Day 13 - Needles, Callfornia - Victorville, Calfornia, 230 miles

We are now in the Mohave Desert and the heat yesterday was slightly extreme. We checked out the weather online last night and hopefully it will be cooler today, only 35+. Ironically we can only check our destination as all the other towns we travel through are too small to have weather stations. We loose another hour and find ourselves 8 hours behind the UK now. Wendy rides pillion today as there are no more mountain climbs. We have to fuel up first thing as the last thing you want to do is run out of fuel in the desert. Somehow John manages to lose the keys, unlike him he's been very organised this morning and we were first at load up, however at the filling station we realise that we have no keys. Fortunately any Harley key will open up the fuel tank, and after half an hour of searching we fill up and are on the road. Gary advises us that it will be $500 for replacement keys. The rest of the group are rather grumpy at the delay. The first stop at a Dairy Queen for coffee and ice cream and Wendy starts a more logical search of the side panniers, day sacks and jackets. The keys are found in Wendy's daysack. John had obviously subconcsiously realised he may have put them there as the contents are strewn throughout the pannier. Phew....

We continue through spectacular desert landscape, interspersed with volcanic lava rock, brilliant blue skylines and clear roads. We are travelling on the old route (1930 - 1956) through Amboy, Ludlow and Newberry Springs. Our only challenge to ride alongside the great trains with hundreds and hundreds of carriages. Check out Calfornia Sunriders and our train race: http://community.motozania.com/_Running-with-the-trains-around-Deadman39s-CurveJPG/photo/16719009/29029.html?b

The road through the desert to the East

The brow of the hill where Tim stands watch for oncoming traffic overlooking the California flats!

We travel onto Newberry Springs and after some light lunch climb the mountain for the classic route 66 sign on the road. Tim acts as watch out over the brow of the hill as the group ride into the road and have their picture taken. Gary tells us he has another surprise for us, and we continue on the old road till we get to Hellendale and Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch. An artist, who we can't decide whether he's eccentric or mad. Elmer is not around whilst we are there and we meander through his creations.  Wendy finds an old Underwood Typewriter similar to that which she learned to touch type. A live snake coming through causes some consternation, but we've disturbed his peace and he's off into the long grass for some cool and quiet.

We continue down the route past the Oro Grande Cement factory. Quite how a cement factory can smell so bad we don't know, but it does. We continue on and get into Victorville at 16.30 - a decent hour, although we have lost that hour again. The hotel was having an all you can eat Taco night. What they hadn't expected was 17 Route 66 Tour group people arriving and eating them out of house and home. Tomorrow is the end of the trip with our arrival in Los Angeles. We decide that in light of the traffic almost immediately, Wendy will travel in the support vehicle.