I stopped at an Indian reservation and another small rocky wayside to view the native Indian jewelry and handicrafts. As night fell I reached the Grand Canyon only to find it was full. No problem, I should be able to find something somewhere.
As luck would have it I happened on a couple of girls in a tent from Los Angeles. "Could I set up a small tent and be gone in the morning?" I asked. Giggles and nods allowed me to continue. They slept in their tent and I slept in mine.
The next morning we ate breakfast together. The girls were heading west, like I was, and agreed to tag along together. They were fun to be with and I pretended to be their bodyguard. We drove at least eight hours taking turns following each other. Our destination was Mesa Platte. Another national park with excellent camping facilities and a view of the valley down below. They were meeting their boyfriends here and I was glad to meet more new faces.
Sure enough soon after we had set up camp they pulled in with a brand new pickup truck filled with a camper on back. They wasted no time in setting up a massive grill and loading it with chicken and Bar-B-Q sauce. We sat around the fire with the sun setting in the west and the smell of Bar-B-Q chicken wetting our appetites. It was a magnificent feast and we stayed up late watching the fire die out, telling old stories
Morning came too soon as I awoke from my bottomless tent, built another small fire and made some coffee. My new friends were planning on staying at least three more days, but I had the itch to get to the Pacific Coast.
The late night talk centered mostly around California beach scenes where they were from. I wrote "Thanks; see ya" with a blackened end of a stick from last night's cookout on one of the rocks surrounding the fireplace. Packing the bike, I putted slowly down the gravel road of the park and back onto the interstate.
The land looked exactly like scenes from an old western movie. Boulders jutting out of the ground and miles of flat ground covered with little shrub oaks and an occasional tall one.
Soon the vegetation died out giving way to cactus bunches and sage brush. You could see for miles and the heat began to melt everything in sight. I stopped many times to cool down under the shelter of a covered picnic table. I broke out the next volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's Trilogy and whiled away time in the middle world of Hobbits and Gremlins.
Things were going just fine until I saw the sign "Next gas station 150 miles." and realized I only get 150 miles on a tank full. Of course I stopped and paid a whopping $.75 per gallon ( $.50 was normal in those days) and filled up mt canteen and stomach with water. I had long jeans and a long sleeved shirt with a small zippered v-neck. I pulled out my biking gloves and zipped the shirt all the way. It wasn't the heat that bothered me as much as the sunburn and windburn.
Seventy five miles an hour later, a small oasis of a rest stop appeared to the side, buzzing with activity. Actually there were five cars and ten little kids chasing after a dog. I stopped, and keeping the engine running, took a long slow drink of water. I didn't risk not being able to restart the bike, although it had never given me any trouble, yet...
The heat came in waves, like the gentle waves rolling in on the ocean shore, splashing your face with sensations. I found myself day-dreaming as I glanced across the desert. I could actually see the ocean on the horizon. Only the occasional passing of a car would momentarily wake me back up as I kept the throttle steady on sixty.
The sign came closer, so slowly that I found myself speeding up, "FUEL" it said. Hottest damn place on the earth, I thought. I slowed into the Texaco gas station and came to rest against a telephone pole. Dropping the kickstand I spied a snow cone trailer and, reaching into my pocket for change, spoke "Large Cherry" to the attendant. He gave me a furrowed brow, smiled and said "Sure!". I opened my mouth as far as I could and rested the snow cone against it until it began to drip down my sleeve.
It was then that I noticed the small ring between my gloves and shirt, which was bright red and began to sting. By the time I finished my cone, just two minutes, my neck began to feel hot also. I went to the rest room ans saw what must have caused quite an initial shock to the attendant and other snow cone consumers. A dark red streak came off my mustache on both sides of my face all the way to my ears. The hot dry heat of the desert must have made my nose bleed, but it dried up so quickly I never knew it. I washed up and finally saw the red triangle on my neck where the zippered shirt had fallen.
Back outside I laid down for a while on a picnic table and finished another chapter in my book. Refreshed and ready to go, I filled up the gas tank and canteen again, and headed on down the road to Los Angeles.
Next Stop: California
Previous Stop: Denver