The Life's Too Short Tour

Post Tour Update #1

New York, NY.

The Trek was 3,500 miles and lasted 105 days.

With rest days factored in, I averaged about 40 miles per day.

Flat tires, 1

Broken chain, 1

Broken spokes, 3

Highest elevation: 11,200, Monarch Pass, Colorado

Longest ride: 94 miles, western Kansas

Most difficult rides:

Hayters Gap, Virginia and Monarch Pass, Colorado. Both were physically tough climbs, Hayters Gap a four-mile, 4,000-foot Blue Ridge ascent at grades close to 15% at times; and Monarch Pass an epic 5,000-foot climb to 11,300-feet elevation at 8% grade for 25 miles.

Of note are Colorado's busy, shoulderless, and winding mountain roads which presented the most difficult overall riding in the country.

The Mojave desert presented challenges because of the heat. I had to stop riding and hop a shuttle on one 111-degree day near Death Valley.

Appalachia with its many climbs was tough throughout. Virginia and Kentucky roads were difficult. They were many steep hills, few flat roads, and narrow road shoulders. Kentucky, like no other state, was also plagued by an abundance of chasing dogs. The Ozarks came with their own set of arduous climbs and summer humidity.

The last two weeks I've been resting, but the images and impressions of the last days of the trek through California are still with me. I pedaled through Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and to the ocean at Santa Monica. I pedaled past the Hollywood sign on the hill, past the stars on the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard, past the famous hand prints at Grauman's Chinese Theater, and past manicured parks and lawns of Beverly Hills. At Santa Monica, when the Pacific Ocean came into view, I stood on the boardwalk staring out at it for a while. I took a bike trail south, through Venice Beach, and along the ocean at Marina del Ray, Playa del Ray, and then inland to a motel at El Segundo. I emptied the panniers and disposed of whatever I could in preparation to fly to New York. I flew home from Los Angeles airport the following day, landing at La Guardia Airport and taking a bus and cab home, the end of the trek.

Since then I've been recuperating. I didn't realize how fatigued I was from the summer of pedaling until I was home. It was as if the miles caught up to me when I stopped. And now that the trip is complete, the task of summing it up fully in words seems impossible.

It has taken some time to get used to normal routines again. Things such as setting up a tent at night, pedaling away from a motel or campsite each morning, filling water bottles, reading maps, had become habits of behavior. I walk the streets of New York feeling satisfied about the summer fulfilled, relieved that I made it across the 3,500 miles.

It's relatively peaceful here after being on the road for three and a half months, especially walking in mornings or evenings on the quieter streets, like on Rutherford Place along Stuyvesant park, a park tucked away by large churches and a patch of tall oaks. Hidden from the crowds the small park offers relative sanctuary of calm in the city. When I walk there it's past a cathedral-like Episcopal church, a stately and simple Quaker meeting house, a modern Orthodox Catholic church in modern architecture, and a Jewish synagogue in a converted brownstone.

Gray squirrels live among the trees in the park. People feed them nuts and peanuts. Also pigeons, mourning doves, English sparrows, starlings, cardinals, blue jays, crows, red-tailed hawks, red-headed woodpeckers. I once saw a wild turkey at Battery park, and sometimes I can watch a red-tailed hawk prey on squirrels in the Oval at Stuyvesant Town. Several times I've watched it perch on air conditioners on tenth and eleventh floor windows. Last year a coyote was captured in Central park, baffling game officials as to where and how the animal crossed unto the island.

There is a buffer of vegetation skirting the streets that helps keep Stuyvesant park relatively peaceful. In the park thoughts are lighter and people are relaxed or engaged in levity. Occassionally an acoustic band with violin, banjo, bass and guitar sets up and plays. People toss frisbees and footballs, some lay in the sun or read a book, and dogs occassionally chase around. On the wooden benches, painted green, people read, converse, take lunch, smoke, or nap. Within a block of the park are streets of restaurants and diners. Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Italian, Japanese, and a couple of nondescript ones. A favorite is a diner called Joe Juniors Restaurant and Coffee Shop which serves the best fried egg and sausage breakfast in the neighborhood. Eggs over easy and pork sausage sliced down the middle and homefries laced with onions and green peppers, prepared to perfection by the Mexican cook. Because of the quality of the breakfast, with eggs carefully fried, sausage done perfectly, and even the toast which comes already buttered, I've said the cook is a high chef. I always shout out "gracias, muy bueno" to the chef as we leave. These are the old routines and familiar places.

Any of the bicycling pains I endured along the way have by now subsided. There were the knee pains in hilly Virginia. The quadricep pains throughout the Appalachians. The hand pain and numbness which flared up on the high-mileage days through Kansas. A few bouts of heat-induced weakness in arid Utah and in the Mojave desert in Nevada. And an ongoing numbness and soreness in the feet. All have passed except for the weight of a deep down tiredness that continues to linger. I stayed healthy otherwise throughout the trip, other than the time I was briefly ill in wild Colorado. It happened at the base of Monarch Pass, where some bad water I drank made me ill for a couple of hours there on the roadside. It was an unfortunate and inhospitable place to be ill, at the foot of the highest and longest climb of the trek. Luckily, a half mile up the road I came upon a campground. It was down off the road among pines and cactus in a desert gulch, and it had a small store and a bathroom. There I took an hour to recover and get rehydrated for the climb up the 11,300-foot pass. After riding in such dry and desolate surroundings there in the Rockies, the cooler of cold drinks in the tiny store grabbed my attention. I wanted, needed, two large Gatorades, but thought better of it for my budget and instead grabbed one bottle and took it to the counter. Then the woman behind the counter, quite unexpectedly, offered me a second large bottle, free of charge, explaining that it had been discovered just moments before to be slightly wet from a tiny leak. "You might as well have it," she said. I graciously accepted it and relaxed on a porch to slowly drink the two large bottles -- on yellow and one green. When I felt better I pedaled up and over Monarch Pass.

From what I saw in my travels it would seem America truly is in recession, or at best -- transition. I saw stores and commercial enterprises of all types closed and abandoned all across the land, from New Jersey to California. It was particularly evident in Kentucky and Kansas, where it seemed entire towns had packed up and left. On the cycling maps I used to navigate the trek, the motel and store listings were hopelessly outdated, in many cases with only disconnected telephone numbers and empty store fronts where businesses once operated. I was in several towns which were in their last throes of existence. In Kentucky there was Elkhorn City and Lookout. In Missouri it was Ash Grove and Golden City. In Utah and Kansas nearly every town was tinged by the blight. In Colorado there were towns such as Eads which retain a grocery, bar, motel and post office, and not much else. For California it was Yerba, where among a gauntlet of closed down storefronts falling into decrepitude, the streets are buckled and pot-holed, seemingly never to be repaired.

Some small towns and cities were thriving, like Charlottesville, Virginia -- Springfield and Farmington, Missouri -- Hutchison, Kansas -- Pueblo, Colorado -- St. George, Utah -- Bardstown and Berea, Kentucky -- and Las Vegas. In the east, from New Jersey to Virginia, things seemed relatively better off. And in California the cities surrounding Los Angeles appeared as thriving. Still, even as recession is evident there is vitality in America, people are vacationing, working, building, traveling, and doing all the things that make it the vibrant nation it is.

Churches figured prominently on the trip. Places of worship were everywhere and I had interactions in many. Among the churches and people I encountered along the trip were Southern Baptists, Orthodox and Roman catholics, United Methodists, Lutherans, Mormons, Quakers, Amish, Episcopalians, Mennonites, Pentecostals, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, all scattered across the country. Some of the European cyclists I met expressed surprise by the ubiquity of religious expression in America. A plethora of churches, signs, billboards, and bumper stickers represents disparate faiths across the country. Religious symbols decorate the roadside scenes from coast to coast. Three crosses on a Virginia hillside, a statue of Mother Mary on a Kentucky lawn, a small Hindu shrine in the lobby of a Kansas motel, an exotic Buddhist temple in California. I stayed nights in Episcopal, United Methodist, Baptist and Lutheran churches, and once in a Christian hostel. Once I slept beside the altar in the sanctuary of a church for the plushly carpeted floor. On a few occassions when necessary along the trek I stopped to avail myself of church lawns (to rest), awnings (to stay dry or have shade), or water spigots (to refill water bottles). Sometimes a church would be open and I would use the restroom or relax in the shade of the sanctuary for a few moments. At one church in Kentucky there was a full kitchen stocked with food and drink for cyclists. There was no pastor or caretaker there, only a sign permitting cyclists to "make yourself at home." I cooked up a few cans of beans and spaghetti, then slept on the floor, along with two other cyclists who arrived later that evening. In Virginia I stayed on historic grounds at Yorktown in an old house of the Episcopal church. It was stocked with food and had a laundry and full bathroom. I cooked myself a large hamburger meal at a Lutheran church in Kansas where I stayed a night alone. At a Baptist church in eastern Kentucky I cooked up green beens and ravioli in the kitchen, washed laundry, showered, and slept on a mattress on the floor. The pastor showed me a short cut into Illinois. I attended Sunday services once, at a non-denominational Christian church in Happy Landing, Kentucky. It was a small church at an otherwise empty intersection in the rural hills. I happened to ride past the church as morning services were starting and decided to join.

I met several evangelists and preachers on the trip, usually on the roadside, sometimes outside of a church. As such, along the trek I was prayer for, had hands layed upon me, and once on a back road in Kentucky a traveling evangelist spoke in tongues while blessing my trek. There were spiritual exchanges and interactions with memorable personalities such as Ray the Boardwalk Rasputin and Richard the pastor on the New Jersey shore, Lightbulb the McDonalds worker in Virginia, Jeff the walking preacher in Kentucky, Matt the mountain bike preacher in Colorado, and Elmer the bottle tree artist in California.

Foremost, thanks to the long list of those who supported the tour in one way or another. You gave donations, advice, gear, and support which were vital. To Banjo Brothers there is much gratitude for donating panniers, handlebar bag, and saddle bag, for the trek.

Everyone who generously contributed to the $1,250 collected for the American Brain Tumor Association can be proud of the substantial donation we raised. Your show of support and donations were monumental, the highlight of the tour. Many donated behind the scenes, significantly helping to fund expenses on the road, providing lodging, meals, flight tickets, bike repairs, gear, and cash. There were generous souls who put money in my hand, and generous souls who sent checks, substantial offerings, in a show of support appreciated beyond measure.

until later...

Day 105: The End

Santa Monica, California.

I completed the Life's Too Short Tour today, on Saturday, September 5, reaching the Pacific Ocean after riding a bicycle for 105 days from New York City to Santa Monica, California.

A memorial to my cousin Rich, who passed in April, starting on May 20 I rode my bicycle, the 1984 Trek 520 which bore the nickname Old Blue, about 3,500 miles through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.

I'll fly home to New York now, and when I arrive I'll make another post to this blog. Until then I'll be thinking about this journey and what it has meant, and about the people who supported me, and about all that is to be remembered. For now let me give thanks to all of you. It's been one heck of a ride!

THANK YOU

Day 104: The Final Ride I left Victorville, Ca. in the early morning and began the trek out of the desert and into the valley where Los Angeles awaits. Through the mountains at Cajon Pass the roads converged singularly into the interstate, where a sign forbade me and the 520 to enter, and so I hitched a ride with a truck through the pass. The driver, named Basilio, welcomed me out of the Mojave and dropped me off a few miles later, at Ontario, Ca., and then I biked west through several towns until taking a room in a motel at La Puente.

Tomorrow I ride the final 35 miles of the Life's Too Short Tour, through downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and finally the pier at Santa Monica, where lands runs out, the Pacific Ocean.

Sitting here in this motel tonight, with the 520 at my side, I am at a loss to identify what it is I feel. I am eager to be done. I will pedal tomorrow to the ocean, and sit at the edge for a while and stare west, the only direction I've known for months. There is still a lot to say about the summer of 2009, about the days we said goodbye to Rich. The sun will rise one more day on the Life's Too Short Tour, and then I will watch it sink beyond the horizon, and it will be done.

until then...

Days 101 to 103: In the Mojave Sun

Victorville, Ca.

I've been pedaling through the Mojave Desert for a week. The Mojave is a near-barren expanse sparsely dotted with desert flora, flanked on the horizons by mountains that are treeless and rocky, and baked in sunrays so intense as to make the air seem molten, heavy, thick. I start off early each morning before the sun is too intense, pedaling down the road by 7:30 a.m., and by 2 p.m. the heat feels dangerous, all encompassing, searing down from the sky and glowing off the ground, as if the entire desert floor itself is an ember. Since crossing the border into California I made distances of 40, 50, 60 and 45 miles successively, riding on Interstate 15 through Baker and Barstow, and on Route 66 through Helendale, Oro Grande, and into Victorville. The interstate rides were astonishingly fast and smooth, on a wide shoulder, over gradual climbs, and down long and swift descents. Route 66, the once-celebrated Mother Road of American lore and song, was in disrepair; rough, shoulderless and slow.

In Baker, after an incredibly long downhill zoom, about 20 miles of top-gear sprinting, I scoped out the three motels in town, and took a room at Wills Fargo Motel, which was old and run down, but clean and had a decent swimming pool which I lounged in for a while. Baker can't be called a town, but a strip of fast food joints, gas stations and motels, at the intersection of Interstate 15 and Route 127, which leads into Death Valley. A sign at Baker bills the place as the "gateway to Death Valley." I took photos of the town's main attraction, although it didn't appear to be attracting anyone, which is hailed as the world's tallest thermometer. The roadside curiousity is 134 feet tall, symbolic of the highest temperature recorded in North America, 134 degrees at nearby Death Valley in 1913. The thermometer is not really a thermometer at all, but a concrete tower with digital displays on that of a bank. The afternoon I was there it read 104 degrees.

I made it to Barstow the next day, still riding on a broken rear spoke, and hoping to have it fixed there. But the cycle shop in town was too busy to make the repair that day, and so I had to decide to ride ahead one more day on the wobbly rear wheel.

Barstow is a strange little town. There is a mix of military folks from a nearby Army post, traveling motorists as evidenced by the plethora of motels, and a few vagrants brought in by the crossroads of railroads which converge there. The town celebrates Route 66, which is the main street through Barstow. In the morning I rode along Route 66 through the desert enroute to Victorville, on the edge of the Mojave Desert. It was rough and broken up, and so I had to procede slowly along the old road. The road passed by a number of roadside ruins, ancient motels and gas stations long closed and forgotten in decrepitude. There is no decrepitude like that in the desert, where crumbling structures bake in the heat, seemingly in lament for the passage of time and bygone eras. There is roadside litter all along the road.

I came upon a curious site in Oro Grande, a fenced in yard of eccentric art work, bottles hung on metals poles in a menagerie of abstraction that was at once odd, interesting, and beautiful. I entered the gate and looked around, feeling esconced in some kind of a handmade wonderland. A white-bearded man appeared from a small house beside the artwork and explained that he was the artist, and that the place was called the Bottle Tree Ranch. It was a passion that gripped him ten years ago, a creative obsession, in which he would weld together poles and pegs to hold glass bottles to glitter in the sun. I spent an hour perusing the gallery of strange objects and conversing with the man named Elmer. When I left Elmer, I found my way to Victorville where I visited the Route 66 museum, and afterward happened to ride past a bicycle shop. I stopped at the shop and had the broken spoke repaired, then continued along to a motel.

Today I must figure out how to proceed into Los Angeles. There are several options and I may have to ride the highway again to make it through mountains east of the city. I am merely two days from the ocean. There is much more to describe, but I am focused on making it to Los Angeles and not taking time to contemplate. I hope to find a place in the next few days to stop and take the time to write. The end of the trek is in sight, and the end of summer is at hand. Just a few more miles and America will have been traversed.

until later...

Day 100: Into California

I made it to California.
Yesterday I rode 40 miles from Las Vegas to Primm, Nevada, on the California border. I took a hotel room at Primm, for a ridiculously low $13 at Whiskey Pete's Casino and Hotel, which is just yards from the California border. I can see the Golden State from my hotel room window. Leaving Las Vegas I started riding early in the morning and so heat was not an issue throughout the day. The ride on Interstate 15 was easy and flat through low desert dotted with Joshua trees and cactus. It was a desert valley skirted on either side by bare and jagged mountains. Traffic rushed beside me, but I was safe on the highway's wide shoulder. Haze from the smoke of the wildfires raging in California was visible throughout the valley. I was breathing the smoke in, no doubt, but then again I've been inhaling vehicles' exhaust for three months now. I'll be riding directly at the fires in the next few days. It's just another obstacle to overcome, one of many I faced this summer.

Today I will ride to Baker, California, about 50 miles away. Unfortunately, as I was finishing up yesterday's ride another spoke broke. Once again it is a spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel, and so I can't make the repair myself because I don't have a special wrench for removing the rear gear cassette. I have no choice but to ride for the next two days on the broken spoke, until I can reach Barstow for the nearest bike shop. The rear wheel is wobbling out of true, but I must push ahead nonetheless. I'll try tightening up the spokes around the broken one to keep the wheel as true as possible. I rode on a broken spoke for 70 miles through Utah, and now I'll have to do it again.As a precaution, in case the rear wheel spoke problem compounds during today's ride, I'll bring a magic marker and a piece of cardboard on which I can make a sign to solicit a ride to Barstow.

I can finish the trek in about five days. There are 250 miles to the Pacific Ocean, and I plan to ride about 50 miles each day. I won't be camping anymore, so in order to lighten the load on the rear wheel I may ditch the tent and sleeping bag here in Primm. From here on out it's a bare bones sprint to the ocean.

until later...

The Final Leg

Day 99: Leaving Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the morning, after a night at the Holiday Inn provided by CFC Stephen, and after a big hotel breakfast of scrambled eggs, bisquits and gravy, fruit, juice and toast, I noticed another broken spoke on the 520's rear wheel. It was a spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel, where spokes are shorter and in which a special wrench is required to loosen the gear cassette to make the repair. I had no tool for such a job, and so it was clear that I would have to find a bicycle shop in town, and ride there on a wobbly rear wheel.

I headed into the city and went into a hotel to inquire about reserving a room, since I would need to stay another night in Las Vegas now that the repair was needed. I headed to the El Cortez Hotel in Downtown, because it offered $10 rooms. Wary of leaving the 520 locked up on the street, I brought it into the hotel lobby with me, and approached the desk. The receptionist said it was too early to reserve a room, and warned "you'd better get that bike out of here before security sees it." "Really?" I asked. "It's my luggage."

I ambled along Fremont Street and found an outdoor cafe that had free WiFi. I parked the 520 along the rail of the cafe's outdoor seating area, purchased a drink, and logged online to begin a search for bike shops in Las Vegas. I found one, called it, and the mechanic explained that he was too busy to make he spoke repair himself, but that he would loosen the cassette (with the special wrench) and give me a spoke to fit, although I'd have to do the actual repair work myself. I pondered the scenario. I'd be sitting on some bench, somewhere in Las Vegas, working to make the repair myself and hoping all went as it was supposed to. It seemed like a potential quagmire, and so I decided to continue the online search for another bike shop.

Just then a security guard, in official hotel regalia and badge, approached the 520, eyeing it like it might be a terrorist's bomb, and asked aloud, "does this belong to anyone here?"

"Yes, it's mine," I confessed.

"Well, you've got to move it," she ordered. "It's against our policy."

"What is?" I asked, not in defiance but only in surprise.

"Sir, you'll have to move it, now."

"Ok, ok."

I was startled when a man next to me, a New Jersian whom I had briefly conversed with earlier, spoke up in my defense. "What's the big deal, this guy rode this thing all the way from New York, for a cause, geez," he spouted off in a greasy north Jersey accent. "What the hell is it hurting just sitting there?"

"It's policy," she insisted. "Move it."

I packed up my laptop, gulped down my drink, and retrieved the 520 from the rail and walked down Fremont Street with the bike at my side. "Good luck buddy, sorry about that, these casino people hate everything," the New Jersey guy said.

I pedaled down Las Vegas Boulevard to a McDonalds for the WiFi, found another bike shop, quite far away, and was relieved to hear that they could indeed make the repair for me that day. I mounted up again, and pedaled the several miles out of town toward the shop called Bike King. When I finally made there an hour and half later I handed the 520 over to a mechanic named Ron, who replaced the spoke, and also changed the rear tire with my spare. The Continental Ultra Gator Skin tires, rated for 3,000 miles, have begun to wear and shred, especially the rear which bears the brunt of weight, and so it was prudent to say goodbye to the trusty tire.

I mentioned to Ron the tension I had encountered this day on the bike, and he said is seemed "the city hates bikes, especially on The Strip, in Las Vegas you're better off riding on the sidewalk." When Ron had completed the repairs he said, "it's ready to hit the road, no charge, it's bikes that we like and it's not always about the money." His gesture was encouraging, especially after the discrimination Sin City had dealt.

On recommendation of a man at a pizza shop where I ate lunch, I headed to a hotel and casino on the western outskirts of town called Silverton Hotel and Casino. The hotel has an outdoorsy theme, with hunting lodge decor and mounted big game animal heads in the lobby. I took a room, wandered through the casino for a few minutes, and ate at the buffet. At Silverton, a massive compound surrounded and isolated from town by moat-like highways, one almost feels captive, certainly confined. You can wander around in a trance induced by the whirring slot machines, suspended in a purgatory-of-sorts, with each crank of the slots a genuine long shot.

Heading to Jean, Nevada tomorrow I'll be in the empty Mojave Desert. I'll depart early to avoid the high heat of the afternoon. Of the three motels in Jean, online reviews deem each of them as unsavory. But in such places I remind myself that even the worst motel is better than the tent. I hope not to spend another night in the tent, but I'm still cargoing it just in case. Weather reports called for about 103-degree temperatures for the ride to Jean. I'll bring plenty of water with me. I'll take care to maintain the mental focus I may need if the desert gets tough.

There are wildfires directly west in California. A haze of smoke is visible here in Las Vegas. It will be a few days before I reach the burning areas, which I expect will be calmed by then. The itinerary is Jean, Baker, and then into Barstow. From there I must forge a route to the Pacific Ocean, perhaps to Santa Monica, or maybe a bit farther north. It is hard to discern how to feel about the impending end of the trip. It will be many things, all at once. This won't be the end of the long bike treks. Eventually, I will continue on.

until later...

Day 98: Las Vegas

Mesquite, Nevada.

I crossed the border of two states today, Arizona and Nevada, in smoldering 105 degree desert heat. The ride on Interstate 15 went well, but the heat did take a toll toward the end of the 45-mile ride. With five miles left to go I began to feel the first effects of heat exhaution, cold chills and diminished perspiration, and plodded into town on my last legs. Tomorrow is fore casted to be 111 degrees.

Mesquite consists of a few casino compounds and motels, a few homes and support businesses, but not much else. This is the Mojave desert. Mesquite is an oasis where amid the searing heat there are cacti and palm trees. Indians lived in the oasis for thousands of years, then Mormons settled it, and now the casinos. The hotels offer extraordinarily low room rates, expecting you to blow a wad of cash in their gaming casinos. I coasted around the small town once, got a haircut, and prepared to make the distance to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas, Nevada

I've been in Las Vegas for two days now. I am deciding tonight whether to stay one more day, or to head west the 40 miles to the California border, where I would take a room in a motel in the desert outpost of Primm, Nevada.

Getting here was tricky. The day I was to ride from Mesquite to Las Vegas the heat soared to 111 degrees, as fore casted. It was hot enough that the sun-heated brake levers nearly burned my hands. I could smell heated rubber of the tires as they were melting. I could feel the heat in my nose just like stepping into a dry sauna. It was 80 miles to Las Vegas, through nothing but smoldering desert. Unsafe to make the ride in the heatwave, I hopped a shuttle van to for an hour and half ride though the scorching Mojave.

Arriving in Las Vegas was interesting. I pedaled onto Las Vegas Boulevard, along The Strip, and into Downtown. Immediately the facade of the place was apparent, just as if I had pedaled into Disney World. Everything is fake, and yet the fakeness is the reality embraced and expected, it's fantasy land. Gaudy casinos and hotels hold sway over the boulevard, with strip clubs, wedding chapels and fast food joints rounding out the scene.

I took a room at Plaza Hotel and Casino on Fremont Street in Downtown. This is the old section of the city, with a strip of 40-year old casinos and hotels all lined up along Fremont Street, where a several-block long outdoor mall, enclosed overhead by a tunnel-like roof, is called the Fremont Experience. Video images are projected on the ceiling of the mall at night, and I could watch them from my 9th floor room. In this old part of the city I almost felt the spirit of the entertainers of the past. Liberace, Sinatra, Wayne Newton, Dean Martin.

I strolled around Fremont Street and made my way up Las Vegas Boulevard as the sun sank beneath a muave horizon. Even in the night the heat was thick, oppressive. I took photos of the Art Deco motel signs and the casino lights on The Strip, finding interest in the facade. Accepting it for what it is. Tourists flow along Las Vegas Boulevard at night in droves. Inside the casinos, once you get past the glitter and signage, the casinos are all the same. In fact, once inside, it could be Atlantic City, or any horse track slot casino in any city in America. I walked around in them listlessly, astonished that the slot machines, the black jack tables, the roulette wheels, actually hold interest for so many. I dropped a couple of dollars into a slot machine and pushed the button, and within three seconds the game was over and the money was gone.

Watching the casino card dealers do their work, flipping cards, counting chips, all very regimented and slick, it occurred to me how deep the facade of Las Vegas is. These uniformed and stone-faced card dealers rake in peoples' money with sweeps of their hands, like minions of a greedy machine. Gamblers are tricked, not by the odds, but by a characterization of gambling as exciting.

But it isn't only gambling that lures in Vegas, but sex. The full spectrum of the sex industry is on display in Las Vegas, from pornography to burlesque shows, and strip clubs to illicit massage parlors, which Las Vegas unabashedly claims it as its soul. Walking down The Strip at night there are rows of Mexican men and women, 20 or 30 of them in a gauntlet, openly attempting to hand advertisement cards to each passerby. On the cards are pictures of nude women, advertisments for prostitution and strip clubs. The cards get dropped about the sidewalks so that it seems the place is paved in porn.

For entertainment, Las Vegas is like the closet in the spare bedroom, where once-prized articles of clothing are hung and forgotten, never worn again, but not quite ready to be thrown away. Once-popular acts find a home here, long after their expiration dates have come and gone. Barry Manilow, Carrot Top, David Copperfield, Celine Dion.

I arose early in the morning and left my room, taking the 520 along with me in the elevator and through the hotel casino to check out at the registration desk. A security gaurd stopped me in the casino and asked sternly "sir, is there a reason you have a bicycle in the casino?" I coasted in low gear about Las Vegas in the morning. The whole place seemed to have a hangover. But the casinos were buzzing, and even at 7:30 a.m. there were people swilling beer and playing slots.

I remember Rich talking about visiting Las Vegas when he was a kid. Our grandparents took him and Robin, his sister, on a cross country trip, with Vegas being one of the stops. He talked of the lights, of Harrah's, of MGM Grande. I thought of him there on Las Vegas Boulevard as I walked along.

All in all, I am glad that Las Vegas exists, even if there is nothing here of interest for me, only because I admire its libertarian heart.

until later...

Days 96 and 97: On the High Way

St. George, Utah.

The picture posted below is the motel room I'm in at the moment. Motels like this are my home. I can't remember the name of this place, Value Inn, Quality Inn, or something like that. It is another Indian-American-owned motel, which I knew the moment I entered the office for the scent of curry and incense. These days I don't even feel good about a motel unless I hear an Indian accent from the clerk. Today, since I have a relative short day of riding, 41 miles, I'll stay here until check out time at 11 a.m.

Yesterday's ride on Interstate 15 was fantastic. I like the highway. It was the fastest ride I've accomplished yet. I made 56 miles in about three hours. I-15 is flat, largely downhill, and with a wide shoulder. It was comforting to be on a route that was not in some remote and windswept wilderness. Today I contiunue on I-15 to Mesquite, Nevada. I'll ride through Arizona enroute, through a tricky part of the freeway at Virgin River Gorge, where shoulders narrow for a few miles. Then on to Las Vegas, where Cornerman First Class Stephen is reserving a room for me at Holiday Inn. He continues to be there in my corner between rounds.

Today the temperature is going up to 105 degrees fahrenheit. I have faced this kind of heat before, in Virginia, in Kentucky, and once through Kansas, and suprisingly it is not that much of a problem. On the bicycle the forward motion at 10 to 20 miles per hour provides a steady flow of air which cools.

On the interstate yesterday I pedaled by two police officers along the way, and they did not react, so that proves the legality of cycling on the highway here in Utah. A few cars honked in salutation, probably fellow bicycle tourers, and I gave each a salute.

I was sitting in a mountain cafe eating a burger, and songs that played over the sound system bought back memories. First it was It's Too Late, by Carol King in 1972, which brought me back to Cape May, New Jersey, as a young kid when that song was on the radio. "It's too late, though we really did try to make it, something inside has died..." The scent of the marshes and the sound of the seagulls, in the backseat of a car headed down the highway with my young parents, welled up in my mind. Next it was the song Dream Weaver, by Gary Wright in 1976, which had me in the mountains of Pennsylvania, on a school bus on a winter day. These old memories stirred something up in me, measuring life's brevity in a metric of change and loss, breaking me down there on the mountain.

In emails, I frequently get messages from those I've met along the way. Steve and Barb from Minnesota, the cyclists I met in Virginia months ago whom I described as "warm and friendly as people get," continue to keep in touch. Damon from Telluride, who gave me a day in a luxury spa, wrote saying "I know this won't be enough adventure for you. You should get on a freighter and go to China and keep going. And if you do, tell me and maybe I'll join you!" I would keep going, straight to China and onward, if I had the budget for such a trek. I would just keep pedaling and pedaling right around the world, and maybe I will.

until later...

Day 95: High and Dry

Cedar City, Utah.

It was a 60-mile ride over a 10,000-foot pass, up over Brian Head summit of southwestern Utah. It was the last of the high-altitude climbs, this time in semi-arid desert, first through rocky crags of gnarled Ponderosa pines and then into a moon scape at the summit, only to scream down the other side of the range to the desert valley below.

The first 40 miles of the ride were an uphill climb. The last 20 a downhill coast. I spent most of my day spinning in granny gear, going slow, foot-by-foot up the mountain. The higher I went the colder it got. I had to don my sweatshirt and put the hood up. At the top I saw Cedar Breaks National Monument, a massive canyon of yellow and orange cliffs. The descent to Cedar City was a long downhill coast then went on and on in curves; I did not pedal for the entire 20 miles.

In Cedar City I did my usual protocol, finding a McDonalds and using WiFi to get online, then calling the motels in town for the cheapest price. I ended up in a decent place for a good price, sat in the hot (warm) tub, swam in the pool for a minute, then took dinner at an all-you-can-eat salad bar.

Next I bike to St. George, about 50 miles away. This is where I begin riding on Interstate 15. If all goes well, this road will take me all the way to the ocean. At St. George I'll make another entry to make up for this abbreviated one.

until later...

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