On the way back to our bikes

It’s been over a month since we last pedal, seems so long ago…and it was very unlucky day; we were in a hurry to meet up with someone and Raul got a flat tire – twice! Bad luck seems to come in package…we haven’t had a single problem with bikes for over 5 months and now three punctures in less than a week! All happened to the same wheel and the last two ones without obvious reason. Faulty inner tube? We hope so, we changed it for a new one and see how it goes in a couple of days…

Now we are on the car, still a day and a half driving ahead; yellow landscape of California’s desert passing behind the widow; temperatures around 20’s C (60’s F), so difficult to imagine that Christmas are in a month time; we are stuck here in summer, for the last 5 months; summer is good, is definitely good for cycling, but it is also good when it ends…

Raul’s the driver, so I can do some catching up on our blog. We’ve done over 2000 m in the last two weeks in order  to visit the greatest, the lowest, the hottest and the craziest places in western US – Yosemite NP, Death Valley, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon. It’s been very intense trip – from mountains to desert, from over 2000 m a.s.l. to nearly 100 m u.s.l. (I had my ears all the time blockedJ), from the greatest trees to places where there was no living being, from soundless desert to probably the noisiest city in US. It was intense, it was crazy, but it was worth it. I think we did the best of our time; we spent 2 full days in each park and enjoy it as much as we could; however, there are places we’d like to visit again…

Surely many will ask why by car, if we are on bike tour? Ok. So I’ll explain; we want to continue cycling along Pacific Coast and cross the Mexican border in California Baja (Baja is apparently safer and beautiful and less touristy), but we also wanted to see those Parks, who knows if we ever be back in this part of the world…  it’s November and we were already out of season, struggling with sub-zero temperatures at night, short days and cool evenings; if we cycled, places like Yosemite or Grand Canyon would be deeply buried under snow, our gears are not ready for this, and we would have to cycle back to the Pacific –it would take us 2-3 months, we are not welcome for so long in US. So, excused? ;)

And the Parks itself – stunning, breathtaking, extraordinary! Much to say, hope we will fing some time soon to share  our experienceJ