Thursday, March 19, 2009

Day Seventeen, 090317 - Barstow, CA

Day Seventeen, Date Tuesday, March 17, 2009, Time
Time in Saddle: 4:55 hrs
Distance for the Day: 54.95 miles: From Hwy 15 El Cajon Pass crest To Barstow
Accumulated Trip Distance: 696.89
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 4120'/2175', Highest: 4089’ Accumulated: 1332’
Speeds: Avg: 11.1 mph, Max: 27.5 mph
Weather: 42° clear, dry, clear throughout day, warming to mid-to-upper 70s
Expenditures: $17
Total overall odometer for trike: 1075.3 miles

Woke at 6:25am ready to go by 7am; my sleeping bag was dry, this time (yay!); got Gatorade and trail mix at gas station ($5.50); got first flat tire at 8:45am/648.02 mi total trip mark, and took about half hour to fix; seems it bypassed my Mr. Tuffy tire lining by poking in from the side, probably from parking my trike down in that stealth campsite this morning (lots of sticky bushes); I was able to fill it to 20 lb or pressure using my hand pump, enough to get me to the gas station just up the road. At 10:06 my left-hand mirror fell off, again, so I’m now I’m tying it down with dental floss to make sure if it falls off again, I won’t leave it on the road. Good thing I did, too, as it did fall off, again; there’s something wrong with it, and I might have to epoxy it or somehow get it’s compression fitting to stick better – we’ll see. It was a very nice, mild downhill grade to Victorville – several miles of around 20mph; stopped off at the local CHP for advice how to get from here to Barstow and Las Vegas using Hwy 15 as much as possible. While in Victorville, I asked Rigo Chaidez of Checkmate Carpets to keep my trike while I went into Target to buy some underwear and get one of those little, flat GPS units. Unfortunately, all of those units have internal batteries, that come with a car charge cord, but you have to buy an AC charge cord from the company (they don’t sell them in the store). Another option I’ll consider is just buying a mapping program, like Delorme, or Garmin, or some such. I find it’s helpful to be able to read maps when you’re NOT connected to the internet. Rigo and all the people in the photo went out of their way to help me; Rigo even drove me over to Best Buy to check out the GPS units over there, and let me use their work computer to check out the routes out of town – thanks, guys! If you ever need carpet, tile, or other types of flooring in the Victorville, go to Checkmate Carpets!

Got 2 more quarts of Gatorade ($4) and a deli sandwich ($7) at the Elenville Market, on the way between Victorville and Barstow. Reached Barstow at 4:18pm and went looking for any place with free internet access, but couldn’t find one, so went to Starbucks at 5:30pm, and paid the ($4) for it. I left Starbucks around 9:30pm, and headed out to where Google Maps was telling me I would be able to pick up Hwy 66, again. I cast about a little bit, and found a nice empty lot away from the main road by a hundred yards, and stealth camped, there. It wasn’t \cold, per se, but it was cooler than comfortable. The stars tonight were ablaze, despite the local light pollution, and I went to sleep hoping to see a meteor (never did).

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