AUGUST OF 2011

that was kinda the end of the trip.  it wasn’t easy for me to let it happen, but that was it.  it didn’t make sense to buy another bike and with our limited tools and zero access to the parts we needed, we didn’t have an option.  i didn’t really want to continue alone through the desert, just didn’t seem like a good idea.  

so what were we going to do?  alex found a guy on craigslist rideshare who was driving a truck from LA to NYC in a week’s time.  we called him and made arrangements for pickup.  we spent a week relaxing in las vegas (lots of: naps, afternoon/evening swimming, movies, donuts and vip status hanging in the various clubs at the palms) before heading to LA.

we started out in utah and made our way to rt 15.  this highway was pretty much our only option for getting to vegas from southwest utah.  there were other routes, but we weren't sure about gas stations and the last place we wanted to run out of gas or have any kind of issue was out in the desert.  the speed limit was 75, but we can call that the speed minimum because everyone was driving 90+. 

we changed our oil behind the autozone in st george as we were due and it seemed like a good idea before hitting the desert.  it was 123 miles to las vegas.  doable, but it still seemed prudent for me to tell alex "it was nice knowing you" as we set out.

the highway was very fast, very windy, and very hot.  this did not add up to fun.  if you go too fast the bikes are going to fail, too slow and you will probably die.  it was 125 degrees outside.  my eyes wouldn't stop watering (sunscreen + sweat combo).  we made it to the first gas station but alex's bike was leaking a lot of oil.  he was already low on the dipstick after just filling up.  every time we stopped we added more oil to his bike.  eventually the inevitable happened, there was a loud clang from alex's bike and a puff of smoke.

we pulled over to diagnose the situation.  alex's bike wouldn't start.  we were still 40 miles from city limits.  awesome.  i think we waited a bit and then he could start the bike but it wouldn't idle and was running on only one cylinder.  we found a side highway (this was very lucky) and slowly made it the rest of the way to phil's house, on the far side of vegas.  going through that city during rush hour with a bike that wouldn't idle was the icing on the cake.

we parked the bikes and got in the pool.

if you look closely you can see the needle on the right gauge there is at 0.  that is the tachometer and it should read around 5000 rpm.  it stopped working about two days into the trip so the rest of the time i was shifting whenever it felt right.  this is really a better way to ride the bike but it's also helpful to know what the bike is actually doing.

early morning and late afternoon shadows were the best.  wish i had shot more of them.

a bit after this was taken, i started to run out of gas.  i knew i wasn't going to make it, but alex had the gas can so it'd be fine.  i felt my engine dying out as it does when it has no more gas but then looked ahead and what do i see but a very long (1-2 miles?) downhill stretch in front of me.  with a gas station at the end of it.  so i motion alex to go ahead and i get as much momentum up as i can... gas runs out right then and i coasted the rest of the way in.  by the time i actually got down the hill i wasn't going more than 10 mph but i didn't have to push at all and it was a huge, kinda hilarious, victory for me. 

the storm got worse and worse and it didn't look good.  then we went around a big curve and there was a ranger / camping outpost, with a gas station.  the grocery store had just closed so we weren't going to eat dinner (though i did have an apple in my bag) but at least there was a place to camp.  we waited for the rain to break for long enough to get to a camp site and put up the tent.  we camped by the river and our stakes wouldn't stay in the ground because it was all sand.  we lined the outside of the tent with big rocks so it would have the necessary tension to stay up.  "think the tide is going to come in?"  "do rivers have tides?"  "is that a river or a lake?" none of these questions mattered because by that point we weren't going anywhere else.

the light really was that yellow/orange.  very cool and strange to see a sunset through a thunderstorm.  there was another huge rainbow behind us.

this might be my favorite photo from the trip.  it's taken at the same place as the previous one, i just walked back a couple hundred feet and climbed up some rocks.  i lost one of my gloves there.

you can see the road ahead curved to the left and went pretty much directly towards the huge storm we were watching on the horizon.  there was lightning everywhere.  i told alex that i didn't think we should go ahead.  but he said, "what are we going to do?  we have no choice."  he was right, and from that point on, we had our go-to catch phrase of the trip.  it turned into "i mean, we don't really have a choice" and was used at various points- about where to stay at night, how to perform repairs on the bikes and what routes to take.  we did have some say in how things went, but a large part of this trip turned out to be learning how to accept whatever came our way, because really, in the middle of nowhere, 2000 miles away from home, what else are you going to do?