Well rested and very well fed I resumed my journey. I flew down the In Ko Pah Pass, hurling through the boulder filled wastelands racing down towards the Yuma Desert below. I broke the 35mph speed limit at times without even pedaling. What a thrill to lose all that height. It took me 2 hard days to get up there and now it was payback time. Oh yeah! I took less than half an hour of pure pleasure to get back down to sea level, including photo stops.
Whilst descending I had crossed the county line into Imperial County, California, a welcome change of scene. In the rain shadow of the range I've just crossed, this county is really dry. It didn't even rain there in the recent storms. Mostly it's made up of sand,cactus and dried up plants that look like they must be dead, but they are not.
It certainly wasn't empty though. It seems a lot of Californians come out into the desert for the weekend. All along the minor road from Ocotillo to El Centro were clusters of SUVs, RVs and giant trailers parked up off the highway. Meanwhile their occupants played with their toys in the sand!
Trail bikes, quad bikes, dune buggies, you name it: they were all there having a happy holiday weekend driving silly vehicles around as fast as they can. It reminded me of the United Arab Emirates actually.
After some hard days climbing I was pleased to be on the flat. No fences, no hills, expansive vistas not much traffic- fantastic.
Shortly however, along came a new challenge for the budding long distance cyclist: a strong head wind. Cycling into the wind is like riding up a hill you will never summit. It is a little bit demoralizing, especially when you still have 40 miles to go that day and you're averaging 6 miles an hour for full effort..
Still, you gotta do what you gotta do and 20 miles later I rolled into the Imperial Valley. The scenery changes from sand and scrub to fields of crops just like that. This valley is irrigated by a canal which diverts water from the Colorado river, irrigating the very fertile soil that exists in this corner of the desert. Just add water to create some of the best salad growing conditions in the whole country.
I nearly fell off my bike with surprise when I rode over the first canal full of blue/green water flowing slowly by.
The tractors are big, the fields are enormous and to be honest it a pretty boring place to ride. Cycling really gives you a sense of perspective though. In the US everything is done on a massive scale. If I'm in farmland, I'm in farmland for a long time, heck it even takes a long time to get to the next giant field at 10-15 mph.
It can be a pain or a pleasure, but where ever I am I'm fully immersed in it's atmosphere with plenty of time to take it all in or drift away into my thoughts, or both usually.
Eventually I arrived at the town of El Centro, mile 54 of the day. Ironically the towns in the incredibly fertile and productive Imperial valley are home to some of the poorest communities in California. Many of the inhabitants are Mexicans.
No sneaky campsite for me in this farming community though so I pressed on , exhausted and looking for a corner of the desert I could call home.
Unfortunately it was not to be. 7 miles up the road the pannier rack sheared off the bike. Metal fatigue was to blame I think, I have lots of stuff and the flimsy aluminium rack was pushed way beyond it's intended use.
This is one of those things I can't fix myself, although a gaffer tape bodge took me the 7 miles back to El Centro riding as if nothing was wrong. I pondered my options for a while but decided a 2 day crossing of the Colorado Desert with a bodged rack was on.
I begrudgingly spent another night in a hotel and bought a new rack the following morning.
A half day's ride took me through Brawley, another farming town, and back out onto the edge of the Sonoran Desert to camp in the wilds again.
So far I'm 1 ½ days behind schedule and $150 over budget, but who cares it's not everyday I get to ride across the Colorado Desert as I will tomorrow and the next day.
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