Everything is either poisonous or prickly

Well shit, we've made it past a week and haven't died yet. One thing I've learned in life is that you have to celebrate the small things. I probably need to update this more often because I feel like I'm forgetting things, but either way, here goes.

Day Ate:
We deemed this to be another short day. After the whole 110° camping fiasco, we both agreed that we should try to catch as many hotels as we can through the desert. I know, I know, you're probably saying, "jeez, you and Jerome sure have a case of bitch-itis," but you know what? You try being outside in this shit. Anywho, we finally crossed a state border!

Another thing we noticed, as soon as we crossed the border; cloud cover finally showed up! This instantly made the sun more bearable. What the hell is wrong with you, California?

Dear lord, thanks for sending the clouds. Sorry for being such a blasphemous ass hole the past couple decades.

So, we're excited! We're making ground, getting closer to Phoenix, but we're greeted with some rather disappointing news once we make our first rest stop.

God dammit

I'm fine with snakes and insects, but when you rub it in my face that they're all poisonous, I get a little nervous. But hey, you know what? It's fine. I'll just leave a safe distance of three football fields whenever I find one. But, I digress. Once we got to Ehrenberg, AZ, we had to hop on the interstate for 10ish miles. It wouldn't be my first choice, but out here we had no other options. Everything is about what you'd expect on the shoulder of an interstate, plenty of near death experiences that mom doesn't need to hear about. Eventually, we crossed into the Colorado River Indian Reservation and I started noticing something. Litter everywhere. It seemed really sad that the worst littering had to be through the Indian reservation section.

Thankfully, someone left a bed for us to nap on and tires to burn if we got cold. Rattlesnakes make great cuddle buddies.

I also noticed a gratuitous amount of something else on the side of the interstate:

Is that... Is that iced tea?!

It looked like people were leaving half full bottles of iced tea on the side of the road for warry travelers. I tried some, and let me tell you, it did not taste like iced tea AT ALL, but I still appreciate the gesture. We finally get off the interstate and inch our way towards Quartzsite, our final destination for the day, and low and behold, I almost run over this little fucker in the middle of the road:

Arizona's state bird: the Great Horned Toad

Jerome begged me to keep him, but I had to remind him that we're not mature enough to care for a living creature. We left him to continue his afternoon siesta. Finally, we rolled into Quartzsite and found a yacht club to stay at. No there was no lake in the middle of the desert. Yes, the irony is not lost on me. It was a motel with each room being named after a significant boat of the past. For example ours was:

I could not believe Jerome didn't have a racist or bigoted thing to say about our rooms name.

We settled in but I decided 25 miles wasn't enough for the day, so I went out for a desert adventure ride. I'll try to make this short and tell the story with pictures.

No bags, no baggage, it's 'splorin time

The distinction between road and dessert is quickly getting blurred

Quintessential cactus picture. Phallic: check. Prickly: check. Green: mostly.

Left: La Paz Valley. Right: Oh Shit Run. Welp, better go the direction that has one of my favorite words in it.

This road is quickly disintegrating, there's prickly shit all over both sides of the road, and I've got one tube. I'm heading back.

I got lost a couple more times, but eventually rolled back into town, bought some "fresh jerky" (that's an oxymoron, right?) and settled in to our African Queen for the night.

Day 9:
We woke up early, said goodbye to our African Queen, and hit the road for Salome. Today was another interstate day. Surprisingly interstates aren't all that interesting. As has happened before, I got a honk from a guy as he rolled by with a big thumbs up out his window. Our brotherhood will never be broken. Jerome fell behind a little, so I waited at an overpass to get an action shot.

If you look close, you can see a little Jerome making his way down the interstate.

We went through a couple more near death experiences (don't tell mom) and finally turned off to head down an old highway. At the off ramp, I asked Jerome to return the action shot favor.

Dear diary, today I rode a dinosaur

The next section of the ride was excruciating! Not because it was challenging or even hard at all. It was completely flat and straight. Absolutely nothing to distract your mind. Wait a sec!

Is that motha fuckin grass?!

That's literally the only picture from that stretch I have. There was nothing out there. But, as we made our way down the road, we ran into a little

But, as we've seen many times before, what the desert giveth, the desert also taketh away.

Goodbye Hope. I will never experience you again.

A couple little rollers and we made our way into Salome, our overnight spot for the day. Jerome had read a couple reviews of a small motel that was highly rated, so we grabbed a spot and were not disappointed. This might have been the most eclectic place either of us had ever stayed. The owner, Randy, turned a rundown motel into a labor of love, and it was easily apparent. Pictures never do it justice, but here's a couple shots.

Hacienda style courtyard. All the chairs were different.

The roadster, patiently waiting to be tested.

Rear courtyard with half a semi just hangin out.

This was probably the most fun place we've stayed at yet. If I ever roll through here again, I'll be looking up Randy and Westward Motel without a doubt. When we went out to eat that evening, we ran into six other cyclists doing the same route as us! They called themselves the Southern Tier Six Pack, and they're going to do this ride way faster than us. It was cool exchanging battle stories and just knowing that we weren't the only ones out here.

Day 10:
I'm probably going to make this one short because I'm getting sick of typing this on my phone (update more often you dumb ass). Today was something like 55 miles of a very gradual incline. Nothing very scenic. It was one of those days where you just sort of lost yourself in your thoughts. But we saw a couple of relatively interesting things.

This "way cool cafe" (so it says on the sign) is going green. Figuratively.

It's probably impossible to see, but this grocery store was surrounded by fence and heavy barbed wire. Their produce must have been the bomb. I'll see myself out.

I felt bad for this little guy under a truck until I threw some food at him and he decided it wasn't good enough. Sorry for being generous.

We caught up with the southern tier six pack, sat down and had some lunch with them.

Tried to get a candid shot, caught Jerome contemplating murder instead.

After we said goodbye to the six pack, we made our way down the road and into Wickenberg, the sleepy time town. As of now, we're figuring out if we want to go watch Tom Hanks crash another plane and what will be in our stomachs when we do it.