 Miles

Today, the penultimate (my dads favorite word) day of our cycle of a lifetime,  was the toughest biking day of the trip.  The good news was it allowed us to use some of the skills (and muscles) we have acquired over the last 8 weeks, and to appreciate what we have done so far.  Even though we only went 46 miles, we were completely spent by the time we got to Pine Valley. We left the Ocotillo Motel at about 6am.  We realized that the motel was only a minor step up from the Sportsman Motel in Simmsport, LA.  It sounded as if there were rats running through the walls, and there was a sketchy light outside of our room that turned on and off randomly though out the night.  That combined with  the shady people around made us feel uncomfortable.  This morning when we opened the door to our motel room we felt an intense breeze like we had not felt before.  If the wind was blowing in the right direction (west) , it would have been an easy biking day.  It turned out that it was blowing in the wrong (east) direction.   It took us 4 hours to do 12 miles... the incline was steep but manageable, but the 35 mph head winds made it nearly impossible to bike. We walked up most of the 12 mile hill.  Early in the ride we passed a sign (pic below) suggesting that drivers turn off their AC (we were in the desert) to prevent overheating.  It dawned on us that this terrain not only ate up bikes and bikers, but also cars and trucks.  The high point of the day in terms of bonding, and trying new things was when we approached an exit ramp about 8 miles into our ride/walk up.  The sign said all bicycles must exit at ramp.  We didn't know where the ramp would take us and noticed there were no cars headed in that direction - we would have basically been left stranded on our own.  We decided to try to do something that neither of us had ever done, and something we did not really want to do - HITCH HIKE.  When you are stuck in the middle of a mountain with no easy way to get up or down you need to think outside the box.  In hindsight we would love to see a video of ourselves, because it must have looked pretty funny.  We took our bags off our bikes, under a sign that said "no bicycles permitted", so we would be able to load our bikes and bags quickly onto a pick-up truck that would take us to the top of the hill.  We discussed hitch hiking technique - I tried the classic thumb signal that I had seen in many movies.  My dad tried his own two hand hitch hiking technique - one hand pointing at the road - Israeli style, and the other hand doing the friendly wave.  We discussed whether it was better to make eye contact with the driver or not, and whether what we were doing was breaking any laws (not sure).  After 45 minutes of perfecting our technique and having a lot of laughs, not only did no car ever stop, but no car even slowed down.  (My dad said nobody stopped because of my beard - I look like an international terrorist)  Back to plan A.  We put our bags back on our bikes and continued our ascent up the mountain - another 5 miles.  During the time we tried to hitch hike the winds died down a bit, and our legs got some rest, so we were able to persevere to the top under our own power .  As we walked to the top we passed an RV parked on the side of the road.  The man from Colorado said he was having transmission problems on the hills.  When we told him we were riding cross country he said "wow man, that's the dream".  We agreed with him, and we were only about 70 miles from that dream,  but through out the day the terrain didn't allow us to savor that thought -  we felt like we were 1000 miles away.    After we reached the top we were able to ride our bikes to Jacomba which was mostly down hill.   We stopped at a Chevron station and filled our water bottles, and ate lunch. We met some people who gave us a very good picture of the terrain ahead.  When heading out of Jacomba we  noticed that the temperature was about 10 degrees cooler than most recent afternoons - a welcome change.  As we enjoyed the cooler temps we told each other that we could ride forever in this type of climate.  While that might have been true, we ended up hitting another 13 mile climb on Historic Route 80, before a steep descent into Pine Valley, where we checked into the Pine Valley Motel, which was clean and comfortable.  According to our Garmin GPS for the day we gained close to 9000 feet in total elevation and a net of 4200 feet.


When we started our trip we planned on arriving at Shutters on the Beach on August 13th.  Since we are running a few days ahead of schedule (a miracle) we thought of some other things we might do tomorrow - whitewater rafting, quail hunting, shopping, sightseeing etc...   After much discussion, we took a vote, and decided to do a father/son bike ride to the beach in San Diego!!!  


Thanks for coming along for the ride!!!
Ocotillo, CA- Pine Valley, CA