Bicycle Journey Progress

The journey begins on July 29th and ends on September 11th, 2023

Ride Progress: ABOUT TO START!
Daily summaries:
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quinta-feira, 28 de junho de 2012

Day 65 – 06/06/2012 – Barstow, CA

From Ludlow our plan was to get to Barstow this day no matter what. Since we had slept the whole day in the previous day we decided to make this stretch at night. We woke up midnight and walked to a gas station across the motel’s street to have coffee and something to eat before departing. However, as soon as we stepped outside we noticed the winds were extremely strong, and as usual against us. For this reason we agreed that departing at that time would be a mistake. Much better would be to sleep a few more hours and leave early in the morning when we at least had a chance for lower winds. So that’s what we did, we postponed the coffee and had a chocolate milk instead, and returned to the room to sleep some more.

By 5:00am we woke up and checked the window searching for signs of strong winds. Thankfully they had lowered already and everything was fine for us to move forward. We packed and headed to a local café for breakfast. There we had a nice omelet each and, an hour later, were on our way towards Barstow.


The road started OK, with just a few bumps here and there. We took the wrong road and had to go back about two miles before entering the actual Route 66. There we found a road in very bad condition. Full of bumps, holes and cracks, that road slowed us down considerably. Every mile represented about 10 minutes of suffering as we inched forward little by little. At some point the road was so bad that we considered taking a detour through an unpaved back road. Unfortunately the soil there was too soft for bicycles and we were forced to return to Route 66. And there we remained for a few hours until we reached Newberry Springs. There the asphalt finally improved and we were able to move forward.



 About two miles after reaching that city, a major unexpected roadside attraction: the coffee house where the motion picture “Bagdad Cafe” had been filmed, in 1988! There we found many tourists and even a few buses with excursions, all stopped to visit and take pictures at the place. It was a fully functional coffee house and restaurant, so we parked our bikes and got in to have lunch. The food was good, and the staff was very friendly.



We prepared a note to post on the café’s wall and then prepared to keep going. Before we left, though, we asked their appointed cameraman to take a picture of us outside in front of the Café. He did, but just as he was handing my uncle’s camera back to him he let it slip out of his hands and dropped it. Unfortunately the LCD glass broke. The guy was very sorry but there was nothing we could do about it, so we just said it was OK and left. It was just the glass though, the camera kept working fine.



The rest of the way was much smoother then the first half.  We approached Barstow not much after leaving the café. We stopped at a gas station and found out there was a Walmart nearby, so we passed over there to get food and then headed to the hotel. The hotel was not the best, but more than enough since all we really needed was a shower and roof.