2004-06-06-0115Z


Well, two nights' progress was only 54 miles, and the sun is getting almost low enough to start another leg of the journey. I'm at the rest stop at mile marker 87 or so, at which only the candy machine works, so I've been eating that and edibility-testing the fruit of some unknown (to me) Yucca plant with red flowers. On the last one I ate the green husk and not just the white sections of fruit inside, it was very bitter and I think I'm going to regret it later.

Yesterday I got pulled over yet again. The guy looked like trouble. About 5'8", stocky, reddish hair and bushy moustache. Picture Teddy Roosevelt without the glasses. Anyway he says to me in a very sarcastic manner "What do you think you're doing?". I told him I was biking to L.A. He said "not on the freeway you're not". I explained to him several times about how the DOT website showed this section of road was open to bikes on the shoulder and he didn't want to hear about it. I was so pissed, I didn't even get his name and badge number. So I got off at the next exit; headed South; there was no goddamned gas station as he said there'd be, just as I expected; so headed West until the road turned to dirt, and back North to I-10 again. There was a gas station there, but I had already decided I wasn't going to look for an alternate route. I just hung around there, spending the last of my daily allowance, and then the last dollar out of my PayPal balance. At dusk I got back on the road, and pulled into the Rip Griffin truckstop later as it got dark. Waited there till midnight, and broke out another $10 and bought a couple of hard-boiled eggs at 25 cents each, and a bag of pretzels for 79 cents. They let me fill my water bottles from the fountain. At about 1AM the moon was high enough for me to see again, and I made the slow, fight-for-every-mile trip here.

I've got to get control over my spending. I decided last night I'm going to trim my already-draconian (for me at least) budget of $10 and keep $2 each day to replenish my PayPal balance. And when I have at least $100 in PayPal, try to keep on with $8 a day so my money lasts the year until next March 15. If I can start making money somehow, all the better; but at least I'll be able to live.

I'm hoping this next leg of the journey will be easier. There's another rest area 37 miles away, and a truck stop not far from that. Gonna go for the truck stop, and get some real food in me even if I have to spend half a day's allowance. Found out from another guy who was pulling a camper that this last stretch of road had a slight upgrade. So it's not the gods holding me back after all, it was just gravity. Heh. Well, I hope it turns to downhill or at least to flatland, this 5-MPH travel is for the birds.

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