Day 7 - Brutality of the Severest Kind - But Kindness of the Severest Type

I awoke at 5:55 AM local time and took some time getting ready to ride, fired up my JetBoil to boil water to make some Kathmandu Vegetable Curry - aka Breakfast of Champions, in time to greet the sun.

Around 7:30, I decided to begin my day on two wheels. In retrospect, leaving at 6:00 AM would have been significantly wiser.

First up, a climb - long, but not too steep. But that climb went for miles and so did I. At one point, I realized, that I was not on a timetable so I pulled off the side of the road under one of the few low trees with plenty of tiny leaves to provide sufficient shade to provide me with a respite from the already brutal heat. I leaned my backpack up against my bike and snoozed. Twice during my snooze, passersby turned around to assure that I wasn't dead, or worse, dying.

After about an hour, I got back on the wheels and pedaled through dull, boring and torturous (last three words remind me of someone with whom I spent too many years), landscape. Without a single bush to shade myself from, the only peace I could receive from my exertion in the heat was to stop and think about the 2010 blizzards in Maryland.

Dull

Boring

Torturous

Monument for the Ben Hulse Highway. The only thing interesting on this stretch of highway from Glamis to Palo Verde. 

Along the way, I stopped at the Border Patrol station just east of the Chocolate Mountains. I yelled as I was approaching that I was going to run the checkpoint! The officer at the checkpoint jokingly yelled he was going to throw down a strip (the kind that bursts tires). I pulled up and asked to fill my various water containers. We talked football scores - the one guard stuck his fingers in his ears because he was recording the games and didn't want to know scores. I asked if I could photograph the one officer and his German Shepherd dog along with Flat Stanley as they checked cars for drugs...unfortunately, he advised, it was not permitted, but thanked me for asking. Just imagine Rin Tin Tin and a skinnier version of me with a green uniform and a .38 caliber automatic handgun.

The next 25 miles were brutal. At one point I wished I was hallucinating because I was getting disgusted with the number of rolling hills that were primarily ascensions. To intermittently keep me from hallucinating, nature played it's symphony for me. While riding, there was a large flying bug that was circling me, diving at me, careening toward my helmet when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a small bird about the size of a chubby sparrow. That avian daredevil flew right toward me with a swoop, within about 4 feet of my cranium, and nabbed the flying bugger. Manfred von Richthofen would have been proud.


Also, to give my heart a check of it's electrical impulses, I nearly ran over a snake, "scurrying" across SR-78. 


 Finally, descending rolling hills became the norm and relief.

Ultimately, I rolled into the Palo Verde (translated in Spanish I believe means "green stick") Valley. Flat, flat, flat. As I approached the first bit of green I'd seen in a while (it was irrigated by the Colorado River) I noted what appeared to be white flowers on bushes in the field. No matter how often I looked without crashing my bike, I couldn't figure out what was being grown. Unclipping from my pedals, I made my way gingerly to the edge of the field and realized it was cotton. Recalling the history of the south and the cotton picked by hand, Mr. Eli Whitney came to mind. I chose to go pinch some of the bloomed cotton. To Mr. Whitney, thank you. Those buggers hurt!

As I was about to depart from this first bit of greenery, I spotted movement at the edge of the field in the distance. It moved beyond behind some foliage...I thought to stalk the movement with my camera. My stealthy technique wasn't stellar, though I was quiet and still and had squatted like an Vietnamese villager (though not as low).  Off trotted a small coyote. He stopped. Looked back. Trotted a few yards. Stopped. Looked back. Trotted. Stopped. Looked back. I love nature! Unfortunately, the coyote was too far off in the distance to photograph, though he's in my visual memory bank.

About a mile down the road, I pulled into the Palo Verde Recreational Park, found shade and rested while four gentlemen were obviously finishing their fishing excursion. They asked of my journey and I theirs. They were from Los Angeles. But the non-English language they spoke certainly wasn't Spanish. I struggled to determine the language. Ultimately, I asked Victor to please tell me the accent. Romanian. Never would have guessed. Closest I could come was Italian...but not enough Os at the end words. Marian insisted I take a photo with him. Most certainly, Stanley and I could only oblige.

Marian, Stanley and me.

After a break, I rode into Palo Verde proper.

I met a sheriff's deputy just on the edge of town and told him I was pulling myself over for speeding earlier and he should give me a ticket and also advice where I could find the NFL games on and where I could pitch my tent for the night. He was kind enough to direct me to both.

The Lagoon Lodge was showing various games. But most interesting were the customers. Many were locals but the most vociferous were the out-of-towners, approximately a dozen naturalists in their early 20's who were in town for camps that children from Los Angeles and San Diego visit for a few days. The group journey down the Colorado River on their journeys.

One of the naturalists, Quinn (quite the naturalist with her unshaven armpits and legs) introduced herself and asked about my journey. A rather interesting person who had cycled with a French family in northern California, Quinn and I took a walk to the "market" in town for water. Foreign to me is the notion of going to the gas station fill up a toted container with water at $0.25 per gallon outside the building. I certainly like that a heck of a lot better than paying $1.05 for a 20 oz bottle of water from 7-11. We walked back to the restaurant. I had a chilly cold beverage there and Quinn and a portion of her posse departed. After another 15 minutes, I found my way to my camping site.

Ready for snoozing after an arduous day, I plopped in my tent on my bed roll and sleeping bag. I was camped near a lagoon. The noises as the sun went down were almost deafening. Frogs, song birds, geese, cormorants, and dogs barking nearby played a non-harmonious cacophony that became a drone...then suddenly everything went to sleep...except one. I heard a rustling and a shuffling of feet in the brush near my tent. After a short period of time, I heard a growl. I hastily grabbed my flashlight housed from my smelly shoes (I keep in my tent to assure I don't wake up and shove my foot in a shoe with a biting or stinging creature).

I shined my light and saw a flash of dog-like movement. From my perspective, three possible options were available for the creature: grumpy dog, sullen coyote or cranky chupacabra. The growling stopped. I fell asleep. I heard a growl again. to ease my own anxiety, I said, "Shut up Snoopy."  I set my alarm for 5:30 to get up and begin my ride early to beat the desert heat. Sleep happened until the AM.