I left the park in Piru early enough that nobody was around to see me off.  I left that early because I figured it to be a tough day pedaling uphill and I wanted to start as soon as I could to get the hard miles finished.  Traffic was not bad and the gradual incline seemed easy.  I remember passing the fruit stand where I had gotten a free orange on Monday, but it was not open yet.  This time, I was smart enough to stop and get my water topped up about half way over the mountains, somewhere around Saugus, I think.  The ride up to the pass didn’t seem as bad as it had the other direction.  I’m not sure if it felt easy due to the more gradual slope going this direction, or if I was stronger after the ride to Ventura, or maybe both.  

Just after I reached the top of the last rise, a little distance before the long straight steep descent to Quartz Hill, a car passed me.  I accelerated quickly and was merely spinning my pedals with no resistance, and I realized my feet could not keep up with the wheel speed… I knew on flat ground, I could crank a little faster than 20 mph, so I was already probably over 30 and still accelerating.  After a few minutes, the car ahead of me by a few hundred yards was no longer gaining on me, so I figured I must have been going near 60 mph!  The bike was vibrating like crazy.  My eyes were watering from the wind, and all I could think was I hoped I didn’t need to slow down or hit anything at that speed.  I just imagined my bike’s hub would have been smoking and my tire would have blown out and I would have been road rash vulture bait.  But happily, the grade gradually eased and air friction reduced my speed, but my heart was still racing from the adrenalin for quite a while.  

I was closing in on my final camp of the trip, this time in the desert.  It seemed a relatively easy riding day was in store tomorrow.  Except for a short stretch up Mojave-Tropico Road, it was a mostly flat ride across the remaining 35 miles or so left to ride to Mojave in the morning.  I stopped to camp in the desert about half a mile west of Antelope Valley Jr College to camp a few hundred feet out of sight under a juniper tree.  Ground was really hard, perfectly flat dry clay.  Not the most comfortable bed, but after kicking a few stickery tumbleweeds away, it worked well enough to roll out my sleeping bag for the final time.  Again, I fell asleep quickly and soundly.