As much as I wanted to sleep in, it didn’t happen. The cold of the desert night lingered and so I faffed around, not wanting to get riding until it warmed up a bit. I spent a good hour or so with my bike. Replacing tubes, putting sealant in them and un-seizing my derailleur so…

I had a surprisingly good sleep thanks to the plan that I’d made last night to tackle my car trouble. I delayed getting out of bed though, a little apprehensive of what was to come. Gary, the camphost informed me that there was a group coming in to occupy the group site, but that I…

I hadn’t slept all that well, I don’t think the van was quite level, so I’d have preferred to sleep in a little, but the sun was up so I was too. I left camp and continued on the winding road through absolutely beautiful mountains spotted with red rock. I couldn’t wait to get riding…

I woke up to some messages on my phone that I could only look at briefly before the cold killed my battery. So, I was left for ten minutes while making breakfast wondering what Kevin had said. Kevin is a very good mate of mine who was coming to visit me for two weeks and…

I still had camp to myself all morning until someone rolled in at around 8:30am as I was leaving. My first stop was at the Walmart I was going to camp at the night before for a shop. Despite the signs, I saw a couple of RVs there that had been parked in the same…

There was ice in my water bottle and the fridge had gone down to 0*C. Not a good sign. I just hoped that at lower elevation it wouldn’t be so cold, I don’t think I can hack more consistently freezing weather, Florida made me soft. I only just managed to keep my fingers warmed up…

I was happy to wake up to not a breath of wind. All was calm in the City of Rocks. The sun was warm too, setting itself up right behind the van, which heated me perfectly as I made breakfast. After I ate, I did some Pilates in the face of the sun, enjoying the…

The wind had not died down by morning. When the camp host came over to say hi while I was having breakfast, he warned me that it would be even windier today than it had been yesterday. Wow. Playing it safe, I took the bike off the roof so I wouldn’t have to worry about…

The “Pop! Pop-pop-pop!” could still be heard when morning came. Oil processing is obviously a 24/7 business. While I was waking up, a guy drove around the carpark very slowly in his white Mercedes sedan. Strange, because I’d seen him last night and waved to him, he was an older guy. I kept my curtains…