Sand Dunes and Changing Landscapes

Day 69: El Centro, CA

Today we rode 70 miles without services before reaching Brawley and finally El Centro, CA.

The ride started out in Palo Verde where we quickly exited town and found ourselves riding along fields with what appeared to be irrigation canals running alongside the road. We then hit a stretch of desert with small brush and reddish colored dirt as far as I could see. When we crossed into the ever so small town of Glamis we suddenly found ourselves riding though Sand Dunes that quickly appeared on both sides of the road with giant dunes on the left side and smaller dunes off to the right. I was riding with Alex, Allison and Andrew at the time and we stopped to walk around in the sand and take pictures. I found the sand to be more solid than I expected it to be as walking on it only left faint footprints. While we were stopped Anish, Jon, James and Sehee caught up to us after they had stopped to put air in Jon’s tire just prior to Glamis. When we exited the dunes we were in an area that again looked like desert. At our final water stop before lunch (about 25 miles outside of Brawley) we found ourselves right near the Chocolate Mountain Naval Res. and rode for about two miles with jets circling in the sky above. As we entered Brawley it amazed me how fast we went from desert like conditions to land significantly more agricultural with crops and green fields. We literally crossed one road and all of a sudden everything was green!

We reached Brawley around 12:30 p.m. and set up lunch outside a Texaco gas station. I had a Chili/Ramon and cheese sandwich (creativity is key!) before going into the gas station and buying a 25-cent brownie to put on my second sandwich along with a small bottle of milk to drink. After lunch I headed to El Centro with Anish, James, Jon and Sehee while Allison, Alex and Andrew stopped at a fruit stand on the way out of Brawley to get fresh fruit. The ride from Brawley to El Centro was a nice easy ride however it was sprinkling and the roads were wet meaning we were covered in mud by the time we reached our destination at the First Christian Church in El Centro. I was happy to find that there were showers available for us to use and after unpacking the van wasted little time hitting the shower as I was covered in mud. The church put us up in a large room that appeared to be the youth room or a youth center with video games, a man made wooden stage, arcade style games and a caged in recording studio all in the room. We relaxed and hung out as the rest of the team began to arrive with some people taking naps while others read or played video games. Anish, Alex and James went to try and get dinner donated and returned with melons, eggs, OJ and ice cream popsicles! Dan and Brandt made us pancakes and eggs for dinner which proved to be a nice change from or normal dinner meals.

After dinner I worked on transcribing more video for the Portrait Project. Clay one of the Ministers at the church stopped by with cookie dough, ice cream and root beer for us to make root beer floats. To clarify we ate the cookie dough and did not put it in our root beer floats. After enjoying our root beer floats most of us headed to bed. Tomorrow is our last off day with San Diego just three days away.