LAX to St. George, UT

I'm sitting here in St. George at 3:30am. Wide awake. I reckon that this is as good a time as any to setup and start a blog of our trip.

We arrived at LAX on Sat at 12:30 and were last through customs. No hassles though and our bikes were waiting for us as well as all our bags. Neil found us at Auckland airport and was sitting a row in front of us on the plane so that was handy. Simon, his brother, was waiting for us at the exit of the terminal so we headed off on a shuttle to pick up the hire car.

The hire car, or massive great gas guzzling Dodge Durango SUV, just fitted in 3 bikes, 4 packs, daypacks etc and us four. First stop was to drop off Simon's snowboard at a left-luggage outfit and then we headed down to Redondo Beach to meet up with a mate of Nigel Furze, who we are going to leave a bike with on the way back,

The GPS driving navigation system on my HP iPaq PocketPC worked fantastically. There was one huge cloverleaf turnpike that we drove through on the way to Big Bear Lake that we all reckoned that there was no way we could have navigated without "Jenny", the posh English female voice from the GPS telling us where to go.

After leaving the outskirts of LA we wound our way up the San Bernandino mountains to Big Bear Lake. The elevation increase was massive - 7000 ft at the top - and the view we could only imagine as being fantastic apart from it was obscured completely by smog. Big Bear Lake, however, was stunning as we arrived around 6pm. We immediately stopped and took photos before heading on and checking in to our hotel for the first night.

Vicki and I stayed at The Block; supposedly a “snowboarder” hotel, that came equipped with 2 king beds, a massive 150” TV, playstation, ipod dock etc. etc. However by the time we’d sorted things out, grabbed a steak for dinner, all we wanted to do was sleep…

Sunday morning we were awoken by the sound of Harley’s being revved. We’d chosen the same weekend to be in Big Bear as a motorcycle convention but at least they didn’t keep us awake during the night. After a breakfast of pancakes we drove off heading for Nevada.

The scenery changed pretty quick as soon as we rolled down the other side the San Bernardino mountains and the hazy view of desert went on as far as the eye could see. First stop of the day was to grab some lunch at a highway services that was filled with outlet stores. The heat that greeted us was immense. 42°!! I had to take a photo of this displayed on the car temperature gauge but later on, on the outskirts on Las Vegas it hit 47°!!

Speaking of Las Vegas we did a drive by down the strip… While Vicki had been here before, us lads were wowed the ostentatiousness of it all. The photos kinda say it all.

We reached St. George at about 6pm and headed straight for the pool – it was lukewarm but still refreshing as the temperature was still sitting around 40°. After grabbing a quick dinner Neil and I headed over to Mark of Mountain Bike Buddies to assemble our bikes in his garage. He was a very friendly and helpful chap and has managed to suggest a pretty good sounding couple of days ahead for us.

We’re heading out to attempt to beat the heat at 7am so I might attempt trying to catch another couple of hours of sleep.