Dead Man`s Pass.

A page from my travel log
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Mono Lake, Lee Vining. 19-10-2002.

I`ve my breakfast in Bishop, a city with covered sidewalks and probably the biggest city I`ve seen since entering Owen`s valley. Hunting and fishing must be real popular around here if I can judge from the number of hunting and fishing stores in this place.

this little phone incident was just too much free entertainment

I stop at a bicycle store to but some grease for my bike`s chain and a small spray can containing WD-40 anti-rust. I`m actually quite surprised how well this cr*ppy old 100 dollar bicycle has been doing since setting out from Tijuana.

Grand Lake
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Let`s see how this old steel lady under my *ss is gonna do today. I`ve to get across Dead Man`s Pass which is at 8036 feet altitute and right in the haert of Inyo National Forest. The pass is also the end of owen`s Valley.

Early afternoon.

With Lake Crowley behind me it is seriously uphill now. My breath is raspy and I try hard to control the air going in and out of my tormented lungs. I`m surrounded by weird looking pine trees, dark green needles hanging from their brances - an elderly english couple in a small mobile home that I met at a rest stop, told me these pine trees are called Jeffrey`s Pines - ,startling yellow colored birch trees and the sound of woodpeckers aplenty.

Cycling across Dead Man`s Pass.
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The sides of the road are full with human produced garbage, no doubt thrown from the windows of passing cars, carton cups of McDonalds, the big yellow tits - The M you know - standing out in a crowd. Dirty underwear and lady`s panties - bloody women`s bandages still glued to the crotch - discarded mobile phones and rusty car tools.

At least I distracts me from the heavy phisical labour that is required from me cycling up Dead Man`s Pass.

One discarded phone even starts to ring the moment I cycle past, I stop and pick it up pushing the button and saying;

"Yes, hello". "Oh hullo Steve, it`s me, Mum". "Excuse me, ma`am but I`m Hans from Holand, just found your son`s phone here near Dead Man`s Pass". "Now, don`t be kidding your old Mum, Steve, I recognise your voice so don`t play jokes on me or else".

She rattles on for a while but soon enough the phone`s battery gives up on me and I leave this phone with the owner`s raving Mum where I found it.

I still have to make it across Dead Man`s Pass but now I know I`ll make it, this little phone incident was just too much free entertainment.

I`m still laughing when I finally cycle across the pass.