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Southwest Spring Desert Tour
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Arizona, California and Nevada
March 18 - 27, 2005
Monday, March 21 Queen Creek, AZ to Indio, CA 420 miles
Day 2: Sonoran desert to Colorado Desert
The morning was clear and the temperatures were in the low 50’s, with a forecast calling for sunny and 70’s in Phoenix. We started rolling out of town around 8:30AM but ran in to major construction on almost every road we took out of the Phoenix area. After what seemed like forever we finally arrived at 347 South, which was a pretty straight highway. I was planning on getting gas in Maricopa but did not see any gas stations before we turned off on 238 West. As we headed to Gila Bend I realized that I had no idea how many miles to get there. In 50 or 60 more miles I would run out of gas. This scenario immediately brought images of vultures circling our dead bodies in my head. 238 crosses the Sonoran Desert, although the temperatures are quite pleasant here in spring. You would think this road would be as straight as an arrow but actually there are many high speed sweepers here and the roads continually dips up and down, also not very many cars. There were plenty of saguaro cactus here, and mostly sand and no flowers. We arrived in Gila Bend and gassed up. I didn’t want to waste any time, since there were no twisty roads in this area. We hopped on I-8 West heading towards California.
Now the roadside was littered with flowers of many colors and again the sweet smell of spring was in the air. Huge numbers of butterflies, which looked like Monarchs, were frolicking around the flowers. Thousands getting hit by passing cars and I’m sure I killed a few hundred myself. At certain moments we would get bombarded by them. Their hard bodies would hit and make a loud popping sound, sometimes startling me. They would leave a nice yellow sticky mess behind. As we got closer to the California state line I was having problems seeing though my visor, a good portion of it was covered by the sticky goop. We pulled over in Yuma, AZ to clean our helmet shields, grab some lunch and gas. There was a Jack In The Box right off the interstate, always a treat for us as fast food chains go, since we don’t have those in Chicagoland. Gourmet-like sandwiches are always better than a burger and those jalapeño poppers are my favorite. Jack In The Box was very crowded, we parked our bikes off to the side since there were no empty parking spots. The day was beautiful and it was in the 70’s so instead of going inside we ate our lunch on the grass near our bikes. Before getting on the interstate we stopped at the gas station next door. Their computers were down and we had to pre-pay with cash. The line to pay inside was ridiculous and after we pumped gas we realized we overpaid by $8. It would take 20 minutes to get our money back. The lady at the cash register looked like she was about to quit and the people were getting disgruntle and Brian had to go in and raise some hell so we could finally be on our way.
West on I-8 again, I was thinking how much I hate to ride the interstate but I would have to say that this approximately 200 mile stretch was very enjoyable, especially this time of the year (minus the butterfly guts). Mountains in the distance changed shapes; flowers would appear in great numbers, white, yellow and pink. Right before Yuma there was a neat little mountain that we had to climb. Past the California state line we rode through a produce/livestock check station. Brian tore out of there so quick that I couldn’t catch him to exit at Felicity. There is a neat looking pyramid there, but at least I got to see it from the highway. In California, there were no flowers and for a while the scenery was boring, but then we passed though The Imperial Sand Dunes Recreational Area. The sand dunes were huge and right by the road. This area has the largest mass of sand dunes in California, rising to heights of more than 300 feet above the surrounding desert floor. I sure wouldn’t want to be on this section of the interstate when it got really windy.
I didn’t want to stop again but the signs for Date City and their date shakes had me intrigued. As I passed the exit I looked to the South and saw neat little rows of date palms growing. I’ve never had a date shake before; I didn’t even know they existed. Shortly after the land turned green as we passed some farms and then dry again as we took the exit for S2 in Ocotillo. Brian wanted to check out the gas station South of the interstate, it looked more modern than the one on the Northern side. We grabbed some water there but they were completely out of gas and we needed some. We Continued in the direction of the park and stopped at the other gas station. TwoHondas (Todd) from ST.N was waiting for us. It was 2:50PM and I guesstimated that we would arrive between 2-3PM.
After some chit chat, we all took off northbound towards Anzo-Borrego Desert State Park which has over 600,000 acres of land and is the largest desert state park in the contiguous United States. Todd only rode for a short while before stopping and turning around. The road through the park was sometimes bumpy, always narrow but meandered up and down for miles at times getting very tight and twisty. As parks go, there were hardly any places to pull over for pictures. Not as many flowers and colors here, the predominant colors yellow, purple ad pink. The scenery was amazing nevertheless. Way more traffic than I had expected through the park. As we climbed in elevation the temperatures dropped and I had to add some layers. We continued on S2 which turned east on 78. The road got noticeably more twisty as we continued riding through a few canyons. I never did see another sign for S2, there was another road on the left and I had a feeling that was it. After we passed S3 I realized that we needed to turn around. Since it was getting late already I decided to take S3 North to Borrego Springs and we would ride S22 (Montezuma Grade) tomorrow. It’s been a long day already and I wanted to find a motel room. The town of Borrego Springs is a desert resort town, it’s small and cozy with many palm trees. There are no stoplights in Borrego, in the center of town there is a turnabout that directs traffic to all the major cross roads.
As luck would have it, there were no motel vacancies in Borrego Springs, a risk you always run when you don’t want to make reservations. The sun had already set so we decided to grab some dinner at the Los Jilbertos. The place was jumping and it took a while until a parking spot opened in front of the restaurant. There were tons of people inside. Brian ordered and waited for our food as I took over one of the tables outside and looked over the map, trying to figure out where we could find some lodging tonight. After about 20 minutes our food was up and we were ready to dig in. I ordered beans, cheese and rice burrito and Brian ordered a fish taco and 5 rolled Taquitos. The temperature was in the mid 60’s as we left town via S22 east towards the Salton Sea. S22 was a pleasant sweeping road and had no traffic, we turned North on 86, a straight four lane highway, and headed towards I- 10 where we could find a motel. If the Salton Sea was visible from the road, I couldn’t see anything, only lights in the distance. Salton Sea is actually a lake which occupies a desert basin known as the Salton Sink. This body of water covers a surface area of 376 square miles, making it the largest lake in California.
We stayed North on 111 but soon that somehow ended and we were on I-10 traveling West. We took a few exits but could not locate the motels depicted on the Interstate signs; finally we stumbled on to the Quality Inn in Indo and decided to call it a night. It’s been a long day and it was almost 10PM already. Brian was still adjusting the bikes underneath the canopy, parking them close to the front door. As he rolled my bike back and forth to get it as close to the curb as possible I noticed something shinny on my back tire. After a close examination of the object, there was no question to its identity. It was a big nail lodged in my BTO20. The back tire had less than 2000 miles on it. I couldn’t believe it. Will there ever be a tour that doesn’t require the purchase of a new tire?
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