California

California, the last state of my United States section. I was pretty excited to be entering this state. I’ve visited a few large cities but never really got to see much outside of that. I planned a nice route similar to the Bikepacking.com SoCal Desert Rambler. It would take me through some nice parks and a lot of desert riding.

I was equally nervous and excited about the desert riding. It would be an entirely new terrain and experience for me. It would bring a lot more challenges that I was not used to. I’d need much more water and I’d have to learn how to ride on the sand. I know that a lot of this would be similar to the Baja so I saw it as a great way of preparing.

That’s a lot of beer.

The Colorado River. It was the border for this part of Arizona and California. This part of the river was incredibly clear and beautiful. I had last seen this river in the Grand Canyon where it was very murky and full of mud. I enjoyed a swim in the river to clean off.

I was wanting to camp on the river that night. I first asked some RV parks about tent camping but none of them allowed it. I ended up finding this nice river wash that was fully covered with some foliage. I thought it would be a perfect place to stealth camp for the night.

Back to riding on Route 66. It wasn’t a highly trafficked section so I enjoyed some fast and peaceful riding. A lot of trains were riding along with me. Sometimes the conductors would honk their horns at me and a few times I would be neck and neck with the conductor’s cab and would try to race them. They would only go about 25mph so I was able to keep up for a bit until a ran out of energy. One even rolled down his window and passed me a thumbs up, small things like that keep my energy high.

I arrived in the town of Goffs which didn’t look like much from Google Maps. I saw there was pretty much just an old schoolhouse museum but I still decided to stop and check it out. I was extremely surprised to arrive and see loads of people. It seemed as if there was an event going on. I met someone who was working and found out it was the 43rd annual Mojave Road Rendezvous put on by the MDHCA. I was invited to camp there and join in the activities and potluck dinner.

I was shown to a camp spot that was near a really cool outdoor shower. It was surrounded by mountains and deserts. After setting up my camp I enjoyed a refreshing warm shower.

I met some amazing people at this event. A lot of the people in the organization were Overlanders. There was a lot of great 4×4 riding in the Mojave so it attracted a lot of 4×4 riders. Here in this photo is Billy, who was the president of the MDHCA. He has driven all over the world and extensively in the Baja. He was able to give me lots of advice about the Baja. We took some tequila shots together and then shared some beers with his friend Chris while I heard amazing stories about their time Overlanding in Latin America. Along with Chris and Billy, I met some amazing people who have done incredible things. This was one of those cases of being in the right place at the right time.

Some of the people lining up for the book signings. A few new books were being released by authors in the organization. It was really interesting getting to talk to some of them as I haven’t met any authors before. Most of the books are inspired by the Mojave Desert.

The potluck was delicious. Lots of home-cooked food and I ate well.

The night was capped off with a silent movie! A guy was playing the piano along with it just like they used to way back when. I had never seen a silent movie like this so it was a cool experience.

The sun was about to rise. Before this trip, I used to sleep in really late. The longer I’ve been on the road the more my sleep schedule has connected to the sun. As soon as it goes down I get tired and as soon as it comes up I wake up. I love being up for both the sunrise and sunset each day.

Beautiful sunrise while I make my breakfast.

My breakfast 99% of the time. Oatmeal is such a cheap and effective food. It can get old quickly but it is easy to spice up. Peanut butter is my favorite as it makes it much much creamier. Here in this photo, I have peanut butter, honey, nuts, and some seeds. Then I add boiling water and let it cook for a minute and enjoy. I usually boil some extra water for some tea. My favorite is green tea with some honey.

This would be my last day riding on Route 66. This was a great section because most of the road was closed due to some flood damage to bridges. It was unsafe for cars to pass but no problem for bicycles.

Had the whole road to myself.

Abandoned buildings are always interesting to me to see and explore. Relics of a time long ago. Route 66 was great for abanded exploration as so many places along the route are now abandoned.

Somewhere near the town of Essex. A whole town of abandoned buildings.

Inspired by my new Overlanding friends, I decided to hop off my personal paved road for some 4×4 track riding. Before I left Goffs this morning, I had met a film crew that was filming a short documentary about the Mojave for On-x. On-x is an application for Overlanders / 4×4 enthusiasts. It has loads of popular 4×4 tracks and lots of information about them. The people filming loved my story and even filmed a little bit about me and my trip. I was also given a subscription to On-x which was awesome. I used that app to find this section and wanted to test it out.

I had a slow, sandy climb but then it would be all downhill. I started down in that valley below. The road was a little bit sandy but I was able to slowly pedal so it wasn’t too bad.

It was a beautiful route. It got me much closer to some mountains.

I rode past this small peak and looked like a perfect little scramble. I love scrambling and low-grade climbing.

A little Saturday sandal scramble.

View from the top. That road was the direction I was headed.

Because I spent a lot of time climbing on the rocks, I decided to reconnect back to the paved Route 66 to get to my destination a bit quicker. This section was much much sandier. There was at least a small descent so I was able to keep going but it was pretty loose.

I only had to push a few small sections. At the time I didn’t know how much lowering the air in my tires would help. I figured that out a few days later and was surprised by how much more traction it gave me.

It was a long day riding with the 4×4 detour I took. I was riding into the sunset into Amboy. Amboy had the only gas station and services around. That small mound on the left half is actually a volcano, Amboy Crater.

Finally made it to the gas station. I was very tired and craving something to drink. Thankfully the shop has a great selection of fancy sodas and I drank 4 of them.

The motel was run down but this place is a really cool historical spot on Route 66.

I was able to camp out behind one of the hotel rooms with permission from the store managers. I spent a lot of time hanging and talking with the workers because they were so nice.

One thing I noticed about the desert is that people like to put random stuff everywhere. Pretty much every couple of miles there was something random just on the side of the road as an art piece or something.

There was a small climb to get out of Amboy as I was heading to Twentynine palms. It was nearly 100deg outside and much hotter with the heat of the pavement reflecting back. It made this climb extremely hard for me. I was still adapting to the heat and I’ve always considered myself a cold-weathered person. I was ready for the challenge and enjoyed each minute of the struggle.

I was pretty happy when I finally made it to the downhill section.

Just outside of town I noticed someone who looked like a thru hiker on the side of the road. I rolled up and decided to say hey and see what he was doing. His name is Robert and he is 21 and decided recently to hike from San Diego to New York City. He was unhappy with where he was in life and decided to make a change. We talked for a while as I was fascinated with him and his trip. I was heading into town and he was heading into a remote section of Route 66 so I left him with as much food and water as I could.

The next day I was leaving Twentynine palms and heading into Joshua Tree National Park. There’s no water available in the park so I would need to bring enough water to last me about two days. I brought about 9.5 liters of water which would turn out to be a few too many, but I also wanted to test how many liters I could carry. Even though there was no water in the park, I always knew I could ask someone in an RV or something for some spare water. Thankfully it didn’t come to that.

Park entrance! I was very much looking forward to this section as many of my friends had told me how cool the park was.

The Joshua Tree! They are a very interesting tree and some of them get pretty big and wild.

The park is named for the trees, but to me and a lot of others, the rocks are the coolest part. These massive boulders are about half the age of the planet. They are so massive it looks strange as if someone stretched out small rocks.

I of course had to scramble up some of these because they looked too enticing. They were a lot of fun to climb and find a way up to the top.

These cool boulders were all over this section of the park.

After climbing the afternoon away, I rode towards Ryan’s Campground where there were some bicycle campsites. It’s very hard to get campsite reservations in the park but thankfully the bicycle spots are there.

This campground was really beautiful. All the campsites were surrounded by more large rocks.

The bicycle campsites shared an area with a large group campsite. The area was rented out by an organization Higher Ground which is a group that gets veterans together and outside to do something cool. They had come here for a week of climbing. They were an awesome group of people and included me to hangout around the campfire with them that night.

I was riding a 4×4 track out of the park. It was going to be a massive descent as I would descend nearly 4,000 feet in about 20 miles. It sounds like it should be fast but it was a very technical and sandy descent so I was going pretty slow.

It wasn’t as bad as this sign made it out to be.

Riding down in this canyon was a lot of fun. I was really enjoying the scenery.

A little bit rocky in some sections but I was able to ride almost all of it. Definitely glad to be riding down it and not up it. I would ride this track all the way to Indio, CA.

Palm trees are pretty cool trees. I will be seeing them for the next many months so maybe they will get old, but they are not yet.

Heading into some more 4×4 areas.

This section had some pretty deep sand later on. Thankfully I was able to ride off the road right next to it where it was a much harder pact.

I have seen these little lizards all over the past week but have struggled to get a good photo. They are very elusive and hard to get close to. I thought I finally got lucky with this guy but after this photo, he hid in a hole underneath the rock.

After a long sandy ride, I made it to a wonderful free campground. This place had shelter, benches, and even hot showers for $0.50 / 3 minutes which is the cheapest I’ve seen yet. It was still early in the season here so I had the entire place to myself. After a quick shower, I enjoyed some hammock time as I read my book.

Walked up the hill near the campground to catch a lovely sunset.

Beautiful colors in the sky during the sunset. Sunrises are cool but I’m definitely a sunset guy.

I heard a lot of great things about this state park so I was also looking forward to this section. It would turn out to be my favorite few days riding in California, albeit also the most challenging.

After finally getting off the road, I started riding up a massive river wash towards a canyon.

This little White-lined Sphinx Moth was heading the same way as me.

Of course, I had to get a classic “bike laying down in front of route” photo. I do love what having my bike in the photo does to add to the photo. It reminds me of the amazing places my bike has taken me.

This canyon already had me giddy with excitement. The double track was very weathered and loose, but thankfully it was easy to find some more solid ground outside the track.

This was easily the most dramatic part of the canyon. I was in disbelief being surrounded by these massive cliffs on all sides. I took a few minutes off the bike to appreciate it.

After leaving the canyon, I was back on a wide-open river wash. The landscape went from very rocky and jagged to a very soft and dirt-like mountain.

I took a turn off the main river wash route into a tight canyon road. There was a very very deep and steep sandy climb out of here. I couldn’t even push my bike up it, I had to drag it up a few feet at a time. After that climb, I had a slow descent all the way back to the paved road which would take me to Agua Caliente Springs.

That day I did about 50 miles total and about half of it was on offroad sandy track. It took me about 5 hours to get through the 25 sandy miles so it was by no means fast. Even though it was extremely challenging and slow, it was one of my favorite days of riding. I had known going into this section that it would be much slower and involve a lot of hiking but because I was prepared and knew what to expect, I found it extremely fun and rewarding.

I made it to Agua Caliente about 30 minutes after the store had closed. I walked around the back and noticed the owner was still around and I asked him if there was any chance I could get in the shop to grab some snacks and drinks. It was a long and hot day riding and I was craving some sweets. He was awesome and was happy to open up the shop for me since I was a cyclist. His name was Mark.

After consuming a ton of soda and snacks he was telling me about the State Park hot springs just a mile up the road. I arrived after the pools had closed today so I was planning to camp and then hit the pools tomorrow and relax and only ride a few hours the next day. Mark told me that instead of paying $30 to camp at the state park I could pitch my tent around the corner of his property. He was getting ready to make his weekly 4-hour drive to town to re-up his supply for his shop. He asked me if there was anything I wanted and I mentioned some canned chili sounded delicious. After he ran to the store I went out and set up camp and made some dinner and then promptly passed out.

The next day I woke up and spent a few hours soaking in the hot springs at the park. I was only planning to ride about 15 miles today as I was camping at the bottom of a huge and challenging climb that I wanted to do early the next day. So that gave me all morning to relax.

After relaxing I went to stop by Mark and his shop to say hey and grab a few things. He offered me a beer and we went back to his house which is right behind the shop. We spent a few hours talking and hanging out. Mark was an incredibly interesting person and it was great getting to know him and hearing his story.

While hanging out on Mark’s patio, we heard some big horn sheep up on the cliffs behind us. While I was at the hot springs, a lot of the other visitors mentioned that they haven’t seen sheep in the many years they have been visiting. So it was a really cool experience to be able to see them.

This sheep had some massive horns. It was wild because it seemed like he was walking closer and closer to me, but not heading toward me.

It turns out the pack of sheep was coming to drink some water from a tub with well water overflow setup by Mark. He put it out there to give water to any animals that needed it. He was telling me he would get a large variety of animals coming to visit. He loves to be surrounded by nature and animals and he has a really amazing place to experience it.

He has a couple of hummingbird feeders as well! These little fellas were flying around us all afternoon. Mark said that he has about 19 birds who frequent here.

After spending a few hours with Mark, I had to continue riding. This type of cactus pictured is called Cholla Cactus and it’s one of my favorites. It looks amazing when the sun is behind it because it makes all the cactus needles have a glow effect.

I was headed up Oriflamme Canyon and was planning to camp at the bottom of the climb.

The first alive non-garter snake I’ve seen yet! I didn’t know what type it was but I could tell it was anything venomous or dangerous. When I had service again I tried to identify it and I believe it is a small gopher snake.

A little bit further I noticed a large tarantula walking across the track! This one was the largest I’ve seen yet and was really cool to watch.

I rarely make fires but there was an abundance of fuel nearby, plus it seemed like the appropriate way to heat up my can of chili that Mark had picked up from the store for me.

The next morning I woke up and started the trip out of the canyon. The first section had about 1,000 feet of climbing over 2 miles and then another 1,000 feet but over 4 miles. I was prepared to hike a lot of it but I only had to hike the first 3 miles. It was extremely rocky and rough at times but it was a wonderful morning and the birds were out singing.

After I climbed out of the canyon I rode into the clouds. It was a really cool change of scenery. It was also much colder.

I reconnected with the highway shortly after and rode into Lake Cuyamaca. Shortly after getting there, it started pouring down rain and hail. While sitting outside the bar trying to figure out where to camp, a man stopped and started talking to me. He was an avid cyclist who was retired but working at REI part-time in the bike shop. He introduced himself as Todd and then invited me into the restaurant to join him and his family for lunch. They treated me to a delicious burger and beer and we had a great time chatting. Todd had given me his contact information since he lived in San Diego and wanted to help me get my bike ready for the Baja.

After waiting for a break in the rain, I rode up the road to Paso Picacho State Park. Here I was able to get a $5 hiker/biker spot which was amazing. The lady running the gate had cycled around Europe in her youth and even offered to cover my camping fee for the night. Cyclists are some of the nicest and most amazing communities ever. All this kindness I receive only makes me want to give it back even more. I can’t wait till I’m in a position to give other cyclists on trips the support that I am currently given.

The next morning I had a lot of descending into San Diego. It was fast and very fun for the first section. I would end up only riding into Santee because I stopped and grabbed a bite for lunch. After finishing my meal a lovely couple sat down and started chatting with me after seeing my bike. It’s amazing how much of a conversation started my bike is. I would end up talking with them for at least an hour.

After realizing the time and still having a lot of miles left to my friend’s house, I decided to just hop on the tram and ride it much closer to the ocean. I was getting into the suburbs of San Diego and there wasn’t really any pleasant riding left so it was an easy decision.

I had a nice short ride to the ocean from the tram stop. I was very excited to finally see the ocean again. It felt great to get to San Diego as it signifies the end of my United States section. I would have one more day riding in California towards Mexico after my break, but it wouldn’t be very much. The main goal of this trip is to bike through Latin America so I was treating the US section as a way of getting in shape and testing out the bike for Latin America. The US turned out to be way more than just a proving ground and I had an incredible time. I was able to ride some beautiful routes and meet some amazing people who will be friends of mine for many years to come.

After that, I headed toward my friend, Coles, place. Cole is a great friend of mine that I met online playing games nearly 5 years ago. I’m also a huge PC gamer in my spare time and have met a lot of great people that way. Cole and I had met in person many times at LAN parties our friend group put together.

Cole loves to learn new things and languages are one of his favorites. He has an extensive background in Spanish so he was able to help me out a bit while I was with him. Along with Spanish, he practices a few other languages.

After a few days with Cole, I headed to my good friend Kindra’s place. She and I met over 10 years ago and have been good friends for a while. We like to drink wine and watch bad reality tv.

She has two very cute cats who grew to like me almost as much as I liked them. This one here is Zuzu and she liked to nap on my foot while I worked on the computer.

This one is Navi and she liked to mess with all my things while I worked on them, I didn’t mind much, though. Here she is attacking my camera strap.

I’m very thankful that Kindra and her roommate, Dillon, allowed me to take over a corner of their living room with my gear explosion.

Todd, who I mentioned I met earlier in this blog, had invited me to his house to work on some of my bike upgrades. He has a fantastic garage full of his bikes, surfboards, and skateboards. He had every tool we could need also. We spent a full day together talking bikes and working on my bike. We got my new tires for the Baja Divide installed, a new bottom bracket installed, a new chain, new derailleur cables, my new dynamo charger setup, breaks aligned, and saddle tied. I cannot thank him enough for the time he gave to me to teach me more about my bike. His girlfriend also prepared us a delicious lunch and dinner before I headed back to Kindra’s.

I will be in San Diego for at least a week spending time with friends, working on my bike, practicing Spanish, and of course, relaxing by the beach. The plan is to start down the Baja around October 28th.

I will always thank you all at the end of each post because I truly am so thankful to have people following along. I hope you all are as excited as I am to see what this next year brings. I’m ready for the challenges and rewards that biking through new countries will bring. My main goal is to get down to Patagonia around December 2023, over a year away. It seems so far away but I’m taking it just a week or so at a time.

Peace and Love,
Zach