Rain, rain, and more rain…but what a day!

You can guess from the title…it rained nearly all day on our China ride today.  But wow, what a day!  It started with a great breakfast in a little restaurant right next to our hotel, we then made our insane dash through early morning Xinin traffic, and yet again, we were on the open road and in the rain.

And rain it did.  I’m talking speeds on the highway of no more than 35 mph, mostly because of the traffic and the limited visibility.   The roads cleared, but the rain didn’t.  It was cold this morning, too.

Our first destination was Qinghai Lake, which I had never heard of before this adventure ride.   Funny how that happens…I’ll bet most of you reading the blog never heard of it, either.    But it’s huge…as in 4300 square kilometers.    It was awesome, and the rain stopped just as we reached the lake.   Wow!

The main road runs around one edge of Qinghai Lake about a mile from the shoreline.  Lu pointed his RX3 down a dirt road leading directly to the lake, and I did the same.   So did everyone else.   The lake is awesome.  It was like a small ocean.

Lu grabbed one of the RX1 motorcycles and had some fun…

I walked around a bit and spotted this small frog…

I wanted to pick it up but I remembered from my Colombia ride that some frogs are very toxic (Colombia has a species that can kill a man just from holding it).   A photo was good enough.

We were having a good time.  We have a video crew and a support van following us, and the guys on four wheels took advantage of this opportunity to have a bit of fun.

We got back on the road and followed the edge of Qinghai Lake for a good hour, and whaddaya know, as soon as we did it started raining again.   Then we climbed into the mountains, and it got cold.  Real cold.  We crested a summit at 3814 meters (that’s 12,513 feet, folks!).   I wanted to get a photo but I was so cold and wet I did not.

After hitting that pass, we began a gradual descent, and it became warmer immediately.   We then entered an area that looked exactly like west Texas or New Mexico.  It was strange.   Other than the road signs being Chinese, you would not have known you were in China.   We passed Cha Ka (the salt lake), stopped for a break, and then it was on to Wu Lan (from where I’m posting this).  We had another one of our monster lunches today, so I took a pass on dinner mostly because I wanted to see the photos from today.

I’m tired and I’m going to call it an evening.  Tomorrow, we ride again.  It’s grand.   We’re all having a marvelous time.  We’re going places we’d never see had it not been for this opportunity.   Wait ’til you read the book, folks.  I can only get so much into the blog; Riding China will have much, much more.