Gearing up for Big Adventure #3

Tomorrow is March 1-the month of the Shelley Brothers Big Adventure #3, The Trek Across California on Route 66.  We'll start out in Santa Monica on March 11, dipping our wheels in the Pacific Ocean, then head northwest on Santa Monica Boulevard to the Sunset Strip, make our way up to Pasadena, along Colorado and Foothill Boulevards to the New Kansan Inn in Rancho Cucamonga, a vintage Route 66 motel, to end Day 1.

Day 2 we'll head to San Bernardino and up the Cajon Pass via Rim of the World Highway (sounds ominous, doesn't it?), ending our ride at Shady Oaks Campground in Victorville for our first ever "bike packing tent overnighter" (with two more nights in tents to follow).  Our third day we pedal through Barstow to Newberry Springs (Newberry Mountain RV Park), then Day 4 into the Mojave Desert past Amboy to camp out somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the vicinity of the ghost town of Chambless.

Our final day we'lle climb out of the desert basin up over a pass then down into the Colorado River valley at Needles.  Just after midnight Friday night/Saturday morning we'll board Amtrak for a train ride to Fullerton, where our buddy Chuck has graciously agreed to deliver our truck to the station.  After driving back to Needles, we'll make the short 15 mile run down to Pirate Cove, where we ended our Fall Big Adventure riding the Western Arizona portion of Route 66.

I just recently finished John Steinbeck's classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, much of which takes place along this stretch of highway, of which a good part is now all but abandoned.  I'm looking to experiencing this part of The Mother Road not too differently than those Dust Bowl families endured it.

The open road awaits us very soon!  Stay tuned for updates and real live reporting on the actual trip.