Xeno's Paradox applies to bicyling. Suppose you've been out for a long ride. You're starting to get tired. You look at your odometer and see that you're twelve miles from your destination and you're doing twelve mph. You think, "I'm an hour from the end." some time later, you're more tired. You look at your odometer and see that you're ten miles from your destination and you're doing ten mph. You think, "I'm an hour from the end." Half an hour later, you're exhausted. You look at your odometer and see that you're five miles from your destination and you're doing five mph. You think, "I'm an hour from the end." you realize that you're never going to reach your destination! You'll always be an hour away. That's how we felt pedalling for Palo Verde. There was a long climb. The elevation profile showed a long descent to complete 70 miles to Palo Verde. The descent turned out to be an endless series of rides down one side of a gully followed by a little smaller climb up the other side of the gully. We were exhausted before we reached PV.

We expected to camp at the RV park in PV. The RV park turned out to be inhabited solely by derelicts and ex-cons! "Okay," I thought. "We'll go to the motel." The motel is abandoned. The choices were to just wait until dark and make camp in a field off the road or pedal another twenty miles to Blythe. The latter was the decision. I would never have made it if we hadn't had a little tail wind. The ride through the agricultural fields on the late afternoon sun was quite attractive but I was too spent to enjoy it.

Some photos. Above, roadside flowers. Below, sand dunes from the Algodones Dunes off-road recreation area.

Stuff for sale at the off-road merchants.

more roadside flowers.