Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder

yep, i know that it's a truism to state that....but I've been struck as I wind my way down this country through high mountains, vast pine forests, granite valleys, giant sequioa forests, desert and scrubby hill how the locals are always at pains to say how beatiful their countryside is. Much of it is pretty. Much of it is, sell, frankly dry and scrubby. I find myself looking and the sage brush covered mountains and thinking......it's not as nice as Dartmoor or the ride down to Budleigh.

Don't get me wrong. I am appreciating what i am seeing. What I am also experiencing though is a deepening appreciation and love for my own home. I guess this enables me to be able to say that my own home is beautiful.

Today was supposed to be a short, easy ride. What I hate to do on a ride this is go backwards or down....so when i was told my intended campsite was back dosn the hill i was having none of it. I pressed on up the aptly-named 'Rim of the world highway' which clings to the mountains 6000ft above the plain where smogging LA sits.

I ended up climbing all day up to 6000ft and have made ut to Running Springs.

Motivating myself is getting a little difficult as i enter the last few hundred kilometers. It doesn't help that the end point, LA, is just below me on the plain.

Weather beginning to cool a little with rain forecast up at Big Bear at 7500ft tomorrow, it sounds like i need to be in the UK if i want hot weather!