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2011-02-11 tl;dr: I bicycled from Needles for 60 miles to just west of Vidal Junction. Tailwind helped. Found a wallet. I left Needles late morning after stocking up at Bashas', the only grocery store in Needles. Bashas’ is impressively expensive.I decided to skip out on an afternoon of work. So of course a customer had a crises, reported via email. A software crises is kind of hard to deal with in the middle of the desert. Especially when the customer refuses to provide a phone number and I have no way to look it up. I suppose I could have dug my laptop out and attempted to tether it to my phone, but I lacked the ambition. This customer's server is about the most difficult to get connected to of all our customers. I headed out of Needles south on Highway 95. I was told it might be busy. I was told correct. Between trucks, RVs and a significant number of boat trailers I had to remain ever vigilant to not get caught in a convergence of north- and south-bound traffic. Highway 95 was not built with cyclists in mind. Go figure; it is 54 miles of no modern amenities. Especially no water. Although there were a surprising number of water bottles littering the side of the road. Every one was capped and filled, but I wonder if that yellow color indicates they wouldn't be healthy to drink. I passed a hitchhiker. I hope he finds a ride, because I doubt he'd survive the walk. Although he was pretty grisly looking. So maybe he'd be okay. I found a wallet. Again. This wallet was fully loaded, and for once I was able to track down the owner on the phone. It had been missing for 3 weeks. Good old desert preservation. It looked freshly lost. I promised to mail it to her, because I am not cycling back to Bullhead City. I had a wicked tailwind. Otherwise the 60 miles I accomplished today would have cost me a lot more. I set up camp just after leaving Vidal Junction (services!). I left home a solid week ago and I'm just now finally camping. The temperature drops fast when the sun goes down, and the sun goes down early yet. So I'm camping in the California desert. I was looking forward to silence. Unfortunately I can hear the hum of the surrounding highways. I took a lot of pictures. I seem to have started every paragraph with "I". Go team. |
   seriously   in case you get thirsty     the only snake I saw    93 miles before you see a drop of water  aqueduct  |