I had made it by bicycle from Southeast coastal Florida to California near the Salton Sea. Wednesday October 2nd 2002. I awoke early to a red horizon in the east. It was still dark. Cars and trucks were filing past on the dirt road on the other side of the shed. Because of the way I had positioned myself and bicycle, no one saw me there. I was out of there before the sun. Yesterday's wind had persisted till past midnight. I was worried it might come blasting in at any moment again. Salton City was 21 miles away, the next pit stop, and by the time I got there it was still relatively calm. A little Mexican restaurant there served eggs, beans, potatoes and toast for $5. Their little store did not have a price on anything except the alcohol so I did not buy. Instead I went to a nearby market and got a quart of milk for $1.19 and Coke for $1.19. I ate there, seated in a folding metal chair on the sidewalk out front, facing the small parking lot. This place is like a valley between two large ranges of mountains, one to the west and the other to the east. I cycled 7 miles more to the Firehouse Cafe in Desert Shores. You can see the Salton sea in this area, a salt sea 35 miles long and 15 mi wide, 235 ft below sea level. Here I just drank iced tea and used the restroom. The waitress was untalkative. It was a relief to find a still calm wind outside. I left that place at noon.
Then I went through the Riviera vineyards. After that I turned onto Old highway 86, where, I had been told, there would be more services than the new 86. In many areas old 86 was bounded on both sides by tall groves of date palms and citrus trees. Small Mexican markets were along the roadside, as were small settlements. On the outskirts of Thermal I got a quart of milk and four cookies. I ate and drank sitting in front of a flat metal railing. There was road work going on on the old 86. Pilot cars were leading lines of traffic back and forth in the work areas. The flag woman just waved me through. Now I am at the KFC Kentucky fried Chicken in Coachella California 4:10 p.m., writing this and drinking a large fruit punch for $1.39 plus tax. The wind never did kick up a storm like it did yesterday not today. Somebody had mentioned that it had not blown like it did yesterday for quite some time. I have pedaled this loaded bike 51 miles so far today which is quite a bit farther than I had anticipated I would. Now I think I may go only as far as Indio today, three or four miles from here. The sun is still high and shining brightly through a sparsely clouded blue sky. The air has been cool, not cold. Last night while sleeping, this morning while sleeping I had to wear a jacket to be safe from the weather. Oh this about crossroads mission in Yuma Arizona. Lockers were kept apart from the sleeping and eating areas, next to the tracks, inside shed with roof and the sides of chain linked fence topped with concertina wire, the kind you see on prison fences. There was a little wooden cubicle office where Bob Dole acts as security. You give him id. He gives you a key to a locker. You unlock and stole your gear. Give him back the key. He gives you your id. A locker is $2 a week. If you have no money, there is a set of shelves where you can lay your stuff out in the open for free. The place is locked up tight at night.
October 3rd 2002. Time 11:20 a.m., place Wendy's Northwest of Palm Springs. I bicycle only 3 miles to Indio on highway 111 and somehow got off 111 and went to La Quinta in a dark Rich expensive town where I had a meal and iced tea and to another Mexican restaurant. This town is nestled in the mountains. I found highway 111 again after a long ride and asking directions from a taxi driver on the street. Just now hauled off into a field of hard tan colored sand with sparse low bushes, next to a ravine. I slept fairly well. I had to get in the blanket and wrap myself in a tarp to keep warm. There is a clear starry sky all around that lasted all night. So I was in Wendy's and here I am in Wendy's. It is a clear cloudless blue hazy day. Mountains are visible in every direction at close and afar. Jack in The box and Chevron are across the street. I just had a cheeseburger, salad, and iced tea. I was up and out at 8:00 a.m. this morning. I kept on highway 111. The first stop was a convenience store deli for coffee and pastry. Used the restroom at a car wash next door. The sidewalks in this area were supposed to be a designated bike path, however, the transitions from sidewalk to road and road to sidewalk did not make a convincing argument that they were genuinely intended for bicycles. I have pedaled my velocipede 20 miles or so. I am looking at maps which are not suitable for precision cycling, but they do get you there. I am dirty now. I need a good hot shower or bath. I think I might shoot for a hotel in Inglewood or on Venice beach, I think. That wind never did show up yesterday, and it is not here yet again today. Good on those two points. It is still early though.
After Wendy's I cycled across I-10 and used the shoulder on 10. I noticed that there was a frontage road to my right. At the next exit I got off looking for a frontage road but there was no alternative route. I pumped air in my tires and got back on 10 west. This area is very mountainous. The landscape between the roadway and the mountains to the South has had built upon it many tall white windmills for generating electricity. At another accident was a sign saying all bicycles and motor driven cycles must exit. I did not cross over to the frontage Road on the other side of i-10. Two cars were parked near the intersection there. I asked a man if he knew how far the frontage road went. He did not know. He asked another in the car and so he did not know either.
Then a woman got out of the first car. She was wearing long camouflage pants. She started talking about the mountains and how they shined in the sun. She asked questions. Are you happy? Do you have money? Do you have food? Are you hungry? When she asked me if I had everything I needed I said Hell No. I was hoping she might want to make some arrangements for fulfilling some of life's other unrequited needs. She was not bad looking. If others had not been there, who knows? We had a short conversation on the Bible, psychology, the terrorist threat, some of my experiences in Ireland and about her experience being attacked by a mental patient while working as a psychologist. She offered me a can of chocolate covered peanuts, but I declined. I went on my way on the frontage road.
Later I got back on i-10. Then came another sign that said I had to exit. To hell with this nonsense. I carried the bike through the fine white sand, over two sets of railroad tracks, over a sand berm and over a broken barbed wire fence to a road going west again. The road shoulder was bumpy as hell. What a stupid asinine rerouting system. Basically after that it was a matter of going from the south side of to the north and back and forth to keep on a frontage road. At one point my road turned into a rocky lumpy dirt path for maybe a few miles. There I had to go over a railroad track and go right into a small town to stay in a roadway. Again at an intersection I got on the north side of I-10 and into the town of Beaumont. I think it was the name. Here I had a dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables, a bun and homemade bread pudding for $6.60 at the country junction restaurant. I read the Riverside California newspaper. These stories. President Bush is getting powers to make preemptive war against Iraq, but first giving Iraq a chance to disarm and give an accounting of all their weapons of Mass slaughter. And and Ron CEO has surrendered to authorities. That was what made the news. From there I kept pedaling along my Road in town until it ended at a freeway entrance to interstate 10. A hitchhiker at the entrance said there was another road over there. I went to the other Road and cycled west. It was a very nice Road for cycling until it ended at an obviously new subdivision of expensive houses where the road was still under construction. Luckily, the work crew were still there and one guy told me about a dirt road going over some wash at the end of this newly built road. I cycled over the hand packed wet surface of dirt to a raised concrete curb at its end.
Then I lifted the bike up over the curb and pushed it through the thick fine clay sand to a make-shift dirt road and down into a lower area. There I looked up and I saw two young teenage girls, 13 possibly 14, walking unsteadily, precariously along a thin narrow ridge about 15 ft up. The ridge was slanted at about 45° to the ground and they were walking down this ridge and they had bikes. The girl in front was trying to balance herself and control working the handlebars and brakes to keep it from rolling forward. She could not do both and let go of the bike. It went rolling sliding and flying to the ground below. What a stunt. A fall from that perch was likely and could have been fatal. The last time I saw them they had made it to the ground safely and they were putting the chain back on front chain rings of one of the bikes. I pushed on across the wash and up a steep short hill. Then I came to a very steep downhill grade. There was no pushing or riding the bike straight down it. It was much too steep. I started to a couple of times but could see I was headed for certain disaster. Then I had an idea. Sitting in the sand, I took off my plastic soled cycling shoes and put on my rubber soled athletic shoes. Then, choosing a part of the hill with deeper sand for better foothold, I walked the bike down at one angle across the face of the hill. By working the brake levers I was able to keep the velocipede from getting away from me. Once at the bottom, about 30 ft below, I pushed across a dirt road to an open field, through an opening in a fence and out to a roadway. Then it was back to a frontage road on the south side of I-10 and later back to the north side of 10, and here I am at Burger King next to I-10 in Calimesa, having come about 50 or 54 miles.
