Day 2, Monday, September 9

I'm happy to report that after getting two flat tires yesterday I didn't get any today. My computer did stop working again toward the end of the day, and eventually Lon replaced it for me at the hotel, so hopefully that problem is solved.

We lucked out again today with the weather. Instead of riding through 110-degree heat in the desert, we got caught in a rain storm and had to navigate through about a dozen wash-outs in the road. Yes, I did just put "desert" and "rain" together in the same sentence. Before today I never thought it was possible to have rain in the desert but it's amazing what you can learn riding your bike across the county.

Thunderstorms and flash floods bring adventure and excitement to the ride on Day 2. It just doesn't get any better than this.

We started out through landscape that looked like scenery for "Lawrence of Arabia", with sand dunes as far as you could see, and it was HUMID. Another rider told me he thought it might rain and I thought he was crazy. Sure enough, I eventually started feeling sprinkles, and by the time I arrived at the second rest stop it was coming down pretty hard and I was soaked. I was still warm, though, so I wasn't too worried about riding for the day. A driver in a pickup truck, however, pulled up to the rest stop and told us that the road ahead had washed out in several places and the water was up to a foot deep.

We stood around for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do -- whether the crew should let riders go forward or whether they should shuttle riders forward in the van. We decided to wait until Lon showed up, knowing that he would know what to do. Lon arrived and sat stone faced while we explained the dilemma about the washed-out road for miles ahead. When we were done, without changing his expression Lon dead panned, "Well, as long as the water isn't chest-high...", as if wondering why we might be concerned with crossing floods that were calf- or even waist-deep.

Intrepid cyclists cross giant puddles in the road.

After hearing Lon's assessment, we rode forward and crossed several foot-deep wash-outs that we could either walk or ride through. Eventually, however, we came to a wash-out that was several car-lengths wide, more than knee deep, and moving swiftly, carrying tree branches and other debris. The flooding had traffic backed-up in both directions for half a mile.

We sat around and waited about an half hour for the water to recede enough for a snow plow to come through and clear out the silt and other muck. While we were waiting, Lon would occasionally walk out into the "river" to see if it were safe to cross, always turning around before getting to far, shaking his head. At one point he got down on his knees in the water, so that it looked like he was in up to his waist, and held his bike over his head so we could all take pictures. Unfortunately, I was out of film at that point but the event was well documented by other cyclists (see Doug's and Josh and Doreen's reports for this day).

After the plow came through, we walked carefully through the water, carrying our bikes. We rode for another ten miles or so then repeated the experience -- waiting about twenty minutes for the water to recede so a plow could get through -- minus the impromptu photo op from Lon.

With the two long waits at the flood sites, riders clumped together more than normal and we had a rare opportunity to spend time together as a large group. As I mentioned before, without the rain the day could have been unbearably hot, so overall I think we did a lot better with the flooding. An added bonus of the wash-out was that the blocked roads were practically car-free for the remaining twenty-five miles or so to the hotel. When we got to the hotel, people kept asking me if I had grown extra freckles during the day, so I guess I got pretty muddy.

I can't imagine a more adventure-packed day than this. This has got to be the highlight of the trip, although -- if it can rain in the desert -- apparently just about anything can happen on a PAC Tour.