We were up and moving by around 6:15am this morning. As we were packing up, I noticed a rainbow in the sky, something not all that common in the desert. That started my day off great, just seeing the rainbow. We enjoyed the cereal and milk Joey picked up from the store yesterday while saying goodbye to the chief and the two fireman since it was shift change at 7am. We hit the road about 7:30 and continued to enjoy the flat-downhillish ride that we had at the end of yesterday's ride. That took us right out of town. Just as we were making our turn to head towards Amboy, we saw Gary again. He was right at the corner of the road fixing a flat. It's pretty funny because he was just saying yesterday how he hadn't had a flat in such a long time- he must have jinxed himself on that one. The rainbow was still out for the first part of our ride as we continued on down the amazing flat road. Like yesterday afternoon, the miles really flew by. The only part that wasn't as good was that it was really cold this morning. I had my "skinny" gloves on and wanted to stop to put my pants on too, but instead kept riding and waiting for it to warm up. It would have been much more pleasant if I had just stopped and put them on because it seemed like it never would warm up. It took about an hour and a half for me to feel comfortable. After an amazing downhill of about 20 miles, we started to climb and did so for about 6-7 miles. It wasn't as hard of a climb as a lot of the ones we've done lately where we can only go 3-4 mph. This one we could at least go between 5 and 7 mph as it was more long and gradual. Once we were over the pass we saw such a spectacular view. There were mountains way off in the distance in each direction and in the middle was a section of the Mojave Dessert. You could see forever, it was unbelievable. The road stretched out so far that you couldn't even see the end of it; it just got lost in the distance. More wonderful downhill- we rode down for about 6 miles at a very comfortable coasting speed of 18-20 mph, without having to even pedal. It was so great to be able to just sit back and take in the surroundings. It was a little overwhelming to sit there and look around at the vast empty space around you. I went a little picture crazy because it was just so pretty. Eventually the gradual downhill turned into just a flat road. At one point, a guy in a pickup truck decided it would be a good time to pass, when I was right there. He pretty much tried to run me off the road. I don't know whether or not he would have actually hit me, but I do know that I was glad I was paying attention and saw him coming. I stopped riding right away and pushed my bike into the sand. Either way, he was way closer (and going much faster) than I ever care to have a vehicle coming at me on a road that doesn't have a shoulder. Now normally I wouldn't have gotten upset that he wanted to pass, but this is such a flat, straight road, with not a whole lot of traffic- he could have passed at any time- he didn't have to do it when he was so close to me. On top of that, the guy was very immature. I gave him a look of disapproval and in return he made a very inappropriate gesture. It's these kind of people that make me nervous to be on the roads- on a bike or in a car- those people that just don't care. As upset as I was, I got over the issue pretty quick because once I started riding again, I got in the groove of riding on the super long, flat road, and lost in my surroundings again. I just couldn't believe that we could see so far. The road looked like it just disappeared. Yesterday when we were having dinner with the fireman, the chief told us how we would pass the fields where they 'harvested' sodium chloride/ calcium chloride. He explained how they flood the fields and in doing so all the minerals float to the top. When the water dries, they scrape the top layer to get the chloride. Sure enough, the last 8-10 miles before we reached the "town" of Amboy, we were surrounded by these fields. We were also very close to a Marine base and we could hear them doing target practice. I had my headphones on to try to make the time go faster (although the roads were flat, it felt like we weren't getting anywhere very fast because we were in the middle of such a vast empty area). At some point as we were riding near the base, I heard a loud boom over my music (which is never very loud anyways). It startled me pretty good and made me jump as a result of it. When I looked back I could see a cloud of smoke over near one of the mountains where they had set off some kind of explosive. Also as we were riding the long stretch of road to Amboy, we saw the Amboy Crater off in the distance. We kept riding and riding and it didn't seem like we were ever going to pass it. Eventually, 10 miles later, we finally did pass it when we finally got to the junction of old Route 66. A mile or so down 66 from where we turned was the little "town" of Amboy. At one time, when 66 was in it's prime, this little town was one that got a lot of business. By the time we got there, we were really hungry, but were glad that we held off having lunch so that there would be a bench or some kind of table to eat on. Although the flat miles felt like they took forever to get anywhere on because of the roads going on forever, we actually covered a lot of miles in a pretty short time. Before we stopped for lunch around noon, we had already done 51 miles. We ate our lunch at the little benches outside the old cafe/hotel/gas station that was there in town. The fireman told us that that place has appeared in a number of movies, which is kind of neat. Before leaving town, we saw a semi that was transporting vehicles that said "North Tonawanda, NY" on the door. It was from SO close to home!! We stopped and talked to the guy, but he wasn't in a very good mood. Either way, it made us pretty excited to see that. Before leaving the tiny town, we stopped at the tiny post office to see if it was open, but it was closed. It's business hours read 9am-1pm, but they weren't open even though they were supposed to be. It is a long story, but a couple days ago-the day we had all of the wind, we found a cell phone on the ground. It still kind of worked, except for the screen. We tried to figure out a way to call someone to figure out who's phone it was, but with the strong wind, we knew we had to keep riding or we would never make it where we wanted to go. So, we just put it in our handle bar bag and figured we would figure it out later. Anyway, time passed and we forgot about it until yesterday. As we were setting up our tent at the fire station, we heard a phone ringing- it was the cell phone. We answered it and explained how we had found it. The lady on the other end gave us an address to send it to, so once we get somewhere with a post office that is open, we will mail it to her- we found the owner- mission accomplished. After lunch, we continued down another incredibly long road, but were excited to be on Old Route 66. Unfortunately the road had a bit more traffic that the road we turned off of, but it wasn't too bad. When we came to the road that turned to go into the Mojave Dessert Preserve, we tossed and turned over the idea of going through the preserve or staying on Rt.66. We had some great suggestions from William to go through the preserve because of how pretty it was. But at the same time, we knew we had an extra 4,000+ climbing to do if we went that way. On top of that as we were sitting at the intersection, 90% of the cars went that way. We originally planned on riding on 66 for as long as we could and we knew the pass with the narrow road wouldn't be very fun with all the cars. In the end we decided to stay on Old 66. We continued on down the road and got to see some old abandoned restaurants and gas stations that would be left from when the road was booming back in the 50s. Eventually we climbed another long hill. When we got to the top we saw the sun setting behind us and the next valley ahead of us- this one seemed even bigger than the last one. It is truly amazing how far you can see-probably for 30-40 miles. Each valley seems to get bigger and bigger with every set of mountains we go over. We enjoyed the downhill and then, since it was already dark, found a spot to camp on side of road. After the tent was set up, and I was making some mac and cheese in the dark, I somehow managed to dump the pan off the stove. We lost some of the noodles, but not so much that we wouldn't have enough for dinner. It's definitely a pain to cook in the dark on a little stove, but I'm just glad this is the first time in 8 months that I've spilled any dinner like that. After we ate, we talked on the phone for quite a while. We are out there in the middle of the desert with nothing around for miles and we have cell reception- we couldn't believe it! The one great thing about being out there in the middle of no where is that the view of the stars is just amazing- I don't know if I've ever seen that many at one time before. I bet it's even better in Alaska when it's dark up there- especially with the Northern Lights (too bad we didn't get to see that....). Although it didn't feel like we rode as many miles as we did, they totaled 73.09 in the end, most of which were in the valley we crossed into after the first hill today.
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