Day 2 (Mon, 17 Mar)

We rode from Julian, CA to Brawley, CA today with a beautiful DOWNHILL ride, enjoying the fruits of our labor from yesterday.  The ride was essentially all on Hwy 78 down to our hotel in Brawley.  We descended a total of about 5,000 feet today ending at Brawley (sea level) near the Salton Sea.  The ride was 75.6 miles with just 300 ft of climbing (along with lot’s of downhill riding).  The weather was quite warm – in the 50s in the mountains at Julian and into the high 80s in the afternoon – perfectly sunny the entire day from Julian all the way to Brawley.  In terms of wind, we had a very nice tail wind for much of the morning and then some slight cross winds in the afternoon.  Overall, a very relaxing and scenic ride today.

We entered the desert SouthWest today in a spectacular fashion riding Hwy 78 down off the mountain and then winding roads with very light traffic all the way to the Salton Sea where Hwy 78 joins Hwy 86 and then into Brawley from there.  A superb day of primarily downhill riding to give our legs a day to recover from yesterday’s tough ride and likely a hard ride that we’ll have tomorrow.

On to the pictures!

Lot's of trees near the top of the mountain below Julian - the last that we'll see for a long, long time...

Entering the desert landscape on our way down the mountain.

Entering the Anza - Borrego State Park from the west, heading east.

We rode through about 30 miles of incredibly beautiful desert mountain landscape, nearly all of it downhill and much of it with a mild tailwind - what a fabulous 2.5 hrs on this stretch of Hwy 78!

It has been dry this winter in Southern CA, but we did see some cactus with flower blossoms today.

Compared to prior trips I've had through this part of Southern CA, the skies were really crisp and clear coming off the mountain today.

At the junction of Hwy 78 and Hwy 86 - the ONE turn we had to make all day.

If you click on this picture and zoom in, you'll see the Salton Sea in the background.  More on the Salton Sea here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea

There are a huge number of carrot growing fields around Brawley (lots of sun, sand and water coming in from somewhere we couldn't figure out).  This is a carrot washing facility we passed on our way into Brawley.  Dirty carrots and trucks come in - clean carrots and trucks go out.

Glamis Permits (on the sign) - look it up!

We made it - the smiles were a bit more genuine today - a more enjoyable ride down the mountain, ending in Brawley today.