Sunday, January 16   740 Miles     I woke promptly at 6 AM after two hours of refreshing sleep. I was still sitting upright motionless on the motorcycle, my head tilted forward in the helmet.  The visor was fogged up from my breath and I flipped it up with my gloved hand to have a look around at my surroundings. The low temperature was bearable in all my layers of clothing and no 65 mph winds to contend with.     Eager to cover distance and eat up road, I prepared to leave. I just had to make it back on time. I was starting to feel a tremendous sense of urgency. I've got to get back. I must keep going. It was a chant through my head as semi's rumbled over the bridge above me.

The first gas station I came to was still closed. My only option was to head back up the freeway to the next road and hope they have fuel there. My limit on the miles per tank was approaching.     Too stubborn to just wait for the place to open, I joined the convoy of semi's and blazed a path down the road. I last a whole 4 miles. The bike coughs and dies, and I'm out of gas. I roll to a stop trying to get as much distance as possible. I can barely push this 750-lb. behemoth and my only hope was a tiny knob on the side of the bike. I have never even used the fuel petcock knob. I don't even know if it works.      It takes vice-grips from my toolkit just to move the rusted petcock. I hit the starter button and nothing happens as the motor turns over, oh boy, I twist on the choke, turn it over some more, oh boy. With a welcome howl, the bike comes to life. I threw a leg over the bike and quickly joined traffic unsure how long these fumes will last me.     Another 3 miles brings an exit along with two gas stations. I tried the first, closed, and the one across the street isn't well lit and doesn't look open. I rode across the street as the bike sputtered and died. I coasted the last few feet to the side of the pump. Glory Hallelujah, it's open! I'm saved! I filled up, and I was back on the freeway in minutes.     Oil wells dot the landscape and even the horizon. The terrain has flattened out while I drove through the night and I ride along this morning still relaxed and mellow. Texas, what a strange place I think, all this space and no people. And no trees. At least not here. A short while later, I finally pull off the freeway to a Mickey D's for breakfast. As I walk in and order, I get a couple sideways glances. I'm not sure if it's the helmet hair, if I smell, or the windburnt face. Not many motorcyclists out here. I'm eating lots of pancakes but these things don't taste as good as when the trip first began.     Hot water rushes down my parched throat warming me from the inside out. I study the maps tracing routes with my pen and highlighting the elevation markers. As usual, the crazy idea strikes me to head straight west off the freeway across the flatlands to New Mexico. I calculate the hours I have left, the total miles, and how far I think I can get today. Several roads look attractive as they make a path for California. I go through the checklist, but when I come to studying the elevation of the route, it doesn't look good. In eastern New Mexico, I'd have to go over a mountain range. The elevation is incomplete in some spots. The real clue is the little skier guy on the map, the symbol for ski resorts.      The idea dies and the freeway it is then. It's a dead run for home now, and I suppose I'll write in another 800 miles or so.

The ubiquitous fill up

The goal became to cross Texas in all its expansiveness. The terrain becomes wide open and flat, just plain flat. I wished I could stop by the oil museum around Midland but I don't have the time. Along side the freeway, oil wells extend into the horizon. An airplane plane museum passes by around Odessa and for the second time, I wish I could stop but I realize I can't stop for anything now. I rode on into my 28th hour packing my two hours rest under the overpass last night. Weird how things like that happen, sleeping under a bridge in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Texas.

The wide open expanse allows some intense winds!

The wind picked up and it makes for a loud rushing noise around my helmet. In still air, the bike will slice right through. With heavy winds from the side, the bike must fight a two-front war. Sometimes I rode at an angle leaning into the wind for minutes at a time. In addition, the same high winds kicking across the flatlands as we neared the Apache Mountains also played havoc with the slipstreams of the semi's.     I found this out with great alarm as the winds picked up faster and gustier the closer I got to the mountains. One time passing a semi and just about to clear it, a vicious gust of wind hit the semi. The gust collided into me as it joined with the air moving around the semi. The bike almost blew right out from under me. It swayed far out at an angle beneath me. I was blown clear across the lane as I instinctively fought to keep control. The sudden alarming sensation of losing control woke me from my driving fog.      Twice more that morning, the wind almost blew the bike right off the road. I have never ridden through such high winds on a motorcycle that seems to think it is a sailboat.     At Quartzite, I pulled off the freeway. The place was a massive flea market for travelers and retirees walking around. It was a bit dusty and at times the wind would kick up swirls of dust blowing against the tents of the scores of venders and swaying the RV's back and forth. The flea market looked very inviting. I couldn't stop. I had to keep moving to make it back in time.

Somewhere in western Texas

My wheels rolled over the New Mexico state line and I liberated a map at the tourist info place. The route itself across the southern part of the state is rather uneventful and actually quite boring. Desert and occasional something interesting to look at. I was doing 100-mile increments without thinking or stopping. There probably was a great deal of things to do and see in hindsight, but my mind was focused. I was just a traveler observing what I saw along the way. If the attractions didn't come to me, then I didn't know they were there. My eyes pointed westward.     At one fillup midday somewhere in New Mexico, I pulled off the freeway directly into a gas station at the base of the off-ramp where the attendant was waiting at the side of the pump to take my money. I filled up the 5-gallon tank and left. I doubt I was stationary for more than 3 or 4 minutes, then rode another 150 miles, which equals about a three-hour jaunt.      Occasionally I'd stop for a few minutes to eat a little or adjust my layering with the temperature but I was intent on getting back. It was if the trip was over. I was a horse heading back to the barn at the end of the ride. I was ready to go home and so there was no longer any higher purpose to take my time. The miles and light of day flew by and the clock ticked past 30 consecutive hours of sitting on the bike.     I didn't quite understand how my body was capable of pulling this off on only an hour or two of sleep but I really couldn't tell the difference. I was just riding. It was that simple. In a way, it was I who was stationary and the earth was rotating beneath me, the scene changing with every breath.      Moving into Arizona and getting nearer to Tucson, I stopped at a reststop. I planned to stop briefly before riding the rest of the way to Tucson. I was nearing the end of daylight for the day, and I pondered what to do. Phoenix and Los Angeles are only 365 miles apart. That isn't all that far. The distance from Los Angeles to Sacramento is about the same. It would be only another 6 or 7 hours north to Sacramento from LA, and I would be home. 800 more miles? I could do that easy.     Inside my mind, the trip has pretty much come to a close. I think the last week of solitude and of traveling nonstop has taken the desire from me. I have spoken to almost no one in a solid week. All that remains is the focus on getting home. I feel I could reach it by driving on through the evening, catching some quick zz's some place. Then drive through Los Angeles very early in the morning before the city wakes and rush hour begins. It's always a bit of a strange feeling to not know where you will be sleeping the next night, but I never really worry about it. For many, that is a little too much of an unknown and call ahead to make reservations somewhere.     I figure from where I am, I can be in Los Angeles around 4 or 5 in the morning and drive straight through. I'm tired. I just want to go home and sleep in a bed instead of on the ground. I want to take a decent shower for once.      It's always a dream of some motorcyclists to just get on the bike and start riding and never stop. For man and motorcycle to become one, no job, tasks, duties, responsibilities, just the bike and I. And I must add that I do love this. I don't think I could put myself through some of the things that have happened in the last few days if I didn't have such a love for motorcycles, this nation, and of traveling. To ride and never stop, what a glorious idealistic concept. There is so much to see and so much out there beside our own region and our little secure worlds.     Now as I sit here in this rest stop somewhere in Arizona, and realize the trip is coming to a close, I feel as though I wish I had more time. Time to cover more distance and see what's around that next corner, but once the idea of going home is realized, it becomes the only goal.     Anchoring this reststop is a rocky hillside covered in brown boulders and huge rocks. A few minutes ago, a family pulled in and they all piled out of a station wagon. It was loaded up with luggage and bicycles strapped to the roof. There was a young boy among the kids who sprang out as the car came to a stop. He raced for the rocks. I watched him climb among the large boulders as he stood precariously on the top of the tallest one in sight. If I were a boy traveling with my family, I would beg my father to let me climb and jump among those rocks. The excitement, the challenge, and the danger would be irresistible to I, the child. My father would release me and I would charge off with boyhood glee to tackle those boulders regardless of the risk, just as that young boy did.      I understand now why he let me.     The moment to relax ended and all that remained was the open road. I charged off kicking back on the bike and just absorbing the scenery of the desert as I descended into Tucson. I felt good. I gassed up and headed for Phoenix knowing that I was only a short 13 or so hours from home. Thirteen hours seemed like a heartbeat after all these days on the bike. I headed into dusk and figured I was still on schedule to hit Los Angeles about 5 AM or so on Monday morning, the 17th of January.     The bike just purred and this thing has run like a tank the last couple thousand miles, not a whimper out of the Venture. Every morning no matter how cold, it's started right up, ready to cover distance and run all day. I've only owned it a month now and what a machine!     In between Phoenix and Tucson, I came upon Picacho Peak State Park and stopped. It wasn't even on my map. I'm still not quite sure why I stopped, I figured I would have been home by noon tomorrow. I pulled into the park and just called it quits. I felt so close to home and I intensely wanted to drive straight through. Yet in truth I was exhausted and had enough of the endless miles and sitting on the bike all day. I had been sitting on the bike for 37 consecutive hours. That's almost a full workweek for some people. That thought made me chuckle too. I had even slept sitting on the bike.     I saw the sign and just pulled off the freeway in a split second decision. I'll go through Phoenix and Los Angeles tomorrow and take my chances during the day. I've made good time across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Tomorrow will be Monday, which will give me a full day to get home across Arizona and ride north up the midsection of California. Probably make it back late Monday and it gives me no room for error though. The semester starts the day after tomorrow and I have to be sitting in my first class at 9 AM Tuesday.     I entered the park and couldn't see much in the darkness but found a secluded site and settled in. My hands laid out the sleeping bag on the ground for the last time. I lay there with my hands clasped on my chest staring into the night. Sleep came quickly. Aside from the few stolen moments of sleep under the overpass, I'd just ridden nearly 1600 miles in 37 hours.

Picacho Peak State Park, Arizona to Sacramento, California