Joshua Tree National Park

After days of trying to work out the US helath system and get our last rabbies vaccination, we gave up and decided we would do it on the other side of the border. So much for private healthcare being better. They wouldn't tell us how much it would cost at the hospital (apparently you have to have treatment first, and the ballpark is $800+ per person). We spent hours in clinics as well, but the health department apparently can give them if you get an appointment a week in advance. People couldn't undertsand why you would want a vaccination, and many people told us there was no such thing. Obviously americans aren't big travellers...

Joshua tree, and Yucca valley was a little oasis. It was warm, but not too warm (what is wrong with us? anything under 35 seems a little chilly these days). We had a great campsite for 3 days... the cacti are very cool here, and all of the weird bugs come out at night. Joshua tree wasn't even on our list, but it was stunning and very different, and empty (too hot for most, hehehe). Seems like a lot of space cadets and weirdos find this place inviting. We had a guy in the coffee shop warn us about UFOs; apparently they come down and do things to people (he was a lecturer in electro field health or something, and deadly seriously) and some other israeli permanents who were high as they could be tell us it was 800miles to mexico (how they got a greencard we will never know).

We also got the bikes serviced. A little nervous about the 21 year old mechanic. He did a good job with chris's valve clearances but managed to tighten alan's chain to the the point of ridiculousness... as soon as you put a load on, the tension changes. They seem to forget that, so we had to fix it again when we got back to camp (grrr). They also cleaned the bikes for us; so much for looking cheap for mexico. Nevermind, the bikes were now running well and it was time to leave the space cadets and head to tecate for our border crossing. Luckily we met a guy who rides into mexico a lot, so we were able to get info on roads, speed of traffic and a little info about how hot it would be. And off we went.