Day 10: White Tank Campground to the Mojave Desert

March 4, 2013

The wind never dies. In fact, as the night goes on it becomes stronger, with 20 mile per hour gusts picking up to 30 and 40. If the tent wasn't weighted down with my gear and with me it would have ended up out in the fields of granite or the hills beyond. Laying inside, I worry about the rain fly tearing or the poles snapping into a dozen pieces, because every ten seconds the wind tugs at the bottom corners and then, finding them unmovable, instead slams the upper half from side to side and back to front. It goes on and on and on. I manage two or three hours of broken sleep.

At 6:30 the winds show no sign of slowing. I have water left, but almost no food, and even less desire to wait out a windstorm with nothing to do but hang out with a bunch of million-year-old rocks. The city of Twentynine Palms is ten miles away, all downhill. If the wind is behind me, I'll fly without a problem. If it's punching me in the side the whole way, it'll be a wild and dangerous ride.

I go for it.

The lower I drop the more the strength of the wind falls. And the downhill is so sweet I don't really notice the breeze. The problem, it turns out, is that the destination is far worse than the bouncing and swaying ride it takes to get there.

I've been to some strange places since leaving San Diego: Calipatria, Niland, and Mecca to name three. But none of them unnerves me like Twentynine Palms. Half of the people I watch walking around are on drugs — and the other half will be later. Everywhere I turn I see a disproportionate amount of skinny arms, stringy hair, dirty and unstylish and mismatched clothing, audible self-talk, movements that are a little too quick, eyes that are a little too wide, and a lot of Oakland Raiders clothing and bumper stickers. In better news, there's a New York-style pizzeria, just like I'd been dreaming about all day yesterday. But because everything in Twentynine Palms is depressing, today's the one day of the week it doesn't open.

The best way to experience Twentynine Palms: from a thousand feet above.

This is the last town before I set out on a 115-mile run across the hot, dry, shadeless desert. There aren't any services for the first 100 of those miles. At this moment, that ride holds a lot more appeal than spending another minute in this armpit of a town. But after a week of riding and living in the desert already, my clothes smell like an armpit rubbed back and forth among the crevices of a moldy crotch. I need to clean up before heading back out into it.

So on to the only laundromat in Twentynine Palms I go. In a room full of 30 washing machines, I find one of the eight that works. Then I wait for the wash cycle to end, hanging out among overweight folks with dirty and misaligned teeth, a hunchback, people with eyebrows so bushy they fall into the extreme category, and the near-homeless. It's a rare place outside of big cities that I worry about someone getting into my gear while it hangs off the bike. This is one of those places. Every minute my eyes fall back to my bike as it rests against the floor-to-ceiling windows next to the door.

I fuel up on cheese enchiladas at a tiny Mexican restaurant where the mariachi music plays from a scratched CD that skips and stutters and then hangs in the same place every 45 seconds. I look out the window onto the highway and watch another half-dozen blitzed members of the parade of broken dreams and squandered promise wobble and stumble and fidget their way through the heat of the late morning. Not long after, I jump into a pool of sunscreen and, smelling of meadow-fresh Tide, latch on to a tailwind and a flat road that will pick me up and take me far away from Twentynine Palms.

I set out under a sky empty of everything but pale blue in all directions and a handful of white contrails that mark the path of airliners headed from Los Angeles to points east. At first the ride is intense; I'm amped on adrenaline. I pass the big and blue and imposing sign that reads Next Services 100 Miles. I fly at 25 miles per hour with the tailwind and a subtle downhill. I'm consumed with the realization that I'm on my way to doing the sort of long and isolated desert crossing I figured I'd never start.

With time the edge wears off. I head past small houses alongside the highway. They're simple and built on the cheap, often with reclaimed materials. Many are no bigger than a single room. Some are occupied, some are abandoned, and others lie in that middle ground where it's impossible to tell. If I lived out here, in a home like this, with nothing but heat and sun and harsh desert boxing me in, I'd probably turn to booze and speed too.

From a self-inflicted, one-car accident.

The miles pass under the hum of the tires and fall behind the clank of the bags against the racks. I sing Shins and Tame Impala and Ra Ra Riot songs out loud to myself and to the cracks in the pavement. For the first time I feel like I'm going to be able to make it all the way across the country again.

The sandy flats beyond Twentynine Palms merge into rolling hills of creosote bush and yellow grass. Soon they become sand dotted with patches of green backed by red-brown mountains. And it's the desert, so this goes on forever. A car passes only every ten minutes or so. I see more roadside grave markers (four) than houses (zero). The sun feels like it's beating down on me alone, but at 75 to 80 degrees and with the driest air I've ever known, it seems like it's one of the best days of the year to make this crossing.

Vast. That's the word that runs through my head over and over. The landscape out here is just so vast. It stretches in broad sweeps in every direction, as far as I can see, and the hugeness coupled with the isolation is something I've never before experienced.

Notice the road climbing out of the valley 20 miles in the distance.

I ride more than 50 miles until I hit the next stop sign. There's no gas station and no restaurant, just a couple of piles of rocks and a porta-potty whose contents roast in the desert sun all day, every day. So I keep going. And because I'm at the top of a rise and the wind is still at my back, I fly to the east. That's when I decide to keep pushing until both the downhill and the tailwind give out. If that means riding all night, then I'll ride all night. The miles are fun and easy now, and I know that if the winds change direction tomorrow as expected I won't feel anything like this.

After an hour, with the sun and wind both long gone, and the headlight and taillight blazing, I start to push uphill. Soon I hang a left out into the desert, head a few hundred feet back from the highway, and jump into the tent. It turns cold quick on the valley floor as the day's heat seeps up and away into the deep purple of the night, so it's not more than ten minutes before I squeeze into the sleeping bag. I take in the sweeping canopy of stars above me and reflect on one of the most memorable rides of my life. And then, with only the softest push, I tumble into deep sleep.

Today's ride: 84 miles (135 km)
Total: 410 miles (660 km)

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