Hills Are Relative

Hills are relative.

Some are like your great aunt, gentle and pillowy.  Some are like your not-nearly-long-enough-lost cousin - a bitch, no matter what.

In the desert, what can be your great aunt at 5:30 in the morning and 75 degrees, is your bitch-cousin at 10:30 and closing in on 100 degrees.

In the last three days, we've ridden from Victorville to Joshua Tree, then two legs along the edge of the Mojave Desert.  Stunning landscape - arid, tough and scrubby.  You can't drink enough water.  If you urinate on the side of the road, it's dry by the time you're back on the bike or back in the car.

Jody's logged a hard 201 miles; I've got 59.  We've fallen into a routine of ride, eat, shower, nap, eat again, sleep.  Get up and do it again.  Drink, drink, drink.  Yes, beer is a recovery drink.  We're very glad of that.  This morning, the alarm went off at 3:20.  Out the door at 4:00.  On the bikes by 5:30 (there was driving involved this morning, as motels are few and far between along the Mojave).  Trying to log miles early, before the heat of the day.  Whoever is driving the sag wagon (Peter or me, depending on the morning), following the riders with the headlights on, lighting the way down the highway.  We get to see the moonset and the sunrise.  The one evening we went out, was Friday night.  Shabbat.  And the blue moon over Joshua Tree National Park.

Today we rolled past the turnoff to the ghost town of Cadiz, named after the same Spanish city as my daughter.  It is near the dry bed of Cadiz Lake. Thinking of you, Miss Cadiz!  Mud, baby.  We pondered the Amboy Crater (look it up on Google Earth or Wikipedia) and the craziness of the casino culture.  When we checked into the motel in Laughlin today, we asked:  where can we get lunch?  Turns out the restaurants are not open on Sunday.  None of them.  So . . . the buffet at the casino was it for lunch, and likely will be for dinner as well.  Ah, yes.  Casino culture.  Real restaurants cannot compete.

The internet connection here is nonexistent.  Even the Hotspot is having its troubles.  I'd love to post pictures - and I will! - but I can't today.  Coming as soon as the internet connection is better.

I thought of that while riding my bicycle.
       ~ Albert Einstein on the Theory of Relativity