day 2 - leaving San Diego, to El Centro, CA 138.24 miles/13.6 mph average 9 hrs 22 min.

With a bit more than four hours sleep, we got up around 3:30 am. Showers were out of the question the previous night, due to the search and rescue underway. The bikes were already jammed into the back of my Dad's Jeep SUV, so we gathered up all the other stuff and headed out.

The start point sits next to Sea World, seemingly easy to find. Not so this day. We drove around looking for Old Sea World Road, which had been replaced with Sea World Road. We tracked a few circles, lost. Phyllis then called to let us know that she heard a cat up under a motor home a few spaces over (see above post). Although we really wanted to get the ride started, this information lent an urgency, as we wanted Dad to get back to the park and help find Jasper. I can tell you this cat is part of the family, and when a member just disappears, it is freaky.

Once we located a road a mile or two from where we'd normally start, we popped out, threw the front wheels on the bikes and off we went. The road went up immediately as we left the coast. It was a slow grind, through rain, hail and a bit of sleet. We had no idea we'd get this kind of weather. Were we really in California? The elevation gain was no more than about 4200 feet or so, nice and slow. The clouds hid the road ahead. Every time we thought we'd hit a summit, the road went up, again.

Once on the plateau, it warmed up a bit, and the going got much easier. We passed a wind farm with a few dozen massive, turning wind mills. We have pics, and will get them up soon. The route then dumped us onto I-8, descending under the strongest cross winds I've ever dealt with.

From there we exited onto state route 98. The tail wind pushed us along at about 25 mph, and up to 30-35 mph if we decided to peddle, soft peddle at that. These winds cut about an hour off our already slow and steady pace.

We rolled into El Centro at 5 pm, cleaned up and went to Denny's!

Over and out