Tag Archives: patio

After riding out of St. George, UT, we passed through the northwest corner of Arizona on our way to Nevada. The most direct route would have been to cycle on the interstate, but a more relaxing and legal option is to take a northwestern route through the Shivwits Indian Reservation.

After reaching the crest of the climb on Old Highway 91 out of St. George, we were treated to a 17-mile descent.

The long descent also carried us through the northwest corner of Arizona. It was a short stay, though. After only about two or three hours of pedaling we crossed the border into Nevada.

Here’s my odometer clocking the 3,000th mile of the trip. We didn’t know it at the time, but there were just 821 miles (1,330km) between us and the end of the ride…

We rolled into Mesquite, NV at dusk, and low on water.  We struck up a conversation with a local, Alfred, who offered to fill our water bottles.  One thing led to another, and he wound up letting us camp out on his patio, too. Alfred and his wife were another example of the kind of quality folks we encountered in the western states.

A desert scene west of Mesquite, NV

A desert scene west of Mesquite, NV

The road out of Mesquite was pretty mellow. Most of the traffic gravitates toward I-70, on the other side of the valley. Unfortunately, we were eventually forced to ride on I-70.  I suspect there was a minor, unpaved alternative route that we missed.

Apparently we weren’t the smallest and most vulnerable critters on the road. This horny toad lizard was about the size of a dime.

We discovered this lousy stencil when we pulled off the main road for a little break under an overpass.

On our second night in Vegas we linked up with Eyna’s friend from the Philippines, Koji. He was kind enough to drive us around downtown and show us some of the sights.

A chocolate fountain.

Boom.

Eyna and I don’t drink, gamble, or dance, but we have a deep appreciation for sweets.

Our time in Vegas coincided with the sprouting of a new branch on the Madrid family tree.

After an extended stay in Vegas with family and friends, we pedaled 65 miles to the border town Pahrump, NV. The following morning we rode into the 13th and final state of our trip.

Our first night in California was spent on public land just outside of Death Valley.

The weather was perfect. If we were passing through in the summer, though, we would have been confronted by temperatures in excess of 120 degrees.

A perfect, secluded site.

A gentile 500 foot climb out of Shoshone, CA put us at Ibex pass.

A resident of Ibex Pass. This guy was easily the size of my hand.

A tarantula with 8.5 legs?

In Yermo, we met a waitress who was from Rockville, MD.

Notice the warning message on the top right side of this bulletin board in a cafe in Boron, CA. A bit disconcerting, isn’t it? There were quite a few towns in the Mojave desert that had been polluted by toxic spills, dumping, or leakage of industrial chemicals.

I had heard such great things about California, but I developed a different impression during our ride. The inland area was post-apocolyptic, and the coast was crowded and commercialized. It was also the only state where we experienced unprovoked hostility from drivers, who beeped at us and even tried to run us off the road in a few cases.

Here’s a vista of an abandoned shop on polluted scrubland. This is a pretty typical scene for the Mojave region.

It was along this stretch of road that we met a grizzled old cyclist that had ridden down from the Pacific northwest. He planned to ride to San Diego and then continue on to South America. Before we parted ways he told us, “Don’t stop riding. You don’t have any excuse. I’m 76, and I’m still going.”