I traveled for a month now, and I did and saw some things and met people I'll always remember. But the last day of riding was a day of reckoning for me: I had another flat tire, but it was on the trailer this time - I didn't think I'd ever have to worry about that, and I wasn't prepared for it, i.e. I didn't have a spare or any way to fix it really. I had my first wipe out, coming around a corner into Lordsburg. I was tired after the morning's ride and leaned into the turn too hard, landing on a pile of gravel head first, my neck was pretty raw afterward. I was tired because the heat was becoming oppressive, climbing into the high 90's/low 100's again, and knowing that I have to cross the Divide in this heat was weighing on me. It wasn't much higher than Lordsburg, around 4500' to 5000', I think, but it was more than I thought I could do in the heat. I'm tired, of the heat, and waking up at 5:30 in the morning, and being thirsty, and thinking of the 600 or 700 miles of desert and hot Texas plains to come.
So for this time around, the dream came to an end. In hindsight, I made some mistakes, primarily leaving too late in the season. I should have left San Francisco in the very beginning of April, or even late March. I talked to bikers who thought I would be fine, but I don't think any of them had ever attempted the trek. I had some bad luck with an early heat wave and unseasonably hot weather, but an extra month would have helped me avoid most of the heat. I should have brought less gear - there's no way I'll pull a trailer behind me the next time. The next trip will involve a minimum of gear carried in in bags on panniers, or maybe I can even convince someone to follow me in a car - it would be ideal to carry nothing but water bottles and a wallet on the next trip.
I look forward to the next trip, whenever it may be, but this trip ended with me sapped in Lordsburg, New Mexico, with a deflated trailer tire, a swollen, bruised neck, and a wounded ego, in a KOA (Kampgrounds of America.) I sifted through my things, trying to keep out of the desert sun under a wooden picnic shelter while deciding what I could keep and what I had to abandon, just me and the occasional jackrabbit. I managed to get a Greyhound ticket out of town, from a station behind the local McDonald's, and I knew space for luggage would be limited. So, clothes check, camera check, toiletries check. Trailer, no, bike, no. The last time I saw my bike it was sitting under a sign at the campground, "Please come again." There was no room for it on the bus, and I couldn't find anyone who wanted a road bike, i.e. jackrabbits and sparrows don't ride bikes. Hopefully a passing camper will see it and get some use out of it some day.
I'd like to thank everyone who read the blog and followed my rambling to its conclusion, and thanks for all the positive feedback. I had planned to write a book after my adventure was complete, though I think that's not likely to happen now since I cut my journey short. But it's good to know that lots of you enjoyed my entries and wanted more, so the next time maybe I'll have a books worth of material. Sorry it took so long to finish, I've been distracted while I adjust to life in Maine.
Thanks again to everyone, and if you would like to keep in touch, please feel free to write to me anytime, davidladd1@hotmail.com.
Happy rambling to all.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Safford to Duncan
The ride into and the stay in Safford was fun; I saw the desert bird icon the roadrunner just outside of town, all speckles and crazy comb over dashing from under some scrub, across the street and back under a cactus on the other side (running from the coyote, maybe?) A ladybug landed on my shorts just as I got into town and decided to hitch a ride all the way to my stop for the night before I finally had to pick her? (how do the hims feel about being ladybugs) off and send her flying away. And I saw Indiana Jones (George Lucas in the name of God why) in an air conditioned theatre; even though air conditioning wasn't really necessary it was reassuring to know parts of the world are livable. I met Sara before the movie - I'm still in the big city habit of buying tickets well before the show just in case, which in the case was prudent because it was packed - everyone has fond memories of what the Jones series used to be I guess, myself included. Sara sold me my ticket and then headed outside for her break as I was deciding where I should eat. I asked Sara and she told me about I place she used to work just across the street. She asked me where I was from and the conversation led to my adventure; Sara said she wished she could do that. I asked her why she couldn't and she told me - she was born with one lung. She said she never even knew she only had one until she was eighteen or nineteen years old; she liked to play sports but got winded fairly easily, but thought she had asthma or something. It wasn't until she went to the hospital for another problem that the doctors discovered her condition. They said it was fairly rare, and that she should be fine as long as she didn't over exert herself or (God love doctors) "get pneumonia." So she could never ride a bike across the country, or climb a mountain, or run very far for that matter; which she's learned to deal with even though occasionally her friends do things together that she can't. It made me thankful I'm even able to take this trip. Thanks Sara.
I have to say, though, that it was a hard ride to my next stop, the last stop in Arizona, the town of Duncan. The little red line on my tiny little schizophrenic thermometer is climbing again, toward the mid to high 90's. Which of course means that on the bike it feels much hotter, as there is no shade, and the heat rising from the road makes me think I need to start getting up at 5:30 in the morning again. Oh for an 85 degree day! And I'm climbing again - Duncan has an elevation of 3600' feet, and looking at my map I know that New Mexico just goes up and up and up for awhile. The climbing really isn't that bad, it's the heat that's the killer.
I was able to pitch my town in town; Duncan has a public picnic area and after checking with the local sheriff I got the okay, and said that no one should bother me there. It's Memorial Day weekend, so lots of firecrackers and beer drinking down by the river; yes, the river. On the way into town I once again passed desert oasis after desert oasis, fields of hay and some corn and cabbage, very disconcerting after passing rocky, brown, barren wastelands with hardly enough water for a cactus not twenty miles before. I passed on checking out the river scene and instead headed for the beat down diner the pronounced itself Joe's in a neon sign half lit and half dark, e's, across the street from the park. I was the only person inside, other than the waitstaff and the cook. I slid into a faded booth and ordered a taco salad and a giant glass of milk (I don't know what it is but I can't drink enough milk these days.) Business started to pick up as I was eating, though it was mostly people picking up take out orders, which I thought was a little strange. Where was everyone going in this little town that they didn't have the time (or the inclination) to eat there? Were they headed for the river too? Was it because Joe's didn't have a television?
I ate my salad and pondered these deep questions as I watched the locals picking up their orders; then I headed back to my campsite to try and write all of this down for you, dear reader. I say try because for the next two hours I became the object of interest for three terminally bored teenage girls who couldn't ask me enough questions - where are you from, where are you going, you're riding a bike, are you married, do you have kids, do you want to be married, do you want kids, you're going to sleep in that tent, did eat at Joe's, what did you have, did you like it, and so on and so forth until I thought my head might explode. They were good kids in a small town trying to pass the time, occasionally shouting at friends walking down the street, or boys driving back and forth in their cars, the local version of cruising, I guess. The road that ran along the front of the park was the main street, and nothing that happened on it escaped their attention. Eventually it got dark, and the girls were rounded up by their big sister. I went to bed and read while listening to the bats flying overhead, hoping for slightly cooler temperatures for the next day.
I have to say, though, that it was a hard ride to my next stop, the last stop in Arizona, the town of Duncan. The little red line on my tiny little schizophrenic thermometer is climbing again, toward the mid to high 90's. Which of course means that on the bike it feels much hotter, as there is no shade, and the heat rising from the road makes me think I need to start getting up at 5:30 in the morning again. Oh for an 85 degree day! And I'm climbing again - Duncan has an elevation of 3600' feet, and looking at my map I know that New Mexico just goes up and up and up for awhile. The climbing really isn't that bad, it's the heat that's the killer.
I was able to pitch my town in town; Duncan has a public picnic area and after checking with the local sheriff I got the okay, and said that no one should bother me there. It's Memorial Day weekend, so lots of firecrackers and beer drinking down by the river; yes, the river. On the way into town I once again passed desert oasis after desert oasis, fields of hay and some corn and cabbage, very disconcerting after passing rocky, brown, barren wastelands with hardly enough water for a cactus not twenty miles before. I passed on checking out the river scene and instead headed for the beat down diner the pronounced itself Joe's in a neon sign half lit and half dark, e's, across the street from the park. I was the only person inside, other than the waitstaff and the cook. I slid into a faded booth and ordered a taco salad and a giant glass of milk (I don't know what it is but I can't drink enough milk these days.) Business started to pick up as I was eating, though it was mostly people picking up take out orders, which I thought was a little strange. Where was everyone going in this little town that they didn't have the time (or the inclination) to eat there? Were they headed for the river too? Was it because Joe's didn't have a television?
I ate my salad and pondered these deep questions as I watched the locals picking up their orders; then I headed back to my campsite to try and write all of this down for you, dear reader. I say try because for the next two hours I became the object of interest for three terminally bored teenage girls who couldn't ask me enough questions - where are you from, where are you going, you're riding a bike, are you married, do you have kids, do you want to be married, do you want kids, you're going to sleep in that tent, did eat at Joe's, what did you have, did you like it, and so on and so forth until I thought my head might explode. They were good kids in a small town trying to pass the time, occasionally shouting at friends walking down the street, or boys driving back and forth in their cars, the local version of cruising, I guess. The road that ran along the front of the park was the main street, and nothing that happened on it escaped their attention. Eventually it got dark, and the girls were rounded up by their big sister. I went to bed and read while listening to the bats flying overhead, hoping for slightly cooler temperatures for the next day.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Dazed in the Desert
The rain finally stopped, almost two full days after it started. I sat in my room and watched television, and read, and gleaned Globe, Arizona's claim to fame while eating another calzone. Globe, it seems to the locals anyway, is the site of two of the world's biggest copper mines, and everyone working at the mines is both a) very busy mining for copper to sell to China and India and b) spending their off hours at the American motel, getting blitzed. Globe's other claim to fame is that apparently John Wayne stayed in this very motel once, when it was called the Copper Hills motel (the name some locals still use, including the young woman at the Safeway grocery store, who sold me some potato chips, and some chocolate, and various other snacks - I felt like I hadn't eaten in a week.)
Thankfully, the faucet in the sky was turned off, and I waddled over to my bike and made my way to the next stop, Safford. It really felt strange riding after two days of lounging and loafing and reading "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and eating my weight in junk food:, I was sort of in a fog. But it was a beautiful day: 85 degrees, blue sky, nice breeze, good smooth road. So even though I was in a fog, it was a warm enveloping fog, not the cold fog that makes you wet and shivery.
I saw some interesting things today: a hill with cactus that looked like they were climbing to the top. I rode through the San Carlos Apache Reservation - miles of shrubs, cactus, mesas and mountains occasionally interrupted by a town. The towns were a hodgepodge of trailers and ramshackle shacks with piles of scrap metal in the yard, or the remnants of a car, or just dirt and rocks. I stopped at what turned out to be the reservation's biggest store and bought an apple and a juice, then sat out in front of store's adobe wall on a worn wooden bench and watched the clouds roll over the mountains across the street.
I was joined in a few minutes by a guy who ambled out of the store, sat down a different bench, saw me, said hello while getting up and plunking down on the opposite end of my bench. He was obviously Native American (everyone was, I was the only white man around. No one really seemed to mind, though), so I asked him if he was an Apache. He said no, that he was half Apache and half Cree - he seemed a little sad to me, then he went on to say that his father had been Cree, and a rambler and absent for most of his life. His father had also been an alcoholic and had died just a few years ago; he went to get his father in Kansas and brought him back to the reservation to bury him. He was currently living on the reservation with his mother, working as a brush fire fighter, which he said didn't pay very well but he made enough to get by. He was hoping to get off the reservation someday, like just about everyone else, he said. I finished my snack and said goodbye, and as I rode through the rest of the reservation I wondered where all the money from the casino I passed on the way in went; couldn't it provide a better life than the one my Native American friend was living?
I passed into a strange landscape: the hard, cracked floor of the desert gave way to green fields of grass, and row after row of cabbages and other greens. The land from the outer edge of the reservation to Safford is irrigated, though it seems that most of the land is dedicated to the growing of hay, to feed the herds of cattle that graze in the numerous fields in the area. An oasis; strange to see trees and grass and water in the middle of the desert, but there it was nonetheless.
And so magically there were also a lot of little towns on the way into Safford. I stopped at one of them, Pima, for a drink at the local store only to find the store had closed five minutes earlier. I stood on the wooden slats of the old time front porch drinking my water when the front doors swung open and out stepped the prototypical western cowboy: shock of white hair under a broad rimmed hat, long mustache, western shirt, cowboy boots. "If you want something right quick you can come on in and git it" he drawled. I jumped up and followed him into the darkened room, grabbed a Gatorade and brought it to the old fashioned register. As I paid and we chatted about the crazy weather I couldn't help but notice all of the guns on the wall next to the counter; rifles, shotguns, pistols, you name it it was there. Then I spotted what I was sure was a loaded rifle leaning up against the wall in a corner behind the counter: the wild west. I got my change, thanked the cowboy and went back outside thinking if I ever pursued a life of crime I'd make sure to steer clear of his store. He was right behind me, locking the door, jumping into his truck in the blink of an eye and leaving behind a trail of dust as he headed onto the road, all before I even had the cap off my bottle. I thought he either had a hot date or an NRA meeting to get to, finished my drink and followed his dust trail down the road to Safford.
Thankfully, the faucet in the sky was turned off, and I waddled over to my bike and made my way to the next stop, Safford. It really felt strange riding after two days of lounging and loafing and reading "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and eating my weight in junk food:, I was sort of in a fog. But it was a beautiful day: 85 degrees, blue sky, nice breeze, good smooth road. So even though I was in a fog, it was a warm enveloping fog, not the cold fog that makes you wet and shivery.
I saw some interesting things today: a hill with cactus that looked like they were climbing to the top. I rode through the San Carlos Apache Reservation - miles of shrubs, cactus, mesas and mountains occasionally interrupted by a town. The towns were a hodgepodge of trailers and ramshackle shacks with piles of scrap metal in the yard, or the remnants of a car, or just dirt and rocks. I stopped at what turned out to be the reservation's biggest store and bought an apple and a juice, then sat out in front of store's adobe wall on a worn wooden bench and watched the clouds roll over the mountains across the street.
I was joined in a few minutes by a guy who ambled out of the store, sat down a different bench, saw me, said hello while getting up and plunking down on the opposite end of my bench. He was obviously Native American (everyone was, I was the only white man around. No one really seemed to mind, though), so I asked him if he was an Apache. He said no, that he was half Apache and half Cree - he seemed a little sad to me, then he went on to say that his father had been Cree, and a rambler and absent for most of his life. His father had also been an alcoholic and had died just a few years ago; he went to get his father in Kansas and brought him back to the reservation to bury him. He was currently living on the reservation with his mother, working as a brush fire fighter, which he said didn't pay very well but he made enough to get by. He was hoping to get off the reservation someday, like just about everyone else, he said. I finished my snack and said goodbye, and as I rode through the rest of the reservation I wondered where all the money from the casino I passed on the way in went; couldn't it provide a better life than the one my Native American friend was living?
I passed into a strange landscape: the hard, cracked floor of the desert gave way to green fields of grass, and row after row of cabbages and other greens. The land from the outer edge of the reservation to Safford is irrigated, though it seems that most of the land is dedicated to the growing of hay, to feed the herds of cattle that graze in the numerous fields in the area. An oasis; strange to see trees and grass and water in the middle of the desert, but there it was nonetheless.
And so magically there were also a lot of little towns on the way into Safford. I stopped at one of them, Pima, for a drink at the local store only to find the store had closed five minutes earlier. I stood on the wooden slats of the old time front porch drinking my water when the front doors swung open and out stepped the prototypical western cowboy: shock of white hair under a broad rimmed hat, long mustache, western shirt, cowboy boots. "If you want something right quick you can come on in and git it" he drawled. I jumped up and followed him into the darkened room, grabbed a Gatorade and brought it to the old fashioned register. As I paid and we chatted about the crazy weather I couldn't help but notice all of the guns on the wall next to the counter; rifles, shotguns, pistols, you name it it was there. Then I spotted what I was sure was a loaded rifle leaning up against the wall in a corner behind the counter: the wild west. I got my change, thanked the cowboy and went back outside thinking if I ever pursued a life of crime I'd make sure to steer clear of his store. He was right behind me, locking the door, jumping into his truck in the blink of an eye and leaving behind a trail of dust as he headed onto the road, all before I even had the cap off my bottle. I thought he either had a hot date or an NRA meeting to get to, finished my drink and followed his dust trail down the road to Safford.
Friday, June 13, 2008
And Now For Something Completely Different
I woke up in Apache Junction to a cloudy, breezy very cool 60 degrees; I was confused for a second and thought I must be in San Francisco. But then I saw a cactus and some jackrabbits and a Wafflehouse restaurant, just down the street from my motel, and remembered I was in Arizona. I watched the local weather and saw that the area forecast was scattered showers and potential evening thunderstorms, so I scrambled out of Apache Junction at 7:00 a.m. I wanted to put in as many miles as I could and finish up well before the threat of lightning bolts, flash floods and other desert storm miseries.
Man, that forecaster was either hitting the sauce or reading the wrong weather tracking map or something. I had a strange ride that day: it was only 60-65 degrees and pretty windy all day - I was cold. I left my sweatshirt on, even as I began sweating heavily due to the day's climb - I rode from the relative flat of Apache Junction, at 1800 feet, to the uneven, bumpy rock strewn roads leading up to Globe, elevation 3,500 feet. I left my sweatshirt on anyway, I didn't want to get sick. The mountains on the way to Globe were beautiful: dark chocolate brown, dotted with little green shrubs and all kinds of cactus - tall spiky cactus with white flowers on the crown and flowers on their branches; shrub like cactus with lunch plate sized sections hugging the ground; half tree half cactus short to the ground with long branches covered in spikes. The mountains themselves were jagged, sharp little razored teeth pushing up through the ground, looking as though they would chew up everything in their path.
The first shower hit around 11:00 a.m., raining fat little drops at a slant for about five minutes. I took as much shelter as I could from a boulder on the side of the narrow, windy mountain road. Then it passed, and the sun shone through the clouds a minute later. I thought great, hopefully that's all I'll encounter today, the random passing shower, as predicted. I let the wind and the sun dry me out, and pedaled on. Two showers later, as I was winding my way up what turned out to be the steepest hill, the clouds turned an ominous, deadly looking dark , so dark it was almost black. And then I felt like I was in a freezer, the temperature must have dropped ten to fifteen degrees in five minutes. I thought uh-oh, and then like clockwork the heavens opened up: it poured so hard I couldn't see the other side of the road. I ducked underneath the only little tree for miles around, and watched as the rain turned into little beads of hail, bouncing off the oily road, off my bike, off my trailer, off of my helmet. The little beads stopped falling after a few minutes, and I left the cover of little tree to wipe off my bike, and the trailer, and myself and then ran back under the tree as the hail made a triumphant return, a little bigger than beads this time, a little smaller than marbles. I waited out two more rounds under little tree, laughing as I thought how insane the whole storm was: for a week I'd been barbequeing, hiding out from the sun, and now I was freezing, hiding out from a hail storm.
I cleaned everything up again, pulled away from little tree and heard rumbling in the distance; at first I thought a tractor trailer was coming up the hill behind me, but I turned to look back and didn't see any traffic anywhere. I heard it again, but this time it was above me: thunder. The evening storms had arrived a little ahead of schedule (six hours or so, but who's counting?) I started pumping the pedals faster while watching a fork of lightning come flicking out of the sky like a blind white snake striking out at the dark. I didn't want it to bite me, so I pedaled for everything I was worth and was rewarded with a downhill run all the way to Globe, just a few miles from the mountain pass I'd just been stuck in. I made it to the "American" motel just before the rain started to come down for good; it rained hard for hours. The parking lot outside my room was flooded, cars driving through had water up to the top of their rims. I took advantage of a break in the rain to run next door to the local pizza shop next door for a calzone and a homemade churro, yum! The pizza shop crew said the weather wasn't normal at all; apparently Flagstaff had a snow advisory in effect and the northern mountains had two inches of snow today. Living in San Francisco with its year round steady weather has made me forget about strange weather patterns in other parts of the country, though I'm starting to remember now. I made it back to my room with dinner just in front of another downpour that lasted all night, pouring rain while I dreamed of sunstroke in a field of snow.
Man, that forecaster was either hitting the sauce or reading the wrong weather tracking map or something. I had a strange ride that day: it was only 60-65 degrees and pretty windy all day - I was cold. I left my sweatshirt on, even as I began sweating heavily due to the day's climb - I rode from the relative flat of Apache Junction, at 1800 feet, to the uneven, bumpy rock strewn roads leading up to Globe, elevation 3,500 feet. I left my sweatshirt on anyway, I didn't want to get sick. The mountains on the way to Globe were beautiful: dark chocolate brown, dotted with little green shrubs and all kinds of cactus - tall spiky cactus with white flowers on the crown and flowers on their branches; shrub like cactus with lunch plate sized sections hugging the ground; half tree half cactus short to the ground with long branches covered in spikes. The mountains themselves were jagged, sharp little razored teeth pushing up through the ground, looking as though they would chew up everything in their path.
The first shower hit around 11:00 a.m., raining fat little drops at a slant for about five minutes. I took as much shelter as I could from a boulder on the side of the narrow, windy mountain road. Then it passed, and the sun shone through the clouds a minute later. I thought great, hopefully that's all I'll encounter today, the random passing shower, as predicted. I let the wind and the sun dry me out, and pedaled on. Two showers later, as I was winding my way up what turned out to be the steepest hill, the clouds turned an ominous, deadly looking dark , so dark it was almost black. And then I felt like I was in a freezer, the temperature must have dropped ten to fifteen degrees in five minutes. I thought uh-oh, and then like clockwork the heavens opened up: it poured so hard I couldn't see the other side of the road. I ducked underneath the only little tree for miles around, and watched as the rain turned into little beads of hail, bouncing off the oily road, off my bike, off my trailer, off of my helmet. The little beads stopped falling after a few minutes, and I left the cover of little tree to wipe off my bike, and the trailer, and myself and then ran back under the tree as the hail made a triumphant return, a little bigger than beads this time, a little smaller than marbles. I waited out two more rounds under little tree, laughing as I thought how insane the whole storm was: for a week I'd been barbequeing, hiding out from the sun, and now I was freezing, hiding out from a hail storm.
I cleaned everything up again, pulled away from little tree and heard rumbling in the distance; at first I thought a tractor trailer was coming up the hill behind me, but I turned to look back and didn't see any traffic anywhere. I heard it again, but this time it was above me: thunder. The evening storms had arrived a little ahead of schedule (six hours or so, but who's counting?) I started pumping the pedals faster while watching a fork of lightning come flicking out of the sky like a blind white snake striking out at the dark. I didn't want it to bite me, so I pedaled for everything I was worth and was rewarded with a downhill run all the way to Globe, just a few miles from the mountain pass I'd just been stuck in. I made it to the "American" motel just before the rain started to come down for good; it rained hard for hours. The parking lot outside my room was flooded, cars driving through had water up to the top of their rims. I took advantage of a break in the rain to run next door to the local pizza shop next door for a calzone and a homemade churro, yum! The pizza shop crew said the weather wasn't normal at all; apparently Flagstaff had a snow advisory in effect and the northern mountains had two inches of snow today. Living in San Francisco with its year round steady weather has made me forget about strange weather patterns in other parts of the country, though I'm starting to remember now. I made it back to my room with dinner just in front of another downpour that lasted all night, pouring rain while I dreamed of sunstroke in a field of snow.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Three Weeks and a Day
The greater Phoenix area is huge! I rode out from the middle of the city and for the next 50 miles I was riding through downtown Phoenix, the outskirts of Phoenix, and then into Tempe, and miles and miles of suburban strip malls, business parks, gated communities, even an urban horse farm. Easily the most urban miles I've ridden since I left The City, but surprisingly carefree: drivers were careful to give me a wide berth, lots of the streets were designed for bike riders with either designated bike paths or really wide shoulders, all the way out to Apache Junction.
Still no camping, the winds were really kicking up hard about ten miles from AJ. The weather forecasters had been predicting the local version of a whiteout: the wind was whipping across the desert floor so hard that it was lifting the sand into the atmosphere. The sky for miles around was a dense white; it was like driving through a fog bank with the exception that this fog was hard, gritty and dry. The Superstition mountains are just outside of Apache Junction, but I could barely make out more than a faint outline; I decided to stop rather than disappear into the sand mist. A positive weather note (I think?): it's thirty degrees cooler at 8:00 p.m. than it was at 4:00 p.m., when it was 99 degrees. The forecast high for tomorrow is 85 degrees, practically an ice age in Arizona. I can't wait.
So I'm three weeks and a day into my trip, and I've ridden 1,031 miles from San Francisco to Apache Junction (with a shuttle ride from Wickenberg to Phoenix thrown in, it's fun to mix things up, hey?) If all goes well, I should only have about 3 or 4 more days to go before I hit New Mexico. In spite of the flats, and the heat I'm still having fun, meeting great people, learning about the land and myself. I'm ready for what tomorrow may bring.
Still no camping, the winds were really kicking up hard about ten miles from AJ. The weather forecasters had been predicting the local version of a whiteout: the wind was whipping across the desert floor so hard that it was lifting the sand into the atmosphere. The sky for miles around was a dense white; it was like driving through a fog bank with the exception that this fog was hard, gritty and dry. The Superstition mountains are just outside of Apache Junction, but I could barely make out more than a faint outline; I decided to stop rather than disappear into the sand mist. A positive weather note (I think?): it's thirty degrees cooler at 8:00 p.m. than it was at 4:00 p.m., when it was 99 degrees. The forecast high for tomorrow is 85 degrees, practically an ice age in Arizona. I can't wait.
So I'm three weeks and a day into my trip, and I've ridden 1,031 miles from San Francisco to Apache Junction (with a shuttle ride from Wickenberg to Phoenix thrown in, it's fun to mix things up, hey?) If all goes well, I should only have about 3 or 4 more days to go before I hit New Mexico. In spite of the flats, and the heat I'm still having fun, meeting great people, learning about the land and myself. I'm ready for what tomorrow may bring.
Monday, June 2, 2008
I Must Get Out of Phoenix!
My shuttle driver from Wickenberg to Phoenix was a kick, a Vietnam veteran named Bill. He was a Native American whose mother was a full blooded Cherokee (I'm pretty sure that's true, though he was telling some tales, like he killed 50 rattlesnakes a year in his backyard, he had owned 32 businesses in his lifetime, etc. I kept thinking of him as Pecos.) He had some other interesting things to say that also seemed true enough: over half the state's population lives in the greater Phoenix area; the deserts on the edges house the largest crystal meth production in the country (lots of shifty looking characters standing on street corners casting sidelong glances at everyone and anything that moved); Phoenix has been hurt by the fall of the housing market, as housing construction accounts for 25% of the local economy. Interestingly, Bill is a motel contractor/caretaker when he's not driving his shuttle, and in the fall he's going to be working in San Francisco at the Great Highway Inn (I think that's the name), just a few blocks from where I used to live. The world is a small place. Bill and I made it to Phoenix without incident. It was a great ride, watching the desert fly by in air conditioned comfort, and what with all of Bill's tales it went by quickly. I thanked Bill and told him if I was ever in Wickenberg or Phoenix (or San Francisco, come to think of it) again I'd give him a call.
I didn't like the looks of Phoenix; dirty, smoggy, hot, concrete check cashing pay day loans get money fast! I just wanted to get my bike taken care of and then get out of dodge fast. The counter people at Best Western found me a bike shop and a cab to take me there, as it was 100 degrees at 11:00 a.m. and I was walking nowhere. The bike shop was being staffed by a great young guy, a nineteen year old Mexican immigrant who was quick to say "no, but I'm a citizen!" when I asked him if he was born here. I was just curious, but I understood why he got a little defensive. Immigration and illegals, as the locals seem to call them, are blamed by some for the loss of local jobs, crime, drugs, etc.
He was very interested in my trip and my bike (he'd never seen a 27 speed before), and I'm happy to report he struggled to get my tire off the rim too (it's not just me, really.) He got it eventually though, and replaced the regular tube I had in the front tire with a "slime" tube (if the tube gets punctured it slimes itself, basically an automatic patch - nice!) He gave me a tune-up too, since I've ridden a thousand miles I thought it was time - brake check, spoke alignment, lube job. I gave him my blog address and thanked him, then went back to the motel. Went out for dinner at a buffet place (food isn't great but it's cheap and all you can eat; I loaded up on spaghetti and veggies and bread) and then I went to a bookstore and bought 'The Yiddish Policeman's Union" by Michael Chabon. 411 pages and an interesting premise - Israel collapses in 1948 and the Jews take up residence in their own special district in Alaska. Should make an interesting road companion for awhile.
I didn't like the looks of Phoenix; dirty, smoggy, hot, concrete check cashing pay day loans get money fast! I just wanted to get my bike taken care of and then get out of dodge fast. The counter people at Best Western found me a bike shop and a cab to take me there, as it was 100 degrees at 11:00 a.m. and I was walking nowhere. The bike shop was being staffed by a great young guy, a nineteen year old Mexican immigrant who was quick to say "no, but I'm a citizen!" when I asked him if he was born here. I was just curious, but I understood why he got a little defensive. Immigration and illegals, as the locals seem to call them, are blamed by some for the loss of local jobs, crime, drugs, etc.
He was very interested in my trip and my bike (he'd never seen a 27 speed before), and I'm happy to report he struggled to get my tire off the rim too (it's not just me, really.) He got it eventually though, and replaced the regular tube I had in the front tire with a "slime" tube (if the tube gets punctured it slimes itself, basically an automatic patch - nice!) He gave me a tune-up too, since I've ridden a thousand miles I thought it was time - brake check, spoke alignment, lube job. I gave him my blog address and thanked him, then went back to the motel. Went out for dinner at a buffet place (food isn't great but it's cheap and all you can eat; I loaded up on spaghetti and veggies and bread) and then I went to a bookstore and bought 'The Yiddish Policeman's Union" by Michael Chabon. 411 pages and an interesting premise - Israel collapses in 1948 and the Jews take up residence in their own special district in Alaska. Should make an interesting road companion for awhile.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
I Must Get to Phoenix!
I was glad to be in Wickenberg, it's a small town, 6600 people, has a grocery store and a hardware store and restaurants and shops and cafes but no bike shop, which I needed: I snapped one of my plastic tire levers (which you use to get a tire and tube off the rim) while trying to change my tube, and since I'd only had two (you need at least two to get the tire off), I needed another one. I spent an hour or two trying to figure out where I might get one, and then someone suggested the Ace hardware in town. I oozed over to the store in the 110 degree heat and found that they are indeed the place with the helpful hardware staff. I was able to buy a bike tire repair kit that included four steel tire levers, and while I was telling my sad story of flat tires and broken levers to the counter person, she said "You should get _ to take care of it, he can change any tire." My bikes tires and tubes are wedged very tightly onto a very narrow rim, so trying to pry the edge of a flat tire over the rim is difficult, especially for yours truly with my limited (read almost no) experience. So when Ace man said "sure, bring it in, it's easy", I thought great. I went back to the motel of the day, grabbed the tire and some more water and headed back to easy street.
Boy was Ace man in for a surprise. He'd never changed a road bike tire before, and he struggled mightily. At first, he was afraid he was going to puncture the tire, but he really wanted to learn how change a road bike tube just in case he came across another one, so I told him what to do (slip a lever under the tire edge and slip it over the rim, then move down two spokes and repeat with another lever, and then either slip one side of the tire off or repeat the lever process once more and then slip off a side. Do not attempt while taking certain prescription medication or under the influence of alcohol.) I was too tired to try it myself anymore (always flats at the end of the biking day when I'm most tired; some sort of starnge Murphy's law in effect?) and glad someone else had the energy to deal with it. He got the tire off, replaced the tube and refitted the tire; he didn't have the right air nozzle fitting for my tube, so I thanked him and went back to my room to pump the tube up by hand.
But no, my pump wasn't working, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't operator error. I fit the pump to the nozzle, flipped up the release and pumped away for an hour to no avail. No air. @!*&* And then I cursed some more. I was sweating and cursing and gnashing my teeth but air would not take up residence in my sadly deflated strip of rubber.
There is a bus service that runs from Wickenberg to Phoenix, but it's not made for cargo, just people. I thought, "I could walk to Phoenix, um, no I couldn't." I called a shuttle service that makes the Phoenix run and asked them to pick me up at 9:30 the next morning in my disgrace, broken chariot and all. I love the desert I chanted as I walked to the local ice cream shop for a double scoop of cherry vanilla, thinking I'd better eat it inside or it would melt quicker than I can pop a tire tube.
Boy was Ace man in for a surprise. He'd never changed a road bike tire before, and he struggled mightily. At first, he was afraid he was going to puncture the tire, but he really wanted to learn how change a road bike tube just in case he came across another one, so I told him what to do (slip a lever under the tire edge and slip it over the rim, then move down two spokes and repeat with another lever, and then either slip one side of the tire off or repeat the lever process once more and then slip off a side. Do not attempt while taking certain prescription medication or under the influence of alcohol.) I was too tired to try it myself anymore (always flats at the end of the biking day when I'm most tired; some sort of starnge Murphy's law in effect?) and glad someone else had the energy to deal with it. He got the tire off, replaced the tube and refitted the tire; he didn't have the right air nozzle fitting for my tube, so I thanked him and went back to my room to pump the tube up by hand.
But no, my pump wasn't working, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't operator error. I fit the pump to the nozzle, flipped up the release and pumped away for an hour to no avail. No air. @!*&* And then I cursed some more. I was sweating and cursing and gnashing my teeth but air would not take up residence in my sadly deflated strip of rubber.
There is a bus service that runs from Wickenberg to Phoenix, but it's not made for cargo, just people. I thought, "I could walk to Phoenix, um, no I couldn't." I called a shuttle service that makes the Phoenix run and asked them to pick me up at 9:30 the next morning in my disgrace, broken chariot and all. I love the desert I chanted as I walked to the local ice cream shop for a double scoop of cherry vanilla, thinking I'd better eat it inside or it would melt quicker than I can pop a tire tube.
I Must Get to Wickenberg!
It's fair to say that I'm going a little stir crazy after a week of small desert towns and their little hole in the wall motels. The televisions get three stations (sometimes; in Bouse the motel cable was directly connected to the owner's television. Whenever he switched stations, so did I. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers to CSI; I turned the set off and paced back and forth some more.) I've finished my book, and bookstores (or books, really, other than the Holy Bible and the local phonebook) are about as rare as standing water in the desert plains. There do not seem to be any vegetables in the restaurants or stores out here, other than the potato (chips, fries), the iceberg lettuce salad and the cucumber (dilled, in jars on every store counter, next to the fresh! jerky.) The food is invariably fried or covered in gravy. Coffee most often resembles the desert after a rain storm; sludgy gritty blech. And my body was getting used to the 50 miles of biking a day; I've got a lot of pent of energy after riding only 20 to 30 miles a day and then sitting around in these isolation chambers. I'm slowly being driven nuts.
For instance, after breakfast at the only restaurant in Salome (which was very good, big platter of Texas sized French toast and a giant glass of milk) I spent three hours sitting in the backyard of the other motel in town, Scheffler's. It was a pleasant enough three hours; the Scheffler's were very into gardening and grass!? It was the first grass I'd seen since just before 29 Palms, amazingly vibrant green, green like peas fresh out of the pod, and coolish due to the shade from the three or four palms and the pine tree standing vigilantly over their oasis. I watched the birds that flocked to the lawn, chasing worms and bugs and each other through the branches of the pines and the giant palm leaves. I watched a spider eating the fly that got caught in it's web, just in front of my eyes (at first; I moved when I realized I could be a potential victim of web in the face.) I braved the heat and walked back and forth to the local store, about 100 feet down the road, for water. I played hide and seek with the housekeeper's pet Chihuahua puppy, with her pink painted nails and her rhinestone dog collar. I listened to some Mexicans playing their Sunday morning mariachi music while they drank beer and laughed and spoke to each other in the language I have not used since I ordered tacos in California. I took a nap. And then I still had to wait an hour before the owners came back from church to open the motel for the day. On the one hand, being away from the stress of the city is nice, on the other hand it would be nice not to feel like I'm one of the last survivors of some catastrophe that's wiped out almost all of civilization.
So I determined I would chance it the next day and ride to Wickenberg, 56.5 miles away, after spending quality time with my room's three station television watching an all day marathon of "Law and Order." I got dinner from the store (the restaurant closed at 4:00 p.m., Sunday isn't a big day for them, I guess); veggie pizza straight from the freezer to the pizza oven, eat it up yum. I turned in at ten to the pitch and roll of my angry stomach and woke up at 4:30 in the morning, then I took a shower, got my things together and was on the road at 5:15 a.m. It was already 70 degrees, but there was a nice morning breeze and 111 degrees seemed far away. I rode along at a good pace, and pedaling was easy, 1234 1234 1234 (that's me cranking along keeping some sort of cadence to roll along as smoothly as I can.) I passed the town of Wenden in half an hour, and was in the town of Aguilar by 8:00 a.m. I stopped at THE store (most of these towns only have one of anything, if they have it at all) to pick a half gallon of Gatorade and some extra water, no more dehydration for me, no siree. I've been measuring how well hydrated I am by how much more forearms sweat; if there isn't any water running down my arms, or at least beads of moisture while I grip the handlebars, I need more water - I have to stop quite a bit.
Newly supplied I was ready for the push to Wickenberg. I had been making good time all morning and thought I could make the last 25 miles in about 2 hours or so, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. is hot but bearable. Too much later and my head starts to ache and my blood feels like its boiling. About 5 miles outside of town, I ran into a crew retarring the opposite side of the road. There isn't much I've encountered that's worse than the smell and feel of molten tar wafting up from the road and completely enveloping me while trying to get away from the men spreading out the black mess onto the cracked road with shovels, while other men crush the mess over what used to be a mess. Unless it's trying to steer my bike around the residue flying through the air, landing all over the trailer and me and the bike, getting into my tires, sticking to the spokes. I could feel the crunch of individual pieces of rock under my tires, and one ping in particular felt like a tube popper.
Five miles outside of Wickenberg I realized my front tire looked a little flattish, so I stopped to check and sure enough it was. I picked up my bike and threw it into the canyon on the side of the road (just kidding, dream sequence - I just sort of sat there and thought oh well, three weeks, three flats - not what I'd hoped.) Thankfully the road into town was downhill, so I coasted/wobbled into town, glad I didn't have a flat in the middle of the desert.
For instance, after breakfast at the only restaurant in Salome (which was very good, big platter of Texas sized French toast and a giant glass of milk) I spent three hours sitting in the backyard of the other motel in town, Scheffler's. It was a pleasant enough three hours; the Scheffler's were very into gardening and grass!? It was the first grass I'd seen since just before 29 Palms, amazingly vibrant green, green like peas fresh out of the pod, and coolish due to the shade from the three or four palms and the pine tree standing vigilantly over their oasis. I watched the birds that flocked to the lawn, chasing worms and bugs and each other through the branches of the pines and the giant palm leaves. I watched a spider eating the fly that got caught in it's web, just in front of my eyes (at first; I moved when I realized I could be a potential victim of web in the face.) I braved the heat and walked back and forth to the local store, about 100 feet down the road, for water. I played hide and seek with the housekeeper's pet Chihuahua puppy, with her pink painted nails and her rhinestone dog collar. I listened to some Mexicans playing their Sunday morning mariachi music while they drank beer and laughed and spoke to each other in the language I have not used since I ordered tacos in California. I took a nap. And then I still had to wait an hour before the owners came back from church to open the motel for the day. On the one hand, being away from the stress of the city is nice, on the other hand it would be nice not to feel like I'm one of the last survivors of some catastrophe that's wiped out almost all of civilization.
So I determined I would chance it the next day and ride to Wickenberg, 56.5 miles away, after spending quality time with my room's three station television watching an all day marathon of "Law and Order." I got dinner from the store (the restaurant closed at 4:00 p.m., Sunday isn't a big day for them, I guess); veggie pizza straight from the freezer to the pizza oven, eat it up yum. I turned in at ten to the pitch and roll of my angry stomach and woke up at 4:30 in the morning, then I took a shower, got my things together and was on the road at 5:15 a.m. It was already 70 degrees, but there was a nice morning breeze and 111 degrees seemed far away. I rode along at a good pace, and pedaling was easy, 1234 1234 1234 (that's me cranking along keeping some sort of cadence to roll along as smoothly as I can.) I passed the town of Wenden in half an hour, and was in the town of Aguilar by 8:00 a.m. I stopped at THE store (most of these towns only have one of anything, if they have it at all) to pick a half gallon of Gatorade and some extra water, no more dehydration for me, no siree. I've been measuring how well hydrated I am by how much more forearms sweat; if there isn't any water running down my arms, or at least beads of moisture while I grip the handlebars, I need more water - I have to stop quite a bit.
Newly supplied I was ready for the push to Wickenberg. I had been making good time all morning and thought I could make the last 25 miles in about 2 hours or so, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. is hot but bearable. Too much later and my head starts to ache and my blood feels like its boiling. About 5 miles outside of town, I ran into a crew retarring the opposite side of the road. There isn't much I've encountered that's worse than the smell and feel of molten tar wafting up from the road and completely enveloping me while trying to get away from the men spreading out the black mess onto the cracked road with shovels, while other men crush the mess over what used to be a mess. Unless it's trying to steer my bike around the residue flying through the air, landing all over the trailer and me and the bike, getting into my tires, sticking to the spokes. I could feel the crunch of individual pieces of rock under my tires, and one ping in particular felt like a tube popper.
Five miles outside of Wickenberg I realized my front tire looked a little flattish, so I stopped to check and sure enough it was. I picked up my bike and threw it into the canyon on the side of the road (just kidding, dream sequence - I just sort of sat there and thought oh well, three weeks, three flats - not what I'd hoped.) Thankfully the road into town was downhill, so I coasted/wobbled into town, glad I didn't have a flat in the middle of the desert.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
You are now beyond Hope
Said the sign just outside the speck of Hope. I say speck because it doesn't rate as a dot on my map, so it's not really a town, more like an old fashioned trading post. A store, an R.V. park, a church (the church seems strange, but alright) and that's it. The clerk behind the counter tried to convince me to rent the store owner's r.v. instead of pushing on to Salome: "it's only 6 miles to Salome, but you have to go up a really big hill; "it's going to be 111 degrees today!", "I'll make you dinner!" She almost had me convinced, but I've learned quickly that desert life is difficult: jobs are scarce, towns are few and far in between, and the people seem to be very transitory. Other than actual business owners, it seems that people tend to pick up and go at will, looking for a way to make a dollar. I meet a store clerk yesterday who had only been on the job for a few months; she and her husband moved (they lived in a kind of trailer called a fifth wheel, which they could tow around with their truck) when the wanted, and were hoping to see more of the country that way. And now this clerk, who had just had a baby with her husband and only had the job for two months, was desperately trying to sell me on the store owner's r.v. Maybe he gave her some sort of commission. The clerk said he owned the store, and the r.v. park, and I guess there was actually a golf course too, which he also owned. He was literally the owner of Hope; I guess the clerk was hoping for her own little piece (I pushed on to Salome; the hill turned out to be nothing, and I was in town in no time.)
The clerk I met yesterday, Heather, said some interesting things about the people in Bouse, and the people of the west in general: they seem to a person to have some sort of bi-polar disorder. Friendly one minute, distant the next, as though they really needed someone to talk to, but then realize your a stranger and that they really don't like strangers. Sort of like the desert: it's great to see this wondrous new place for the first few hours of the day, but then you realize you're in an alien environment and wish it would disappear, or that you could be somewhere else.
The desert truly is beautiful in the morning (albeit 5:30 am); 70 degrees, red mesas just starting to reflect the sun, cacti reaching up with green arms to the blue sky, grasping at the moisture carried in the breeze. Lizards with their long tails scurrying away from the road as I ride by, and jackrabbits hopping into the brush as their giant radar dish ears pick up the tread of my tires smoothly passing over the crushed rock of the road. But a few hours after sunrise, nothing moves but the occasional mourning dove. Everything goes into hiding, including a solitary biker headed into an old adobe restaurant for breakfast and shelter from an angry yellow sun.
The clerk I met yesterday, Heather, said some interesting things about the people in Bouse, and the people of the west in general: they seem to a person to have some sort of bi-polar disorder. Friendly one minute, distant the next, as though they really needed someone to talk to, but then realize your a stranger and that they really don't like strangers. Sort of like the desert: it's great to see this wondrous new place for the first few hours of the day, but then you realize you're in an alien environment and wish it would disappear, or that you could be somewhere else.
The desert truly is beautiful in the morning (albeit 5:30 am); 70 degrees, red mesas just starting to reflect the sun, cacti reaching up with green arms to the blue sky, grasping at the moisture carried in the breeze. Lizards with their long tails scurrying away from the road as I ride by, and jackrabbits hopping into the brush as their giant radar dish ears pick up the tread of my tires smoothly passing over the crushed rock of the road. But a few hours after sunrise, nothing moves but the occasional mourning dove. Everything goes into hiding, including a solitary biker headed into an old adobe restaurant for breakfast and shelter from an angry yellow sun.
Record Heat Wave!
While I spent the day in Parker spacing out in my room, trying to return to some semblance of physical normalcy, I got some happy news from the Weather Channel: record breaking heat in western Arizona. I flipped channels until I found a local news station, and got the specifics - 106 degrees on Saturday, 111 degrees forecast for Sunday and Monday. I let that sink in for a second and then made a decision. I'm only going to ride around half the normal daily mileage (25-30 miles instead of 50), I'm going to ride early (5:30 am until it's too hot) and I'm taking a lot of water for that short trek (2 gallons minimum. I talked to the owner of the motel I stayed in last night and he mentioned that people are usually told to drink at least two gallons a day in this kind of heat, and that's just for normal activity. The news had cautioned people to stay inside, or if outside to stay in the shade. So I'm trying to take as few chances as possible while the desert furnace is blasting.
Had dinner last night at a place across the street, typical small town greasy spoon - I had the fried chicken dinner. I need to be careful in these little western towns - I'm burning a lot of calories every day but I'm eating too much meat I think, and every second item on the menu seems to be fried (no kidding, I saw a sign outside of 29 Palms that told me I could have fried Twinkies, yum.) I talked to my waitress about the impending heat wave, and she said she couldn't understand how people lived out here in the summer (she was from California, here for family issues or something.) I don't know how either, though air conditioning must have a lot to do with it, I think.
I stuck to my desert game plan and rode 27 miles from Parker to Bouse, a small small town about halfway between Parker and route 60. I'm at the only motel in town, the Ocotillo motel, next to the Ocotillo lounge; - a place time has forgotten, it looks like it was built in the 70's (1870's, that is.) I had to check in at the bar next door; I was surprised to find a group of older people sitting in a half circle in the bar having a morning pick me up. They asked how far I'd ridden, where I was from, and an older guy (the owner, it turned out) volunteered that he used to bike a lot. I told them about my misadventure of two days before, and the owner told me if I ever had cramps again I should take some Tums - he said that's what they used in the Tour de France if they had a case while riding. He gave me a couple of rolls; if I have the misfortune of another case of cramps in the future, I'll give them a try.
As my trip through the desert progresses, I feel like shelter has become the most important issue. I need fluids, and food, but without shelter of the air conditioned variety I would be doomed, I think. My room is crude - it has a bed, a t.v. with one channel and a night stand, but it has air conditioning and is therefore a palace. So I'm not really roughing it as I would have liked, but I can't really camp - being in a tent during this heat wave would be like living in a pizza oven, extra crispy crust please. I've been told that east of Phoenix is cooler; hopefully that's true.
Had dinner last night at a place across the street, typical small town greasy spoon - I had the fried chicken dinner. I need to be careful in these little western towns - I'm burning a lot of calories every day but I'm eating too much meat I think, and every second item on the menu seems to be fried (no kidding, I saw a sign outside of 29 Palms that told me I could have fried Twinkies, yum.) I talked to my waitress about the impending heat wave, and she said she couldn't understand how people lived out here in the summer (she was from California, here for family issues or something.) I don't know how either, though air conditioning must have a lot to do with it, I think.
I stuck to my desert game plan and rode 27 miles from Parker to Bouse, a small small town about halfway between Parker and route 60. I'm at the only motel in town, the Ocotillo motel, next to the Ocotillo lounge; - a place time has forgotten, it looks like it was built in the 70's (1870's, that is.) I had to check in at the bar next door; I was surprised to find a group of older people sitting in a half circle in the bar having a morning pick me up. They asked how far I'd ridden, where I was from, and an older guy (the owner, it turned out) volunteered that he used to bike a lot. I told them about my misadventure of two days before, and the owner told me if I ever had cramps again I should take some Tums - he said that's what they used in the Tour de France if they had a case while riding. He gave me a couple of rolls; if I have the misfortune of another case of cramps in the future, I'll give them a try.
As my trip through the desert progresses, I feel like shelter has become the most important issue. I need fluids, and food, but without shelter of the air conditioned variety I would be doomed, I think. My room is crude - it has a bed, a t.v. with one channel and a night stand, but it has air conditioning and is therefore a palace. So I'm not really roughing it as I would have liked, but I can't really camp - being in a tent during this heat wave would be like living in a pizza oven, extra crispy crust please. I've been told that east of Phoenix is cooler; hopefully that's true.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Goodbye Golden State
I drank as much water as I could stomach Thursday night; I was afraid I might just throw it back up - I was in rough shape. When I initially arrived in Vidal Junction, I realized I hadn't urinated in about seven hours because I didn't have any liquid my body could get rid of. When I finally went to the bathroom after downing those first quick drinks of water from the agricultural station, my urine was dark and looked my like sludge than liquid. I needed to keep drinking; I was cramping everywhere, legs, back, arms, even the sides of my chest. I moved as delicately as possible, gingerly setting up my grease streaked tent on a spot of hard scrabble about 100 feet from the heavily trafficked road. To say camping in Vidal Junction was roughing it was an understatement: the ground was littered with rocks that poked up everywhere through the floor of my tent, and I spent most of the night trying to move rocks out from under my back. The air in the tent was stuffy and smelled like Ben-Gay, it was seventy degrees overnight and very still, hardly a breeze to be found. I didn't really sleep, I just lay as still as possible to avoid another charley horse or aggravate one of many knots in my back, and drank little sips of water until the nausea finally subsided. Never again will I be in that situation, believe me.
I got up early on Friday morning, and made my way to the only restaurant in the Junction, and ate three eggs, two strips of bacon, three sausages, two pieces of toast, hash browns and a gigantic glass of milk, with water of course. Cheap greasy spoon food on a paper plate never tasted so good! I decided to bike just nineteen or twenty miles to the next town, Parker, AZ. It's the first town in Arizona across the border from California, the border being a fairly narrow river that apparently is a magnet for boating enthusiasts from miles around. I'd been certain I was delusional when I saw the first car pulling a boat east a few miles outside of 29 Palms the previous day; when 50 of them went by over the course of the day I thought I'd be dreaming of cartons of orange juice or bottles of Coke or something, not boats.
I pulled into a donut shop just across the bridge into Parker, and had a donut and coffee (yes, I was still hungry) while listening to the banter between the counter woman and an older guy that seemed to be a longtime customer; they had a familiar conversational style and were good naturedly ribbing each other about everything from the weather (It's not hot, you old duffer!) to employment status (When are you going to get a real job?) and talk turned to the river and all the boaters when I had a chance to ask in between jabs. Donut shop woman said that everyone launches their boats into the river, even though it's pencil thin and heavily trafficked. She went on to say that that stretch of water is known as the most dangerous waterway in the country, and it's not hard to see why: lots of people from a thousand zip codes around drinking while zipping around a congested waterway in the boats they rarely use. Add no real law enforcement and let the games begin. Hard to explain death by boating accident in the desert, I bet.
I asked them about a motel for the night, and they said I'd better try a place across the street - there was a motorcycle rally in town for the weekend, and most of the local motels were booked with motorcyclists (and of course the Hell's Angels were in town too!), but they thought I could get a room there. I crossed the street, hoping I wouldn't get run over by a gang of bikers or flattened by a someone pulling a boat to the river. Goodbye Golden State, hello wild west.
I got up early on Friday morning, and made my way to the only restaurant in the Junction, and ate three eggs, two strips of bacon, three sausages, two pieces of toast, hash browns and a gigantic glass of milk, with water of course. Cheap greasy spoon food on a paper plate never tasted so good! I decided to bike just nineteen or twenty miles to the next town, Parker, AZ. It's the first town in Arizona across the border from California, the border being a fairly narrow river that apparently is a magnet for boating enthusiasts from miles around. I'd been certain I was delusional when I saw the first car pulling a boat east a few miles outside of 29 Palms the previous day; when 50 of them went by over the course of the day I thought I'd be dreaming of cartons of orange juice or bottles of Coke or something, not boats.
I pulled into a donut shop just across the bridge into Parker, and had a donut and coffee (yes, I was still hungry) while listening to the banter between the counter woman and an older guy that seemed to be a longtime customer; they had a familiar conversational style and were good naturedly ribbing each other about everything from the weather (It's not hot, you old duffer!) to employment status (When are you going to get a real job?) and talk turned to the river and all the boaters when I had a chance to ask in between jabs. Donut shop woman said that everyone launches their boats into the river, even though it's pencil thin and heavily trafficked. She went on to say that that stretch of water is known as the most dangerous waterway in the country, and it's not hard to see why: lots of people from a thousand zip codes around drinking while zipping around a congested waterway in the boats they rarely use. Add no real law enforcement and let the games begin. Hard to explain death by boating accident in the desert, I bet.
I asked them about a motel for the night, and they said I'd better try a place across the street - there was a motorcycle rally in town for the weekend, and most of the local motels were booked with motorcyclists (and of course the Hell's Angels were in town too!), but they thought I could get a room there. I crossed the street, hoping I wouldn't get run over by a gang of bikers or flattened by a someone pulling a boat to the river. Goodbye Golden State, hello wild west.
Monday, May 19, 2008
No Services Next 100 miles
That was the sign that greeted me just outside of 29 Palms early Thursday morning. I had expected that there would be a service station about 55 miles from town, or at the least something in what I thought was the town of Rice, 77 miles away. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, and was on my way at 6:30 after buying two bananas, 2 power bars and a half gallon of Gatorade to supplement my gallon and a half of water at a store on the edge of town. I was jolted to attention by that sign, which seemed too cheerful with its blue background and bright white lettering - it would have been more appropriate to have a black background with a skull and crossbones, and a Warning! or something. I thought hard about what I was about to do; I'd never ridden 100 miles, and I knew I only had until about noon before the heat flared up. But I didn't think I really had a choice. No matter what route I took to Arizona I had to cross mostly barren desert. So I picked up the pace and sped out of 29 Palms.
The first five hours went by quickly, I'd biked fifty miles by 11:30 and was feeling pretty good. I had a banana and a power bar left, along with a quart of Gatorade and half my water. But it was getting hot, about 95 degrees, and the wind (oh the wind, my new travel partner) was starting to kick up, so I thought I'd pitch my tent on the side of the road, get out of the sun, take a nap.
What a disaster! The wind was blowing so hard it was all I could do to hold on to my tent, much less stake it out. The ground was the usual few inches of sand and then unyielding earth, hard as iron. I tried staking an edge of the tent sideways in the sand and covering it with small rocks; no good. The wind grabbed the tent and flung the stake through the air; it's still out there somewhere, trying to find a purchase in the ground. I would have looked for it, but I was too busy trying to make some sort of shelter with my tent fly, after stuffing my tent into the trailer. I tried to tie one corner of the fly to the bike and the other corner to the trailer; if I'd had a smaller tent pole it would've worked, instead the top of the fly just stuck to me - I felt like I was being suffocated rather than protected from the sun. Additionally, the fly had picked up most of the grease from my bike chain and was threatening to slather me with it. I gave the whole operation up, shoved the fly into the trailer alongside the tent and moved on.
It was getting hotter by the minute, and by 2:30 I was burning up. I checked the mini-thermometer I have hanging from my safety flag and it read 110 degrees. I still had thirty miles to go, and I was running out of water. All I could see was desert 360 degrees around; the shimmery heat rising from the black tar road, which had the consistency of a s'more, the blinding white of the glare from the sand.
I was still hoping I might encounter a service station or something in Rice, but that hoped was dashed by a good Samaritan who stopped to give me some cold water about 10 miles from where I thought Rice was. He told me Rice used to have an airstrip, and hence a gas station, but that the airstrip went out of business and the gas station soon followed suit. Rice is now just an outdated dot in my road atlas (believe me, they're going to hear about that one), though the ex-town does have one claim to fame - a shoe cemetery with hundreds of pairs of boots, flip-flops, sneakers, work shoes, heels, etc. put there by locals, I guess. In what was becoming my delirium, I snapped a few pictures - I couldn't pass up a good photo opportunity, danger of heat stroke or no.
I rode on past the cemetery, feeling more dehydrated, hungry, light-headed with every turn of the pedals. I constantly got of my bike to walk; my legs were feeling very rubbery and I was too weak to pedal for very long. I started to think I was in real trouble; my water was almost gone, and all I could think about was drinking: water, milk in a cold glass beaded with sweat, with ice cubes floating on the top. Then, as I was coming over a rise, I saw what looked like some sort of ranger station a few miles in the distance (it was the first structure that wasn't burned out or abandoned I'd seen in about 60 miles); it had that desert adobe construction, with what looked like a chimney in the rear of the building. I made my way to the dirt road leading up to the station, and in my growing desperation for water did something I wouldn't usually do: I left my bike and trailer on the side of the road and walked up the dirt path toward the station, which was about a half mile away. It was all I could do to walk in a straight line and hold onto my water bottle, but I was encouraged by a sign naming the land around the station as public park land, though it was used mainly for ATV riding. Unfortunately, the closer I got to the "ranger" station the less it looked like a public use building, it was too abandoned looking, too quiet, and had a barbed wire fence all around the outside. I discovered that it was indeed a station, but a meteorological station, and signs posted "no trespassing", "keep out", and my favorite "trespassing on these grounds can result in death", from electrocution or other mishap.
Deflated, I stumbled and swayed back down the path to my bike; some guy was looking everything over as I approached, probably thinking he'd found a good deal. I waved and started to jog down the road - I'd really be screwed with no transportation. I'm not sure if he saw me or not, but apparently he decided he didn't like what he saw after all, got in his truck and drove off. At that point I was waving for him to stop; I thought he might at least tell me how far it was to Vidal Junction (next town on the map after the ex-Rice), which I was thinking of as Vital Junction, i.e. it's vital that I get there or I'm going to die. Luckily right after he left, as I made it to my bike, I was able to flag down a couple who had been zipping along in their Mustang. They were able to give me a bottle of water, and told me that I could actually see Vidal Junction from where we were standing, about seven miles, they thought. Then a CHP officer pulled up behind us, the couple wished me luck, saying "help is here.) And were they right. I'd seen him pass me in the opposite direction an hour earlier; I'd started to wave him down but he looked intent on where he was going so I thought better of it. The officer told me Vidal Junction was indeed seven miles away, and that though there was a store and a restaurant they would probably be closed for the day by the time I got there, but that I could get all the water I needed at the agricultural station in town. He asked me if I was alright, if I thought I could make it, if I wanted a ride into town. I was feeling energized knowing the finish line was within my sights, and told him I'd be fine. He gave me a bottle of Gatorade, wished me luck and pulled away. I pulled into town an hour later, feeling pretty ragged but vital, alive.
It was the longest riding day I'm likely to have: twelve and a half hours, from 6:30 am to 7:00 pm. I drank two quarts of water in about 5 minutes at the agricultural station, and three more quarts throughout the night - I didn't want to drink too much because I thought it might make me sick. I pitched my tent about 50 feet from the road in what looked like a wash, a few trees around my tent, on the hard ground repeatedly ravaged by floods in the spring. I had cramps in my legs and back all night, and I spent a lot of time pushing out rocks from under my sleeping bag. But I made it through the loneliest stretch of desert I had to cross, thanks to friends I didn't know I had.
The first five hours went by quickly, I'd biked fifty miles by 11:30 and was feeling pretty good. I had a banana and a power bar left, along with a quart of Gatorade and half my water. But it was getting hot, about 95 degrees, and the wind (oh the wind, my new travel partner) was starting to kick up, so I thought I'd pitch my tent on the side of the road, get out of the sun, take a nap.
What a disaster! The wind was blowing so hard it was all I could do to hold on to my tent, much less stake it out. The ground was the usual few inches of sand and then unyielding earth, hard as iron. I tried staking an edge of the tent sideways in the sand and covering it with small rocks; no good. The wind grabbed the tent and flung the stake through the air; it's still out there somewhere, trying to find a purchase in the ground. I would have looked for it, but I was too busy trying to make some sort of shelter with my tent fly, after stuffing my tent into the trailer. I tried to tie one corner of the fly to the bike and the other corner to the trailer; if I'd had a smaller tent pole it would've worked, instead the top of the fly just stuck to me - I felt like I was being suffocated rather than protected from the sun. Additionally, the fly had picked up most of the grease from my bike chain and was threatening to slather me with it. I gave the whole operation up, shoved the fly into the trailer alongside the tent and moved on.
It was getting hotter by the minute, and by 2:30 I was burning up. I checked the mini-thermometer I have hanging from my safety flag and it read 110 degrees. I still had thirty miles to go, and I was running out of water. All I could see was desert 360 degrees around; the shimmery heat rising from the black tar road, which had the consistency of a s'more, the blinding white of the glare from the sand.
I was still hoping I might encounter a service station or something in Rice, but that hoped was dashed by a good Samaritan who stopped to give me some cold water about 10 miles from where I thought Rice was. He told me Rice used to have an airstrip, and hence a gas station, but that the airstrip went out of business and the gas station soon followed suit. Rice is now just an outdated dot in my road atlas (believe me, they're going to hear about that one), though the ex-town does have one claim to fame - a shoe cemetery with hundreds of pairs of boots, flip-flops, sneakers, work shoes, heels, etc. put there by locals, I guess. In what was becoming my delirium, I snapped a few pictures - I couldn't pass up a good photo opportunity, danger of heat stroke or no.
I rode on past the cemetery, feeling more dehydrated, hungry, light-headed with every turn of the pedals. I constantly got of my bike to walk; my legs were feeling very rubbery and I was too weak to pedal for very long. I started to think I was in real trouble; my water was almost gone, and all I could think about was drinking: water, milk in a cold glass beaded with sweat, with ice cubes floating on the top. Then, as I was coming over a rise, I saw what looked like some sort of ranger station a few miles in the distance (it was the first structure that wasn't burned out or abandoned I'd seen in about 60 miles); it had that desert adobe construction, with what looked like a chimney in the rear of the building. I made my way to the dirt road leading up to the station, and in my growing desperation for water did something I wouldn't usually do: I left my bike and trailer on the side of the road and walked up the dirt path toward the station, which was about a half mile away. It was all I could do to walk in a straight line and hold onto my water bottle, but I was encouraged by a sign naming the land around the station as public park land, though it was used mainly for ATV riding. Unfortunately, the closer I got to the "ranger" station the less it looked like a public use building, it was too abandoned looking, too quiet, and had a barbed wire fence all around the outside. I discovered that it was indeed a station, but a meteorological station, and signs posted "no trespassing", "keep out", and my favorite "trespassing on these grounds can result in death", from electrocution or other mishap.
Deflated, I stumbled and swayed back down the path to my bike; some guy was looking everything over as I approached, probably thinking he'd found a good deal. I waved and started to jog down the road - I'd really be screwed with no transportation. I'm not sure if he saw me or not, but apparently he decided he didn't like what he saw after all, got in his truck and drove off. At that point I was waving for him to stop; I thought he might at least tell me how far it was to Vidal Junction (next town on the map after the ex-Rice), which I was thinking of as Vital Junction, i.e. it's vital that I get there or I'm going to die. Luckily right after he left, as I made it to my bike, I was able to flag down a couple who had been zipping along in their Mustang. They were able to give me a bottle of water, and told me that I could actually see Vidal Junction from where we were standing, about seven miles, they thought. Then a CHP officer pulled up behind us, the couple wished me luck, saying "help is here.) And were they right. I'd seen him pass me in the opposite direction an hour earlier; I'd started to wave him down but he looked intent on where he was going so I thought better of it. The officer told me Vidal Junction was indeed seven miles away, and that though there was a store and a restaurant they would probably be closed for the day by the time I got there, but that I could get all the water I needed at the agricultural station in town. He asked me if I was alright, if I thought I could make it, if I wanted a ride into town. I was feeling energized knowing the finish line was within my sights, and told him I'd be fine. He gave me a bottle of Gatorade, wished me luck and pulled away. I pulled into town an hour later, feeling pretty ragged but vital, alive.
It was the longest riding day I'm likely to have: twelve and a half hours, from 6:30 am to 7:00 pm. I drank two quarts of water in about 5 minutes at the agricultural station, and three more quarts throughout the night - I didn't want to drink too much because I thought it might make me sick. I pitched my tent about 50 feet from the road in what looked like a wash, a few trees around my tent, on the hard ground repeatedly ravaged by floods in the spring. I had cramps in my legs and back all night, and I spent a lot of time pushing out rocks from under my sleeping bag. But I made it through the loneliest stretch of desert I had to cross, thanks to friends I didn't know I had.
29 Palms
Made it a short day today, 28 miles from Black Rock to 29 Palms. I have to cross about 80 miles of desert tomorrow to get close to the next town, and I think there may be only one service station in between. I wanted to rest up today, make sure I drink lots of water, eat three square meals, update the blog - and unfortunately stay in another hotel; there's a campground outside of town, but it would add and extra ten miles in the morning and I think I have enough as it as so no deal, I'll have to camp tomorrow anyway so I might as well.
Watched John Edwards endorsement of Obama, and I wonder how there could ever be "one America." Being on the road for a few weeks, I've already seen the varied landscape and people of California, and the difference is overwhelming. San Franciscans are generally laid back, liberal, wealthy; while people living in the desert are harder, edgier, conservative, just trying to get by. I don't remember if I've ever seen so many houses with giant fences/gates around them, along with the big menacing dogs waiting to pounce on anyone approaching their little kingdoms - distrust of outsiders seems to be the rule. I flipped through the channels and came across a conservative talking head chatting with Ann Coulter about how McCain is going to lose the election because he's a "liberal" Republican, talking about the environment too much. Talking head (Glenn Beck?) goes on to say Americans are a common sense people, not a political people. I hope he's right about that, and that common sense people don't think the environment is a "liberal" issue. How do these people get television shows?
Watched John Edwards endorsement of Obama, and I wonder how there could ever be "one America." Being on the road for a few weeks, I've already seen the varied landscape and people of California, and the difference is overwhelming. San Franciscans are generally laid back, liberal, wealthy; while people living in the desert are harder, edgier, conservative, just trying to get by. I don't remember if I've ever seen so many houses with giant fences/gates around them, along with the big menacing dogs waiting to pounce on anyone approaching their little kingdoms - distrust of outsiders seems to be the rule. I flipped through the channels and came across a conservative talking head chatting with Ann Coulter about how McCain is going to lose the election because he's a "liberal" Republican, talking about the environment too much. Talking head (Glenn Beck?) goes on to say Americans are a common sense people, not a political people. I hope he's right about that, and that common sense people don't think the environment is a "liberal" issue. How do these people get television shows?
Friday, May 16, 2008
Scoured
I never realized how windy the desert can be until today. I'm mean, I've watched western movies in which the wind is always yowling, but I thought that was just for fun, a stylistic decision. It isn't. The wind was in my face pushing me backward, blowing at me from both sides trying to knock me over, and occasionally blissfully pushing me forward as it blew down from the mountains from the south and northwest. Thankfully it wasn't blowing all day, but it blew long enough for me to have sand everywhere: up my nose, in my eyes and ears, in my hair, my shoes, my shorts, my shirt: you name it, the sand was there. On the bright side, I got a free facial scrub and my bike trailer, which was looking a little ragged, was also scrubbed almost completely clean.
I'm really in the desert now - I rode one stretch that was easily 40 miles long with nothing but sand, yucca trees and the distant mountains, with no stores, no gas stations - a few houses scattered far from the road, close to the mountains. A little scary, though there was a steady stream of traffic in both directions. It was 90 degrees for the better part of the hours between 11am and 3pm, so I'm glad I'm doing this now.
I had what I thought was a lot to drink today, probably about a gallon of water and a gatorade or two, but my throat still felt like hamburger in the middle of the day and my lips got pretty chapped up. I think I probably lost about a pound today, just from sweating and not wanting to eat much - I really have a hard time eating when it's hot - had a half a burrito left over from the night before and an orange for breakfast, a banana and a Snickers bar on the road, and a burrito from Taco Bell for dinner. I'm glad I like Mexican food, I can tell you that. I'm trying to mix it up - tried beef tongue last night for the first time but couldn't really deal with the taste; it had that bitter organ meat taste so I stuck with chorizo.
Camping out tonight in Black Rock Canyon Campground, a few miles south of Yucca Valley. Not very many campers, but still a lively place full of quail and jackrabbits and who knows what else. Older guy came over to my site just before I pitched my tent to let me know a black bear had been sighted not far from camp, but thankfully I never saw it. And he told me he was keeping an eye out for a great horned owl he'd seen the last time he was at his site; I saw it just before dark. I could see its silhouette against the twilight sky as it sat perched in a tree looking over the older guy's RV. I'm guessing the owl knew all about the jackrabbits.
I'm really in the desert now - I rode one stretch that was easily 40 miles long with nothing but sand, yucca trees and the distant mountains, with no stores, no gas stations - a few houses scattered far from the road, close to the mountains. A little scary, though there was a steady stream of traffic in both directions. It was 90 degrees for the better part of the hours between 11am and 3pm, so I'm glad I'm doing this now.
I had what I thought was a lot to drink today, probably about a gallon of water and a gatorade or two, but my throat still felt like hamburger in the middle of the day and my lips got pretty chapped up. I think I probably lost about a pound today, just from sweating and not wanting to eat much - I really have a hard time eating when it's hot - had a half a burrito left over from the night before and an orange for breakfast, a banana and a Snickers bar on the road, and a burrito from Taco Bell for dinner. I'm glad I like Mexican food, I can tell you that. I'm trying to mix it up - tried beef tongue last night for the first time but couldn't really deal with the taste; it had that bitter organ meat taste so I stuck with chorizo.
Camping out tonight in Black Rock Canyon Campground, a few miles south of Yucca Valley. Not very many campers, but still a lively place full of quail and jackrabbits and who knows what else. Older guy came over to my site just before I pitched my tent to let me know a black bear had been sighted not far from camp, but thankfully I never saw it. And he told me he was keeping an eye out for a great horned owl he'd seen the last time he was at his site; I saw it just before dark. I could see its silhouette against the twilight sky as it sat perched in a tree looking over the older guy's RV. I'm guessing the owl knew all about the jackrabbits.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Easy Rider; Fast Times in Victorville
I rode out of Palmdale around 11:00 Monday morning, after stopping at Boodha's Bike shop to get my rear tube changed. I opted for a heavy duty tube; after the shop owner and I looked at the lighter weight punctured tube, we deduced that going over some tough bumps in the road on the way into town had caused my spokes to punch through. I can't have a flat every week, and I'm bound to have lots of rough road, so heavy duty tube it is. And now I can confidently say I can change the tubes myself, so I have the regular tube as a back-up and I'm ready to deal with another flat if I must.
The road from Palmdale to Victorville was ridiculously easy, I covered 45 miles in just three hours (that's easy for me pulling a trailer, trust me) - the road was either flat or downhill all the way. Now I'm really in the desert; nothing but sand, cactus, yucca tress, more cactus and desert palms all the way. The high desert, apparently. I took a picture of the city limit sign for the town of Pearblossom - over 3,000 feet high, with what look to be snow-covered mountains in the distance (or maybe it's just salt? or whitish looking sand?) I stopped over for lunch in Victorville, and while I ate my sandwich I contemplated the mystery of nails in the road.
For the entirety of my trip, I've had to contend with dozens and dozens of nails, of all shapes and sizes - long, short, thick, thin, rusty brown, shiny new steel, bent, straight. Where the hell do they come from? The nail has not had any practical use in the automotive industry since the horse and buggy, right? Are houses along the road spontaneously ejecting nails from their boards into the streets in an attempt thwart the traffic running in front of them? Is some demented Johnny Appleseed flinging nails onto the highways and byways of America, looking not to plant trees but instead create a garden of shredded rubber and scrap metal in the asphalt fields of the country? I don't know, but I'll keep my eye out for the anti-Johnny. Pinched tubes are bad enough, nails are another thing altogether Johnny.
I stopped for the night in the curiously named Apple Valley, in another motel. No way I'm pitching a tent on the side of the road in these towns - I'm not sure I'd wake up with the clothes on my back, much less my bike and all my gear. And why Apple Valley; is there such a thing as a cactus apple? I've heard of a cactus pear. Maybe Apple Valley is just the locals way of looking at the bright side of life (or maybe this is the birthplace of the anti-Johnny, hmm.) If there's an apple tree within a hundred miles of here I'll eat my inner tube.
Last word about Victorville - had a fun time at the Ramada Inn Monday night with the front desk clerk and her boyfriend (no names to protect the not so innocent.) You see the nuttiest things at some of these small town hotel/motels; last night was the prize winner so far. A working girl from Reno, Nevada checked in; said she was "just visiting a friend", i.e. the local pimp. Go-go boots, skirt that just barely covered her unmentionables, belly hanging out of her blouse, Good Lord! The front desk clerk's boyfriend was having fun with her, asking if he could be her "friend", if he could have her number, etc. She claimed she wasn't attracted to him and that she never gave anyone her number. He wrote I love you on her door later with shaving cream, fun times in the hot town. And then there was the couple that had just gotten married, coming in straight from the reception to the hotel; he still had his tux on (all white, looked a little like a marshmallow), and she was still wearing her wedding gown, complete with veil. They had good luck messages written with shaving cream all over their truck (which inspired the love note to the working girl, I think.) They checked in and off they went; I'm not sure they even had any luggage. They made 16 people in a hotel that has 103 rooms; it was a little creepy that night, what with the wind constantly blowing the front doors open and whistling down the halls. A little like the Overlook Hotel in the Shining; I had the feeling if I turned around in the hall leading to my room I might see something I'd rather not (like a poltergeist, or the working girl, whose room was ten doors down.) Seeing her in the middle of the night would be a haunting experience, for sure.
The road from Palmdale to Victorville was ridiculously easy, I covered 45 miles in just three hours (that's easy for me pulling a trailer, trust me) - the road was either flat or downhill all the way. Now I'm really in the desert; nothing but sand, cactus, yucca tress, more cactus and desert palms all the way. The high desert, apparently. I took a picture of the city limit sign for the town of Pearblossom - over 3,000 feet high, with what look to be snow-covered mountains in the distance (or maybe it's just salt? or whitish looking sand?) I stopped over for lunch in Victorville, and while I ate my sandwich I contemplated the mystery of nails in the road.
For the entirety of my trip, I've had to contend with dozens and dozens of nails, of all shapes and sizes - long, short, thick, thin, rusty brown, shiny new steel, bent, straight. Where the hell do they come from? The nail has not had any practical use in the automotive industry since the horse and buggy, right? Are houses along the road spontaneously ejecting nails from their boards into the streets in an attempt thwart the traffic running in front of them? Is some demented Johnny Appleseed flinging nails onto the highways and byways of America, looking not to plant trees but instead create a garden of shredded rubber and scrap metal in the asphalt fields of the country? I don't know, but I'll keep my eye out for the anti-Johnny. Pinched tubes are bad enough, nails are another thing altogether Johnny.
I stopped for the night in the curiously named Apple Valley, in another motel. No way I'm pitching a tent on the side of the road in these towns - I'm not sure I'd wake up with the clothes on my back, much less my bike and all my gear. And why Apple Valley; is there such a thing as a cactus apple? I've heard of a cactus pear. Maybe Apple Valley is just the locals way of looking at the bright side of life (or maybe this is the birthplace of the anti-Johnny, hmm.) If there's an apple tree within a hundred miles of here I'll eat my inner tube.
Last word about Victorville - had a fun time at the Ramada Inn Monday night with the front desk clerk and her boyfriend (no names to protect the not so innocent.) You see the nuttiest things at some of these small town hotel/motels; last night was the prize winner so far. A working girl from Reno, Nevada checked in; said she was "just visiting a friend", i.e. the local pimp. Go-go boots, skirt that just barely covered her unmentionables, belly hanging out of her blouse, Good Lord! The front desk clerk's boyfriend was having fun with her, asking if he could be her "friend", if he could have her number, etc. She claimed she wasn't attracted to him and that she never gave anyone her number. He wrote I love you on her door later with shaving cream, fun times in the hot town. And then there was the couple that had just gotten married, coming in straight from the reception to the hotel; he still had his tux on (all white, looked a little like a marshmallow), and she was still wearing her wedding gown, complete with veil. They had good luck messages written with shaving cream all over their truck (which inspired the love note to the working girl, I think.) They checked in and off they went; I'm not sure they even had any luggage. They made 16 people in a hotel that has 103 rooms; it was a little creepy that night, what with the wind constantly blowing the front doors open and whistling down the halls. A little like the Overlook Hotel in the Shining; I had the feeling if I turned around in the hall leading to my room I might see something I'd rather not (like a poltergeist, or the working girl, whose room was ten doors down.) Seeing her in the middle of the night would be a haunting experience, for sure.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Palmdale
I'm writing this from the Ramada Inn in Palmdale; if you guessed that's because (a) I'm tired from riding another 70 miles yesterday, or (b) because there are no places to pitch a tent that aren't going to get me into trouble or (c) I blew another tire and am stuck here until the bicycle shop in town opens tomorrow so that I can get it changed and pick up some new tubes you would be right on any or all accounts. I blew a tire riding into town, close to the end of the day. There's no place to pitch a tent that's out of sight, it's Sunday today so most of the smaller shops are closed, so I'm stuck. I haven't mastered the art of the tire change yet, so I don't want to do it if I don't have to. And even if I could pull it off, which I probably could, I'd be out of tubes and that would be troublesome if I blew another one out in the middle of nowhere, which is where I'm headed. So an unscheduled stop in Palmdale.
Which isn't all bad really. I'm up to date on my blog entries after this one; I was able to do my laundry and give my body a rest. I'm still having trouble believing that I've ridden 600 miles in twelve days. Lots of those miles were spent trying to get directions or locate a road/route, and back and forth in Cambria and here trying to find the laundromat, a hotel, someplace to eat - but still, I'm in Palmdale, a day or two from Joshua Tree State Park. I had my doubts before, but I'm feeling now like I can make it to Florida and go coast to coast at least. Maine might be a stretch, but it's still early, so who knows?
And if I hadn't stopped here, I wouldn't have met the woman who was on her way to Iraq. She was in school (after four years of service, in what branch of the military I can't remember) when she got her recall notice; now instead of going to class she'll be serving as a medic somewhere in Iraq. We had breakfast together after talking in the hotel lobby; funny, we started talking because she was carrying a guitar case. I asked her if she was on a tour or something and that's when we started talking about what she was doing. She seemed a little nervous, as she'd never served overseas before, and well, she's going to IRAQ. Interesting to me, she said that when you join the service these days (was it always this way?) you sign up for eight years, four active and four years beyond which they can call you back. Serving in the U.S. military these days seems more like being shanghaied than anything, good god. I hope she never has to leave the base and that her year's service over there goes by quickly (no stoploss no stoploss.)
Vast change of geography/climate from the previous week. Palmdale is in the desert; a flat plain surrounded by mountains and hot hot, compared to what I've had - 80 degrees yesterday afternoon, and probably mid-60's last night. I drank most of my water and two or three Gatorades to get here, and I probably could have had more if I'd wanted it. Not that I'm complaining; I'd rather be warm than cold - my legs felt good even after climbing some decent sized hills to get here. A good introduction to the real desert just ahead (must drink water all the time, day and night, riding or not - 100 degrees is not far away.)
So, I'm glad for the break - I packed in the food and have been drinking a lot of water and now we're all up to date. I'm ready to get rolling tomorrow - the next batch of posts might be awhile - the desert awaits and there's not much out there.
Which isn't all bad really. I'm up to date on my blog entries after this one; I was able to do my laundry and give my body a rest. I'm still having trouble believing that I've ridden 600 miles in twelve days. Lots of those miles were spent trying to get directions or locate a road/route, and back and forth in Cambria and here trying to find the laundromat, a hotel, someplace to eat - but still, I'm in Palmdale, a day or two from Joshua Tree State Park. I had my doubts before, but I'm feeling now like I can make it to Florida and go coast to coast at least. Maine might be a stretch, but it's still early, so who knows?
And if I hadn't stopped here, I wouldn't have met the woman who was on her way to Iraq. She was in school (after four years of service, in what branch of the military I can't remember) when she got her recall notice; now instead of going to class she'll be serving as a medic somewhere in Iraq. We had breakfast together after talking in the hotel lobby; funny, we started talking because she was carrying a guitar case. I asked her if she was on a tour or something and that's when we started talking about what she was doing. She seemed a little nervous, as she'd never served overseas before, and well, she's going to IRAQ. Interesting to me, she said that when you join the service these days (was it always this way?) you sign up for eight years, four active and four years beyond which they can call you back. Serving in the U.S. military these days seems more like being shanghaied than anything, good god. I hope she never has to leave the base and that her year's service over there goes by quickly (no stoploss no stoploss.)
Vast change of geography/climate from the previous week. Palmdale is in the desert; a flat plain surrounded by mountains and hot hot, compared to what I've had - 80 degrees yesterday afternoon, and probably mid-60's last night. I drank most of my water and two or three Gatorades to get here, and I probably could have had more if I'd wanted it. Not that I'm complaining; I'd rather be warm than cold - my legs felt good even after climbing some decent sized hills to get here. A good introduction to the real desert just ahead (must drink water all the time, day and night, riding or not - 100 degrees is not far away.)
So, I'm glad for the break - I packed in the food and have been drinking a lot of water and now we're all up to date. I'm ready to get rolling tomorrow - the next batch of posts might be awhile - the desert awaits and there's not much out there.
Fear of Heights
Since I left San Francisco, I've had my eye on what started out as the hills and have since become the mountains to the east. I've been nervous about crossing over them to get to the desert, but today, tired of getting lost on alternate routes which avoid the freeway, I faced my fear and rode Route 150 from Carpinteria (30 feet above sea level) to Ojai (700+ feet above sea level.) The climb was steep but fairly gradual, and I made surprisingly good time for me at least; I made the climb to Ojai in about an hour and a half. I was treated to great views of the valley below, and took a picture of a lake halfway up the mountain, Lake Casitas. That might have been the last large body of water I see for a long time, like until the Gulf of Mexico potentially - yikes!
I had lunch in Ojai, and then started to climb out of Ojai valley and down the other side of the mountains. The climb out was a little steeper and took a little longer, but my reward for facing the mountain was a lightning fast 12 mile descent into Santa Paula, northeast of Ventura and directly south of Bakersfield. It took about two hours to get from Ojai to Santa Paula, so not bad for a climb over a pass I later heard the U.S. Olympic bike team used to use as a training run (though they probably went from Santa Paula west since it's a steeper climb; and probably went a whole lot faster.) But I conquered my fear of climbing the big hills, and equally important to me, I've made the turn east and am starting the second leg of my trip, which I think of as the road between here and Phoenix. Oh, and my legs don't feel broken, wohoo!
Stopped over in downtown Santa Paula for a coffee and a snack at the Santa Paula Coffee Company, a great little cafe (but not really a little space at all; I can't get over how much space - at a much better price - is available to people off the coast. It's been awhile since I've lived outside of The City, I guess.) I met a woman named Hillary there; she'd overheard me talking about my trip to the cafe owner, so we chatted for awhile about my trip and my blog, and her new job as an editor for a textbook publishing company - she was at the cafe to do some work on a textbook the company was hoping to publish. She said if I needed an editor I knew where to find one; if you were serious send me an-email!
She also pointed me to another great cafe in Fillmore called Coffeeboy. A bunch of Thomas Aquinas college alums were going to be there for an art showing, and she said I should check it out while I was in town (another hotel stay, argh!) Thomas Aquinas college is on Route 150 between Ojai and Santa Paula; I saw part of the campus as I was beginning my downhill run. The college is building a new chapel, and it is beautiful. The dome of the chapel looks like it's bursting through the trees toward the sky, and with the backdrop of the surrounding mountains it is both startling and breathtaking. I certainly didn't expect to see anything like out in what felt like nowhere; and it has a certain old country style that makes it look like it belongs in Italy or Spain. The alums are proud of it and I can see why. I'm like to visit someday to have a look at the finished product, though that would mean climbing that hill again. In a car next time.
I had lunch in Ojai, and then started to climb out of Ojai valley and down the other side of the mountains. The climb out was a little steeper and took a little longer, but my reward for facing the mountain was a lightning fast 12 mile descent into Santa Paula, northeast of Ventura and directly south of Bakersfield. It took about two hours to get from Ojai to Santa Paula, so not bad for a climb over a pass I later heard the U.S. Olympic bike team used to use as a training run (though they probably went from Santa Paula west since it's a steeper climb; and probably went a whole lot faster.) But I conquered my fear of climbing the big hills, and equally important to me, I've made the turn east and am starting the second leg of my trip, which I think of as the road between here and Phoenix. Oh, and my legs don't feel broken, wohoo!
Stopped over in downtown Santa Paula for a coffee and a snack at the Santa Paula Coffee Company, a great little cafe (but not really a little space at all; I can't get over how much space - at a much better price - is available to people off the coast. It's been awhile since I've lived outside of The City, I guess.) I met a woman named Hillary there; she'd overheard me talking about my trip to the cafe owner, so we chatted for awhile about my trip and my blog, and her new job as an editor for a textbook publishing company - she was at the cafe to do some work on a textbook the company was hoping to publish. She said if I needed an editor I knew where to find one; if you were serious send me an-email!
She also pointed me to another great cafe in Fillmore called Coffeeboy. A bunch of Thomas Aquinas college alums were going to be there for an art showing, and she said I should check it out while I was in town (another hotel stay, argh!) Thomas Aquinas college is on Route 150 between Ojai and Santa Paula; I saw part of the campus as I was beginning my downhill run. The college is building a new chapel, and it is beautiful. The dome of the chapel looks like it's bursting through the trees toward the sky, and with the backdrop of the surrounding mountains it is both startling and breathtaking. I certainly didn't expect to see anything like out in what felt like nowhere; and it has a certain old country style that makes it look like it belongs in Italy or Spain. The alums are proud of it and I can see why. I'm like to visit someday to have a look at the finished product, though that would mean climbing that hill again. In a car next time.
Riding to Paradise on the Road of Destruction
Why the road of destruction? Well, firstly the roadkill. Weird dead things: dead snakes, dead bats, dead toads (seemed like a witch lost part of her load or something.) The grand prize winner, however, were the two vultures sitting on top of the remains of a deer (I think). They really looked like a couple of picnickers sitting down to lunch, while I decided to postpone mine for a long time.
And then there was the walking kind-of-man. I had stopped on the road a few minutes before Highway 101; it was getting hot and I wanted to peel off some layers it got too hot. I had just looked down the road ( I could see for at least a mile) and saw nothing but the road and the field next to it. I took of my jacket and was about to change my shirt when I looked up again to see a figure shambling down the road toward me. The hair on the back of my neck rose to attention immediately ; I swear to god it looked like something out of the movies - arms hanging straight down, uneven pace and listing a little to the left, like a strong breeze might knock this person down. I decided I'd better change somewhere else, so I hopped on my bike and rode about a half mile past this person. I got a good look as I rode past: it was a man, and he was staring straight ahead with a dazed emotionless expression. I don't think he even knew I was there, if he did he showed no sign of it, didn't even look in my direction. I'm not sure he even knew where he was; he had nothing but the clothes he was wearing - ragged, filthy, mud stained pants and a shirt with similar mud stains and what I think were blood stains (that might be my imagination, I'm not sure and I wasn't sticking around to find out.) The walking wounded; as I changed my shirt I watched him stumble up the hill and out of sight, but certainly not out of mind. Where did he come from? Where was he going? I'll remember him for a long time.
Not long after that close encounter I rode onto Highway 101, all the way from Guadalupe to Santa Barbara. About 50 miles of heavy traffic, including way too many tractor trailers, and bugs by the hundreds (I was an agent of destruction myself; I must have killed dozens of critters with my helmet, and my forehead, and my eyes, and nose - I looked like a Jackson Pollack by the end of the day.) I had a feeling at some point that I shouldn't be on the freeway, but I never saw a sign indicating I should get off, and the Pacific Coast Bike Trail sign in Guadalupe indicated specifically that I should get on the freeway.
So I stayed on , mainly because the road was either all downhill or flat, and I was making excellent time - I rode 71 miles today, from San Luis Obispo to Carpenteria, 10 miles east of Santa Barbara. I got thrown off the freeway by the cops in Santa Barbara, so the last 10 -15 miles were on the Pacific Coast Trail (situated on local roads) from Santa Barbara to Carpinteria, but a very good riding day just the same.
Paradise for me is the finding myself at the end of an easy riding day at a nice (oceanview) cheap (5$) campground in a warm (at least 65 degrees) town. I had a beer and a giant carnitas burrito in a good little Mexican place just up the street from the campground, and wrote this blog. Life is good.
Though even paradise is but a small step from destruction. As I finished pitching my tent and setting up camp, I noticed a blue heron eyeballing something just in front of my tent. Then he started walking toward me, which is not normal behaviour, so I suspected he must be stalking a rodent - I've seen them do it in San Francisco, over by Chrissy Field. Sure enough, this one had spotted a mouse rooting around in the grass outside of the entrance to it's underground lodge. I grabbed my camera and had a seat (I admit, I felt a little like a Roman sitting in the Coliseum.) The heron slithered up to the hole (their long necks remind me of snake) and bam! - he plucked the mouse out of its hole, flopped it around, threw it on the ground and speared it through the head with it's beak. I took pictures of the end result - the mouse in the heron's beak and the aftermath - the mouse a lump in the heron's throat. Destruction. But this time I was much too hungry to postpone dinner. At least I don't have to catch mine.
And then there was the walking kind-of-man. I had stopped on the road a few minutes before Highway 101; it was getting hot and I wanted to peel off some layers it got too hot. I had just looked down the road ( I could see for at least a mile) and saw nothing but the road and the field next to it. I took of my jacket and was about to change my shirt when I looked up again to see a figure shambling down the road toward me. The hair on the back of my neck rose to attention immediately ; I swear to god it looked like something out of the movies - arms hanging straight down, uneven pace and listing a little to the left, like a strong breeze might knock this person down. I decided I'd better change somewhere else, so I hopped on my bike and rode about a half mile past this person. I got a good look as I rode past: it was a man, and he was staring straight ahead with a dazed emotionless expression. I don't think he even knew I was there, if he did he showed no sign of it, didn't even look in my direction. I'm not sure he even knew where he was; he had nothing but the clothes he was wearing - ragged, filthy, mud stained pants and a shirt with similar mud stains and what I think were blood stains (that might be my imagination, I'm not sure and I wasn't sticking around to find out.) The walking wounded; as I changed my shirt I watched him stumble up the hill and out of sight, but certainly not out of mind. Where did he come from? Where was he going? I'll remember him for a long time.
Not long after that close encounter I rode onto Highway 101, all the way from Guadalupe to Santa Barbara. About 50 miles of heavy traffic, including way too many tractor trailers, and bugs by the hundreds (I was an agent of destruction myself; I must have killed dozens of critters with my helmet, and my forehead, and my eyes, and nose - I looked like a Jackson Pollack by the end of the day.) I had a feeling at some point that I shouldn't be on the freeway, but I never saw a sign indicating I should get off, and the Pacific Coast Bike Trail sign in Guadalupe indicated specifically that I should get on the freeway.
So I stayed on , mainly because the road was either all downhill or flat, and I was making excellent time - I rode 71 miles today, from San Luis Obispo to Carpenteria, 10 miles east of Santa Barbara. I got thrown off the freeway by the cops in Santa Barbara, so the last 10 -15 miles were on the Pacific Coast Trail (situated on local roads) from Santa Barbara to Carpinteria, but a very good riding day just the same.
Paradise for me is the finding myself at the end of an easy riding day at a nice (oceanview) cheap (5$) campground in a warm (at least 65 degrees) town. I had a beer and a giant carnitas burrito in a good little Mexican place just up the street from the campground, and wrote this blog. Life is good.
Though even paradise is but a small step from destruction. As I finished pitching my tent and setting up camp, I noticed a blue heron eyeballing something just in front of my tent. Then he started walking toward me, which is not normal behaviour, so I suspected he must be stalking a rodent - I've seen them do it in San Francisco, over by Chrissy Field. Sure enough, this one had spotted a mouse rooting around in the grass outside of the entrance to it's underground lodge. I grabbed my camera and had a seat (I admit, I felt a little like a Roman sitting in the Coliseum.) The heron slithered up to the hole (their long necks remind me of snake) and bam! - he plucked the mouse out of its hole, flopped it around, threw it on the ground and speared it through the head with it's beak. I took pictures of the end result - the mouse in the heron's beak and the aftermath - the mouse a lump in the heron's throat. Destruction. But this time I was much too hungry to postpone dinner. At least I don't have to catch mine.
Eight Days a Week
I forgot to mention that I had my first flat not long after pulling into San Luis Obispo; rather than trying to change the tube out myself (it blew out at the very end of the day and as is usual at the end of the day, I was pretty tired) I took it to a bike shop someone recommended, Art's Cycle. They changed out the tube, lubed up my chain and cleaned a week's worth of grime off the frame in no time, for seven dollars. Beat doing it myself on the road.
I think overall the first week and a day have gone pretty well. My legs are sore at the end of the day lately, but not so sore that I can't get up and do it again the next day. When I left San Francisco I was thinking I needed to ride about 50 miles a day to make any progress, and after eight days I've ridden 393.7 miles, an average of 49.3 miles a day. Other than my flat tire yesterday, and that nasty hill outside of Big Sur, I haven't had any problems really, so things are good.
Some highlights from the last few days I might not have mentioned: the scrub jay that stole part of my sandwich while I was setting up my tent at Big Sur, and the ground squirrel that tried to steal my banana the very next day, at Limekiln. I had to give him a piece because he managed to bite into the very top of it. A rock as big as my head tumbling down a cliff and falling about 20 feet away from me on the opposite side of the road, between Limekiln and San Simeon. The pack of coyotes that woke me up at 2:30 in the morning, in San Simeon State Park - they were yapping and howling and running around for half and hour before they finally moved on. The girl who gave me a big red juicy tomato at some roadside produce stand yesterday, and the man selling cherries from the back of his pickup truck at a lonely four corners outside of Orcott. He was selling boxes of cherries for seven dollars but agreed to sell me a little bag for a dollar; the boxes were labelled "for Japan", but that apparently wasn't meant to be. I know mine never made it past his cherry stand.
I think overall the first week and a day have gone pretty well. My legs are sore at the end of the day lately, but not so sore that I can't get up and do it again the next day. When I left San Francisco I was thinking I needed to ride about 50 miles a day to make any progress, and after eight days I've ridden 393.7 miles, an average of 49.3 miles a day. Other than my flat tire yesterday, and that nasty hill outside of Big Sur, I haven't had any problems really, so things are good.
Some highlights from the last few days I might not have mentioned: the scrub jay that stole part of my sandwich while I was setting up my tent at Big Sur, and the ground squirrel that tried to steal my banana the very next day, at Limekiln. I had to give him a piece because he managed to bite into the very top of it. A rock as big as my head tumbling down a cliff and falling about 20 feet away from me on the opposite side of the road, between Limekiln and San Simeon. The pack of coyotes that woke me up at 2:30 in the morning, in San Simeon State Park - they were yapping and howling and running around for half and hour before they finally moved on. The girl who gave me a big red juicy tomato at some roadside produce stand yesterday, and the man selling cherries from the back of his pickup truck at a lonely four corners outside of Orcott. He was selling boxes of cherries for seven dollars but agreed to sell me a little bag for a dollar; the boxes were labelled "for Japan", but that apparently wasn't meant to be. I know mine never made it past his cherry stand.
Flooding in Cambria
Got a late start today; I stopped over in the town of Cambria to do my laundry, and to let some of my things dry out. I didn't seal my Camelback tightly enough after filling it this morning, and since it's on top of most everything else in my trailer, I had a miniature flood zone on my hands. Thankfully my camera was to the side and missed the wrath of the water pulsing out of the Camelback, but not much else did. Got me thinking about what I'm going to have to do to protect everything once I hit the rain zones (everywhere from east Texas on, I'm thinking) at least, so there's a silver lining in every cloud ha ha. Cambria is one of those quiet little villages that pop up sporadically on the California coast; the population is a mix of older folks/retirees enjoying their golden years and the working class, amde up mostly of Latinos I think. Littered with galleries and shops and expensive little restaurants and coffee shops, alongside taquerias that serve cheap, good authentic Mexican food, thrift shops and laundromats like the one I was in this Monday morning, superbusy at 9:00 am with families and workers and me, with all my wet things spread across a folding table, hoping everything would dry out in a few hours. Most of it did, thankfully.
Had to stay in a motel again; no campgrounds close, and I was too tired to try to find a place to pitch a tent. Had trouble sleeping last night - roughing it is admittedly tough on my back, and it's hard for the body (or the one I've got, anyway) to heal without a good night's sleep. Though I'd keep doing it if I could find a place to pitch a tent that was right off the road and offered some shelter from the wind. I thought the temperature might rise as I got further south, but it has been San Francisco cold at night all the way down the coast, in the low 40's. I've got what amounts to a summer weight tent and sleeping bag, so it's definitely more than a little chilly overnight. I'm looking forward to turning east and inland, into some warmer weather and a different landscape. After talking to the owner of the "famous" Cambria bike shop, I'm going to ride south to Ventura, then I'll turn east onto Route 126. Hopefully I'll be making the turn in about two or three days.
Had to stay in a motel again; no campgrounds close, and I was too tired to try to find a place to pitch a tent. Had trouble sleeping last night - roughing it is admittedly tough on my back, and it's hard for the body (or the one I've got, anyway) to heal without a good night's sleep. Though I'd keep doing it if I could find a place to pitch a tent that was right off the road and offered some shelter from the wind. I thought the temperature might rise as I got further south, but it has been San Francisco cold at night all the way down the coast, in the low 40's. I've got what amounts to a summer weight tent and sleeping bag, so it's definitely more than a little chilly overnight. I'm looking forward to turning east and inland, into some warmer weather and a different landscape. After talking to the owner of the "famous" Cambria bike shop, I'm going to ride south to Ventura, then I'll turn east onto Route 126. Hopefully I'll be making the turn in about two or three days.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Shut Down; Started Up Again
I was attempting to ride from Big Sur to San Simeon today but I didn't even come close. I had to climb a hill for what I think was about 5 miles first thing this morning; it was cold & I didn't really have any time to warm my legs up beforehand. The result - my legs were wrecked (and still are, a bit) for the rest of the day. I ended up stopping for the night at Limekiln State Park, only 28 miles from Big Sur. The whole stretch from Big Sur to Limekiln was very hilly, though I think I would've been fine if not for that first bear of a hill. I bought some Bengay and put it on my legs until it looked like that paste everyone uses in kindergarten for art projects - you know the stuff, right? Has the consistency of cement and sticks to everything and anything; that's how much of that crap I had on my legs, really. I was walking sort of hunched over like a chimpanzee; at one point the space between my feet and my hips felt like two rubber bands unable to support a paper clip, much less a person.
Growing pains, I guess. The next day my legs started to hurt again after a few hours of riding but I was able to bike from Limekiln to San Simeon State Park. It was hilly for the first 20 or 30 miles but once I made it to Hearst Castle (Xanadu in Citizen Kane) the road was really very flat, with some nice stretches of beach, occupied permanently this time of year by hundreds of sea lions. I pitched my tent in the park next to two older couples, all retirees; the couple on the left from Vancouver, looking to escape from an unusually cold spring, and the couple on the right friends of the camp hosts, who were also there, hanging out in their R.V. I've seen a lot of smaller rental campers on the road (1-800-See-America!) , but not many people driving around in monster R.V.'s like theirs - 70 gallon gas tanks! They said they don't really take long trips anymore but stick closer to home - not hard to see why on $4+ for a gallon of gas. They were very nice, inviting me in for a glass of wine and dinner while we mulled over my road atlas trying to figure out a good route east, trying to avoid as many mountains as possible. I had a glass of wine with everyone but passed on dinner, as I had already made myself a lovely reconstituted freeze dried spinach omelet - disgusting. No more of that crap for me, thanks.
Before they left in the morning, they stopped by my tent site as I was packing up and brought me breakfast - coffee and coffeecake. Nothing could have been better on a frosty morning on an empty stomach - thanks guys.
Growing pains, I guess. The next day my legs started to hurt again after a few hours of riding but I was able to bike from Limekiln to San Simeon State Park. It was hilly for the first 20 or 30 miles but once I made it to Hearst Castle (Xanadu in Citizen Kane) the road was really very flat, with some nice stretches of beach, occupied permanently this time of year by hundreds of sea lions. I pitched my tent in the park next to two older couples, all retirees; the couple on the left from Vancouver, looking to escape from an unusually cold spring, and the couple on the right friends of the camp hosts, who were also there, hanging out in their R.V. I've seen a lot of smaller rental campers on the road (1-800-See-America!) , but not many people driving around in monster R.V.'s like theirs - 70 gallon gas tanks! They said they don't really take long trips anymore but stick closer to home - not hard to see why on $4+ for a gallon of gas. They were very nice, inviting me in for a glass of wine and dinner while we mulled over my road atlas trying to figure out a good route east, trying to avoid as many mountains as possible. I had a glass of wine with everyone but passed on dinner, as I had already made myself a lovely reconstituted freeze dried spinach omelet - disgusting. No more of that crap for me, thanks.
Before they left in the morning, they stopped by my tent site as I was packing up and brought me breakfast - coffee and coffeecake. Nothing could have been better on a frosty morning on an empty stomach - thanks guys.
Big Sur
Great ride today, from Seaside to Big Sur. Most of the time I had panoramic ocean views, windswept hills looking out over the sea, long stretches of open road without a car in sight. I opted to take a route called "17 Mile Drive" from Monterey to Carmel; what a change from yesterday! I went from fields of crops and simple farm worker homes to immaculately trimmed golf courses (including Pebble Beach) and what seemed like a dozen mansions an acre, all right on the edge of their respective courses of course.
There were a fair number of cars between Monterey and Carmel, but they were mostly easygoing day trippers thankfully - the road was pretty narrow for some stretches, but I was never very nervous because everyone was relaxed and gave me a wide berth. The only trouble I had today was part of the road about ten miles north of Big Sur, apparently known as "Hurricane Gulch" by the locals. I was riding down a sharply steep hill at about 30 mph when I was buffeted by a fearsome wind blowing in from the ocean side to my right; I felt like it blew me over onto my left side at about a 45 degree tilt. I righted myself fairly quickly but for a second I thought I was going to get dumped onto the middle of the road. The fog in that stretch was coming in quickly as well, and I thought that I might get stuck in a white out and have to stop by the side of the road. But I pressed on and after a few miles the fog thinned out and the wind stopped blowing; by the time I got to Big Sur the was nothing but blue sky and sunshine.
I camped in the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park last night, which was full to my amazement - I thought it was still a little early in the season (they have 200 tent sites and they were all full.) Luckily they have tent sites reserved exclusively for bikers, and since I was the only bike camper I had my pick of about a half dozen spots - for just $3. Nice campground too - showers, a restaurant and a camp store; if only they were all this nice! Bumped into a family from Santa Maria on the way in, they wanted to know how I liked my bike, a Lemond I bought about six years ago. The wife had apparently just bought one of the last production models - apparently Trek was actually making the bikes for the Lemond brand, but they've recently ceased their partnership. I hope the stoppage isn't permanent - I love this bike. It's comfortable, easy to shift, has a great frame, takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. Don't stop making Lemonds!
I'm wrapping this entry up because it's getting too hard to see; I'm writing this by the light of my campfire and what's left of twilight. It's almost eight o'clock and it's still light out - the days are getting longer, yay!
There were a fair number of cars between Monterey and Carmel, but they were mostly easygoing day trippers thankfully - the road was pretty narrow for some stretches, but I was never very nervous because everyone was relaxed and gave me a wide berth. The only trouble I had today was part of the road about ten miles north of Big Sur, apparently known as "Hurricane Gulch" by the locals. I was riding down a sharply steep hill at about 30 mph when I was buffeted by a fearsome wind blowing in from the ocean side to my right; I felt like it blew me over onto my left side at about a 45 degree tilt. I righted myself fairly quickly but for a second I thought I was going to get dumped onto the middle of the road. The fog in that stretch was coming in quickly as well, and I thought that I might get stuck in a white out and have to stop by the side of the road. But I pressed on and after a few miles the fog thinned out and the wind stopped blowing; by the time I got to Big Sur the was nothing but blue sky and sunshine.
I camped in the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park last night, which was full to my amazement - I thought it was still a little early in the season (they have 200 tent sites and they were all full.) Luckily they have tent sites reserved exclusively for bikers, and since I was the only bike camper I had my pick of about a half dozen spots - for just $3. Nice campground too - showers, a restaurant and a camp store; if only they were all this nice! Bumped into a family from Santa Maria on the way in, they wanted to know how I liked my bike, a Lemond I bought about six years ago. The wife had apparently just bought one of the last production models - apparently Trek was actually making the bikes for the Lemond brand, but they've recently ceased their partnership. I hope the stoppage isn't permanent - I love this bike. It's comfortable, easy to shift, has a great frame, takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. Don't stop making Lemonds!
I'm wrapping this entry up because it's getting too hard to see; I'm writing this by the light of my campfire and what's left of twilight. It's almost eight o'clock and it's still light out - the days are getting longer, yay!
Santa Cruz to Seaside
An even easier ride today; I rode 47 miles from Santa Cruz to Seaside, just north of Monterey. Unfortunately, I had to check into a hotel again, because I wasn't close to a campsite and I'm worried about getting rounded up by the Highway Patrol for camping - there are signs posted prohibiting camping everywhere. I'm going to make tomorrow's ride short and camp close to Big Sur. There aren't any towns between Big Sur and San Simeon, according to my map, and I don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere without any access to water.
I've never been more aware of the importance of water than over the last few days. It's hot work riding in the middle of the day, and I drik a ton of water, and Gatorade when I can get it. Late in the day today I had just finished filling my bike water bottle from my Camelback, a bag designed to hold about 100 ounces of water, when I knocked my bottle over before I had a chance to put the cap on. The water poured over the pavement like a blood stain; luckily I was only a few miles from the nearest town, but I kept thinking if that had been the middle of the desert I'd be sorry. Must be more vigilante with my water!
I had a nice ride today; I spent all day on the Pacific Coast bike trail. I rode through farmland for most of the way, literally miles and miles of strawberry fields and artichoke fields and fields. And I saw the hundreds and hundreds of workers that pick all the crops in every single field, every single strawberry, every artichoke, every cabbage. It must be backbreaking work in the hot sun day in and day out; I don't know what California would do with them. I've never seen more boxes of picked strawberries in my life; thousands of them loaded on to trucks headed from the fields to market. And nothing smells better than a field of strawberries; it made me hungry so I stopped for lunch at a vending truck parked on the edge of one of the strawberry farms; the truck was there mainly for the field workers, I guess. I got to practice my Spanish, as the vendors didn't speak any English. I managed to order two carne asada tacos, so not bad.
I saw lots of wildlife today, most notably a colony of ground squirrels that had to have extended for miles, they kept running across my path - I was constantly braking to avoid hitting them. And I saw a lone coyote trotting along the railroad tracks parallel to the bike path I was on. He was about 50 feet to my right just ahead of me, heading for Seaside. Maybe he was headed into town for dinner too.
I've never been more aware of the importance of water than over the last few days. It's hot work riding in the middle of the day, and I drik a ton of water, and Gatorade when I can get it. Late in the day today I had just finished filling my bike water bottle from my Camelback, a bag designed to hold about 100 ounces of water, when I knocked my bottle over before I had a chance to put the cap on. The water poured over the pavement like a blood stain; luckily I was only a few miles from the nearest town, but I kept thinking if that had been the middle of the desert I'd be sorry. Must be more vigilante with my water!
I had a nice ride today; I spent all day on the Pacific Coast bike trail. I rode through farmland for most of the way, literally miles and miles of strawberry fields and artichoke fields and fields. And I saw the hundreds and hundreds of workers that pick all the crops in every single field, every single strawberry, every artichoke, every cabbage. It must be backbreaking work in the hot sun day in and day out; I don't know what California would do with them. I've never seen more boxes of picked strawberries in my life; thousands of them loaded on to trucks headed from the fields to market. And nothing smells better than a field of strawberries; it made me hungry so I stopped for lunch at a vending truck parked on the edge of one of the strawberry farms; the truck was there mainly for the field workers, I guess. I got to practice my Spanish, as the vendors didn't speak any English. I managed to order two carne asada tacos, so not bad.
I saw lots of wildlife today, most notably a colony of ground squirrels that had to have extended for miles, they kept running across my path - I was constantly braking to avoid hitting them. And I saw a lone coyote trotting along the railroad tracks parallel to the bike path I was on. He was about 50 feet to my right just ahead of me, heading for Seaside. Maybe he was headed into town for dinner too.
Where did the road go?
What a difference a day makes, in terms of riding at least. I made 56 miles today, from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz. the ride was five times easier; I had great views of the ocean, and lots of companions on the road (though admittedly all of the other bikers are headed north, uh oh.) I had a treat on the way: I was able to stop at a coastal strawberry farm and had strawberry lemonade, yum. And as a bonus, I made it to Santa Cruz relatively early in the afternoon.
However, today's self-induced frustration was not realizing that Highway 1 from Santa Cruz to Watsonville is designated a freeway; bicycles are therefore prohibited. I would have realized that if I'd paid better attention to my map; instead I ended up checking into a Ramada Inn, because I had no idea how to get around this latest roadblock, and though it was early I was a little too tired to try to figure it out myself. I ended up getting directions from a local biker downtown; he looked like he knew what he was doing and I was happy for the advice.
I can see why people generally bike across the middle of the country - there are only a few freeways to contend and it seems to be mostly a straight shot. Hopefully I'll develop a better sense of direction as this trip progresses, or at least meet people in the know before I'm lost.
However, today's self-induced frustration was not realizing that Highway 1 from Santa Cruz to Watsonville is designated a freeway; bicycles are therefore prohibited. I would have realized that if I'd paid better attention to my map; instead I ended up checking into a Ramada Inn, because I had no idea how to get around this latest roadblock, and though it was early I was a little too tired to try to figure it out myself. I ended up getting directions from a local biker downtown; he looked like he knew what he was doing and I was happy for the advice.
I can see why people generally bike across the middle of the country - there are only a few freeways to contend and it seems to be mostly a straight shot. Hopefully I'll develop a better sense of direction as this trip progresses, or at least meet people in the know before I'm lost.
The First Step
They say the first step is the hardest part of the journey, or something like that, right? Man, that's the truth.
I'd planned on taking Route 35, called Skyline Boulevard, just south of San Francisco down to Santa Cruz. What I didn't really pay attention to on my map was the notation "Santa Cruz Mountains." I've been on the route by car, but have never been over it on a bike. Ack! It just goes up and up and up for at least 15 or 20 miles at least. Not a good ride for the first day. I was making little progress, it was getting dark and cold and I wasn't close to anything.
So I made my first executive decision and scrapped the Route 35 plan. What had taken me a few hours to climb to about 15 minutes to descend. I decided to take the relative flatness of Route 1 and biked to Half Moon Bay. I camped out by the beach, and though the wind was blowing so hard I thought my tent might fly away, I had a pretty decent first night out.
So the first day was a baby step overall, I guess.
I'd planned on taking Route 35, called Skyline Boulevard, just south of San Francisco down to Santa Cruz. What I didn't really pay attention to on my map was the notation "Santa Cruz Mountains." I've been on the route by car, but have never been over it on a bike. Ack! It just goes up and up and up for at least 15 or 20 miles at least. Not a good ride for the first day. I was making little progress, it was getting dark and cold and I wasn't close to anything.
So I made my first executive decision and scrapped the Route 35 plan. What had taken me a few hours to climb to about 15 minutes to descend. I decided to take the relative flatness of Route 1 and biked to Half Moon Bay. I camped out by the beach, and though the wind was blowing so hard I thought my tent might fly away, I had a pretty decent first night out.
So the first day was a baby step overall, I guess.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ready!
I'm finally ready to go. I've managed to get rid of all of my stuff, the bike trailer is packed, the road awaits. I bought a new camera last week, so as soon as I figure out how to transfer my digital photos to my blog I'll post the first set of pictures from my trek. I've been really looking forward to the trip for the last week; I'm a bundle of nerves. I'm sleeping in fits and starts, I can't really concentrate on anything for more than a minute. I sort of feel like a racehorse ready to jump out of the gate, though of course I won't be biking that fast, most of the time. And I'm not a big fan of oats either.
I wrote most of this beforehand in a neighbor's apartment; I was writing and he was prepping wedding invitations for mailing (congratulations again guys!) while watching ESPN. It's amazing how out of touch I feel after a week without a television and just a few days without a computer. How did the Celtics-Hawks end up even at 2-2? How are Britney and Lindsay doing? How many times did they check in and out of rehab this week? How will I get through the coming weeks and months without this information? I may have to cancel this trip.
This will most likely be my last post for a couple of weeks; I'll be relying on public computers at the local library/internet cafe (such as the one I'm in right now) for the duration of my trip. But I'll be writing posts everyday as I make my way to Maine, so when I do manage to find a computer I'll type as many posts as possible. So, if don't see any posts for awhile and then suddenly see a dozen that's why. If you don't see any posts for a month, you'll know it's probably not because I'm lost in the desert, or sinking in quicksand, or because I've been kidnapped by a cult.
Probably not.
See you on the road.
I wrote most of this beforehand in a neighbor's apartment; I was writing and he was prepping wedding invitations for mailing (congratulations again guys!) while watching ESPN. It's amazing how out of touch I feel after a week without a television and just a few days without a computer. How did the Celtics-Hawks end up even at 2-2? How are Britney and Lindsay doing? How many times did they check in and out of rehab this week? How will I get through the coming weeks and months without this information? I may have to cancel this trip.
This will most likely be my last post for a couple of weeks; I'll be relying on public computers at the local library/internet cafe (such as the one I'm in right now) for the duration of my trip. But I'll be writing posts everyday as I make my way to Maine, so when I do manage to find a computer I'll type as many posts as possible. So, if don't see any posts for awhile and then suddenly see a dozen that's why. If you don't see any posts for a month, you'll know it's probably not because I'm lost in the desert, or sinking in quicksand, or because I've been kidnapped by a cult.
Probably not.
See you on the road.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Getting Ready Part Two
I'm still making gear changes; I bought a new tent from REI today. My other tent seemed too heavy and had too many parts - a bag for the tent, a bag for the poles and the fly, a bag for the stakes. I was thinking it would feel like I was pulling an apartment around before long, so I opted for a lightweight (5lbs.) two person dome tent - I'll still have room to move around in with the advantage of a shelter that's easy to put up alone, with fewer pieces to put together, and everything fits in one small bag, so I save room in my trailer as well. I feel better about the load I'll be pulling, so I ask you, what's $100 for a little piece of mind?
I also bought a different spade (for digging holes when mother nature calls, you know.) I bought the first one from an army surplus store - it was collapsible and so compact but made out of steel or kryptonite or some other ridiculously heavy substance and weighed 10 lbs. I don't know what I was thinking; now I have something closer to a garden trowel, plastic and maybe six ounces. Obviously, weight is becoming very important to me as I realize I'm going to be lugging this stuff around from coast to coast for months - hopefully a trowel is enough to get the job done.
My apartment is starting to remind me of the one I had in college - I now have a minimal amount of furniture (a couch, a desk, my computer, a television) and a fridge that's mostly empty (some eggs, orange juice, a half a stick of butter, and a beer.) I've been giving things away to friends/neighbors/Goodwill pretty steadily as I don't want to have to deal with trying to get rid of everything all at once, and it makes cleaning a lot easier. I'm also trying to get used to the idea living with the bare essentials - I got rid of my bed, and I'm sleeping on my living room floor in my sleeping bag; I'm down to the clothes I'm bringing on my trip, meaning I wear shorts and shortsleeved shirts just about everyday, which can get chilly this time of year, jacket or no. I've gotten rid of all my cookware, so if I need to cook I do it over the stove with my cook kit. It's like trying to acclimate to really colder water at the beach; if you go in a little at a time eventually your body gets used to it and you swim (or if you're at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, you get hypothermia, lose control of all your muscles and are swept out to sea - try it, you'll like it!) The water here is cold, really. Hopefully I'm following the former path, and not the latter.
I've been trying to learn some fundamental Spanish for the road - I realized I'll be in states with large Hispanic populations for about a third of my trip, so it might be helpful to know a few handy phrases: Quiero una cerveza (I want a beer), Su bragueta está desecha (en los pantalones) (Your fly is undone), Tengo una fractura complicada (I have a compound fracture). Seriously (I was serious about the beer), I'm trying to learn enough to order something from a taqueria or ask for directions in smaller towns where the bulk of the population might well be Spanish speaking. And not make a complete fool of myself in the process - I'll bring the guidebook I've been using along with me to try and avoid accidentally proposing to someones daughter. Comprende?
I also bought a different spade (for digging holes when mother nature calls, you know.) I bought the first one from an army surplus store - it was collapsible and so compact but made out of steel or kryptonite or some other ridiculously heavy substance and weighed 10 lbs. I don't know what I was thinking; now I have something closer to a garden trowel, plastic and maybe six ounces. Obviously, weight is becoming very important to me as I realize I'm going to be lugging this stuff around from coast to coast for months - hopefully a trowel is enough to get the job done.
My apartment is starting to remind me of the one I had in college - I now have a minimal amount of furniture (a couch, a desk, my computer, a television) and a fridge that's mostly empty (some eggs, orange juice, a half a stick of butter, and a beer.) I've been giving things away to friends/neighbors/Goodwill pretty steadily as I don't want to have to deal with trying to get rid of everything all at once, and it makes cleaning a lot easier. I'm also trying to get used to the idea living with the bare essentials - I got rid of my bed, and I'm sleeping on my living room floor in my sleeping bag; I'm down to the clothes I'm bringing on my trip, meaning I wear shorts and shortsleeved shirts just about everyday, which can get chilly this time of year, jacket or no. I've gotten rid of all my cookware, so if I need to cook I do it over the stove with my cook kit. It's like trying to acclimate to really colder water at the beach; if you go in a little at a time eventually your body gets used to it and you swim (or if you're at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, you get hypothermia, lose control of all your muscles and are swept out to sea - try it, you'll like it!) The water here is cold, really. Hopefully I'm following the former path, and not the latter.
I've been trying to learn some fundamental Spanish for the road - I realized I'll be in states with large Hispanic populations for about a third of my trip, so it might be helpful to know a few handy phrases: Quiero una cerveza (I want a beer), Su bragueta está desecha (en los pantalones) (Your fly is undone), Tengo una fractura complicada (I have a compound fracture). Seriously (I was serious about the beer), I'm trying to learn enough to order something from a taqueria or ask for directions in smaller towns where the bulk of the population might well be Spanish speaking. And not make a complete fool of myself in the process - I'll bring the guidebook I've been using along with me to try and avoid accidentally proposing to someones daughter. Comprende?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Getting Ready Part One
Generally speaking, preparations of some sort have to be made before any journey can begin. In my case, that to date has involved getting rid of practically everything I own - selling my cd collection, giving furniture away to my neighbors, putting books on the street for people to pick up (San Francisco is notorious for the practice of putting things on the sidewalk for any and all takers - refined dumpster diving, you could say.) I'm only saving a small box of things that a friend will ship to me when I get settled in Portland - things have a habit of collecting without much effort, so I'm sure I'll be up to my neck in stuff again before I know it. And frankly it feels good to be free of the yoke of possessions - they can weigh you down without you're even realizing it, i.e. how can I move I have so much stuff, who is going to watch my stuff while I'm away, I have to move into a bigger place I have so much stuff. Stuff it, I say.
I've been biking more lately, trying to get my body ready for the work to come. I don't want to shock myself with 40-50 mile bike rides day in and day out, so I've been riding a couple of times a week, 40 miles here, 15 miles there, 30 miles somewhere else. I've only ridden my bike, without the travel trailer I recently purchased attached; I'll take the bike with an empty trailer out for a few rides this week. I need to first adapt to the feeling of turning, braking, starting and stopping with an empty trailer in tow, then I need to practice doing all of that with a trailer that's loaded down with my life for the next four or five months. I'll be hauling a tent, sleeping bag, my clothes, my food, water, everything I need to live will be behind me in a trailer 2 1/2 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide. The idea became a daunting reality when the trailer was delivered to my doorstep; it came in a box and I had to put it together myself. When I was done, I looked at the finished trailer and the pile of my gear next to it and started to sweat - how was I going to fit all of this into such a tiny little space? Am I crazy? I should probably just buy a plane ticket and forget this foolishness.
After taking a few deep breaths and looking everything over again, I started to assess what it was that I really needed, and what I could do without. Tent, check. Tent extension for a condo like camping experience, no. Sleeping bag, check. Foam pad for premium sleeping conditions, no. Flashlight, check. Huge lantern with 4 D batteries for daylight at anytime of night, no. And so on and so forth until I think I've cut back to the bare essentials - I'm not bringing much in the way of food, for instance, and what I do buy is probably not going to require much cooking, eliminating the need for any type of cook stove and limiting the cookware I need to a very basic set. I plan to buy whatever food I need as I go, and am probably going to eat straight out of a can fairly regularly (canned ravioli here I come!) Maybe I should just trade my cookware for a can opener, hmmm. At any rate, I'm still making gear changes where I think I need to or have to out of weight consideration.
Next post: Getting Ready, Part Two: Me gusta el montar en bicicleta!
I've been biking more lately, trying to get my body ready for the work to come. I don't want to shock myself with 40-50 mile bike rides day in and day out, so I've been riding a couple of times a week, 40 miles here, 15 miles there, 30 miles somewhere else. I've only ridden my bike, without the travel trailer I recently purchased attached; I'll take the bike with an empty trailer out for a few rides this week. I need to first adapt to the feeling of turning, braking, starting and stopping with an empty trailer in tow, then I need to practice doing all of that with a trailer that's loaded down with my life for the next four or five months. I'll be hauling a tent, sleeping bag, my clothes, my food, water, everything I need to live will be behind me in a trailer 2 1/2 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide. The idea became a daunting reality when the trailer was delivered to my doorstep; it came in a box and I had to put it together myself. When I was done, I looked at the finished trailer and the pile of my gear next to it and started to sweat - how was I going to fit all of this into such a tiny little space? Am I crazy? I should probably just buy a plane ticket and forget this foolishness.
After taking a few deep breaths and looking everything over again, I started to assess what it was that I really needed, and what I could do without. Tent, check. Tent extension for a condo like camping experience, no. Sleeping bag, check. Foam pad for premium sleeping conditions, no. Flashlight, check. Huge lantern with 4 D batteries for daylight at anytime of night, no. And so on and so forth until I think I've cut back to the bare essentials - I'm not bringing much in the way of food, for instance, and what I do buy is probably not going to require much cooking, eliminating the need for any type of cook stove and limiting the cookware I need to a very basic set. I plan to buy whatever food I need as I go, and am probably going to eat straight out of a can fairly regularly (canned ravioli here I come!) Maybe I should just trade my cookware for a can opener, hmmm. At any rate, I'm still making gear changes where I think I need to or have to out of weight consideration.
Next post: Getting Ready, Part Two: Me gusta el montar en bicicleta!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Why?
When people ask me what I do for a living lately, I tell them nothing. They then tend to give me rather quizzical looks, so then I go on to explain I've quit my job to bike across the country. Most people are very excited by the idea, asking how long it'll take to ride my motorcycle from here to Maine. I tell them I'm riding my bicycle across the country, and they look anywhere from a shade of incredulous to shocked to dumbfounded. "Why?" Not that most people aren't still excited for me and the idea of packing everything in to go on an adventure, I think it's the magnitude of the journey that prompts the question.
So why am I undertaking my journey? Well, I've always wanted to bike across the country, ever since I was in high school. Right after graduation, I tried to convince a girlfriend that it would be fun to buy bicycles, train together for the trip, and set out to see the country with nothing but the wind in our hair and the stars in our eyes. It turned out the stars in my eyes blotted out the reality that the bikes we bought (cheaply, from a third rate department store - they seemed to be made out of cast iron with tires suited more for a farmer's tractor) were much too heavy; we were "training" by biking to our summer jobs - to get there, we had to follow a hilly, windy road with tons of traffic. It was sweaty work and by the time we got to our jobs we were already tired, and had a whole day of work and a ride back to look forward to. I tried to ignore the obvious and keep up our flagging spirits, but our training regimen failed quickly, and the whole trip and our relationship was cancelled not long after our last ride home from a grueling work day (we both had jobs in the restaurant business, not so much fun in the summer.)
I never forgot the dream, though; I bought better bikes, went for longer rides, kept imagining the fun of being out on the road. But living my life seemed to keep getting in the way of the trek, as it can and often does. I went to college, got a job, was in a long term relationship, got another job. got lazy. I managed to cross the country in a car a few times (fun but probably irresponsible now, in the days of global warming and our dependence on foreign oil - a guilty former pleasure, I guess), got a few more jobs, and now here I am.
The opportunity to make the trek presented itself not long ago. I was working as a paralegal, the definition of drudge work, at a law firm I liked only a little more than a six year old likes spinach. I worked there solely for the salary, which is probably the reason most paralegals (or most of us in general, I suppose) do what they do every day. And in San Francisco you either bring home the bacon or you end up scrounging through a dumpster looking for dinner - seriously, the City has become an incredibly expensive place to live, and if you're not willing to do the work necessary to bring home a San Francisco sized paycheck you can't live here.
I was given a terrible review at this spinach factory, and I had what I think can be called a moment of clarity - I could stay on at a job I didn't like (and apparently didn't like me) in a field I fell into, or I could quit and make a total life change. I quit ten minutes after my review was over, packing the things at my desk I wanted to take and leaving the rest. I knew I didn't want to be a paralegal anymore; I knew I didn't want to work in an office anymore. I knew I couldn't afford to live in San Francisco anymore. A situation with dire consequences, no job in the big city? Or a golden ticket to a new life in another city?
A good time to ride my bicycle across the country. Why? Because I really do want to ride through the U.S. with the wind made by my pedal pumping legs in my face. Because I want to camp out by the side of the road listening to the howls of coyotes as I fade off to sleep. Because I want to meet the people of America, and visit their towns and eat their food and talk to them, whether I speak their language or not. Because I want to be at a fork in the road and choose which way to go without knowing exactly where I'll end up. Because I can - I'm single, I don't have kids, and I'm fairly young (38 is the new 25, right?) Because life is short and I don't want my greatest achievement in my old age to be my old age. Because maybe, just maybe, in the end I'll bike down the road I'm looking for.
That's why.
So why am I undertaking my journey? Well, I've always wanted to bike across the country, ever since I was in high school. Right after graduation, I tried to convince a girlfriend that it would be fun to buy bicycles, train together for the trip, and set out to see the country with nothing but the wind in our hair and the stars in our eyes. It turned out the stars in my eyes blotted out the reality that the bikes we bought (cheaply, from a third rate department store - they seemed to be made out of cast iron with tires suited more for a farmer's tractor) were much too heavy; we were "training" by biking to our summer jobs - to get there, we had to follow a hilly, windy road with tons of traffic. It was sweaty work and by the time we got to our jobs we were already tired, and had a whole day of work and a ride back to look forward to. I tried to ignore the obvious and keep up our flagging spirits, but our training regimen failed quickly, and the whole trip and our relationship was cancelled not long after our last ride home from a grueling work day (we both had jobs in the restaurant business, not so much fun in the summer.)
I never forgot the dream, though; I bought better bikes, went for longer rides, kept imagining the fun of being out on the road. But living my life seemed to keep getting in the way of the trek, as it can and often does. I went to college, got a job, was in a long term relationship, got another job. got lazy. I managed to cross the country in a car a few times (fun but probably irresponsible now, in the days of global warming and our dependence on foreign oil - a guilty former pleasure, I guess), got a few more jobs, and now here I am.
The opportunity to make the trek presented itself not long ago. I was working as a paralegal, the definition of drudge work, at a law firm I liked only a little more than a six year old likes spinach. I worked there solely for the salary, which is probably the reason most paralegals (or most of us in general, I suppose) do what they do every day. And in San Francisco you either bring home the bacon or you end up scrounging through a dumpster looking for dinner - seriously, the City has become an incredibly expensive place to live, and if you're not willing to do the work necessary to bring home a San Francisco sized paycheck you can't live here.
I was given a terrible review at this spinach factory, and I had what I think can be called a moment of clarity - I could stay on at a job I didn't like (and apparently didn't like me) in a field I fell into, or I could quit and make a total life change. I quit ten minutes after my review was over, packing the things at my desk I wanted to take and leaving the rest. I knew I didn't want to be a paralegal anymore; I knew I didn't want to work in an office anymore. I knew I couldn't afford to live in San Francisco anymore. A situation with dire consequences, no job in the big city? Or a golden ticket to a new life in another city?
A good time to ride my bicycle across the country. Why? Because I really do want to ride through the U.S. with the wind made by my pedal pumping legs in my face. Because I want to camp out by the side of the road listening to the howls of coyotes as I fade off to sleep. Because I want to meet the people of America, and visit their towns and eat their food and talk to them, whether I speak their language or not. Because I want to be at a fork in the road and choose which way to go without knowing exactly where I'll end up. Because I can - I'm single, I don't have kids, and I'm fairly young (38 is the new 25, right?) Because life is short and I don't want my greatest achievement in my old age to be my old age. Because maybe, just maybe, in the end I'll bike down the road I'm looking for.
That's why.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
28 Days
Hello. My name is David and I have a question - what will the world look like after cannibalistic zombies have destroyed the world in just 28 days? Kidding, about the zombies anyway. My name really is David, but in 28 days instead of zombies chewing through the world (hopefully) I'll be leaving on what will be biggest adventure of my life, riding my bicycle across the United States from San Francisco, California to Portland, Maine - 3,226 miles if you drove straight across the country, which I may wish I had afterward.
I'll be rambling first through the Pacific coast from San Francisco south to just outside of San Diego, then east hugging the border of Mexico through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas. I'll follow the Gulf coast from East Texas to the panhandle of Florida, and then I'm not sure. I'd like to follow the coast of Florida around the Everglades to the Atlantic side, but it's a long trip - mileage estimates vary but I think it's safe to say that Florida has at least 1200 miles of coastline. I'll have to see how I'm feeling at that point - if I'm up for the exercise I'll follow Florida's coast; if I'm not so inclined I'll ride across the panhandle to Jacksonville and then follow the coast to Maine.
Ramble: to wander around in a leisurely, aimless manner
Ramble: to talk or write in a discursive, aimless way
I say I'm rambling (the former) because though I know my final destination and how I generally want to go about getting there, I have no set route. I can start or stop riding when I like, if I want to take detours or go off the beaten path I will. I can follow a whim, take the left fork in the road instead of the right, not ride for a day. When I'm hungry I'll eat, when I'm tired I'll sleep, etc. You get the picture. My only fixed goals are to get to Maine sometime in October, before it gets uncomfortably cold in the Northeast, and to avoid the latter definition of ramble in this blog.
I'm calling myself the biking fool because though I have biked extensively in the past, I've never ridden more than a hundred miles in a day over the course of a weekend. I've never ridden with a trailer in tow. I've never pitched a tent wherever I was at the end of the day: the side of the road, someones backyard, a parking lot. I'm not in the best physical shape of my life. But I've always wanted to bike across the country; I want to be part of the landscape, breathing in the air around me without any barriers - you can't get that in a car. I think it'll be fun to meet the people of the west, and the south, of New Mexico and Texas , Florida and Virginia. I think it will be personally interesting to me to see how I deal with living in a tent, cooking when I can, eating whatever I can get locally, surviving without Starbucks. And if I'm not in great shape now I bet I will be by the time I get to Maine.
In the days to come I'll be blogging about what got me to this point, my various trip preparations, and then we're off. Thanks for rambling in.
I'll be rambling first through the Pacific coast from San Francisco south to just outside of San Diego, then east hugging the border of Mexico through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas. I'll follow the Gulf coast from East Texas to the panhandle of Florida, and then I'm not sure. I'd like to follow the coast of Florida around the Everglades to the Atlantic side, but it's a long trip - mileage estimates vary but I think it's safe to say that Florida has at least 1200 miles of coastline. I'll have to see how I'm feeling at that point - if I'm up for the exercise I'll follow Florida's coast; if I'm not so inclined I'll ride across the panhandle to Jacksonville and then follow the coast to Maine.
Ramble: to wander around in a leisurely, aimless manner
Ramble: to talk or write in a discursive, aimless way
I say I'm rambling (the former) because though I know my final destination and how I generally want to go about getting there, I have no set route. I can start or stop riding when I like, if I want to take detours or go off the beaten path I will. I can follow a whim, take the left fork in the road instead of the right, not ride for a day. When I'm hungry I'll eat, when I'm tired I'll sleep, etc. You get the picture. My only fixed goals are to get to Maine sometime in October, before it gets uncomfortably cold in the Northeast, and to avoid the latter definition of ramble in this blog.
I'm calling myself the biking fool because though I have biked extensively in the past, I've never ridden more than a hundred miles in a day over the course of a weekend. I've never ridden with a trailer in tow. I've never pitched a tent wherever I was at the end of the day: the side of the road, someones backyard, a parking lot. I'm not in the best physical shape of my life. But I've always wanted to bike across the country; I want to be part of the landscape, breathing in the air around me without any barriers - you can't get that in a car. I think it'll be fun to meet the people of the west, and the south, of New Mexico and Texas , Florida and Virginia. I think it will be personally interesting to me to see how I deal with living in a tent, cooking when I can, eating whatever I can get locally, surviving without Starbucks. And if I'm not in great shape now I bet I will be by the time I get to Maine.
In the days to come I'll be blogging about what got me to this point, my various trip preparations, and then we're off. Thanks for rambling in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
