Palm Springs

With the prospect of baking in the heat in the desert not that appealing, we woke up at 5:00am and were on the road at around 5:45am to get as much of our ride over with before the heat climbed to an unbearable level as the day progressed. To give you an idea, the overnight low was around 82 Fahrenheit, or 28 Celsius, so it was still pretty warm when we left before dawn.

We started out on Interstate 40 west and then soon branched off on the historic Route 66 and rode for an hour through to Amboy where we stopped for a stretch and some water. This was where we said 'goodbye' to Route 66. We had enjoyed the many towns between Oklahoma City and Amboy that we had visited during our tour following the 'Mother Road' across 4 states. We took a photo of the iconic Roys Cafe/Motel, jumped back on the bike, turned left at the intersection and rode another hour south through the desert to the town of Twentynine Palms (I wonder how it got it's name!!). We stopped for fuel and breakfast and then carried on along Hwy 62 to the town of Joshua Tree. Now as a U2 fan, I had to do my Bono impersonation and have my photo taken next to a Joshua Tree in an attempt to replicate the cover of the U2 'Joshua Tree' album (the photo shoot for the album cover occurred here in the Joshua Tree National Park area). I didn't quite pull it off as I am about half a metre taller than Bono - oh well!

We rode through the Yucca Valley and past a huge wind farm with rows and rows of giant turbines. After about an hour of riding since we left Twentynine Palms, we arrived in Palm Springs. We took our riding jackets off as the heat was climbing steadily by now and we spent some time looking around Palm Springs (short rides between air conditioned shops!). We were fortunate that we could also check in to our motel early at 1:30pm to escape the worst of the days heat!