It was really good to reconnect with Wendy. We first met many years ago when we were both freelance designers, and to alleviate the isolation of working from home we'd bring our laptops to the 1369 Coffeehouse in Inman Square and work there all day. She's someone I've always thought of as a kindred spirit, and someone I admire a whole lot. Not only is she passionate about good design, but has a refreshingly down-to-earth, common-sense approach and executes concepts as well as she discusses them.

And it was a particularly good time to get together—we're both at crossroads in our careers right now, so we had plenty to talk about over beers, burritos, and later, a soak in the hot tub at her apartment complex. I have been mulling over what to do with a new business idea (a big part of why I took this trip at this particular time) and have arrived at a very different place than I thought I would. She is fed up with her current company (I could really hear the frustration coming through, especially when I'd overheard her end of a conference call) and contemplating starting up her own business again. Just as she started thinking of that, she responded to a job listing for a company she really likes on a whim. . . and got an interview, which went well. So now she has yet another option to consider, one which would entail a move to Santa Barbara. Understandably, she's feeling a little bit apprehensive of the unknowns on her horizon, and of figuring out the right move. . . but she's so smart and talented. I know she'll come to a good place.

My day off corresponded perfectly with a horrendous rain and windstorm that passed through Arizona, so I spent the day more or less holed up inside working on my blog, leaving only to fetch us coffee (her coffeemaker broke on a Monday morning. . . bad timing) and going out with Wendy for lunch and dinner. In between was a lot of sitting around with my laptop, and occasionally one of Wendy's two puggles (half beagle, half pug), on my lap. It was great to have a relaxing day with no exertion whatsoever for my sore muscles to recover.

The next morning, just as I was getting ready to leave, Wendy came out of her office. "Um. . . we have a problem," she said, holding up one of my shoes which Zoe the puggle had decided to gnaw on. The velcro strap was ripped off, and the plastic loop it goes through to double back on itself was missing. She felt terrible, and graciously offered to drive me someplace and buy me a new pair of shoes (as you may recall, these are the only shoes I have with me now). But to me it didn't seem worth replacing a seriously beaten up pair of shoes that are going to turned into gardening shoes in two weeks anyway. Plus, the MacGyver-like challenge of putting one's footwear back together seemed like a task befitting the adventure of this whole operation.

So Wendy got out her sewing kit and I dug up a bit of duct tape from my bike repair bag. After toweling off the dog saliva, I sewed the strap back on and reinforced it with duct tape from my bike repair kit. I then cut a slit in the side of the shoe where the plastic loop had been, finished it off with a series of crude button-hole style stitches, and ran the strap through it. Amazingly, the shoe works perfectly well now and you can barely tell which one was mauled.

Wendy had to get on a conference call, so we hugged goodbye and I headed over to Wal-Mart to pick up some more camp fuel and a pair of sunglasses. (Yes, Amelia, I finally lost those Dolce & Gabbanas you gave me. We both knew it was just a matter of time.) From there I headed west and south along the great grid that is Gilbert, AZ, and made my way to Queen Creek Road which would eventually leave the suburban sprawl for the desert and take me all the way to Maricopa. I realized about 10 miles into my ride that I probably should have taken a second day off at Wendy's—even on this road, the easiest, flattest, sunniest possible ride imaginable it still hurt a little to turn the pedals. My IT bands felt especially tight, which made knees and hips feel slightly creaky and uncomfortable. So I took the ride slowly and easily, letting everything limber up a little, feeling happy to be out of the cold mountain weather and soaking up some sun.

Once I was well out of the suburbs and into the rugged desert of the Gila River Indian Reservation, I stopped for a lunch break off the road in a spot behind some bushes. I spread out my fleece sleeping bag liners on the dry desert dust facing the mountains. Suddenly it hit me that my trip was almost over, and moments such as these would soon become much fewer and farther between. One night in a motel recently I was flipping through the channels and watched the beginning of Crocodile Dundee 2 (only the beginning. . . it was too cheesy to tolerate for long). In it Mick Dundee was trying to adjust to life with his new girlfriend in her urban apartment after living in the Australian outback. It made me wonder about my own transition back to normal life: I can kind of see myself sleeping on my Thermarest on the living room floor, going out to the back porch to cook oatmeal on my camp stove, then biking 10 miles in the snow to get a cup of coffee before work. Don't get me wrong: I'm very much looking forward to having reliable lodging, showers on a regular basis, and a wider variety of outfits to choose from, but there are so many things I'm going to miss about this crazy vagabond style. Roadside picnics with mountain views are only one of many items on the list. Freedom is another.

I had set my sights pretty low for the day, thinking I'd just get to Maricopa, a nice flat 42 miles from Gilbert. Except I had miscalculated: from the road signs I learned that Maricopa was only 32 miles away. At first I thought that was just as well, that I could probably use the extra time to rest, but once I actually saw the town I was a little repulsed. It was one of those completely developed towns full of gated communities and shopping centers. No campgrounds, no greasy diners, no crappy motels. There was nothing for me there.

So I rode another 8 miles or so out of town on State Route 238 toward Gila Bend, thinking I'd find some farm or a scenic chunk of desert to camp on. I came to a sign for a glider port and for whatever reason that seemed like the perfect place to ask for a camping spot, maybe because they would indubitably have a great deal of space, or maybe because I'd spoken with some pilots at a glider port back in Pennsylvania who left me with the assumption that glider pilots are generally friendly, kind people. In any case, I turned down the long dirt road and found the tiny asymmetrical white building that was their office.

Talking to the owner, Jason, and his brother Matt, confirmed my assumption. Jason said it would be no problem for me to camp out wherever I wanted, and gave me his cell phone number and code to the front gate in case I needed to leave early and it was locked. He then introduced me to a couple of pilots, Eric and Bob, who were out back doing some skeet shooting. Eric asked if I wanted to try. Of course I did!

They showed me how to aim the shotgun, which took some patience on their part since no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to see the guide at the end of the barrel. Then I realized I had the wrong eye closed. Once that was sorted out they launched the bright orange clay disc and I pulled the trigger. I think we were all atonished when it actually flew into many small fragments. I'd hit it! "She's a ringer!" yelled Eric, and Bob nodded in agreement. Their assessment might have been a little premature, as I didn't hit any of the next three shots.

We passed the gun back and forth and chatted. It turned out Bob had also biked across the country back in 1990 after he got out of the Army, from Washington state to New Jersey in 38 days, so we got to compare notes and trade a few stories. After both our daylight and the box full of skeets ran out, Eric invited us over to his trailer for some beer, so I agreed to meet them there and went to set up my tent before dark.

Bob pulled over as I was about to set up my tent and suggested I sleep in the bunkhouse on the property instead, as there was a room full of 5 bunks sitting empty at the moment and it would be a lot warmer than sleeping out on a chilly desert night. The bunkhouse was a semi-finished cabin with a little kitchen, an old couch, and a plastic picnic table. While it lacked heat or hot water, it did have electricity so Bob got a couple of space heaters running to warm the place up, and I spread out my fleece sleeping bag liners on one of the beds before heading over to Eric's.

Together the three of us slowly plowed through a case of beer and most of a bag of tortilla chips and salsa. I enjoyed hearing their stories of their own nomadic travels, which they'd illustrated by pointing to dots and lines in Eric's road atlas. Bob told us about Minnesota's Lake of the Woods where he does a lot of muskellunge fishing. It has the largest shoreline of any freshwater lake in the country and people supposedly set up crystal meth labs out in the woods, miles from anything so they can just abandon them if they're caught. Eric spends half the year in Alaska and the other half in Arizona working as a pilot, and, in his words, "being a bum." It sounds like a pretty good life, flying, riding around on his motorcycle, hiking, camping, and mountain biking. He has a new partner in crime, his really cute 4 month old puppy Emma, a dark brown German Shorthair with a white chest and paws. She had grown just a little big to be sitting on someone's lap, but I let her anyway.

Around 10:30 and after 4 beers I started to fade and got up to head over to the bunkhouse. Eric invited me over for coffee in the morning, and told me he could take me up in his plane for a preview of my ride through the Sonoran Desert if I wanted. Wow! I gladly accepted both offers.