This morning, we had an odd assortment of things for breakfast, including leftover Oreos and hot dogs. We would have loved to watch the news, but there was no cable in this motel. Rachel finally changed her tire that had been slowly leaking since a few days prior; a piece of wire was the culprit again. We’ve only bought a few new tubes over the course of the trip, so we each have a tube or two with a lot of patches!
We continued the incredible descent to Springville first thing this morning.
We turned back uphill and had a nice short climb. At the top, we met a group of 4 local cyclists and had a good talk. It was nice to meet you all!
On the other side, we had a descent on some rough roads until it flattened out at only 500 ft above sea level! And tomorrow we climb to 7,500!
We ate lunch at a mini mart in Lemon Cove. On the way in, we saw lemon, orange and olive trees, so its no mystery how the town got its name. We even stopped at a fruit stand for some pluots; only $3 for a bag full!
We climbed up past Lake Kaweah, which also is extremely low; I would estimate that it is 50′ under where the old level can clearly be seen on the rocks around the lake. The boat launches are all very long, but now extra roads have been paved past the end of the boat launches to new boat launch areas. We would love to see these lakes when CA is not in a drought, because I’m sure they are beautiful.
We got into Three Rivers around 3pm and used the library for a while, then made our way to the Kaweah Oaks Campground, where we will camp (first time in a while!!) for the night. Don and Evelyn are running the campground while their son takes a short vacation. They were very nice and even gave us money for our Michael J. Fox fund.
Before bed, we went across the street for some delicious ice cream.
Hopefully it is a restful night, because we have our work cut out for us tomorrow 🙂
Trip stats, to date (Day 84)
Pierpoint Springs, CA to Three Rivers, CA
Daily mileage: 60.1 mi ; Trip total to date: 4,983.7 mi
Daily riding time: 4hr 53min; Trip total time: 431hr 20min
Daily ascent: 3,245 ft; Trip total ascent: 246,761 ft
Flat tires: Rachel – 4; Chris – 5