Just this strip of pavement

Don't stop pedaling.

Even if you wanted to stop,

there is no place to stop.

You haven't seen a spit of shade in seven hours...

so don't stop.

If you stop,

you're gonna cook out here...

if you don't stop,

you're gonna cook out here....

might as well cook while you getting somewhere.

Anywhere.

Your water has long since gone to hot,

there are no sights worth seeing,

that mountain in the distance will be there for the next hour,

so...

take a drink of that boiling water,

put your head down,

tuck in from that blasted wind,

and keep pedaling.

The Owens Valley

The Owens Valley Starts at Crowely Lake and runs all the way to Los Angeles...
at least it's water does.
It's best known as the biggest suckers in the game of three card monty LA played in order to steal all their land and water a hundred years ago.



What's left is a dusty wasteland without any water that becomes more barren the further south one travels.

The wind, channeled between nine thousand foot peaks on both sides, steadily roared every which way but at our backs.

However,

with my own private bike path I simply pedaled on.

The valley had the last laugh though...

and let this be a lesson...

if after riding for 70 miles with only the slightest hints of green,

you stumble across a shady, smooth, grassy pasture with magnificent arching trees...

there is a reason it is green,

there is a reason the trees are magnificent.

And if that reason starts in the middle of the night there will be problems.

9,945 Feet

It took two days to get to the top of Tioga Pass...

It took 20 minutes to get to the bottom

yosemite.

" You have a magnificent park up north. A majestic park. Yosemite Park, it's called...
" Well, I'm going to tell you what I'd do with your park. Do you want to know what I would do?
" Well, I'll tell you. You know this new photographic process they've invented? It's called Pathe. It makes everything seem lifelike. The hues and coloration are magnificent. Well, then, what I would do, if I were custodian of your park, is I'd hire a dozen of the best photographers in the world. I'd build cabins in Yosemite Valley and pay them something and give them all the film they wanted. I'd say, 'This park is yours. it's yours for one year. I want you to take photographs in every season. I want you to capture all the colors, the waterfalls, all the snow and all the majesty. I especially want you to photograph the rivers. In early summer, when the Merced River roars, I want to see that.'
And then I'd leave them be. and in a year I'd come back and take their film, and send it out and have it developed and treated with Pathe. And then I would print the pictures in thousands of books and send them to every library. I would urge every magazine in the country to print them and tell every gallery and museum to hang them. I would make sure that every American saw them. And then...
"and then do you know what I would do?
I'd go in there and build a dam from one side of that valley to the other and stop the goddamned waste!"

- William Mulholland
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power







Ansel Adams...
what ever.

just outside yosemite

should i tell you about the distance we have covered?

should i tell you what kurt's computer says?

should i tell you how many miles per hour, how many hours per day, how that translates onto a map?

or...

should i tell you about moving at a pace where you can make eye contact with cows...

and they stare back at you.

how we move at a pace where you can see ever leaf blowing in the wind...

and wonder which ones are edible.

how you can see every hair on a moustached motorcyclist face as he smiles and waves whilst wizzing by you...

and you smile and wave and think isn't this country grand.

should i tell you how long it would take to cover the same distance by car?

or....

should i tell you about stopping at every river crossing

and jumping in,

mourning for every song bird killed along the side of the road,

and wondering if every dead rattlesnake met her fate from lust for the heat of the pavement or hunger for the bird.

trans-fort-tation

new bike

new glasses