When There is No Meet Point

Pearblossom Highway and the Big Storm Cell

When there is no meet point, you’re going solo and you’ve set your own KSU and making the departure time means little. People like to call them rides of the lone wolf as if calling it that gives it more nobility. There’s plenty of nobility in riding without over-icing the cake.

I think riding is a noble activity. Some may argue that based on negative encounters with riders and I would tell them discourteous riders have surrendered a measure of their nobility. Be inconsiderate enough on a bike you’ll become a simple hooligan on two wheels.

It’s been at least two summers since I’ve gotten in a multi-day ride so I put on my big-boy pants and planned a ride for myself to end the summer of 2017. I took off this morning missing my KSU by 18 minutes. I could blame the dog but he was already low having spent the night waiting for Cindy to get home from her nightshift and that wouldn’t be fair to poor Ollie. I was worked up enough about this that I went without my morning Kick Start but made up for it later. It was a warm morning and I was headed to Pahrump for a couple of days of writing and riding my character’s rides.

Up the Antelope Valley Freeway I went and headed right into storm clouds. I could see scattered areas of rain but lucked out pretty much and just got smatterings of rain here and there for some time. I was finally forced to don my rain gear in Littlerock as it seemed obvious that I would end up smack dap in a hefty storm cell complete with periodic lightning strikes. I took advantage of the stop and consumed my favorite rider’s breakfast, chocolate milk.

As I was sitting on the curb of the gas pump island pulling on my rain pants a woman walked by and chuckled at me on her way to her mini-van to go to work after dropping her kids at school. We traded a couple of good-natured barbs and some serious talk about needing rain - I’ll not complain about rain when we need it so much and so many people in the southeast are losing everything to it. She was the first in a pair of bookends and ended by telling me to stay safe as she buckled up. People are generally goodhearted.

The skies were fantastic as I rode east on the Pearblossom Highway and I was not disappointed in my decision to put on the rain gear. With every curve in the road I either headed directly into the path of that nasty cell or it appeared that I would skirt it while all the time smaller cells splattered my just-detailed bike. The cell moved from my right to left in a general way, southwest to northwest. When I made the junction to Highway 15 north toward Vegas the big cell pelted the desert with rain and lightning but continued to fade off to my left. The skies continued to clear to leave only high and nonthreatening clouds.

I pulled over for a multi-purpose stop in Barstow to refuel, remove the rain gear, and down a Grape flavored Kick Start. All was right in this rider’s world. After polishing off the heavenly beverage complete with electrolytes and caffeine I packed away my gear. While doing so a lady sitting in her mini-van offered me a towel saying that she had beach towels I could use to dry off. I didn’t need them as it was hot and dry enough even with the clouds that I’d dried within minutes. I thanked her anyway and she wished me a good rest of my trip. The other bookend.

My original plan was to have breakfast at The Mad Greek in Baker where I’d breakfasted often with AT&T’s radio operations guys. I scrapped that idea as I just wasn’t hungry and topped off my tank at the station next to the telephone central office where many a high desert radio project was kicked off. By this time, I was riding in triple digit temperatures and heading deeper into the Mojave.

I made a stop at the Salt Creek preserve, a little site just off CA State Highway 127 on the way to Shoshone. You wouldn’t know it from the road but there is a spring-fed gully there with vegetation and wildlife, though on this day around noon the animals all had sense enough stay low until evening leaving just a lone wolf stalking the grounds…

Pahrump is what Pahrump is – a place to buy fireworks, gamble, visit a Chicken Ranch if you’re so inclined. My purpose was to ride around town a bit and check on locations I’ve used in the book I’m now editing. Tomorrow I’ll take a ride that my character makes in the story - from Pahrump to Mount Charleston with its peak at nearly 12,000 feet. I’m watching the weather reports as there was a 40% chance of rain for the mountain in yesterday’s predictions. I don’t really like riding in the rain – I’ve lost my comfort level for it since I grew up.

When there’s no meet point, just go.

Keep the iron side up and stay cool.

jerry