In the morning, Armen continued over the pass. The Range loomed in the distance over Antelope Valley. The valley itself displayed the slight color of desert wildflowers in bloom. Armen stood with his bike leaning between his legs, soaking in the landscape. There was something about this that he needed.
He sped down the road to the San Andreas Fault, then crossed the hills beyond. As he coasted down into the valley, he crossed the California Aqueduct, just where it plunged into one of its subterranean channels. He didn’t know where the LA pipelines were, but he didn’t doubt that he would find them out in the valley.
The Antelope Valley was a sea of orange and pale green. Golden poppies were everywhere.
Armen came to Lancaster Road and followed it west. He came to the new aqueduct, or so said the maps, and he followed the buried pipeline across Antelope Valley.
Armen would occasionally pass a Joshua tree or a California juniper amid the sage. He admired the pale blue berries of the female junipers, and he thought that he might have named the Joshua tree the “yucca tree” had he been the first to name it. He thought on this and decided that he was happy to leave the naming to others.
He watched the Range come imperceptibly nearer and nearer as he coasted and peddled across the basin. He passed some farms in the middle of the valley, and could see there wasn’t much sign of water down the road, though the colors of distant wildflowers carpeted the valley. A man cannot drink from a wildflower. He found a spigot by a farmhouse and filled his bottles to prepare for the dry country ahead. As he began the gentle ascent, Armen came upon an orchard. It was blossoming with the desert, but was under assault by what resembled a dune on its windward side. As Armen came nearer to the orchard, he realized the dune was made of tumbleweeds.
Before Armen got to the foot of the Range, the aqueduct made a sharp right turn and from there began to flank the Range. As the afternoon wore on, the aqueduct came nearer and nearer the foot of the Range. Armen found himself pushing on and on to get closer to the foot of the Range. Because the pipeline followed a level course, the pedaling was not hard. He continued to do so well after nightfall. Even had he wanted to stop, he would have felt naked lying down for the night on that expanse of naked ground. If he could reach the point where the pipes met the Range, he would at least have a wall to lie down against. And there was more to see at night. He could look down upon the lights of Mojave at night, and there’s no sunburn at night, and the drinking water lasts longer.