Leg 9 - Riding home: Arizona to Encinitas, CA
375 miles

This is it.  Just a relatively short ride today and I'm home.  This is going to be easy, right?    After all, I know the route well, and it's less than 400 miles.  Should be a piece of cake.  I even have a plan.  I'll spend the first part of the day hanging out with my old buddy, Malu, and then hit the road about 4 pm, so I'll be getting started right after the hottest part of the day.  Makes sense to me.

But, despite great intentions, things start to unravel quickly.  I don't know it yet, but the home stretch ride will turn out to be the toughest day yet, with Mother Nature determined to squash me like a bug before this ride is over.

The first sign of things going wrong - a schedule change with my buddy.  He can't make it this afternoon, and has to split at noon, after hanging out for just over an hour.  I have a dilemma - it's noon, I'm in the middle of the Arizona desert, near Casa Grande where the I-8 and the i-10 intersect.  Do I hang out here at a truck stop or a McDonalds for the next 4 or 5 hours?  Or do I start now, ride for a while, and stop somewhere else?  

Not being the most patient guy in the world, I decide to hit the road now.  

That's mistake #1.  

I pick up I-8 which will be a straight shot to San Diego from here.  There are already thunderclouds massing off in the distance, in a couple of different directions, and it's only early afternoon.  Hmmmm...... can I dodge them again today, or will I get nailed?   

It seems hotter today than yesterday.  How can that be possible?  I feel like I'm riding through a blast furnace.  The air is almost painful to breathe, especially as it radiates off the asphalt just below me.  I focus on the task at hand - getting to my first stop, Gila Bend, about 70 miles ahead.  I ride through the intense heat of the Sonoran Desert National Monument, with a mix of sand, gravel, cactus, and more sand and gravel.


 

I don't know if I can even make it to Gila Bend, the heat is so intense.   I play a game of trying to glance at my odometer every 5 miles.  The game is to see how close to 5 mile intervals I am.  I pretend this little game is going to help take my mind off the ordeal at hand.  Whatever it takes.  I finally get to within 15 miles of Gila Bend and it takes every last bit of stamina to push through the last few miles.   I pull in to a combo gas station/convenience store/truck stop and linger inside in the air conditioning for at least 20 minutes, while other customers come and go.  I browse the t-shirts, the license plate frames, the chocolate bars.  I study the postcards intensely for a few minutes.  I'm starting to get suspicious looks from the staff, so head back outside and lay prone on a picnic table in the shade for a while.  When I open my eyes again, I don't know whether 5 minutes has passed or 5 hours.  A glance at my watch shows less than 5 minutes.

 

The heat seems to be even more intense.  It's about 1:30 PM, about peak time.  I check my tire pressure, check my luggage ties, clean my mirrors - everything I can think of to delay the inevitable - getting back on the beast of a hot highway, to continue the ride through the inferno.

I finally give in, and figure, oh well, I'll give it a shot again.   Off I go - this time with the city of Yuma as my target, about 115 miles.  Yuma will put me on the California border and halfway through the day's distance. I can practically walk home from Yuma. 

Within minutes of leaving Gila Bend, I know I'm not going to make it to Yuma in one shot.  I can barely breathe in this shit!  It's so HOT!       I make it 15 miles, then 25, then 40, and the situation is getting serious.  My mouth is dry, and I realize I can't even generate enough saliva to spit.  This is not a good sign.   I start to look for a place to hide in the shade, like an overpass.  But nothing.   Finally, 50 miles out from Gila Bend, I see my oasis.   it's Dateland, Arizona - a gas station and a restaurant/gift shop.  Thank you!   I spot a Coors Light sign from three quarters of a mile away, like a crow spotting a shiny object in the grass far below.  I stop and gas up, then ride across the street to the restaurant.  Look for a shady spot to park - no luck, so I opt for the parking area in front.   Big mistake, as I would find out soon enough.  

The Dateland restaurant was the most beautiful place in the world at that particular moment.  The ladies behind the counter recognized my near-death look when I walked in and rushed me a couple of tall glasses of ice water.  I poured the first one on my head (outside), and downed the second one.   It took me at least 20 minutes in the air conditioned comfort before my heart rate returned to normal and the pounding in my ears stopped.

What a great spot.  Check them out online:  www.dateland.com  People kept pulling in off the highway for their famous date milkshakes. Dates are fresh from the 9 acre date grove nearby.  Cool little place.   



Here's an excerpt from their website:

"A delightfully clean and cheery little restaurant that seats seventy-five. Famous for their date shakes, the Dateland Restaurant attracts visitors from all over the world."

In ancient times, the nomads wandered the desert surviving on nothing but dates. So to carry on the tradition of eating dates while in the desert, The Dateland Restaurant features a variety of Homemade Date Specialties, including our famous Date Cream Pie.

All of our Homemade Date Specialties are available for take-out, and now, we have also packaged our World Famous Date Shake mix so that the next time you crave a date shake, you won't have to drive all the way to Dateland!

I asked the waitress what the temperature is.  She walked outside to check the thermometer:  114 in the shade!!   It was 3:15 PM.  Holy fried shit!  I wait a half hour, while enjoying consecutive glasses of ice water along with a fruit salad.  I check the thermometer at 3:45 - now it's 115.  Damn -it's supposed to be cooling off, not getting hotter!  The thermometer is moving in the wrong direction! 

I settle in with a book, and wait, and wait, checking the thermometer every half hour.  By 5:30, it's dropped - back down to 114.   There is a huge mass of black clouds blocking the whole sky, coming in from the Northwest.  I need to head due West.  I debate whether to wait out the storm here (a couple of hours) or make a run for it, and probably get out of its path before it hits.

I opt for the latter (waiting around not being one of my strong traits), and point West, after many thank-yous and goodbyes to the staff at the Dateland Restaurant, who I am convinced saved my life.  I have a hearty handshake with the waitress's 1-year old son, with whom I've hung out with the past couple of hours, hearing about his dog, his trip to Disneyland, his teacher, his Playstation, and his plans to move to Malibu sometime in the not-to-distant future.  I think he's had it with the desert heat too.

As I pull out toward the I-8 onramp, my bike starts to miss and sputter, then dies.  I start it back up - more of the same.  What's going on?  it's a relatively new bike, and has never given me any troubles.  Is this to be my fate - after 6,000 miles of riding, to break down just a couple of hundred miles from home in the desert?  Can I eat dates for the rest of my life?  Will I ever see my family again?    

I snap out of my reverie and focus.  Try to start the bike again.  It feels like it's flooding, but how could that be?  It has computer-controlled fuel injection, not old fashioned carburetors.  Am I out of gas?  I start to unscrew the gas cap, and am astonished when it erupts and almost blows out of my hand.  Gas spews out everywhere, flowing over the tank, and running down the engine and on the exhaust.  Yikes!!  

The I get it.   I had filled up the tank before going in the restaurant.  I then parked the now full bike, with a black tank, in the direct sun, in 115 degree temperature, for over two hours.  The basic laws of physics kicked in.  As the tank and fuel went from 70 degrees (the resumed temp of the underground storage tanks) to at least the ambient outdoor temperature, as the bike baked in the hot sun, my 5 gallons of gasoline expanded to try to 5 1/4 gallons - all in a 5 gallon tank.  Thus the incredible release of pressure when I unscrewed the cap.

How could I have been so stupid?   I guess this is one of the things that desert dwellers learns from experience.  I feel luck that the tank didn't split wide open sitting in the sun.  I roll over to the gas station, grab some wet paper towels, and wash off as much of the gasoline as I can.  

Thus having survived another challenge for the day, I head off west on I-8, for the next section of hellish roadway heat.




Just when I think I have the storm beat, I see a huge white mass directly in front of me.  Rain - but at this point I almost welcome it.  I brace myself as I approach it, but something strange happens.  No raindrops, what gives?   The wind is blowing strongly now, with bits of brush whipping across the highway in front of me.  

Then I get it - this white mass is not the line of rain from clouds.  It's too low for that.  Plus, the lack of raindrops is another clue for my slow brain - I'm in a dust storm, and a pretty good sized one at that.  Visibility drops to a couple of hundred yards, and the only way I can see approaching cars is via their headlights.

I brace myself for the blast of sand and gravel on my face, but mysteriously, nothing happens.  I realize this dust storm is picking up only the really fine dust, not the sand and gravel.  I pull over at a rest area to look around.  It's eerily deserted - and the white around me gives the whole area a ghostly feeling.



The storm passes in a few minutes, but the heat remains.  It stays with me as I pass Yuma, then cross the California state line, and pass Ocotillo.   The road starts to rise, and I look forward to the chill I will feel soon, as I climb steadily up into the mountains for the final run to the coast.  Within a half hour my teeth are chattering, and I pull over to put on a jacket and chaps.  I've never been so happy to have my teeth chatter before!

 

Ride the last 80 miles home in deepening darkness through the mountain pass, then up the busy I-5 Northbound freeway.  I roll into my driveway in Encinitas at about 11 PM.   Home sweet home!!!!!  Great trip, but after a day like this one, I'm glad to be off the road, at least for a few days.  Something about a ride up to Oregon in a few days.....?