Into the Great Wide Open

Well, yesterday's prep was helpful. But it wasn't enough. I found myself tied up in meetings for work, then running around taking care of last-minute business. I ended up leaving at noon, much later than I planned.

Still, it was a gorgeous day. Temp at dawn was 42 degrees, but it had warmed up  by the time I took off. The sky was a burning, cloudless blue, with a north wind that was the parting gift of the rainstorm that moved through the previous day.

The odometer said 25,867 when I left the house.

Ironically, I decided the face shield on this helmet was too scratched up, and swapped it out for a much more garish helmet that is not pictured here.

Also ironically, the beginning of the trip featured twistier roads and higher altitudes that I am likely to encounter for the entire rest of the trip. To escape the tedious surface streets of SoCal, I took Angeles Crest Highway and Angeles Forest Highway to reach the high desert, the Mojave, on the other side of the mountains. I was expecting it to be somewhat warmer there, so I remained a little underdressed going up the mountains. But when I reached the divide at 4400 feet...

...the north wind strengthened and got colder. I swept down the mountains and into the desert, then east toward the distant Arizona border. I was near the shivering point, but I imagined that this was a great weight-loss program. Just think how many calories I was burning!

(By the way, in that shot of the divide, you can see the burned forest that was wiped out by the Station Fire in 2009, the biggest fire in L.A. County history. This spot is about 15 miles from the starting point of the fire.)

It was a beautiful ride east on highways 138 and 18, the San Gabriel Mountains to the south holding a smattering of snow. The open desert gave way to  generic suburbia for a while, and then I was out the other side, crossing the desert below the San Gabriel Mountains.

I finally stopped for lunch at a Jack in the Box in Yucca Valley. As I waited for my order, a grizzled guy not too much older than me came up and said, "Is that Ninja out there yours?"  (He might have been tipped off by the armor I was still wearing.) Then he told me that his wife had started with that bike, moved through a succession of Harley-style cruisers, but now wanted a Ninja 250 again, because that bike was the most fun she ever had. I could dig it.

Next Services 100 Miles

After lunch I rode Highway 62, threading between Joshua Tree National Park and the huge Marine base at Twentynine Palms. I left a fuel stop and, two minutes later, passed the "Next Services" sign. This was the part of the ride I had been looking forward to. This stretch of the Mojave is so unmolested by man that I was in awe of the endless, powerful sweep of rocks, soil, and creosote, and the 50-mile views. You get an inkling of why many of the world's major religions arose in the desert.

An hour or so later the highway paralleled a railroad line. The gravel in the railbed was a mix of very light colors and very dark colors - nothing in between. Over the years, hundreds of people have hand-picked colors to form graffiti on the railroad embankment. It goes on for perhaps ten miles.

Here's a shot of the mighty Ninja 250 in the Great Wide Open.

About 120 miles after the fuel stop, the Colorado River bridge came into view. Next stop: Parker, Arizona.

So now I'm luxuriating in the Budget Inn. I dined at a local cafe, choosing the homemade meatloaf dinner for $7.50. Wow, that was a lot of food. Very good, too. Tomorrow's destination? I dunno. Maybe Ajo (Spanish for "garlic".)