February 28, 2013
Day 6: Jacumba Hot Springs, CA to near Brawley, CA
After breakfast at the Lounge and goodbyes to Olivia and Guthrie and the good people of Jacumba Hot Springs, it's back to a familiar scene: cold wind, a road that slopes up, mountains on all sides, the freeway visible a mile to the north, and a skinny ribbon of metal marking the border with Mexico.
For an hour that's how it stays, but then the highway hands me off to Interstate 8. I know there's a major descent ahead, but that fact doesn't work itself all the way into my brain until I see the sign that warns semi-trucks to keep their speed below 35 miles per hour. It's about that time that I stop to check my tires and brakes and make sure that every piece of gear is strapped, latched, or otherwise locked in place. In part it's because I don't want to crash. But more to the point, anything that falls off is gone forever, because there's no scenario where I ride back up this mountainside.
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Just beyond the crest, the freeway turns to the left and leaves me mouth-open-stunned. It's not just the preview of the drop, but also the view to the east. The jagged faces of rock that I've seen every minute since I left San Diego at last give way to the Imperial Valley, the flattest flat that flat has ever known.
The ride down was created by the Buddha, gift-wrapped by Mohammed, and delivered on a silver platter by the baby Jesus. The shoulders run smooth and wide, traffic moves over into the far lane to pass, and I fly down toward the valley at 25 miles per hour without once turning the cranks. I don't have the words to sort out the joy that comes with watching the elevation markers roll past. First it's 3,000 feet. Ten minutes later it's 2,000. And 1,000 comes ten minutes after that.
From there I leave the freeway. Soon the grade levels out almost to flat and the heat of the desert drives me to ditch all but one layer of clothing. The old highway — the Evan Hewes Highway — runs east-northeast, sandwiched by sand dunes and set parallel to a string of even-spaced telephone poles. A truck passes every ten minutes or so on the way to the drywall factory up ahead, but otherwise I'm alone with the birds and flies.
The blacktop of the highway hasn't seen a repair of any kind since just before the Nixon administration took office. Every three feet brings a crack between one and 12 inches wide. It's a rough ride that requires constant attention, rattles fillings, and makes any extra body fat jiggle at 18 opposing angles in rapid succession. But it's flat and windless and doesn't make it feel like I'm dragging a grand piano behind me, so I smile at the gaps in the surface and give thanks for double-digit speed.
I hang a left to avoid the busier streets of El Centro, which sends me north and under the flight path of the air base that houses the Blue Angels. As I pedal past fields of broccoli, the blue and yellow jets howl across the sky in formation, flying at a few hundred miles an hour while separated by what looks like no more than eight feet.
Farther on, the crops disappear and have their place taken by sand dunes and earth so flat that it reminds me of riding in Western Kansas. When I see a warning sign ahead with its message printed in small type, I pull off the shoulder and into the sand to stop and get a better look. At that moment, two gray fighter jets tear-ass across the sky a few hundred feet above my head. Ten seconds later, I read the details of a sign that explains how I shouldn't stop or leave the road because I'm passing through a bombing range. A bombing range!
I don't see much other than a few communications towers and posts with colored markers that look like targets. Mostly the range looks the same as the rest of the flat and featureless desert. I push on in the dry heat with the sun behind my left shoulder or at my back. I cruise alone, with only the clanking of gear and the clicking of gears to keep me company. I'm happy that bike riding is fun again. The only bad part? The threat of a missile strike.
I pass more lush fields of dark green vegetables and then ride through Brawley. It's a town where a lot of non-cowboys wear cowboy boots and where I am, as near as I can tell, the only white person except for that old, lost-looking guy in the Toyota Prius with Montana plates.
I'm still riding as the top of the sun falls behind the curtain of mountains where I started this morning. The valley turns cool in an instant. I power through the last pale glow of light to a county park outside of Brawley where the air smells of cow shit and where, in the distance, I hear the muffled explosions of bombs landing in the desert.
Today's ride: 72 miles (116 km)
Total: 194 miles (312 km)
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