Friday, June 19, 2015

June 19 Easy Rider is the Early Rider

The heat of Palm Springs is also in the warm hearts of its inhabitants. I was out the door of my Beaumont Motel at 5:30 this morning and had an easy ride to Palm Springs. Google Maps, which I rely on immensely let me down twice on this 35 mile ride through high desert. 

The wind that powers these windmills also keep the smoke well above where I rode today. 

The smoke from the Riverside County fire lay across my path, but the smoke was high not engulfing the lower areas. I made it the 8 miles to Banning in just 30 minutes. This day’s ride was almost entirely downhill, with the wind at my back. At times I had to use the brakes when I wasn’t even pedaling. But then Google sent me to a restricted reservation. The guard told me of an alternative path between the railroad tracks and Hwy10. Mostly an abandoned roadway but for the first mile it was not much more than a boulder lined stream bed. Eventually I was back on the Google map route when it sent me to a ‘road’ in White Water. Worse than the first off road track today it lead me in a one mile circle of deep sand and gravel. 



The wind is put to good use, not just pushing me along my journey. The landscape is filled with wind farms like this one. 

I was lucky that the gate at the end-beginning was not locked. My only alternative at that point was to get on Hwy 10. That lasted only a few hundred feet to where Hwy 111 splits off. This was a great ride where I nearly never had to work except to keep the bike and myself from being blown over. However I was checked into my motel by 9AM. 


And their warm hearts. After checking in I went out for coffee and breakfast. My first stop was the Christian Science Reading Room. There two wonderful women and I talked about my ride. Next stop was breakfast where the waitress informed me that someone had paid for my meal. How great is that. And then to top the day off I was able to find and purchase an eternal battery charger for my phone, one that works!! The two women at Radio Shack helped me out. The last two such devices I had purchased do not work. 

View outside my balcony
Thank you to all who share and comment on Facebook. 
Here is my page <https://www.facebook.com/dan.monte.39> if you would like to do so. 
So far I have ridden over 600 miles and this blog has had over 1200 page views. This really helps me to keep going.


1 comment:

  1. you are doing great! I couldn't do it. Good luck. Also don't trust google maps in remote areas. You may want to double check the rout on other map sites.
    Joe

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