Day One- San Diego to El Centro
September 10th, 2006In the words of our fearless leader back home in Rhode Island, today was an epic day! We ate breakfast at 6am and departed at 6:50am with a group of 7 riders- combo of Rhode Island and Australia, mostly. We zig-zagged our way out of San Diego and before too long, we were in the outskirts of town and nearing the desert. After our lunch break we descended on the highway for 10 miles at 6% with heavy crosswinds and we watched as the temperature rose to between 100-106 degrees for the remainder of the day. Our route through the desert paralleled the Mexican border and in fact, we saw border patrol vehicles all afternoon and even saw our tax dollars go to work as a border agent gave us desperately needed water at about 105 miles- and that’s even after we had plenty of refills of fluids at our regularly spaced PACTour stops! I lost track of the number of water bottles I had for the 126 miles but it was probably in the range of 12-15 bottles! We ended up with a grueling 11 hour day total and the promised 7500 feet of climbing. Tomorrow brings a flatter and shorter route.
Along the way we saw an unbelievably inexpensive wedding deal and so Brett and Andrew took advantage of the great rates and exchanged their PACTour vows. I learning that they’re not shy down under!
Breakfast, PACTour style
Exchanging PACTour vows
Getting on I-8- myself, Annie & Dennis (Alaska), Peter (Australia)
Our tax dollars at work- “Touched by an angel!” 
Hotel Bag Pickup!