Tuesday 14th April
Viva Las Vegas, one night is more than enough. It's like everything in USA it's huge. In the year 2000 the population was 478,000 it's now over 2,000,000 it's a seething mess and growing. It was worth going for the cheap hotel and to see it, so been there done that now let's get the f&@k out of here.
We left at about 7:30 hoping to miss the heat, but need not of done so as it was warm and windy very windy. We were getting blown all over the place and the only direction it wasn't blowing was from behind. After about a hundred miles we had to add a layer of clothes and the wind was getting stronger. At our second stop for fuel the wind was nearly blowing us off our feet, it was quite entertaining trying to get on and off the bike. We had to stop again to add more clothing as the temperature plummeted as we crossed the Tehachapi mountain and it looked like it was going to be wet at the top. Temp had dropped to 44F and not a clue what the wind chill factor was. Trying to get waterproofs on in high winds was no fun especially as a lorry towing a trailer decided to try and park in this tiny lay bye as well (reports say gusting up to 70mph). Shortly after crossing the mountain and down the other side we had to stop and remove all the extra clothing as it had warmed up but sadly the wind had not slowed and it was still blowing a gale. The bikes average fuel consumption had gone from 56mpg to 38mpg.
As we will be spending a small fortune staying in San Francisco so we could do the Alcatraz tour we were in search of a really cheap motel for the night and stopped off in Fresno. And after our last attempt of really cheap we decided to do a drive by first, good job too what a scary place, it's hard to believe there can be so much poverty in a country with so much wealth, it reminded me of South Africa but on a smaller scale. Thankfully we managed to find somewhere reasonable. But I will still sleep with one eye open tonight I think we both will. Looking forward to San Francisco.