We left the hotel around 1:30 am and headed to a local casino where they had a convenience store with snacks and coffee. We eat a sandwiches each, had coffee and took a few donuts with us for the road. By 2:20 am we were on our way.
To our surprise, that was an easy ride. In fact, for the first 13 miles we didn’t have to pedal at all! We were going downhill pretty much all the way. We passed by a small city called Nev Ari, then another one called Laughlin. We then crossed the Nevada / California border and, as usual, stopped at the state line sign to take pictures and update the blog. The road was good and we didn’t take long to approach the Needles area.
For the last nine miles we were forced to one more time enter the I-40 interstate, but it was a short ride due to the fact we were still going downhill. Later we discovered Searchlight had an elevation of about 4000 feet, while Needles was at only 500 feet.
Once we arrived in the urban area we passed by several hotels in a row, but decided to go get food before checking in. We crossed the bridge over the Colorado River and in less than a mile we were on a different city called Mohave Valley, in Arizona. So basically that was the third state we had visited on that day! There we found a Dollar General and got part of what we wanted, then waited about half an hour for a Family Dollar to open to buy the rest.
Once we were done we headed to the hotel, which was clean and cheap.
They had a pool in that hotel and we were not really tired from the ride we decided to get in the pool! We changed our clothes and had a good time diving and relaxing in the water. A local handy man started chatting with us and gave us several tips on our next planned stops. He also helped us finding a place to stay in Ludlow, our next destination.
We then went back to the room and slept the whole afternoon. By 10:30 pm woke up and started preparing for the long ride to Ludlow.
We had planned to go through the interstate just because this was one of the longest stretches we had to cover, and we just wanted to get over it. But no sleep or preparation of any kind could prepare for what we were about to face and witness on this next ride.
