A True Oasis

Quartzsite, Arizona, twinkled behind me as I climbed away from it, up a small mountain, heading for California.  The town appeared no larger than a distant galaxy in the vastness of desert space.  Even farther from my tiny reality, starlight glowed from behind hills that are behind Quartzsite.  I remembered climbing them and then coasting into the town yesterday, but now those hills appear impossibly distant. 

It seemed too soon, like I haven’t suffered enough, but suddenly in a broad valley—the Colorado River appeared, and beyond it, California.  I felt close to home, but did not allow that feeling to cause a rush for the finish.  A great desert lies between me and home.

Once in California, the wide floodplain of the Colorado, watered by canals flowing from the River, is green with farms.  The brown rocky desert transformed abruptly by the presence of water.

The town of Blythe came quickly, center for farmers and for travelers on Interstate Ten.  There are no motels between here and Brawley, and the distance is too great for someone like me to ride in one day, especially in the headwind forecasted for the next few days.  Camping on the blazing desert would have been my lot, except for an unexpected pleasure.  

Alfalfa fields spread seemingly to the mountains, cared for by bees, which beekeepers house in white boxes along the roads.  The price for alfalfa hay is very high at this time; I see a lot of smiling farmer faces in the cafes.

A few miles past the dying town of Palo Verde, I turned off the highway onto a dirt road.  Loose sand under my tires was like the dusty tracks you see in western movies.  I pedaled to a small encampment of mobile homes and trailers, standing like an outpost on the otherwise uninhabited desert.  It was here that I met Nancy Mercury.

I was telling my story to a man in a café several days ago, bemoaning the day when I would camp on the sand.  He said he has a friend who prefers isolation and solitude, and that she lives near my route, not far from the Colorado River.  When I called, she invited a stranger to stay with her.  Almost as soon as I arrived, she put me in her car and drove a few miles of dusty road to the River, where we relaxed and swam and ate watermelon.

I learned not to talk to her while she drew with pencil a rendering of a bush across the bay.  And later in her mobile home, I saw the walls lined with her art in oil, water color, and pencil.

I slept well that night after vegetarian salad and eggs direct from the chickens.

I got up early as always, and Nancy was up in the dark to make coffee and to see me off.  Good people are still around in this world. 

The ride seemed a little less windy than it was, and the shoulderless road, with its blind hilltops and blind curves, felt a little less dangerous after Nancy.

And maybe I stopped to picture these tiny desert blooms that I might not have noticed without her generosity.

It was a hard climb and a ride of concentration on safety to Glamis, the only store before Brawley.  After the little pit stop for dune buggy enthusiasts, came the plantless hills of sand, driven by wind.  With sand in my mouth, shoes and hair, the stark beauty of dunes will lodge in my mind next to Nancy Mercury as a pleasure worth working for.  

I am writing this from Brawley.  You can see where it is and better visualize the places I have mentioned with Michael Angerman’s map.  Access it by clicking the map at the top of this blog.  It shows each place I have stayed on this long ride, all the way from Daytona Beach, Florida.