Day Sixteen - Welcome Back to the Desert

Thursday August 25th
The campground here are Joshua Tree National Park is almost completely deserted. Seriously, there are like two other people in the whole campground. I haven't even actually seen the people but I've seen flashlights and heard voices in the distance. It is almost kind of creepy. As I was walking down the road to register for my campsite I could hear all sorts of creepy crawlies rustling in the roadside bushes.

I was late getting to my campsite and just barely had enough light to set the tent up. It's funny how I have a tendency to choose a place to stop just at the outer limits of what is comfortable. Had I gotten to the campsite 20 minutes later it would have been a real bitch trying to setup camp.

I left the campground at Point Mugu pretty early this morning. I wanted to get through the Los Angeles area before morning traffic really started to pick up. I stayed on the Pacific Coast Highway all the way until it met up with Interstate 5 just south of Orange County. Once the highway passed through Santa Monica I was mostly riding through the city and wasn't on the “coast” anymore. You couldn't call it a scenic drive but it was interesting to pass through all of the different cities in the Los Angeles area. It particularly struck me how different two neighborhoods could be when separated by only a few blocks.

I spent nearly an hour driving through downtown San Diego trying to find a non existent Harley dealership. I am guessing that it was a dinky little t-shirt shop that was tucked away in another building similar to the one in Seattle. After getting directions from a guy on a Gold Wing I was finally able to stumble across the real dealership.

The girl that checked me out at the dealership was kind of rude. After picking out a t-shirt I asked where I should pay for it. She told me that she would be with me in a couple of minutes after she was done doing something that looked incredibly unimportant and easily interruptible.

After picking up the t-shirt I stopped by a bar to try and beat the heat with a couple of cold beers. While at the bar I met a girl named Hazel. When I say that I “met” her, I don't mean that we hooked up or anything, just that I had an interesting conversation with her. It turns out that she was from Hawaii and went to Kahuku High School. She owns a small bakery in San Diego and also rides a crotch rocket. Now there's the kind of girl that I need to meet back in Utah.

Once I started riding east out of San Diego everything started to change from the last couple of days. The temperature started to rise, I was gaining elevation, and the scenery quickly changed from coastal to desert. It reminded me how much I like riding through the desert. Even though the coast, and mountains and forests are all pretty to ride through, I will always have a special place in my heart for the desert. Even when the scenery isn't particularly beautiful there is something about riding through great wide open space that makes me feel like a cowboy in the old west. It gives me an incredible sense of freedom.

The bugs are attacking the tent trying to sniff out the light from the laptop. I guess that's a good sign that it's time to go to bed. Good Night.