Into California - Barstow

Mon 20
Today was another bad start, lotus flowers in the drinks again! We missed breakfast again!
On the road in the heat and we were melting, we stopped almost any chance we could to drink (only water today), hide in shade or in air conditioning. We are so looking forward to a splash in the motels pool.
I found a Joshua Tree at the worlds biggest fuel station.

I only saw 2 others, one in a private garden and the other in a garden centre. I expected to see a lot of these through the desert.

Vicki also met bigfoot there

We were 18 mile short of Barstow when we were stopping to cool off again when I noticed something funny with the back wheel. We had also slowed down because the traffic had backed up due to some demolition to a checkpoint on the road ahead,  another good reason to stop.
We stopped at a gas station/burger joint. I checked the rear tyre and found a tear in it, lucky! I don't want to think what might have happened two up and fully loaded, travelling at 80 mph if the tyre blew.

I'm glad I joined the AA before I left home. The tow truck picked us and the bike up and took us to a bike shop. My hero for the day.

Another stroke of luck. The bike shop had a tyre that fitted, in an our or so we were mobile again.
The motel was only a few blocks up the road, we were closer to splashdown.
When checking in the first thing I noticed was a sign saying that the pool was closed for maintenance.
The only slot machine I went near today was the washing machine and dryer.
Order in pizza was all we could muster for our dinner.