This was shortly after my Trek broke in half on the way to Death Valley. The only bike I could find to replace it with was an antique Schwinn World, a good bike but a real piece of work. This section is basically the test ride for the bike. Enjoy!!!
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The climb out of Pahrump towards California was mild and I made it to the pass as well as could be expected. It was a test of the bike and I was comfortable with it but worried that it wouldn't be geared low enough for the climbs. I told myself that I might have to be stronger and chose to be thankful for the increased difficulty, I loved challenges.
The bike was even nicer on the descent. Steel bearings make for a coast beyond any of the sealed bearings that I've ever used. Something about how it rolls, and five miles of drop into an unpopulated basin between dry mountain ranges proved the older technology. My first touring bike had been a fifty year old three speed which a friend and I had rebuilt. With my experience on that bike, I knew how happy I’d be once I repacked these bearings.
Low growing mesquite covered the basin I was falling into and as I got closer I thought about camping there but I was only fifteen miles out from Pahrump. I wasn’t admitting it to myself but I was worried about the bike and knew I had to keep going. This was a test and the slope climbing the other side of the basin was steep and hard. It was a short climb, less than a mile at six percent and I was able but it was a lot harder than what I was used to. I'd have to get a lot stronger.
Fortunately this was the last climb and the descent was sweet, a delightful coast down to the Amargosa River and the village of Shoshone. Just before the hamlet was a historical site, an oasis where prospectors had carved niches into chalky bluffs. In this bare land it was paradise but I’m not trying to give the impression that it was lush. The soil simply did not support vegetation and it was only immediately next to water that anything except sparse chaparral grew at all. After the even more desolate desert that I’d already crossed, the camping looked really good.
There was a photographer in Shoshone the next morning and I allowed them free rein. They took a lot of pictures and it was somewhat of an interview too, an opportunity to speak and I had a lot to say. In return for the gifts received, they bought me lunch. An older couple watched all this then made a twenty dollar offering.
Away from the Amargosa there was no vegetation at all and if there was a hell where nothing grew, this was it. It was beautiful though, a blank landscape of light and rock with a smooth road through it, paradise in other words, even in hell. And then I met the devil himself except that like me, he’d been reformed. He said that he was recently saved and believably, but until then had been Lucifer, the devil incarnate. He only told me this because we were becoming friends and the newly saved soul had a gift for me, two fat joints. He had a lot of weed.
There was an unopened yellow pack of hippie cigarettes on the trail to the hot springs. Hell had all these great gifts but they fit just as well in paradise and amid the lifeless void of the desert was a fifty foot long twisting maze of deep clear hot water bordered with thick sedges. I soaked, releasing all the burdens from my bike breaking, from the transition to this old bike. The water was hot and that’s what I needed.
Refreshed and relatively restored, I rode on into the village of Tecopa Hot Springs. There was a large campground and an 86 year old bicyclist ran it. The first thing he said to me was, "Cyclists camp for free," but then he took a closer look at my bike and asked for the rest of the story. He was sympathetic and as he showed me his bikes, I could sense that he was considering giving me one of them. They were expensive machines though and I wasn’t going to ask.
The campground had its own hot springs pool and after setting up my camp I soaked again. When I came out of the soaking room, and it was more like a spa, I met Kent. He called himself the town’s token black man. He saw me as a character and wanted to let me know that he was one too. This recognition quickly turned into friendship and he invited me to his camper for salmon and asparagus.
There were high winds the next morning and I took my time breaking camp. When I did leave, I only went as far as a neighboring community center. There was some kind of windblock and I was already ready for lunch so I stopped to make a sandwich. There was a bench in the shade outside the building and restrooms inside. The center was staffed and a few people from the community went in and out. One of these people told me about the big tree. It was the biggest tree in that part of the county and a place where I might camp.
The tree was just south of town and a short way up a steep rock road. It stood alone in bare desert below a prominent hill and beneath its lower branches was a shady nook where it was easy to make myself at home. An overgrown spring seeped water downhill from the tree. I didn’t know whether it was potable or not but I could at least use it to wash my dishes. The hill above me stood over the whole valley and once I reached the top, I found trails which led down to the village. I would go down there again that night for a potluck that I heard about at the community center but would take the highway, not the trail.
It was only Wednesday or Thursday and the bike shop in Pahrump would be closed until the following week so I wasn’t in any hurry about anything. There were commodities at the community center and although I didn’t need much, I at least got some peanut butter and something to read. With nothing else to do, I went back to the hot springs and had a long soak with a Chinese couple and a group of Romanians. Later, I wrote about a pulled pork sandwich and a tall ten percent craft beer except that I don’t remember the details.
There were two old bicyclists at the laundromat the next day. Mike was eighty-six and the other man was seventy-six. Like the campground host, neither of them looked old. I went back to the campground too and the old man there finally put a price on one of his extra bikes but it was way beyond my budget so I went back to the springs. Three Russian women sat there in the bare desert with a teapot and fancy cups drinking tea and eating small sandwiches. The image of these babushkas so at home amid this desolation was surreal.
On the other side of my camp was the town of Tecopa. As I sipped a beer there, a beautiful couple and I made friends. The woman had some kind of disability from an accident and we talked about accessibility. Part of my degree program was a class in accessible design and the woman was very grateful to meet someone who understood the challenges she faced every day.
I went back to Tecopa in the morning for breakfast and met Vaughn. He was a good man but couldn’t answer a straight question like “Where exactly?” In my notes I simply wrote that I’d made friends with someone that I didn't really like and it made me think about how we accept each other even when it’s hard.
After a long hike up Amargosa Canyon looking for the opals which occur there, I stopped again in Tecopa for yet another beer. Another old bicyclist showed up, Davey. He wasn’t cycling just then but in 1974 he rode across the US on the same model of bike that I was riding. This added to my confidence in the bike.
Ramon arrived next. He paid for my beer, bought me another, and gave me twenty dollars. As I left, I asked him to think of me with the strength I would need not having low gears on my bike. I rode from there to my camp and the first part of the road up to it was steep and graveled. I'd not been able to ride more than thirty feet up it. Well, I rode almost to the top and later in the moonlight finally conquered the hill. Ramon’s prayers were that effective.
There were more characters at the hot springs, a woman I characterized as Princess Mononoki and another who looked like Princess Leia from Star Wars. After the princesses left, a Columbian shaman arrived and told me about transforming into a bird when he was a boy. I left before him and when I did he offered me one of my favorite blessings, "Fuerte," strength. By then I had an invitation to a shindig with an honor system feed. There were spinners, musicians, and some of the friends I’d made over the past couple days. It was after this that I was finally able to bike all the way up to my camp. I needed confidence and this really helped.
The weekend was finally there and I woke up with a profoundly peaceful feeling. I didn't want to leave the next day, mostly because I still wasn’t comfortable with the old bike but it was time. I was on the road, not settling down in the desert. I would certainly have another great day before leaving though.
The first beauty of the day, (aside from the peaceful feeling), was a young couple from Russia at the hot springs. The woman took many pictures of me, film pictures. First black and white and then in color. I also took pictures of her and we became great friends.
Then I met my best friend of the whole visit. Ray was pretty and tattooed with jack-o-lanterns, little demon girls, and full size wings. As she explained the tats to one of the other bathers, she revealed a fascination with darker things but in every other encounter she had, she listened deeply and with deep interest in what others had to say. She cared about people and her heart was light. When she got out of the pool I asked her about how she saw the contrast between the two personas. I'm not sure if she answered the question but she sat down across from me and eye to eye we became friends.
Ray invited me along with her for sightseeing. She'd heard of an art installation nearby and we went there first. The artist sold tours for an ungodly fee but saw the art in us too, he saw himself, so he gave us a free mini tour. His art was of the type that in full freedom of expression released a great beauty and understanding that flowered inside of him. There were a series of paintings with an active third eye and others that with just a few brushstrokes told deep stories. I told him what I could see of him in his work and it was true. The artist left us and Ray and I talked about these pieces. The art we saw before us was the art within us and in that light we knew deeply why we’d become friends.
There was a trailhead into the Amargosa Canyon at China Ranch Date Farms and we took a long hike. It was hot out and we relished the warmth knowing that we'd soon quench our thirsts at a brewery. After beers, she took me back to my camp where I ate lunch then right away went back to the hot springs.
The Colombian son of shamans who I'd met two days earlier was there as was a mystic elder from Siberia. The three of us sat together in council along with a young seeker. We all agreed that where there was a natural wisdom, the wise would gather and we laughed at the absurdity of our all meeting there, men creating beauty on this blank canvas of a desert. In my mind’s eye, the babushkas still sat there drinking tea. We were so connected that energies like those the Russian women had left were visible to the naked eye. This astounded me.
