With 95km left to the next town named Owyhee I start the remaining climb just after sunrise. The road is straight for the most part and seems endless. It disappears on the horizon in the wide landscape. The scenery is monotonous, desert-like and [appart from a gnarly headwind] has quite a meditative effect on me.

Boredom? Not at all! I do listen to an hour or two of music a day but rarely to get distraction. Mostly I do for two reasons: (1.) To amplify feelings [riding through an amazing landscape with the right music is just great] or (2.) to [re-]discover music. It became so popular to listen to playlists these days that I felt the need to force myself a bit to get back to listing to whole albums, first song to the last.

Another chunk of my day is spent to think about the essential things [what do I eat?, where do I sleep? and how are the conditions?]. While I might mostly write about this part, the vast majority of my riding is spent in an almost meditative state of mind. The steady movement of pedaling, the thoughts come and go without the try to deepen one of them, taking notice of the small nuances in the landscape, being in the present... Of course there is the occasional epiphany but for the most part I couldn't tell you what I am really thinking the whole day. For the moment, I really do enjoy this.

With the strong headwind the ride to Owyhee takes considerably more time than I was anticipating. I am slightly short of water and there is literally nothing out here. Out of the blue [or the desert] a little oasis named Riddle appears on the horizon. One house, gas, convenience store. The saving grace today. I slurp down a can of Mountain Dew and a can of Dr Pepper [the can reads: "Authentic blend of 23 flavours", I wonder if this is still a good claim these days] and fill up my water bottles.

Shortly after, the first farm houses appear on each side of the road. Unfortunately all of them without locked gates and countless dogs. Every 500 meters I have to stop due to a band of dogs rushing out to the road and chasing me. It takes a while to convince all of them to let me pass and starts to get quite annoying after the first few farms. I enter the Duck Valley Reservation, a reservation of the Shoshone Native American tribe. While in Canada the First Nation where quite present throughout my journey, this is the first noticeable encounter here in the US. At the Idaho/Nevada border I find an open headquarter of the tribe and am friendly directed to a place where I can pitch my tent.