thebottle Blog

Iron Butt

I woke up the next day and decided I was going to attempt an Iron Butt challenge. 1,000 miles in 24 hours or less on a bike. I headed south, out of Las Vegas, and over the Hoover Dam. I didn’t stop, I didn’t want to prolong myself to the heat. When I crossed the Arizona border I entered a National Forest and the temperature immediately dropped 15 degrees, but as soon as I left, it rose just the same. It was still nice to see real trees for a change. Arizona is another wasteland as far as the earth is concerned, but it is different. There is something there. There are small adobe style ruins, there are broken down cars out in the distance, and there are abandoned houses. There are cliffs in the horizon and trains that ride aside the highway keeping you company for miles. There were also Indian stores about every 10 miles along the highway. I stopped to see if I could lay my hands on some peyote, but all I found was overpriced merchandise imported from Mexico.

I wasn’t making good time, I kept stopping at these Indian stores hoping to find something, but they were all the same. As I left one of these stores I saw an Indian girl walking toward the interstate. I figured she was either walking home or hitching. I finished my conversation on my cell phone, got on my bike, and drove over to her. She had her thumb out. “Where are you going?” “About 8 miles down that way.” Fuck, I thought to myself, she is going the opposite way as me. I looked at her, she was wearing the shortest shorts I had ever seen showing off the longest legs I had ever seen. I imagined her on the back of my bike with those legs wrapped around my sides. She had the long straight hair that Indian girls have, and she had everything else I desired, but I had a schedule to keep. “Sorry, I’m actually heading the other way, I wish I could help.” “I can make it worth your time,” she quickly uttered. What does she mean? A million answers raced through my mind simultaneously. Quite honestly I didn’t know, I only hoped, and after looking her up and down one more time, I didn’t care.