Excerpts

2. (I had met a fellow biker who traveled with me for a day)

In the last hour of light we entered a serene meadow-village hemmed in by the yellow boulder cliffs of Valentine. We were tempted to increase mileage, but the wind and a steep climb threatened. We retreated back to a grassy driveway, an empty well-kept lawn. Hoping for permission to sleep on the lawn, we leaned bikes against a stone wall, wobbled up steps, and knocked. Two frisky dogs annoyed us until the owner, an Indian, came around the yard. He refused permission, with reason. Scorpions, Gila monsters, and rattlers infested the Arizona rocks just behind on the hills. With the cool of the evening, they ventured down onto the lawn seeking water. It would be wiser to sleep high up off the ground. He pointed to a cement loading dock behind his Bureau of Indian Affairs Office. In twilight blue-gray, Dave and I stripped to our shorts and washed with cold garden hose water. Without the sun’s glare, the rocks chilled quickly. Evening slipped into silence, cracked twice by night train horns. In the evening shadows, jousting with the wind dragon ended.

3. Trucks drove with controlled fury. A semi at sixty mph created a headwind that first buffeted any vehicle. As it passed, the backwash sucked inwards. I synchronized this and learned to slide in-between rushes of wind to pick up speed. Needless to say, it was dangerous. Truckers were aware of the might of their metal behemoths. For traffic slower than themselves, they passed on the left after cautiously gauging distances and safety. Otherwise, they blared their double horns well in advance of driving over their victim. The semis were equipped with air brakes capable of stopping their forty ton loads. If the load didn’t shift and kill the driver forward, the only cost was tire tread. Road shoulders were littered with black snail shells of retread rubber sheared off in a panic stop. So far I hadn’t seen an accident, though the damage of several has been towed past.