Heading north in the sun

Yesterday dawned clear and sunny as if the previous four days of rain had never happened. I called around to hardware and automotive stores looking for Heet or methanol to fuel my cook stove. Farther north, you can find Heet in the smallest gas station since it's used as fuel line antifreeze but around here I had to hunt for it. I could run my stove on Everclear, pure ethanol, but that is way more expensive. I finally found some fuel at an auto parts store and headed out of town.

The day before I had questioned the wisdom of sitting out the day in a motel since it didn't rain for most of the day but I could see from the road that it had only recently drained and was still covered with damp sand in a bunch of places.
It was a pretty easy ride with one longish hill that had a nice long downhill on the other side.


I passed a neat geodesic dome house after getting chased by an annoying dog.


I've been in lots of desolate places but this place tops them all. The only color is brown and the mountains all look like big piles of rubble.


I crossed by a not so dry dry lake bed.


As I went to unclip from my pedal so I could stop to take a picture of the lake, I couldn't get out of my left pedal. I finally ended up unbuckling my shoe and pulling my foot out of my shoe when I stopped. I could barely pull my shoe out of the pedal. It turned out I had lost one of the screws from my shoe cleat that clips into the pedal.


This has happened to me before so I always carry a couple of spare cleat screws and even a spare cleat.
I turned onto Route 66 and headed into Amboy, population 3.


Amboy is one of the oldest towns in California and used to be a bustling stop on Route 66 until the interstate routed away most of the traffic. The gas station in town definitely has an iconic look.


I ended up camping behind the old broken down hangar by the town airstrip. I cooked dinner in the company of two girls who spend some of their vacations in Amboy with their family. Destiny and Alexis are in 6th and 5th grade and live in Needles on the Nevada border. It was fun hanging out with them and in all my many years of traveling, I've never had anyone volunteer to wash my dishes for me! Thanks girls for being great company during my stay.
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