[ Thursday, April 17, 2003 ]
Day 43 to Day 53
Some state park near Ely, NV. On the way to Utah, camped out in the cold in the middle of nowhere. The only other people in the campground are a pack of Real Americans, these ones 4 white gangsta types and two of their girlfriends. I walk over and join their fire. Picnic table covered end to end with booze and beer bottles, Eminen blasting from the pick-up they have parked 2 feet from the fire. Every other sentence or so is nigger this, nigger that. They're local. The alpha wolf talks about his career experience, the majority of which is apparently "reloading 9mm rounds for nigger gangbangers" in Vegas. He brings out his Taurus .357 and demonstrates all the different ways to hold his maglight while shooting it. He lets me hold it. I don't tell him that I have a Smith & Wesson .357 in my van, and that mine is better.
One of the others informs the group that back in Jersey they call that big Maglite an "NBC Light" for "nigger be cool." At some point they run out of firewood and pull down a live tree from their campsite and throw it in. Someone says "Fuck Eminen!" and for the rest of the night they blast the same AC/DC disc over and over again. The sullen girlfriends say nothing all night but one of them once, "I'm cold." The conversation is primarily centered around shooting things, poaching ducks and coyote, "dealing with 400 lb. niggers" back east, gang shit, and related.
I am utterly appalled. Fortunately, they have no interest in talking to me, other than the fact that I'm travelling around in my van, and I am able to sit by the fire in silence. They seem to like me, presumably because I'm white and I don't contradict them, and keep giving me beer and rum and OJ. I finally stumble back to my campsite and try to sleep, the AC/DC disc recycles another three or four times before their truck battery finally gives out. I wake up early, say goodbye briefly to the several Real Americans who are awake, and drive to Utah.
Moab, UT
Arrived in Moab last Friday for round two of the mountain biking/camping adventure. Met JP, his uncle John and aunt Cindy, and rode slickrock with JP and John all day Saturday.
JP standing near the scene of his alleged spectacular endo, which I apparently just missed. Saw no objective signs of a crash, and concluded that he had just thrown his bike on the rock in frustration and collapsed in a heat stroke-induced daze. Meanwhile, John is barely conscious after realizing that he had inadvertently filled his Camelbak that morning with Mormon beer. John and I suffer very minor blood loss in various events on the trail, but overall it's a spectacular day on the slickrock.
I spend the first three nights camping free on beautiful BLM land a few miles outside of Moab, near Canyonlands NP. It's the best free camping I've seen in my life - views of the La Sal mountains, the canyonlands, slickrock everywhere, amazing.
The next day I ride the Amasa Back trail by the Colorado River. It happens to be "Jeep Safari Week" in Moab while I'm here. Every few miles or so I pass a pack of jeepers, Real Americans, of course, trying to drive up some piles of rocks (see above). Their sullen wives and girlfriends sit in the passenger seats drinking Mountain Dew. One of the jeeps ahead of me leaves a huge slick of power steering fluid all over the trail. No one makes any effort to clean it up. There are sporadic pools of bright green coolant, as well. The town is so full of jeeps now I think I'll move on to Bryce or Zion or maybe Colorado before the weekend.
The Slickrock trail. I meet 3 friendly hardcore North Shore women in the parking lot getting ready for the ride. Five minutes later, I'm starting out on the trail and they're already walking back, with 4 bikes now, escorting a guy holding a hand over one eye, his face covered in blood. I take this as a sign that I need to focus on my riding today and not space out looking at the scenery. I run into them after the ride getting a smoothie in town, and they tell me that the rider they rescued is, more or less, o.k., an orbital laceration down to the bone, but no eye injury. No big crashes yet for me (I'm knocking on wood as I write this).
The 5 things that have made me really happy out here this week:
1. Marzocchi Bomber front suspension.
2. Shimano XT hydraulic disc brakes.
3. Free camping on BLM land on a gorgeous sandstone mesa.
4. The sausage, egg, and bagel sandwich at Eclectic Café.
5. Defying gravity and rational thought riding on Slickrock.
Yesterday I did a 36-mile ride over jeep track, rock, paved roads, into and around the Arches National Parking Lot. The park is full of RVs and jeeps and other motorists, and I am the ONLY biker I see in the park all day. I am astonished by this fact. People at the scenic overlooks approach me with "How . . . did you get here?" It's called riding a bike, you should try it sometime . . . I get all self-righteous thinking about it, but it's just Edward Abbey's influence, no doubt. It could just as well be me, in my van. I like Abbey - he was an opinionated, self-righteous, ornery old curmudgeon.
So that's my visit to Utah so far. No news yet on Real Mormons or the UFOs, stay tuned. It's good to be out in the desert and riding almost every day.
Haven't had much news out here. Hey, whatever happened to that war thing? You know, that Iraq thing or whatever? Somebody e-mail me and tell me if we won the war 'n shit, wanna make sure I'm still living in a free country, and free to fly the stars and stripes . . . 'n shit.
Soundtrack:Goa Spirit, Leftfield (various)
Reading List: Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey [4/17/2003]
PAY ATTENTION BLACK ROCK CITY
