There’s been a lot of hubbub on here about the interpretation of Jesus and God, and the historical teachings of Christianity and the church. I don’t know who keeps writing those blog posts but I’m here to remind everyone that God is dead. Of course the implication there is that God was alive at some point, and he was. The picture perfect male representation of the ultimate father figure. As the father he handed out inviolable decrees about how we should live and what is right and wrong, saving us from the pesky trouble of having to reason about such trivial matters ourselves. Then something interesting began to occur, as we invented science and began applying the scientific method we began to discover natural laws. These were still of course part of God’s design but a comfort began to creep in as humanity decided that it “knew” things instead of “were pretty sure” about stuff. Then we built on top of these laws and developed the civilizations we know today: housing, government, industry. Yet still God was there as the foundational cornerstone to all ideas as even Descarte’s famous Cogito Ergo Sum declaration rests on the existence of God. As mankind developed medicine they started to forget about their impending doom, death became far removed from the certainty it was in years past and even then, the staunchest believers were sure of a better life after death anyways.

It was in this milieu of scientific advancement that Nietzsche simply declared God had died. Civilization had advanced so far and became so sure that maybe all laws were natural that we didn’t need the foundational existence of God any longer. He removed that Jenga block from the very bottom of the tower. All of a sudden concepts such as morality and purpose that had a direct connection with God were left floating in the void, unconnected to any objective source or explanation. Philosophers have then tried to perform surgery on these most ancient concepts. The purpose our lives shifted from “How to live the best life in service to God” to “Why do we live at all?”. The certainty of death and the apparent absence of God led to a depressing outlook on our existence. The existentialist thinkers eventually came to an idea though, that this mortal certainty is what brought meaning to our lives. After all it was the one objective truth that had not been decimated by the death of god. No one on this Earth can argue that we wont die, regardless of what happens after, this life will end. So death is now a foundational element on which we should rebuild our purpose. Non-existence is the antimatter on which we should measure our lives. Yet there is a problem in modern society, we forget about death. We’ve abstracted it away to farthest reaches of our minds. That’s not to say that tragedies don’t occur everyday but unless we’re personally involved we don’t see the spectre of death hanging over us every second of everyday.

That’s a very long preamble to say that the fear of death was firmly placed back into me by my bikepacking trip to the Anza Borrego desert. I haven’t written about my cycling exploits on here in a while mostly because I haven’t tackled any rides that made me scared, by choice. I chose to have adventurous but predictable rides which definitely deserve to be written about but they’ve become so numerous that it would be a disservice to each one to pick and choose which ones to highlight. The events of the weekend of March 15th 2025 though deserve to be retold. Recently I’ve taken a dip into the world of camping and specifically camping on a bike ride. I was presented with an opportunity earlier this year: 6 months of unemployment in which I wanted to ride my bike for as long and as far as possible, in which I would adventure through much of the west and maybe even Europe. To that end, camping as much as I could would be a great way to curb the expenses of such an undertaking. So I put together a setup that could carry about 50 pounds of extra weight on my bike. Enough for a tent, cooking utensils, one or two changes of clothes, food, water and maybe a laptop or books if I was really feeling sprightly.

Little did I know that the good life was over before I could begin. In a series of roller coaster twists and turns that honestly probably deserves its own post my employment came back. My company had declared bankruptcy and work ceased for about three months while they were bought by our rivals in the industry who only wanted to take our customer contracts and dismantle the rest of the business. I remained on payroll due to contractual obligations (a.k.a CYA) on behalf of the purchasing company. This gave me the runway I needed to plan the next year or so I wanted to take off. In secret though, a cadre of loyal company men and women made a clandestine second deal with a third party. After the business spun down this third party would employ the rest of us left behind, a core group of professionals with domain knowledge and together we would resurrect our systems under a completely new name. I was not privy to any of this until the deal was done. A Kierkegaard-ian choice was presented to me: accept my new role with a healthy increase in salary from all sources and remain in the service of capital or reject the offer of continued employment in pursuit of the nomadic (briefly), cycling monk life I had already dreamed up for myself. I admit that I was living in bad faith, hoping the decision was already made for me. I secretly rejoiced at the idea that I would be free from my bonds to the industry at least temporarily yet I never would have taken the steps to sever them myself. The universe saw fit to punish me and force the matter though, instead of quietly disappearing into the 4.1% of the unemployed in the country I had to take action for or against, either/or. I regret to inform you that I chose the safe path. Already I am back in the alienating (partially at least, maybe a topic for a future post) chains of employment, with my rationale being that I would reevaluate after a year and pursue those wandering dreams once more. Perhaps this is way too much context, but I think it’s important to understand the mental state of this author as he embarks on the most dangerous adventure yet.

I had all this bikecamping equipment lying around for my dashed plans and couldn’t use it for its intended purpose but perhaps I could have shorter, punchier camping adventures? It was in this light that me and the intrepid crew I roll with decided to go to the Anza Borrego desert for a weekend. The idea came out of previous trips we had done to the area, and I wish I had looked a little closely at the ride I had done previously because it was not a good time. This new ride we were doing differed from the previous by actually heading into the state park, which is political designation for what I would now call the “sandy goddamn hell hole desert”. I recently read an article on how we define adventure. The author states that knowing about adventure, aka having a second hand experience via someone’s youtube video, account, movie, or yes even a blog post, does not amount to the first hand experience of actually adventuring. Therefore even as I recount to you the details of what will transpire, it is from a position of safety and detachment and true adventure must be experienced by your senses. Perhaps this is the grave mistake we made (continue to make) because as we watched youtube videos of the proposed route through the desert we found ourselves increasingly convinced that we could tackle it. The warnings were all there in the videos though. All the cyclists had problems crossing the sand, they recommended tires about 10 sizes bigger than the ones I had, they showed us actual footage of the insane hiking sections were you carried your bike like a mule up or down a cliff. Yet the simulation of adventure is not adventure and though as an individual I am risk adverse, as a group we all remained convinced we could do it without too much issue. This is not to say that I went against my wishes, I just have learned to trust in the consensus, knowing that all my accomplishments have come by going against the grain of my own instincts. I took what I thought were necessary precautions by renting a bike with bigger tires, although it ended up being only about three sizes bigger than what I currently had, it was better than going with my current bike. Because of this though I ended up not being able to take my full set of bags due to the incompatibility of my luggage rack with the new bike. This was somewhat of a blessing as it forced me to pack even more minimalist than I was anticipating, which would be important weight-wise given the circumstances we would face. I packed two bladders of water at 4L each, anticipating a quick journey through the desert across two days but also it was about all I could fit into my setup. I stuffed snacks and food into about as many places as I could and loaded up a new lightweight tent I bought just for this occasion in the front. Then having no room left I tied my sleeping bag to the top of my saddle bag with some tension straps and called it a day.

I will stop performing a Herman Melville level retelling of bikecamping process and procedure and get right down to the events of the weekend. Day one we got to the site where we would leave our cars bright and early. Spirits were high, how could they not be, it was an exciting new feather in our cap. The romanticized idea of the adventure lingered in my head: A campfire, conversations, the starry night, fun. I was ready to get through the riding quickly so we could get to the those parts. “Riding” turned out to be somewhat of a superlative. There was a nice stretch of pavement to get to the beginning of the trail into the desert that reminded me why I love road cycling. There was beautiful desert views and low rolling resistance. Not so when we go to the trail into the state park. Immediately the ground got sandy, and there was a natural path created by all the 4x4s and ATVs that would ride through. I very quickly learned to pedal in the path left by these vehicles, as it was where the sand was the shallowest. It was hard, and made harder by the added weight of my bike and steady climb to the top of the canyon. When the gradients got too steep I did something I was taught to resist against all odds when road cycling, I got off my bike and walked. It’s hard to describe how much of a paradigm shift that was for me…It was the one foundational rule I had always clung to, that no matter how hard the ride, you keep pedaling. Yet under these new conditions I had no recourse but to get off and walk my bike up these hills. Not only was it a game changer but to be honest I found myself being able to walk my bike faster or just as fast as I could by pedaling which was a particularly distressing discovery because it had me questioning the entire purpose of riding in the first place. This is of course a foreshadowing of what the rest of the weekend had in store not to mention the next 10 miles of that day. Once we had gotten through the sandy ascent we were met honest-to-goodness boulders, empty riverbeds, and gravity defying hills that dared us to try and ride our way up without tipping over backwards. We got off the bikes and walked them up the dirt roads, or down steep cliff faces, or over some rocky outcroppings. It’s safe to say that once I unlocked this new “getting off my bike” skill I started using it more and more. My companions definitely rode this first part of the course more than me. I was not used to the gravel-y, off-road experience as much as they, and I found myself walking down some sections they were more confident riding down. I should have forced myself to take some of those descents on the bike since I had rented a bike uniquely equipped for it but my brain was still in roadie mode. Even though this part of the day was hard, it wasn’t anything I didn’t expect, in fact I was enjoying the switch up in riding styles and the obstacles we had to overcome. In my mind we were just a couple of hours from our campsite and good times.

We got to a very steep drop called “Heart Attack Hill”, whose name I didn’t know at the time but it fits well. We watched as some motorcross dudes flew down the side of the cliff and thought “no way”. So we acted like mountain goats and slowly…gradually descended down the side at an angle. One wrong move and we’d go tumbling down with our bikes to the sandy pit below. We all made it through unscathed and I was just glad I wouldn’t have to come back up that way. After that it was one gradual descent into the actual desert below. We’d ride about 7 miles into the desert, camp, then ride 20 miles through it the next day and loop back on a highway to our initial starting point. These are laughably small numbers to a cyclist used to chewing up 100 miles of pavement or more in a day yet we all agreed not to underestimate the wilderness we’d be riding through and keep efforts small. Apparently we still vastly underestimated it.

Once we got down into the desert the sand became abundant again. Rolling downhill it wasn’t a big problem unless our tires spun out or slipped around because of the loose grains. We had lunch under the only shade giving tree we found in that first section. The jet boilers fired up and the rehydration process of our foods started as we chatted about the insane hikes we just done with our bikes and how we would finally be riding flat land again as we got to our campsite.

Once we left our makeshift cafeteria, shit got real. The gradient finally evened out and we were on flat land again. Except the sand wash was worse than it had been so far. It was very loose and almost 5 inches deep. All my energy pedaling was going towards shoveling sand from underneath my pedals, gaining no forward traction at all and if I did it would only be for a couple seconds before my tires slid underneath the sand. At last here was the warning we paid no heed, I desperately needed a tire size much much bigger if I planned to consistently ride on this sand. Some of people in our group had bigger and they were able to ride more of that sand than me but none of us had the recommended size. With 5 miles to go to our chosen campsite we didn’t want to quit. So we got off and walked, hoping the sand with thin out and we’d be able to ride again like before. We walked, and walked and walked. There were brief sections of packed dirt, rocky terrain and shallow sand. Yet for every 50 feet that we could get on the bike and pedal, there were 100 yards of walking. Every time I turned a corner in that desert I thought “now there will be a road” but it never happened, not once. Mentally it was difficult, but physically not so bad I still had my water reserves and I had been eating steadily throughout the day. The idea that I would have to walk 5 miles was setting in though. I’ve walked more than that in a day but the beginning of this route had been hard on my body and cycling is supposed to be low impact! The other drag, literally, was that my bicycle had now become my mule. It carried all my supplies and provisions and I dragged it through the sand. It rolled much better without my weight on it, but the position my hands and shoulders had to be in to do it was not comfortable. Hours passed by as I saw the slow gait of my friends off in the distance while I followed their footsteps. At least we had one singular goal in mind and a short distance to cover so that mercifully with some daylight left still we made it to the shade of a canyon we would camp under. There were some very nice folks staying nearby that gave the group some extra water which we sorely needed, just one sign that we had underplayed the excursion. The campsite was breathtaking underneath the shadow of Sandstone Canyon. It was exactly what I had pictured in my mind as the ideal campsite. We pitched our tents after finding a good spot. I had practiced at home for once so this time I wasn’t wasting time (and energy) fiddling with the drawstrings, tarps and stakes. It went smoothly and I was proud of myself for not almost passing out from sheer frustration and exhaustion like my first overnight bike-packing trip to Dana Point. We had no way to start a campfire so that night we sat in the light of a lanterns and some camping lights that illuminated the cliff face walls. We talked about how horrible the sand was and how unexpectedly hard it got and the requisite scatological humor that surfaces from a group of people in distress. Yet slowly the conversation turned to the elephant in the room. Tomorrow we’d be “riding” twenty miles through the desert but what if we couldn’t? The idea that we would have to walk twenty miles was unthinkable, not to say anything of the fact that it would be ten degrees hotter tomorrow and our water supply would never last the day. Then we thought of going back the way we came and we all agreed that walking back 5 miles through the desert and up through the steep cliff we had descended from was impossible to do with our fully loaded bikes. Perhaps, distressed as we were, there was some fallacious thinking. We knew the way back would be incredibly difficult, we didn’t know the way forward would be but we had pretty much every reason to suspect it would. Rationally speaking the path you know would be better in uncertain situations such as these but we weren’t thinking, we were hoping. Tomorrow we would just hope that the sandy wash would go away and we’d be able to exit with little fuss, but no matter what there was no way we’d try going back the way we came.

The next morning got off to a lazy start. I don’t think of any of us truly wanted to proceed. Rather we wanted to live at that campsite for the rest of our lives rather than face the trials of the day. It reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke:

“If you find yourself lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house. “Well, I was lost but now I live here! I have severely improved my predicament!””.

Maybe the key to getting out was shifting the paradigm and accepting my new life as the desert nomad bicycle ghost of Anza-Borrego. These are the thoughts that come to me when I’m lying there awaiting the judgement of the day. Eventually of course we all faced reality and got up. All my friends had a breakfast they packed, but I did not since I was trying to save space all I had were Clif bars and a lunch for later that day. So my breakfast was one of those bars…and to hear them to tell it, that was my first grave error of the day. It could be true, I am generally used to no having breakfast, even on days when I ride my bike. This time however, was a little different in that I had a long day before, and a long day ahead, perhaps my judgement failed me in this respect. Just one mistake in a long series of unfortunate events that would befall me the second day. The rest of us slowly packed away all our belongings, five whole shelters and lives packed back neatly away on our bikes like magic as if we were never there.

One of the cyclists went ahead to get more water from the nice camping family we saw the day before. When we caught up to her she was with a new cyclist we hadn’t seen before. “Guys I think you want to hear what he has to say”. She had told him about our predicament, not exactly knowing what lay ahead but not wanting to turn back. He saw the vans I was wearing for the trip and confessed that he had been tracking us all morning, seeing as how my very distinct footprint lay unperturbed in the sand for miles back. He was shocked to discover five of us since he only saw one or two tracks. I attribute this to the fact that maybe I had a heavier footstep but also that we all rode on each other’s wheels to increase traction when we could afford to actually get on the bikes. He laid it out for us though, the words we had dreaded to hear: “The sand is the same the entire way through the desert, it never lets up.” This basically confirmed that I would be walking for twenty miles or more which…seemed impossible given how late in the day we were starting. We asked him in this situation what would he do and after pausing moment said aloud what none of us wanted to “the lesser of two evils…would be to go back the way you came”. All that hiking, and walking into the desert to get to the campsite…we dug a hole for ourselves which now we would have to literally climb back out of. This is not the news we wanted to hear, and our faces all reflected the wellspring of dread it provoked. Still we had no time to waste and at least we knew what we faced, however cursed that knowledge was, we immediately started the walk of doom once more.

It basically went the same way as the day before. The twists and turns, the sand, the meandering pace except it was reversed this time. But having had a night of rest, not good rest but rest nonetheless, and dinner and a morning snack I did not feel at the end of my rope as I had previously. This did not last long at all because wouldn’t you know it the weather forecast was right and it was much hotter. Combined with our late start, this meant the sun was on full blast almost right out of the gate. It wasn’t long before we all had to take a break in the shade of a rock formation. The ground there was so cool that we all lay in the sand on whatever patches of shadow we could find. The minutes passed by agonizingly fast, yet our spirits were still high as we bantered a bit before starting again. I was sweating without even pedaling on my bike, which was not a good sign yet what choice did I have but to keep walking. That’s what I did step after step, at first on the flat desert surface but soon on a gentle incline that only made my matters of mechanical efficiency more complicated. We had agreed to stop for lunch at some point but the group was broken apart and separated into the ones who could ride the sandy paths and the ones who were walking. I was in the latter and after a while fell behind the rest…WAY behind. As the minutes ticked by my condition worsened.

I got to some of the rideable areas of journey from the day previous, but as I got onto my bike and started pedaling I could feel my heart almost exploding out of my chest, and my breathing growing more and more ragged with every stroke of the pedal. This was no normal exhaustion, I had experienced this heightened physical toll before, it was heat exhaustion. Brought out by the the rising intensity of the sun and how exposed we were out on that desert. At this point even if the sand parted ways to the most beautifully paved road in existence I would not be able to ride my bike for more than a minute as my heart rate spiraled out of control in the hot desert sun. Today walking would be my fate, and on the walk back I saw a sign I hadn’t seen the day before….”CAUTION: mountain lions”. When I read that…somewhere in the back of my mind I decided that if there was any way to get out of the desert at all I would take it. An empty spot in the back of a truck, a van, a helicopter…any way out I was done. Almost as if my silent prayer was answered a caravan of four-wheel-drive vehicles descended upon us. I looked at them and saw they were packed to their mehanized gills with stuff, no room for a stranded cyclist. They were nice enough to stop and refill our water bottles though and said the rest of the group was not far ahead. Then they also gave us ice cold beers. Which was a long term bad idea to drink but in the short term was a heaven sent miracle as I was so thirsty. I waited until we caught up with the group a couple minutes later and downed it in three gulps.

Soon all five of us were together again and through a series of miscommunications some riders thought the plan was to push ahead as fast as possible given that we were back on rideable ground. Others thought we would reconvene for lunch at the next shaded area. So as everyone took off, I was left behind walking and overheated thinkingI just had to struggle a bit further to get to lunch and rest a while. Minutes went by and as I turned every bend and saw no one for miles I started to question if lunch was happening, if I had missed it, or if I was walking in the wrong direction. To make matters worse I couldn’t just sit down and eat by myself because I had dehydrated food and no boiler of my own to heat the water, a regrettable mistake I made because I was trying to pack as light as possible and never imagined I’d be in the circumstances that I found myself in. My steps grew shorter and my breathing grew worse and I gave up on finding the mythic lunch area everyone else had gone to. Without any cell reception whatsoever I had to accept that I might be on my own from now on, that was my new reality. I finally got to split rock, an imposingly cut boulder that provided some amazing cover in the heat of the cresting sun. I decided I needed to stop here and just lay down and focus on controlling my body temperature.

I had barely covered 6 out of the 15 miles needed to get out of the desert and I felt like I was near death. These were supposed to be the easy miles too, the hiking and bouldering was still to come. I sat in the shadow of that boulder and considered my options. I could die…which would immediately relieve my suffering and let me rest. I could keep walking, although my body felt on the verge of collapse, I knew from previous experience that once the sun started coming down and the temperatures cooled I would feel better. However if I only walked to the very end, night would probably catch me and being in the pitch black of the desert with the mountain lions and coyotes by myself felt like a worse fate than just laying down and expiring next to that rock. I opened my last Clif bar just to try to get some calories in and as I chewed on it I grew nauseous, another symptom of heat exhaustion. I took two bites and stowed it away. I laid down and focused on my breathing and wondered if there was any way I could get a park ranger or vehicle to pick me up but with no reception all I could do was sit and wait or keep my death march going.

I knew one thing, the presence of the boulder marked the end of the desert and the beginning of the canyon. It would be more strenuous to get through but less sand and exposure to the elements. I banished the dark thoughts that had encroached upon me, I still would rather not die out in that desert and maybe I’d chance upon someone with a vehicle before darkness took me. I still felt bad but after the rest and breathing exercises I didn’t feel at critical levels anymore. I sent a text to the group telling them I would be lagging far behind after I forced myself to rest and to do what they had to do without me. I assumed it would send at some point when I had reception so no one was left wondering where I was. I gathered my bike and my wits and started to climb back up the canyon. I walked a little faster now that I had recovered a bit. I recognized the top of one of those steep drop offs from the day before, once I got to the top I’d be able to see the rest of the path ahead. As I got to the top I looked down and saw the most beautiful sight. Two of the members of our group were at the bottom, waiting with cooked meals. They cheered as they saw me climb over the peak. Even though I had accepted my destiny it was still such a relief to be amongst them again. I voraciously ate the pack of rehydrated beef stroganoff they gave me, no longer suffering from the nausea. I drank deep from my water bags as well. Within 15 minutes of having eaten and sitting in the shade I felt a rush of energy I hadn’t know since we started this whole debacle. I was greatly appreciative that they waited for me even after I took my big rest to contemplate death. They explained that they were also trying to find where the others had gone to have lunch and we quickly realized they had never stopped at all and were rushing Anza Borrego. Once they realized that they stopped but without any way to communicate I couldn’t have known so again I’m glad they waited or maybe I wouldn’t even writing this account right now.

We resolved a minor mechanical problem one of the riders had with her bike and we set forth again. Miraculously, I was in riding shape again. It wasn’t easy but it was doable and we made great time riding back up all the dirt roads we had maneuvered down the day before. Well we made great time compared to walking it all but it was still slower than we’d like. At this point we were not battling to survive but we still needed to make it out before nightfall. There was only one part that scared me and that was “Heart Attack Hill”, it was the steep cliff face we descended that I thought would be impossible to climb back up and out of except now we had no choice. We approached it again, it loomed over us, an almost completely vertical ascent as we approached it from the bottom this time. At the top were two parked jeeps that seemed poised to tumble down the side, we playfully remarked that they should throw down their winches for us but no one heard. We each approached the climb in a different way.

Some of us took the angled approach that we descended from but for whatever reason I opted to go straight down the center this time which was steeper but had gradual formations of rocks I could rest on, instead of being on a constant slope like the other way. I didn’t realize just how steep it was until I was halfway up. The only way to get both my bike and me up was to toss my bike up as some sort of half anchor and half walking stick and then pull myself up by it. This was a bike still loaded with supplies and camping gear mind you, and I’m not weightlifter although now I suspect I should start some sort of regimen. So the steeper the path got the more likely my bike was to come crashing back down on top of me, which would no doubt send me into a backwards fall to my doom. I had watched Cliffhanger not too long ago and I just kept thinking about how Sylvester Stallone planned all his moves out before committing to a course of action. I tried to do the same making sure I would have good footing and thanking any god that would listen for blessing me with vans instead of shoes with cleats that day.

I made up finally, the second one because it turns out going the way we descended was probably the better option. Regardless I was just glad to put that behind me. At the top we met the jeep drivers, they are the ones who informed us of the nomenclature of that particular cliff. Apparently Jeep gives out badges for doing these adventure trails they have documented. Heart Attack Hill is called that because the Jeep drivers have to maneuver their way down the almost vertical drop without accidentally careening into a fiery explosion at the bottom. So I guess that entire desert is just filled with people exploring different ways to possibly die. We wished them good luck as they were letting air out of their tires to increase the handling and traction so they could have a shot at surviving. I never found out if they made it or not but I hope they are also enjoying their lives post-Anza-Borrego.

Even though that was the hardest lift of the day, my renewed strength after lunch had me feeling so much better than trudging through the desert earlier so my spirits kept climbing. I remembered the rest of the path well enough and I knew we’d have to actually ride the bikes as much as possible to get out of there by sun down. It was getting pretty low in the sky and we had about 10 miles left to go. After this it was a blur as we hit milestone after milestone of what I remembered from 24 hours ago. Each time I recognized some feature, rock, or passage I felt a sense of elation as I knew we were closer to getting back to normal life. At this point we had also reestablished contact with the members of the group that had ridden out, they would bring the van to the very edge of the desert so we wouldn’t have to ride the road back up to the parking site anymore. A small win but every victory mattered at that point.

At long last we got the long sandy ascent from before except this time it was a long sandy descent to salvation. The last hurdle to get home just as the sun was setting. Despite everything that had come before and as dark as my experience and thoughts had become this last piece was the most exhilarating and joyful part of the whole escapade. Maybe it was the fact that I knew I’d make it out, or that all I had to do was focus on letting gravity get me down, or that I had finally gotten comfortable with a more gravel forward approach but I flew down that hill. I was elated and my usually cautious self was taking steep turns and spraying sand everywhere as I hit the ground with my feet when I was going too fast. I just wanted to get out of there and we all did. I rolled out of there to the sound of music blasting out the van’s speakers as the forward group welcomed us back. It’s truly an insane feeling that washes over you, this whiplash effect of being at the lowest point in your life to being at the highest point within hours of each other; Taking your existence for granted in the morning, and loving every second of your life in the evening.

We got in our cars and pulled over at some roadside burger shop and all I could think was how amazing it was to have places that just sell food and water whenever you want. Food and restaurant infrastructure, even out here in no man’s land was something I never once thought about until that day. The fact that in our day-to-day lives we can walk into any place and be served or buy groceries is a miracle because out there in Anza-Borrego we had every meal counted and our water was not guaranteed. We relied on the kindness of strangers that we didn’t even know we needed to survive and without them and without the help of my friends who knows how this story would have ended. The spectre of death followed me out of that place but it only serves the highlight the sheer exhilaration and comfort that living in society brings. Even being able to ride 500 miles on paved roads is a blessing compared to those 20 miles of hell we faced and that’s my takeaway from this fateful trip.