We have meant to write something for a while, but things have come up and out of our control time and time again in the last week. For the sake of brevity I will give a short summary of our time in southern California, our day trip to Mexico, and the ride through the desert to Las Vegas.

LA County:

There are some places in the US that are tied strongly to specific stereotypes. For instance, southern California (specifically the Los Angeles area), prior to this trip, was nothing more in my mind than a sprawling huge failure of civilization. An overpopulated area only dwarfed in size of its land mass by the size of its residents super-inflated egos. I didn't want to like LA as much as I now do. I wanted to feel justified in telling someone after my trip there “yeah, it was alright. I mean beautiful and everything, but there are too many people, and way too many douche bags.” But after all was done I found a southern California that I loved. If anything the area is too big to not find something for you there.

On the first morning of our stay, our host Mark, brought Ryan and I to Solstice Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. We met Mark's friend Seth and the four us us hiked up into the hills – 1500 feet above sea level. As we walked we observed mountain lion tracks; the early morning sun burned out the coastal fog; Mark explained how in the last couple years a fire burned away a lot of the green canopy of the trail, but every week as he walks around he gets to see the growth of it. This was something so different the the concrete jungle I expected. As we sat up at the top of the summit Mark showed us the view of his garden of eden.

True to fashion, Ryan and I ended up staying in Santa Monica longer than we expected. The next day we ended up going to Mark's son Kyle's football game. While Mark took photos down at field level we stood in the stands with Kyle's mom Wendy cheering and drinking beer. We tried to fit in, but two burly bearded mid-20something year olds at a high school game is an oddity. But there were also all-you-can-eat tacos at the pre-game tailgate so it was the perfect place for two homeless guys.

Our last morning in Santa Monica we woke up before dawn and rode our bikes to the Santa Monica pier with Mark. It was a somber morning. We walked around for a while before heading farther down to the Venice pier. As Ryan and Mark talked I walked around snapping photos of surfers. After a coffee stop we all headed back to Mark's and packed our bags for the 40 mile ride to Long Beach.

In Long Beach we again stayed longer than we thought. One night turned into two turned into three. Our previous tour guide of Las Vegas, Cat, now lives in Long Beach. In Las Vegas she became the final piece of our tripod. We created a support structure for each other as we tripped our way along the Vegas Strip trying not to misplace our bar of composure. In Long Beach Cat worked at a coffee shop, so the nights she worked Ryan and I did what we do best – drink coffee until our teeth chattered like ravers on ecstasy and hands trembled like heroin addicts on withdrawal. One night I drank 52 oz. of coffee and two double shots of straight espresso in about an hour.

One day the three of us went to the beach in San Pedro and swam for a while before Cat had to go to work. It was the end of October but the water was surprisingly warm. After a few minutes I noticed a few dolphins swimming about 100 feet farther off the coast. It felt like being a kid again. We body surfed the waves. It had been a long time since I swam in the ocean. I forgot how fun it was, even if I swallowed a gallon of salt water.

Tijuana:

We spent one night in San Clemente State Beach before reaching our friend Howard's apartment in San Diego. Spending time with Howard is like living in a hedonistic paradise. I am hard pressed to think of another person I know that is capable of enjoying life to its fullest. And in true Howard fashion he gave us the overall tour of one of his favorite places – Tijuana, Mexico.

Crossing the border into Mexico was uneventful. We just passed through the revolving gate, by the two machine gun armed police, and into a street of taxi drivers asking us three whites where we needed to go. It was still fairly early in the morning and not many other tourists were walking the streets. We only lasted a few blocks walking down Avenida Revolución before the harassment from shop owners became too much. Even market owners across the street were yelling at us to just come over and look at all their wares. We walked a block down and headed towards the Tijuana Cultural Center. As we got to the Museum of the Californias I realized we were the only Americans there. Later I would realize where they all were. We looked at an exhibition on photography of borders, an exhibition on the history of baja and alta California, and photography collection of Baja California.

After the museum we walked back towards the border to get something to eat. After a couple beers and some tacos and tortas we walked towards the redlight district of Tijuana. I soon realized this was were all my fellow, drunk compatriots were at. As we made our way through the streets and past the lines of whores lined up against the chunky white stucco walls Howard was sure to let us know which strip clubs were decent and which were seedy cesspools of moral pollution. As we walked into the club we headed upstairs to an empty table and ordered a round of beers. Below us a woman humped the air while men groped her loins and stuck single dollar bills in her thong. We talked for a while about things. Catching up and talking about what we were seeing as it happened. A few different women took center stage as we made our way around the club. At one point, when we were at a table near the main stage a girl came up and jumped on my lap. She groped my junk and whispered in my ear,” what does Jesus want? Does Jesus want a blow job?” I tried to convince her I was okay and didn't need any permanent souvenirs from Tijuana in the form of STDs. She pulled on my ear with her teeth before jumping on Ryan's lap and trying her luck.

Soon enough I felt my curiosity fully satisfied and we started to make our way towards the door. We passed the other stage where two girls were performing some show with shaving cream and walked out into the blinding low sunlight of a sundown in Tijuana. After waiting in line for a good 30 minutes we went through the check point and made it back to the US. It was a short drive back to Howard's, but a long self-reflection of the things I saw. For the unabridged version of the story meet me at a bar and buy me a drink.

Through the Desert:

For a long time, leaving San Diego and making our way to Las Vegas was a part of our journey that I did not look forward to. Besides a few congested interstate highways there was no real straight shot way from point A to point B. For the first couple days we wound our way through mountain passes and into dry desert towns still way too congested for my liking.

Once reaching Banning, CA we had a single afternoon and night to re-plan our route with the help of an local cyclist we met on the road earlier that day – Mark. Mark and his wife Colleen let us stay at their place and after dinner with them Ryan and I came to the conclusion that taking a longer but less mountainous path to Las Vegas by taking California Highway 62 to US Highway 95 would be easier.

This became the most desolate stretch of road we had seen for arguably the whole trip. The Mojave was bone dry compared to the coast we just left behind. Every day we were burning through our tubes – getting flats from metal wires on the road or thorns or mysterious pieces of nothing. Bringing our bikes from the moist coast to this dry land was taking a hard toll on our equipment. Ryan had the rubber seal on his bike pump go out. The tension on my front wheel felt off and my spokes creaked as we pushed on through. In 29 Palms we stocked up on water because it would be 100 miles before we reached another place to fill up our bottles.

The deeper we went into the desert the more brutally beautiful the land became. The night sky burned full of stars. The dawn lit up the sky in a rainbow of color until the sun scraped over the jagged volcanic mountains holding us inside its jaws. We lost all real connection to a clock and relied on nothing but the sun. When I did check a clock before going to bed I was not surprised to know it was only 7:30pm. We were up by 5:00am.

By the time we reached Vidal junction we had no extra tubes for our bike tires, and the patches weren't holding for long. We had around 150 miles to our friend Chris's house in Las Vegas. It was shaping up to be a tough battle. All the odds were stacking against us. As we left the junction trying to take advantage of the daylight Ryan had to stop twice to patch his back tire. We wasted all our limited daylight and spent the night 40 miles south of Needles, CA – laying on the volcanic rocks covering the desert floor, staring at the stars.

In the morning Ryan had to patch his tire again. My hand was blistered from pumping up tires for the last few days. We rode for 15 miles, patched the tire again, rode 20 more miles, pumped the tire again, and Ryan rode the last 5 miles into town with a flat.

There was no bike shop in Needles. We tried to use a different patch but as we pumped it up my pump broke. We had no tubes, no pumps, and a flat tire. As we bought fruit in a local grocery store we found out a shuttle left from Lake Havasu to Needles to Las Vegas every morning at 7am, but there was no room for our bikes. We found out there were two car rental places in a town near by, but they wouldn't pick up a car renter in Needles. We basically found out that Needles is the worst place to break down on a bike. As we walked toward the west on-ramp to Interstate 40 with our freshly made hitchhiking signs my back tire went flat also. Now both bikes were flat and we were in some amazing way in a worse state than we started.

We met a girl from Chicago that just arrived in Needles on a freight train she hitched a ride on. She was heading to Flagstaff, so she stuck her thumb out at the I-40 East on-ramp and in a few minutes we saw her jump in the cab of a truck and go on her way. It was apparent that with two bikes, two people, and 150 pounds of gear between us, Ryan and I were did not have the odds in our favor for getting picked up.

Our last resort was to tuck our tails and call Chris to see if he could drive a couple hours out to come pick the two of us up. After Chris got off work he drove out to Needles with his girlfriend Koah. We slept on our hitchhiking signs while waiting for our ride.

In the last couple days we have been preparing for the last stretch of our journey. At Chris's I realized that besides the tension being off on my back wheel the rear-wheel hub of my bike was bad. I lacked the tools to pull off the gear cassette, but could feel the clunkiness of the steel bearings inside the hub. We went to a bike shop and asked the mechanic if he could pull the cassette so we could see what was up. The bearings had flat spots on them like they seized up and spun in place – giving an uneven wear to them. For free the guy quickly overhauled the hub and replaced the bearings. At the shop we bought a supply of extra tubes to go with the new pumps we bought the day before.

We are now, as far as we know, stocked and ready for the final week of our tour. We only have 400 miles left. It is coming down to the end, and while I don't know exactly what that means I know there is some serious reflection surfacing inside me from time to time. It is the beginning of the end.