Day 5. 67 mi. 2000 ft climb. Long, scary day

Longest day in the saddle. 6:23. Brawley to Palo Verde CA

Started out pretty simple rolling thru the Imperial Valley farmland. Good shoulder, some truck traffic. After about 15 miles we climbed out of the valley and into the desert

To the left we’re the chocolate Mtns and straight ahead was the Imperial Sand Dune recreation area. BLM. Very pretty ride

After Glamis we were in for about 35 mile roller coaster highway of terror! I kid you not! The shoulder was the white line with a drop off within inches of the white line. The highway was described as “dips” as it roller coasted through a series of desert washes for 35 miles. We had some heads up about what was coming from another rider but the experience was the biggest adrenaline rush on a bike I’ve ever had. There was ALOT of semi truck and massive RV traffic going both directions!! Many of the dips were blind corners at the top or just so deep and hilly you couldn’t see what was coming ahead or behind you. Jim and I were riding together so he could see no trucks or cars behind us as we headed down and then we pedaled like hell to get to the top before traffic came. I will say that all the semis we encountered were very courteous. We did luck out and pulled over in one of the few pullouts just as 3 semis in a row went flying by! Sometimes a car would be passing coming right at us….this made me the most anxious.

We stopped pretty frequently to rest our nerves and enjoy what was really beautiful country. If this road had shoulders and a few less semis it would have been really fun.

Fortunately when we were headed through this section there was a big group Adventure Cycle tour in the mix. About 20 of them. This kept all the traffic on their toes …or so I like to think!

Curt was ahead of us so when we met up his recount of the “terror highway “ had many more close calls than we did. The first time of semi to semi and bicycle line up, he didn’t go off the road but he didn’t need that to happen again. He said he had two more similar lineups but he ditched his bike off the shoulder into the soft sand. He did have a fourth near miss that the semi warned him to “ditch”!

I wish I could have paused to take a picture of the highway but honestly when you’re in it that thought never occurs to you.

And now that I’ve scared you, we are all fine. Made it to a nice BLM campground on the Colorado River in Palo Verde. We have plenty of water and made a great meal!

Looking forward to a simpler day tomorrow. Arizona bound