The Boston Globe talks about vacationing in Newfoundland. Hah! Been there, done that!

The Desert Tour was everything Knox and I could have hoped for, and more. After our little hotel fiasco-cum-windfall, we spent the first few days sightseeing around San Diego on foot and running last-minute errands to get our bikes ready for the trip. We walked along the waterfront, visited the arboretum in Balboa Park, and walked in Coronado. San Diego struck me as a blandly pleasant city: the streets were wide and clean and everything seemed nice enough, but the parts where we were seemed to lack a certain vitality, a certain je ne sais quoi, during the day. To be sure, at night the Gaslamp District came alive with partyiers and revelers, all the more so because it was St. Patrick’s Day.

The biking part of our trip began on a Sunday: we took the street car to the neighboring town of El Cajon to avoid the hassles of city traffic. From there, we immediately began a steep, arduous climb, after only fifteen miles of which we decided to call it a night at the town of Alpine. We were off to an inauspicious start: we had a heavy rain shower shortly after we began, and had to buy giant Ziplock bags to protect our tent and sleeping bags, as we had purposefully not packed wet-weather gear; this was Southern California, after all! The reality was that, in spite of our visions of cavorting in Souther California shirtless, the area was in the middle of a cold spell the likes of which had not been seen since 1991. In fact, on the second night of our actual biking, as we were crossing the mountains through Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, we were surrounded by snow. The park and its campgrounds were closed, but the volunteers manning the welcome center made a few phone calls and obtained authorization to open up a cabin for us, and near the bathrooms at that. Yep, we were the only ones there, in a little hut with a wood-burning stove (which we kept lit throughout the night). It was all very Brokeback, what with the isolation, the camping, and Knox’s neo-cowboy hat.

The morning held even more surprises for us: a fresh inch or two of snow covering our path out of the park, and sleet and sludge on the main road. We hitched a ride to the town of Julian, locally famous for its pies, with some San Diego chiropractors in the area for the first time. It was all downhill from there (literally, certainly not figuratively!). A hailstorm accompanied us on our departure from Julian, and my fingers were seared by the cold that rendered my biking gloves thin wet rags. As we lost elevation, however, the weather turned gradually warmer and drier, and we were amazed at how quickly our surroundings changed into spectacular mountainous desert views. During one of our stops, in fact, a fellow bike tourer with four Ortliebs to my two passed us with a fleeting greeting.

Our stop that day was Agua Caliente state park, a natural hot spring in the desert. We soaked in both the indoor and outdoor pools with fellow vacationers, most of them elderly folks, until closing time (5pm most weekdays, unfortunately). We pitched our tent in the sand among the not-so-shy cotton-tail rabbits and got an amazing view of the mottled sky after the sun fell.

After an equally spectacular sunrise, we got on our bikes and pedaled on to the Yuma Desert. We passed through Plaster City, a giant drywall manufacturing plant, and a multitude of plowed fields made possible by the wonders (hah!) of irrigation. Though we were considering biking up to the Salton Sea, we decided to spend the night in El Centro, where we stuffed ourselves with Mexican food and enjoyed the motel hot tub.

The last and longest cycling day found us on an the worst roads of all: cracked, abandoned pavement running parallel to the highway. Though we were tempted to spend some time at an alluring hot spring oasis by the side of Highway 8, we pedaled on. What few irrigated fields there were had been abandoned, and before long we came to the sand dunes that could easily be the set of any Saharan (or Star Wars!) epic– save perhaps for the helicopters that seemed to hover near us every so often, probably an immigration patrol trying to convince itself that latex-clad bikers were probably not undocumented foreign nationals. In the midst of this isolation, no less, my bike broke down: the vibration from riding the warped pavement had sheared off one of the screws holding up one of my front racks, and right as I fixed that, my front tire went flat (no visible puncture, perhaps it there was something loose in the bent valve). We persevered, and at 5:14, after 194 miles of biking, we crossed the [not-so-mighty] Colorado River into Yuma, Arizona.

Knox’s parents were waiting for us on the Arizona side of the bridge. After introductions (and an all-too-public change of clothes) we had dinner and headed back to the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, where they are stationed. We were able to stay in our own guest trailer, and were treated to good home cooking and friendly ribbing during our stay. We went on several hikes at the refuge and in the Kofa Refuge, during which we were able to see barrel, saguaro, prickly pear, and agave cacti, as well as ocotillos, palo verdes, wild honeycombs, lizards, bats (and bat caves), and endangered frogs. The highlight, though, has to have been the rattlesnake that Knox and I stepped over one night and which was only pointed out to us by Knox’s nephew (who joined us with his mother toward the end of our stay).

Though I enjoyed meeting Knox’s family and we all got along really well (even Miss Whitney, the slightly spastic new family dog which one night ransacked the home while we were away), it was all too soon time to part. After a brief visit to the Yuma Crossing museum, we boarded a bus back to San Diego. We got a brief glimpse of Calexico and got carded by immigration authorities. As we suspected, there were a lot of border crossings and border patrols during our whole trip, in part because of geography and in part because of the political events in Washington.

We stayed just one night at the Hotel Solamar, enjoying a fancy dinner and all the accoutrements of luxury, before departing on our respective flights– Knox to Seattle, me to Boston. The time has just flown by, but we consider ourselves pretty lucky to have the type of life where we can take such crazy, wild vacations– and we’re already thinking about the next one.

In a few hours, I will be flying from Boston to San Diego, where Knox will join me from his current work stint in Seattle.

Our ultimate goal: Yuma, AZ, by way of Joshua Tree National Park.

Yes, we’re taking our bikes. Yes, we’re biking in the desert. Insane? Perhaps. Intense? Most definitely!

Lest you worry, we expect to be in cell phone range and Knox’s parents (whom I’ll finally meet!) will pick us up from Joshua Tree, or earlier if we wimp out… It would be great to bike all the way from Joshua Tree to Yuma, but there isn’t enough time.

The adventure awaits… as does my cab.