Day 7- First Host

This day was insane...
I got somewhat of a late start. After breakfast, chatting and repacking, I rolled down the driveway with my brakes fully engaged- it was really steep. Google was telling me there was a road following the highway pretty well. If it ever got too bad, I could just pop on over. On the way, there were no curbs, so I had to be really careful. But as soon as there was space, I got out my headphones. This must have distracted me, because I missed my turn- I added a mile or two to my route. Oh well, no big deal. When I got to the turn, I found out why I really missed it- it was a dirt road. But it supposedly met up with a different road, hopefully paved. There were a bunch of dead snakes on this road. The first one I checked out, and I'm guessing a bird got it and then dropped it, because it wasn't smashed anywhere like a car would do. It was in perfect shape except for a ring around its body.

I eventually reached where I was supposed to turn again, but it was a locked gate, and there were motorhomes and stuff around- I definitely didn't want to mess around here. Google said there was another road up ahead that met up with it. When I got there, there was no such road- perhaps there was a path forever ago, but it was overgrown and fenced off now. This is the point where I most definitely should have turned around, taken the extra miles as a crappy loss, and gone to the fastest way to the highway. But oh no- I decided to push my bike up the crazy incline, battling cacti, in the hopes that I would meet up with the road on the other side. It was tough, but I got to the top, only to find that on the other side was a valley with a fence blocking my path. I don't know how I was able to muster up so much determination, but I figured I could unpack my stuff, get it over the fence, and then finally be on the right road again. When I got to the fence, I found out it was a gate, so I was able to open it by pushing and pulling the barb wire. Okay, I am definitely trespassing now. I couldn't see any houses though. From here, I found that I had several options- I could go to the left, which would possibly save some time, because there were two more closed gates that I would have to get through if I went right. If I went right, I could clearly see a path to the road. I decided to go right. The gates were easy- I just opened and closed them behind me. There was no going back now. Quite a ways down the road, I was greeted by a bull, standing just before a cattle guard. I wasn't sure if it would be friendly or not, so I slowly approached it. I scratched the top of its head (which was pretty gross. His head wasn't covered in bugs, but the rest of his body was). He seemed to like it. I slowly moved past him. There were several other cows as well- they were kinda afraid of me. I just kept on moving. By now, the road was nothing more than a four wheeler trail. I vowed to take the first road connecting back up to the highway. The day was pretty hot. I didn't worry about water, because I was traveling beside a small stream the whole time. It got hot enough that I decided to go down to it to cool off. The cool water felt amazing. Once I finally got to the connecting road, surprise surprise, it was even more overgrown than the current one. And it also went basically straight uphill. I knew my legs were going to hate me for this, so I decided to take a break for a bit. There were neat looking houses nearby- obviously abandoned. One appeared to have collapsed, but when I went around to the other side of it, I discovered that it was built into the hill that way. I wanted to check it out more, but it was too dark inside.

The other houses were too far, so I went back to my bike and ate a Pop-tart. I decided to take this one slowly- I would take 25 steps, at which point my legs would scream at me, then break (and brake) and try to remember every place I had slept on the trip so far. My memory isn't what I wish it was, so thinking about the trip and especially blogging about it is incredibly helpful.

After what seemed like forever, I finally reached the highway. Of course, I was surrounded by fencing that had private property signs all over it. Awesome. There was another place in the fence that once had the ability to open- but it had since been wrapped in even more barbed wire. I really did not want to have to unpack my bike to get everything over the fence- that would have taken forever. I walked along the fence and found a part that I could open. It took some strength to do it, but after a few minutes, I was finally back on the highway. After a few miles, the view was gorgeous- I was in the mountains, so I could see very far. Before sunset, I found a place to camp.

I stopped there because it was right before a nice downhill, and right before I got into the forest. I figured I wanted to be in plain sight- I was sure that wild animals flourished down there. If I'm gonna be eaten, I at least want the search to be quick and easy. I had a fence on one side and the highway on the other- I felt pretty safe. The sun was setting beautifully as I set up my tent. The night wasn't so great.There were ridiculous gusts of wind, and during a calm I heard coyotes.