...And Now For More

When last I wrote, I'd taken you as far as the "ship-jumping" saddlebag. Now, onward we go and, keep in mind, it's usually the little things that take a tolerable situation over the top.

So we're heading east on the 60, over an hour behind our "beat-the-heat" schedule but it's all cool now because at least we've weathered the storm and are cruising along. Enter one distracted lady in her Expedition while driving through Riverside (she changed lanes into us, then panicked and jerked back - luckily she kept control) and we have another omen this may be a trip totally unlike our uneventful 3800-mile trip to Kansas City. I mean, come on, this is only a 330-mile ride for God's sake.

We stop for breakfast (late one of course) at Gramma's in Banning and it's great! Tracey's beloved Bears are on the TV as we eat and they're beating the Cowgirls; I also see that my beloved Chiefs are up on Cleveland - can they possibly start the season 2-0? Ahhh, now the trip is really turning our way, right? NOPE. We come back outside to find the heat is building faster than we thought - it's HOT already and it's not even 11:00am!!! No worries, just a little longer on the 10 Freeway and we'll hit the 2-lane desert highway. By the way, who told all the grandparents they had to get out on the 10 early Sunday morning anyway? It's dodge-em-cars between them and the young aggressive ones and we're floating in the middle of it all.

So we hit the 62 Highway, also known as Desert Highway/29 Palms Highway/Rice Road and we get away from the traffic. Great, right? Well, now we understand why there are so many windmill electricity generators in the area - the wind is HOWLING through the canyon we're riding into, and of course it's a crosswind so the windshield is useless. Not a bad road though, and we make it uneventfully to 29 Palms where our riding buddy will turn around, leaving us to ride the rest of the way to Laughlin solo.

We stop at the Wendy's because Tracey needs to sit in air conditioning for awhile. It's right at 98 degrees now and just after 12:00pm. After a 15-minute cooling off, we head to the gas station to fill up because there's no service for the next 100 miles (oh, did I mention our water was in the long-gone saddlebag)? We buy a couple more waters and hit the lonely stretch of pavement to Vidal Junction with no idea just how lonely and hot and uncooperative it will be....more later.