Day 193: A slight change of plans

There's a whole lot of open road out here

One of the coolest characteristics of bike touring is that it's all about flexibility. You do what you expect to do as long as you still want to do it - or you are able. If the circumstances change, or perhaps you wear out sooner than you thought you would on a given day, or maybe you feel great and decide to keep riding further than you expected to - it's all good. You're in charge, so you decide.

The Fenner Oasis

And thus it is that we decided to pitch our tent with the good folks at the Fenner Oasis, rather than continuing down the road to Amboy. A couple of factors played into this decision. First, this was a day that felt long enough by the time we stopped for lunch. We didn't go all that far, but we began by climbing a very long gradual grade and we were tired. The first 25 miles or so was uphill, with a snappy little head wind to boot. It was beautiful, remote country - we pretty much had it all to ourselves - but after riding toward this little rise on the north end of the Piute Mountains for two long hours, I was pretty done. I was really looking forward to reaching Goffs, where the road tipping south and tipping down were both deeply anticipated. That gave us a bit of a tail wind, (whoohoo - we hit 20 mph!) and allowed us to reach Fenner just before lunchtime.

Second, they have a grill here, which means that we can have a hamburger for dinner instead of carrying one of the cold sandwiches to Amboy to eat later. For some reason that seemed like a really good idea!

You are here!

Third, the Oasis is open all night, which gives us access to a real restroom. That's not a bad thing. While the idea of camping at Amboy has been part of my mythic anticipation of this part of the trip for several years, I really am NOT sorry at all to substitute my cozy little tent here for a cozy little tent there.

Home sweet home

And last, in the morning, we are assured of coffee here. Plus something to eat before we head out, maybe even something warm!

We will still go through Amboy; in fact I have corresponded with the manager there to let him know we'll stop in for a snack tomorrow. We just aren't going to stay there overnight. So I will get to post a photo of that iconic sign out in the middle of nowhere, never fear.

Creosote bush

The only downside to ending our day so early is that we don't really have very much to do. Roger and I took a walk over towards the highway to check out the road for tomorrow, and we sat in the convenience store watching an episode of Chip and Joanna's show. But it's just now getting to be four o'clock. It's too early to eat dinner, and until the sun goes down we can't hope to fall asleep! So that's the trade off: you keep pedaling because it's what you're here for, or you stop because your bottom side can't take anymore! And then you just end up sitting around anyway.

39.5 miles today, at 10 mph. Climbing 2267 feet.

Piet Mondrian in the desert