Day Eleven: It Was the Best of Shoulders, It Was the Worst of Shoulders

Day Eleven: It Was the Best of Shoulders, It Was the Worst of Shoulders

Miles: 62.3

Climb: 2150

Ave. spd.: 10  mph--exactly.

I don’t suppose any of you have actually been inside Satan’s rectum?  Well, I have. And let me tell you, it’s NOT pretty.

After an acceptable  night at The Six (Six, Six), I motored into the dawn, clear in contrast to the fully cloudy report on the web.  What does the web know? Nuthin’. As I was about to discover. Following Google cycling instructions, I set out across the valley, soon to find my first turn blocked off as a private drive. No problem, easy workaround.  Next, the line turned into full-on dirt and gravel for what would amount to miles of slogging. No thanks, not on a fully loaded trike. Okay, check the dang Google map again--okay, that should work. Still, hit a dead end.  Next, find ANOTHER dirt track, but this one looks good and should connect to where you want to go. Almost, but another jog puts you on “Scenic” Rt. 1, finally, which will absolutely take me to Hwy 40. Phew. Arizona has begun with a challenge.

My path follows the edge of  a national wildlife refuge, a place, ironically, for both preserving and terminating wildlife.  I’m not against hunting, but this dichotomy has always struck me as a little weird. Still, it is an important wetlands preserve, and I’m sure the birds who don’t get shot really appreciate it.

The road is rough chip seal, rolling, moderate traffic.  Not great, but okay. My last memories are from years before, riding with a severe tail wind.  It flew by in nearly effortless joy. Today is a bit more work. Before long, I hit Golden Shores, which I keep calling “Golden Showers” in my head, an homage to an old, obscene Frank Zappa tune.  Long live Zappa!

Then I hit Hwy 40 and begin my slog through The Devils Lower GI.  I stop to take a photo of the fetching view down the Colorado towards striking volcanic needles and roll down to the freeway.  Hmmm…. The shoulder looks a bit dark, not llike the pavement in the lanes.

Then I hit it.

It’s pitted.  It’s rutted. It’s loose.  It’s strewn with lurking road vipers and other venomous debris.  A grade that should yield 7 or 8 mph finds me straining for 4, even losing traction at times.  Good God! What hell is this? I don’t remember such horrors from my previous ride. Could the shoulder have gone so bad in only a dozen years or so?  I’ve got seven or eight miles to go to reach my turn off. What if it stays this way the whole distance? Not-safe--for-work language passes my lips, rest assured.  Now the warning sign, admonition from the on-ramp makes sense: “Cyclists must stay on shoulder.” The impulse to swing onto the traffic lane is overwhelming. Like sufferers in Dante’s Inferno, I pedal within sight, within reach of a devine salvation--smooth pavement--but cannot use it.  The sign should have read: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  All that’s missing i a three-headed devil dog at the on-ramp to complete the picture.

Sinning and spinning cyclists must learn to endure their suffering, so I resolve to keep moving.  I can do this. The Devil will NOT get his due. Eff the Imp! But as Dante and Virgil descended through the circles, crossed the lake of ice, and climbed down the shaggy flanks of Satan himself, I break a small rise, and there the fetid surface relents, giving way to smooth salvation.  The angels sing, a trumpet sounds--although it’s more like that jazz shredding great Hadi Al Sadoon than Gabriel.

And then my ride feels off, bouncy.  A tire is going flat, the same one I’d patched in Death Valley.  Ugh. Another lash from Beelzebub’s tail. As trucks and cars roar past, I get to work.  Tip the trike, pull the tube. Before long, a road worker pulls up close, his lights flashing, giving me cover as I labored.  I am grateful. He comes over to watch me work. I get the new tube in. I thought it was a good one, I really did. It goes immediately flat.  Another lash. I thank the road crew guy but say he doesn’t need to wait. I’m used to such trevails. He wishes me well and gets back into his truck, leaving me to my troubles.  Okay. A shitty tube. Next! This one is good, and I finally get up and rolling again. I am determined, however, to get a couple of new ones in Lake Havasu. I don’t trust

these.

In short order, I am off the highway and in the arms of Love’s, eating lunch, twenty miles--or so I think--still to go.  On the next stretch, I am doubting this kind of touring, feeling a bit besieged by the sound of cars and trucks. My enthusiasm has ebbed.  For many reasons, bike touring pushes one through a roller coaster of emotions. Just keep pedaling.

I climb steadily and top a shallow summit only to hit a supreme shoulder--wide, glassy smooth, and downhill with a tail wind.  Oh, the pleasure of that. Inhale the speed and miles and smiles. It’s downhill virtually all the way to Lake Havasu. But what the hell has happened to Lake Havasu?  The scale of new development is staggering. Mega-maga malls, McMansions, throbbing traffic. Wow. To my delight and benefit, however, and a result of such growth, I discover a multi-use trail that went on for miles and miles, ultimately taking me far from the core of town and all the way to my destination.  Take that, Satan! Get thee behind me!

There is another minor lash as I negotiate some crazy road work around Safeway, but at last I’m parked in front of the supermarket.  I lock the trike to a metal bench, although it was hard to imagine who might want to pedal off with my monster load. Perhaps the guy I met earlier?  Ratty jeans, shaven head, weathered skin, front teeth missing, mountain bike with plastic shopping bag hanging off the bars, he pulled up beside me at a stop sign, asking in a hyper-energetic voice:  “Trade yah! Oh, that ain’t got no beer holder. No thanks. Whoops! Gotta go!” And he cut off across the road. Well, okay then. Ride well, brother. I have reason to suspect he was one of those “DUI” cyclists, who take to the pedals for certain, ah, legal reasons. One thing for sure, however, I was definitely getting a brew inside this massive shopping emporium that held EVERYTHING I could not find at the crumby stores in the remoter desert locales.

I am surprised at the strength of my response to the displays of fruits and veggies--hooray!  Don’t take to much of anything, Scotty.  Remember, you gotta pedal this stuff down the road, not much storage space either, chump.  As fast as I can,, for time is burning on these short winter days, I get what I need and rush out to my trike to begin the loading process--cutting off broccoli stems, getting rid of boxes, offloading stuff I don’t need or want--like those lousy tortillas I’d been subsisting on for the last few days.  Jam. Pack. Strap. Let’s go, go, go.

I renegotiate the road work upheaval, splashed through the runoff from a broken main, and coast down to the bike shop.  Bonus. They have the 20’ tubes with presta valves, my preferred type, although I can use shraeders in a pinch. The owner even let me fill up from his bottled water dispenser.  The blessings kept coming. I quickly regain the cross-town multi-use path and lay into the pedals. I have a sense for where the park is that I want, but my memory is murky. I THOUGHT I read the map correctly.  But as I climb, somehow it seems I am off course, The Evil One sowing uncertainty. I check the Google map and it appears I’ve way overshot the turn off, like by a couple of miles. Damn, okay, back down the hill.  Wait. A. Cotton. Picking. Minute. Eeeek! Brakes squeal as I stop. Daylight burning, I crank out the phone again and study more closely. Where the hell am I? “Okay, Google.”

“Hi, how can I help?”

“Directions, Sara Park, Lake Havasu, Arizona”

To which, The Google Meister delivers all kinds of links and info on Sarah Lawrence College, back East.  Now, I know Sarah Lawrence is a very fine institution of higher learning, and one of my intellectual heroes, Joseph Campbell, taught there for over 30 years, but it weren’t no BLM park, dag nabbit.  Then I have the presence of mind to spell out the name for the oh-so-literal Google machine.

“Okay, Google.”

“Hi, how can I help?”

“Directions, S. A. R. A. Park, Lake Havasu, Arizona.”

Bingo.  Seven miles, to the south, the direction I’d been heading.  Sigh. Turn around the three wheeled pig and pile on the miles and altitude gain,  up, up, and away in my leaden balloon. It’s really pushing towards darkness, 4:30PM, and I need light to find camp.  As I mentioned, the glorious multi-use path holds up for the entire climb, giving me a car-free, smooth surface away from the mad evening traffic. Thank you, citizens and planners of Lake Havasu City. At last, I break the climb, hit my street, and cross over to the park. I roll by a dog park and down a slope, found a pull-out.  Hmmm...Can I get the trike down into that wash? Will she roll? Go for it. Down into the narrows, ride and push, and in a moment I’ve found a spot, fully hidden from the road, tucked in behind a scraggly half-dead paloverde tree.  Victory!

Quite exhausted, realizing, too, that I needn’t have carried the water all the way up the hill because I could have filled up at the doggie park, I laugh and smile at the coming dark.  I can stop. I text Jodi quickly and get to work. I know, however, that I will not be pushing on the next day. I’d been thrashing the pedals for seven straight days. So on the eigth day, I will rest.  This means, of course, that there is a good chance I’ll have to fight a rain storm into Prescott, but no matter. That’s why God/Al Gore’s family company invented Goretex. I need to be stopped for a while.

I cook my simple meal of pasta, broccoli, and canned salmon, wolf it down in my fashion, though not with quite the astonishing speed of our cattle pup, Patchy, and throw my weary carcass into the tent.  Lights out, folks.