Day 54 - Wrightwood to Crestline - 9/30/15, Wednesday

33 miles, 2914 up

We wanted to make it a short day today because we're planning a layover day at Big Bear Lake tomorrow and 70 miles was too far to ride with a lot of climbing.

It turned into a short day with really tough climbs at the end.

The downhill in the morning was nice!

Some strange rock formation along the way.

Then, we passed this... It was big and noisy - we haven't seen anything like it in quite a while. Interstate 15.

Silverwood Lake

Trudy's tired of climbs like this!

We're staying in a hotel tonight because the campground was closed for the season.

Day 53 - onward, to Wrightwood - 9/29/15, Tuesday

47 miles, 5872 up

We weren't finished with the hill yet.

37 miles into the climb, we ran into this.

No alternate routes - we could A: go back to Palmdale (84 miles), then figure out another route B: return to a place where we could descend to L.A. and figure something out from there... Or C: duck under the gate and hope we could ride to Wrightwood, about 20 miles!

So, we had the highway to ourselves for about 10 miles.

We were down there two days ago.

We finally made it to the top.

Lunch!

The views are really good from here!

Onward, and downhill to Wrightwood!

Day 52 - Palmdale to somewhere along Angeles Crest Hwy. 9/28/15, Monday

48 miles, 4792 up

We stopped by to check out an airplane museum on the way out of Palmdale. It wasn't open on Monday, so I took photos through the fence of some planes I've heard of for years.

Then we headed for the San Gabriel Wilderness, uphill.

It's hard to believe that just days ago we were riding through Sequoias.

Turn to your left, turn to your right, up, down, up, down!

By 4, it was too late to ride to the campground we'd hoped to reach, so we set up camp in a little picnic area for the night.

Day 51 Tehachapi to Palmdale - 9/27/15, Sunday

47 miles, 1277 up

Our flattest ride day in quite a while, kinda windy, though.

We checked the maps last night and discovered that we didn't have any camping options unless we rode a really long ways! At the last minute, we decided to call Evelyn and Rob, Warmshowers hosts in Palmdale. They said yes! Whew. They were the 3rd hosts we've stayed with and all have been an incredible experience.

We left early to avoid the wind, but worked up a pretty good sweat riding over Tehachapi Pass. The wind picked up as we headed down hill, which was fine because it cooled us off and slowed us down as we headed downhill.

Rose thought wind power was awesome.

Charley prefers solar.

There must be thousands of wind turbines spread across the hills.

As we got closer to Palmdale, the scenery changed a lot.

Rob and Evelyn gave us a very warm welcome, showed us around to showers, laundry and a guest bedroom, then included us in their family dinner plans!

What a fantastic experience our "drop in" visit was!

Day 50 - Lake Isabella to Tehachapi - 9/26/15, Saturday

57 miles, 6352 up

We get by with a little help from our friends, or a lot!

I maybe forgot to mention that to take a dip in the Kern river we went to a campground that was 3 miles off course, downhill, with the final 1/2 mile being REALLY downhill! That would mean a bike push start to the day today!

The camp host, Randy, came by in the afternoon,  and after visiting a while, he offered to give us a lift out of the camp.

He came by at 7:30 and said "as long as I have your gear loaded up, I'm going to give you a ride to the top of Hooper Hill!"

Now, that's not only getting us back on course but up to the top of a 3 mile, narrow, 1500 ft uphill! A huge head start on what turned out to be a hilly day, anyway.

We're into hot, dry, hilly country now at 2500 to 4200 feet elevation.

This is the road through Walker Basin, a beautiful area that's been a family run cattle ranch since the late 1800s.

We rode over that ridge in the distance, which took us down to about 1500 feet elevation, so we were lower, later in the day which means it became really hot!

We started uphill again along highway 58, and had to ride for 5 miles on the highway to reach Keene, home to the Cesar Chavez memorial and the famous Tehachpi Loop, where a train loops around over itself in order to achieve a doable grade (2%) in order to get over the pass - 36 trains per day still use it - it was engineered and completed in 1874!

Charley and Rose thought it was awesome!

Us, too...

We rode through Tehachpi with one quick stop to pick up essential supplies - a cold beer and a bag of chips- before we landed at an RV Park on the far side of town.

We can see LOTS of wind turbines along the pass we have to ride tomorrow.

Uh, oh!

Day 49 - Kernville to Sandy Flat campground (Lake Isabella) - 9/25/15, Friday

22 miles, 1164 up

When we looked at the upcoming maps, we found it was over 70 miles to our next destination, with some campgrounds fairly close to us, then a long gap. The temperatures have been in the mid nineties. We decided to make it an easier day today and dawdled along, stopping at stores, having brunch, taking a few photos and making tomorrow's ride shorter.

These are stuffed animals from children who visited the campground where we stayed. Notice that Charley is hiding!

This is Lake Isabella...

Here's the town of Lake Isabella..

Now, this is the Kern River!

Here's what we did when we got there...

Oh, yeah!