Epilogue Part 4: Birding...

Our last morning in Yucca Valley we join the local birding group at Morongo valley reserve where they help us spot several firsts - Cedar Waxwings and American Pipit, we even spot the familiar Barn Owl.
After a second breakfast of blueberry pancakes at a local cafe, we drive our loaned jeep across the desert to nearby Black Rock and find a Cactus Wren before we are out of the car park.




Following a walking sand trail through the Joshua Trees to the top of the mountain gives us a view miles back down the sand valley. In the evening, sitting outside the cottage watching the sun go down, Gambels Quail run past, chattering away.
Just after dark a fire engine and ambulance, lights and sirens on, come flying past, over the sand into the hills. They come bouncing back minutes later, looking lost! We can't see flames anyway on the horizon.
In the morning, we push our bikes down the sandy road (alongside fresh coyote tracks) feeling so privileged to have been able to stay in the very heart of the desert.
Most villages have similar street names, eg Buena Vista, but around here they are more imaginative, we notice a Kickapoo Road and set out north on Old Woman Springs Road. There is sparse Sunday traffic so we can enjoy the desolate desert scenery. We complete 50 miles by lunch time but then the desert ends and we are slowed the next 27 miles by heavy traffic and too many traffic lights. Very tired , dusty and thirsty we gratefully book into a very friendly hotel at Hesperia. The top floor room gives panoramic views of the sun sinking over the desert hills we have just left (and is big enough to take our bikes as well!).
CNN are reporting non-stop on Hurricane Sandy which is battering the East coast USA.




They are predicting destruction as far north as NewYork. All flights on that coast are cancelled for tomorrow.




Tour miles to date: 3,029

Location:Yucca Valley to Hesperia

Epilogue Part 3: Joshua Trees...

I forgot to mention in the last blog that we had stocked up on food to survive the remote Salton Sea area, but stopped gratefully at the only shop we had seen for 24 hrs, to buy a cold drink. Apart from a few cans of coke the shop sold mainly booze, & we were rather startled to see the "lady" owner was armed with a large pistol in a holster! You don't get that in Devon!
The cycle north out of Palm Springs is easy using the concrete paths laid everywhere for golf buggies! Finally we are back out in the desert heading past an enormous wind farm and then on up and up through bare stony mountains, to the small town of Morongo Valley. We have a picnic lunch in their Canyon Preserve, alive with birds.
The road today is generally a good tarmac surface, but in places sand has blown across the carriageway.
Onwards and upwards through a lunar sand, rock and Joshua Tree landscape until around 3200 feet we reach the town of Yucca Valley. Another 500 ft up a steep road, and out onto a sand desert track to the our hosts' wooden holiday cottage, high on a ridge, with breathtaking views of the desert all around.





Hummingbirds, Jays , Phainopepla & hawks abound in the native trees and shrubs around the house. There are coyote paw prints in the sand around the house, and next morning we sit outside watching a coyote walk across the opposite hillside.
Our host Craig is a keen birder, taking us birdwatching locally, and then he lends us his jeep for a side trip into the Mojave desert at Joshua Tree National Park.


One of the highlights of the entire trip, this beautiful high desert area is full of granite stones in giant heaps, interspersed with Joshua Trees and other native plants. At 5000ft the view back down, over the San Andreas fault and Coachella valley, to Palm Springs, is breathtaking.


We mostly have the park to ourselves, especially the sand roads, apart from climbers tackling shear rock-faces.


Tour miles to date: 2,958

Location:Palm Springs to Yucca Valley

Epilogue Part 2: Salton Sea...

After miles of flat desert, El Centro appears as an oasis with little farms around, irrigated to produce hay and straw. Employment in the area is provided also by a nearby prison and airforce base. However our "Warmshowers" host, Jon, is one of the border guards we have seen driving up and down! It is very interesting to hear about his job and to watch the last presidential debate with him on his enormous TV.
We set off north, to Salton Sea, for some birdwatching. This salty lake was formed in 1906 when the Colarado River burst its banks and an enormous area was submerged. It is gradually evaporating, and increasing in salinity as it does so.
We had two of our best bird ticks ever here - Burrowing Owl and Roadrunner!





The lake attracts enormous flocks of both white and brown pelicans. Although our route is flat, it is a tough 75 miles up to Bombay Beach,on the eastern shore, as the roads in places are terribly potholed, or just compacted sand or even worse - uncompacted sand! We are rewarded by the most fabulous sunset over the sea with the Choclate Mountains turning pink and the sky bright orange. We are camped 200 ft below sea level. It is almost impossible to get tent pegs to grip in the sand, so secure the tent to our bikes, which amazingly is enough to withstand the strong winds in the night.


Next morning we are on desert until lunchtime, then suddenly irrigation produces massive areas of farmed date palms, lemon orchards and vineyards.
Palm Springs is almost entirely golf resorts and gated communities, set in pristine irrigated gardens. Bob Hope Boulevard is one road that catches our eye.


Tour miles to date: 2,917

Location:El Centro to Palm Springs

The Epilogue part 1:Desert...

We consider we have now earned a day off and so pedal locally, taking in fabulous Balboa Park. Not just pretty gardens but museums of all sorts, with the star of the show the buildings. These were nearly all built for a big exposition in 1915, in a grandiose Spanish style, with plenty of shady colonnades and fountains.


The best of the attractions for us are the Desert Garden, Timkin Art Museum and the Botanic Building, a shaded pavilion full of exotic ferns.
With almost 2 weeks before we are due back in LA, we head off east into the desert. At 4000 feet we camp in the tiny village of Live Oak Springs, spooked by the coyotes calling in the night. We spot our first White-breasted Nuthatch near the tent.


Next morning we are alongside the Mexican border fence at Jacumba, with border patrol vehicles nearly the only cars. We stop frequently to photo the granite craggy mountains.


The owners of the cafe at tiny Jacumba photo us to put on their website! We cycle through Plaster City, and find it to be just a large plaster-of-Paris factory.


Tour miles to date: 2,796

Location:San Diego to El Centro

Journey's end...

From Carlsbad our trail is all along the seashore where there is good surf so every bay is full of (mainly) chaps running in and out of the waves with a board under their arms. One bloke on a bike whizzes past us. He has fitted a petrol motor, which half way up the next hill emits an acrid burning smell, heralding the end of his speed and he pushes the bike & board the rest of the way.
Surprisingly smelly Elephant Seals share the beach with locals at the pretty seaside town of La Jolla, then we are up near Balboa Park, San Diego, where the detached houses have all been built in a Spanish style. Linda and Dom welcome us into their home and help plan our route to the border.
Next morning we follow the Bay cycle route down the bay to the Tijuana River, overlooked by Mexican houses high on a bluff. A very substantial metal fence winds away into the interior hills and across the beach out to sea. Five American helicopters buzz overhead continually. Border patrol vehicles move alongside the fence. There is an enormous concrete bull ring and a lighthouse just beyond the fence. A Mexican fisherman mends his net on the beach, but we have our side to ourselves.





After taking photos to prove we made it, a bike path takes up the Caronada Peninsula to a bicycle ferry. Two cyclists we had spotted heading to the border introduce themselves. They have just finished their trip too and are returning home to Denmark - one has a new Thorn bike!
By lucky coincidence Darren (married to niece Claire) is on a big Motor Yacht in a marina in San Diego, so we can celebrate achieving our border to border goal with him over a few beers before negotiating Downtown in the dark and back up the hill to Linda and Dom.


Tour miles to date: 2,657

Location:Carlsbad to Mexican border

Oil rigs and a ghost...

As we walk home, on our last evening out at Venice Beach, we disturb a large raccoon showing too much interest on the trash bins, on the street for the morning collection.


Harriet is away earlier than us next day, 6.30!, as she has a delegation of 800 people to shepherd at the hotel. We have a more leisurely start, weaving along the dead level beach cycle-path to Redondo Beach. There is an old wooden pier here for rod fisherman, and fish stalls, one selling piles of live crabs.
We had cycled here on the hotel bikes last year and are pleased to see again the brown pelicans sitting on the railings.
Then our only climb of the day and down to Wilmington, an industrial area dominated by an oil refinery. No provision for cyclists on a busy potholed road so a relief to turn off at Long Beach, pretty much as it says on the label, a beautiful clean long sandy beach for miles.
All day the slight sea breeze, swaying the rows of palm trees, keeps the temperature bearable. Next, Seal Beach is familiar as we drove here in H's car earlier this year, and then cycled up the San Gabriel River cycle-path on our folders. This time we cross the river to carry on south. Bolso Chico Beach is also "deja vu"as we visited it last time too, to bird watch on the lake.
The pier at Huntington beach is picturesque, oil rigs are anchored on the horizon and silent nodding donkeys pull up oil on our left. There are even three squeezed in among the cars in the civic centre car park! The lovely family we stay with are surfers and sailors primarily, as to be expected in such a lovely seaside location, but Brian and his mum are keen to do more bike touring when they can.
Next morning there is a little mist along the beachside route. A bit further on Laguna Beach is disappointing as the road is very busy and the shoulder used for parking. At the coffee stop at Crystal Cove, we spot our first California Thasher, foraging in the chaparral alongside.


The route improves as we enter the state park at San Onofre, where we are rewarded with miles of quiet road by the shore, with hardly any cars.
We pass our first "ghost" bike, a white painted bike attached to a fence to mark where a cyclist has been killed in a road accident. The next ten miles are through a large military base so we have to show our passports. It's a quiet ride apart from helicopters constantly overhead, including one apparently keeping a really close eye on us!
Not far from the beach at Carlsbad is the gorgeous home of Gary and Lee (and their two retriever crosses). Last week they had a very heavy rain storm! As a result 4 little frogs have been washed into their swimming pool. They seem very happy swimming around.
We all watch the 2nd presidential debate on TV. To us it seems the president is more proactive and feisty than at the previous match.
Their next door neighbour is hosting a native American drumming/chanting evening which provides an atmospheric background (it reminds us of an Exeter "Chiefs" rugby match)!


Tour miles to date: 2,560

Location:Venice beach to Carlsbad

Four days in LA...

We are happily ensconced in a neighbouring apartment to Harriet, one street back from Venice Beach. After a bit of personal grooming and clothes washing, we wander to the end of Washington Boulevard for breakfast of blueberry pancakes, endless coffee refills and an even bigger portion of people watching. Folks whizz past on skateboards (Mike says I can't have a go as I would probably break a leg), cyclists pedal along on high handle-barred beach-cruisers & the early rising homeless search through bins for returnable bottles and cans.
Next on our easy agenda is a spot of tourist strolling as we wander the back streets of this Venice like area where high value houses set in trendy gardens front narrow canals interspersed with charming little bridges.


In the evening we wander along the wide pale sands watching the surfers enjoy the last few hours of sunshine.



Friday morning, BJ a local expert birder, picks us up and takes us bird watching at the Playa del Rey area, helping us identify, gulls, divers, waders and one of our favourites, White-crowned Sparrows.


A stroll along Venice beach photographing the murals , getting offered marijuana and admiring the bodybuilders, is a must do.





Saturday morning finds us spectating at the paddle tennis courts just along the beach. Played with bats like table tennis on concrete 2/3rd size tennis courts its a fast moving, entertaining game. We "Skype " Chris in London for the first time this trip so it is great to catch up on news. He shows us his flat by taking the laptop into each room and Harriet does the same with her flat as she has moved to this address since he visited. After this we grabbed another few hours on the beach.


Sunday we join the LA Audubon (birding group), driving Harriets car up through Santa Monica, pass the famous pier, through the luxurious mansions of Beverly Hills to the State Park of Franklin Canyon. As we have found before this is a very friendly group who help us see 7 species new to us. Coyotes call to each other near by.


Coopers Hawk

Location:Los Angeles