October 21, 2012
Had an excellent rest last night and enjoyed a Subway sandwich with a glass of wine. The plan is to sleep in tomorrow as there are only 2 NP’s to visit then an easy ride home to El Toro .
The base motel, The Sleeping Tortoise, provided an excellent breakfast and Snoopy got to pose with the lady taking care of the food shop.
Here Snoopy posed with Ranger Frank and Volunteer Kristin. Afterwards we posed for a photo outside
First stop was the Joshua Tree NP, located only a few miles from the USMC Base’s main gate.
From Joshua Tree NP I rode over to connect to Amboy and rode that Kelbaker Rd 
Snoopy was zonked out on the back of the bike but I was able to rouse him to go in and have a root beer. He also wanted to tour the place and have a photo taken of him on a saddle.
Pretty cool Depot from days gone by.
It was here that Snoopy posed with Ranger David.
Then with Mr. Mike….owner of The Beanery.
Then a last photo taken outside next to the Kelso Depot sign.
My thoughts were that the ride back to El Toro was to be a no brainer and a relatively quick one. Google’s preferred route was to double back, return south on Kelbaker, to I-40 and head west to I-15. Since I’ve never been in Mojave I decided to continue north/west on Kelbaker to where it meets I-15 at Baker (Kelbaker=Kelso+Baker). Mileage was about the same, around 220 miles and would take me 3.5 hours of riding. Heading to Baker was a good choice because I was able to see the ruggedness and desolateness of Mojave. It was a bad choice because the road is not well maintained, lots of holes and a lot of windswept sand across the road. Going was slow and it took me longer than expected to reach Baker. And then I encountered a forgotten event. Every Sunday the Vegas party people are returning to CA, and today was a prime example of how the roads get so full that traffic crawls all the way into San Bernadino. Very frustrating.
But the weather gods were going to take one last shot at me before the adventure was ended. They confronted me with a cold front sweeping in from the northwest. A long and darl line of clouds could be seen to the northwest. Rain was visible, and the cold was upon me. My hands were starting to get too cold but then luck went my way as the road turned hard west and the rain continued its path to the north of I-15. The ride stayed dry :) .
Home arrival was later than planned, around 8pm. Got to say goodnight to oldest granddaughter but littlest one was sound asleep.
It’s a good feeling to be home and sleeping in my own bed!
C ya mañana,
Gonzo
Twitter: @GonzoCrossUSA
Cell: 949-433-0761
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