Cyn's Thoughts on the Shoulder

People want answers. They're not satisfied with just questions. But sometimes, answers aren't anticipated or constructed, they're arrived at---come upon.

As I sit here on yet another car-length stretch of shoulder on I-40, I can't help but to notice how uncomfortably sticky and dirty my hands are. How my rear is hot in its jeans, how my back aches...

I'm testing my patience. That's what's happening to me---the queen of patience having her patience tested. Like she has to prove something to sombody, probably herself---since she has to maintain the title!

Who'd have thought? I'm squeezed in my chair, legs pressed up against the steering wheel. Waiting.

Patiently.

But there's this disturbance in my thoughts. Something that wants me to do, rather than to wait.

(Here's a funny video I forgot I recorded while waiting for Luna in the Mojave desert! Ha!)



I tried calling my brother and my dad. Something to pass the time. Conveniently, neither of them were there to hear what patient waiting really sounds like... boredom.

I admit it. Today, I'm bored. Thank goodness for NPR! (And yet, one can only get so smart in one day.)

Much of my day is spent looking through the rear-view mirror to see a black speck in the distance.

What are we doing?

What are we headed into?

Why are we doing this again?

My ire swells a little when I realize how hot it is, what time it is, how much my butt aches.

And then I see the black speck.

Maybe he's hungrey. Or maybe he wants to quit---for today, at least. I could handle that. I'm bored.

Day 3 - Tehachapi thru Mojave Desert

We started the ride to Needles, Calif., and Kingman, Ariz., in Tehachapi, Calif., at about 4:00 a.m. It started off really well down the mountain. Truck traffic was light. By the time the sun rose, we had already entered the Mojave desert.










Luna got his first flat early in the morning--around 5:00 a.m., maybe 5:30. I thought something was up when he took longer than usual to meet me at our agreed upon 5 mile mark. (We've been "leap-frogging" our way across the highway, where I'll go ahead by 5 or 10 miles and he'll either pass me by, or stop and grab a bottle of water, a bite to eat or relieve himself on the side of the road.)







Unfortunately, I was unable to turn around on the highway, so I had to wait for him to switch out the inner tube in the dark and cycle over to the car. I was waiting in the desert and had the opportunity to enjoy the sunrise.