Cheerios right outside my door. The breakfast nook is there and people are quietly pottering about with their sticky mini-muffins and 2% milk. I sit and scoop the yellow wheels from the white pool and gaze into my coffee. Bagel. Jam from a silver-topped packet. Cream cheese. Orange juice.

“Where are you headed?”

The woman is sitting with her husband at the next table, eating her flakes and examining my curious attire. I tell her.

“Oh, that sounds wonderful.” She begins to share the story about her own bike tour. When she was in her twenties. Through Colorado.

“Though I didn’t do it by myself,” she said. With a slight nod to her husband, she adds: “We drive now.”

Sensing an opening, the husband begins firing off a long laundry list of all the places they’ve been in this last week. They seem happy. Excitable. Swimming lazy, velvety laps in my story as I tell it.

I like these morning rituals. The polite conversation that starts as a curious niggle from a stranger then collapses into an excited energy when they think of getting out there. Of travel and adventure and the road unknown.

It is a great thing. A proud thing. A shared thing.

Back in my room, I pack Zimmerman. Slowly. Methodically. Checked out and belly irritated by the selection at breakfast, I squeak across the road to the gas station to stock up on supplies for the day. Perhaps second breakfast down the road will be a more satisfying experience? The map indicates a town up ahead with a diner showing potential. I put the thought on the radar.

A giant bag of snickers in my hand, I stand out the front of the gas station and assess. There is a real snap in the air. A pinch of the cheeks. Balaclava day, come my way. Here comes Ninja Noodle.

Heading out into the cool, the road is being repaved and its unmarked surface and gravelly countenance fling themselves willingly at my wheels. Right into the face of the sun I go, thinking only of how I must evaporate into it in this early morning light. To to see me from behind will be a challenge to the weary morning driver. The not quite alert. The blinded-by-the-light crew.

I potter on, listening for the rearward approach. It’s blessedly quiet in the chill.

Out toward the horizon ahead hangs an airy cloud. The sun bangs against it then breaks through, opening up the valley’s dew to glisten its greeting to me. Early morning light is the best light. Until the afternoon, when that’s the best light. And then sometimes the midday light is the best light of all. But right now, it’s the morning.

Mainly on the plain we stay. Ripe with hay stacked for those with four stomachs. I stop by a giant haystack of round bales and marvel at their geometry. At how they’re piled up like legos and brown against a blue sky. I’m in no hurry. I can tell already that this will be a lazy lazy day. No records broken today. It’s chilly. No point in moving too fast. Not with my exposed nose out the front of this balaclava, tinged a bitter red and angry it has to be the one out there in the cold. My facial barometer of chill winds. The drippy sniff of too fast, too cold. Eyes protected by sunglasses, the sun licks against the tiny bits of exposed skin and does its best. But it’s a small warm.

I’ll take it.

Finally, a real shoulder to the road. Line markings and flat, solid tarmac set to rise and fall and roll me on. Gentle and encouraging, I am spirited away in the slowly warming rays of an easy bake earth lamp.

In and out it goes, a shy solar body peeking from behind a stubborn cloud. Sunlight and shade, in and out, while up ahead I see the golden sheets of fields soaking it up in readiness. Come here, we are warm and waiting.

Yes, sun. Burn those clouds, for they are witches. BURN THEM!

Off to my right, I see trees gently snaking across the plains together, starkly proud against the treeless hills behind them. Lush and green, they are a drum line along the Colorado River, which I guess I’ll be riding against at some point soon. But for now, it’s stalking me from far off.

For now, it’s just me and this road and this rugged-up body and chilly bum and moving on.

By 9am, we’ve met, the Colorado River and I. Swung up in a casual strip-the-willow way and glanced shyly at each other. I take it in. Wide and clear and dark and brooding. Trees on the bank are in shadow and shrink from the chill of having their toes dipped in it. The river flows strong and clear, rocks breaking the surface here and there, while smooth and glassy in others.

There. Two men. Standing. Up to their wader-covered groins in the slap of it. Fly fishing. Two men. Standing. Apart, yet obviously together. Friends fishing in the morning air and arcing their lines out, each seemingly oblivious to the other. Backs turned. Some kind of argument about lovin’ the same girl perhaps? A feud? An ancient grudge? Or just lost in the solitude of the flick of their wrists against the surface of the river.

I am watching their TV with the sound muted. I am making up my own story for them.

It’s cold. Man, it’s cold. How can they be standing in that river?

Hills, smooth like thighs and plains still feathered with sagebrush and yellow flowers and thin grasses. Dirt erodes and slips from their dry faces. Grasses wave, the sun gets higher and the breeze sneaks through to dry the sweat on my partly-covered face. Getting warmer. 

The striptease begins.

I spin my way through Parshall, out the other side, and find myself looking down upon a horse ranch near the river. Circular yards, worn by hooves. A barn. It’s beautiful and the colors are yellows and sage and blue-green clumps and even the dirt looks pretty. Subdued and mellow. Fall is creeping in, hard and determined now, and the great and treeless mountains behind form a backdrop that sets the whole thing off. Stark, yet sexy with it. West. I am going into the West. Soon, soon I will be in Hot Sulphur Springs and you know what I will do there, stomach?

There, I will eat second breakfast.

In the cave, stomach beats its approval drum mightily at the sound of this, growling and howling and urging me to push off and put that plan in motion.

The landscape is a conspiracy of making me wait, though. It is anti-stomach satisfaction. A deceitful beast, for although the road looks to be sloping gently downward, it’s every so slightly lazing its way up. The stomach’s confusion feeds the illusion. I look at the elevation and realize that I need to rise to over 9,000 feet today, so it’s only logical that at some point the road will slope upwards.

In fact, it’s all the way up from here.

The plain gets sucked away before I notice, and now the river is down below. I must have been daydreaming. On the far bank is now a sudden forrest. Pines and pines and pines with many grey and dead scattered in. Bright yellow flames of aspen thrown in for some kind of horticultural “Where’s Waldo” game. There, there he is. He’s bright yellow. Duh.

I stop to take it in. The river is also getting fat. More erratic as it curves and veers without discrimination, etching its way down from the mountains I have yet get an eye-full of. Trees rooted on eroding banks, rocks exposed on small impromptu river islands, a small dot of a man wading across down river. My best estimation is that we’re entering the Hot Sulphur Springs Wilderness area. Or to put it another way: About Time for Second Breakfast Area.

It sneaks up in a rush. I round a bend, cross a bridge and all of a sudden I’m in Byers Canyon. The advantage of not really looking at what’s in store for the day is getting caught off-guard by something like this. There was an unassuming sign, a quick ride over the bridged river, which left it babbling below on my other hand, and then rocks and rocks and the road carving its way through. The further I go, the more it reveals, the bigger and broader and craggier. Reds leap out, oranges and yellows. Sharps and shifts.

Exciting. It hides each unfolding scene behind curves and shadows. I’m smiling like a loon again, and not just because I see a sign indicating Bighorn Sheep.

Road chisels its way through rock. Lets the river hug it to its body. Trees cling precariously. The light is not quite right for photos, but I do my best. I can’t stop pulling off the road to look at the drama. Fissures in the rock, crags and trees and nooks and crannies. It arcs up above us as we crawl on through. Everything must go through here it seems. Road, river, railroad. Me.

On the upside of the cliff face above me, trees are slowly being shoved off the edge by their buddies behind. Their roots hang out and cling to boulders and try look defiant and proud. But they’re doomed. They know it.

A bit further still and I stop to cross to the other side of the road to shoot back from where I came. This is not one of those ‘best light’ times. It must be fantastic to come through here and shoot in the golden hour. But you take your moment and revel in it, right? And this is my moment. The occasional roar of a big rig coming up the canyon and past me is the only noise to spoil the scene. The river is thinner here, more timid. Polite.

“Don’t mind me,” it babbles. “Just passing through.”

Aren’t we all?

I look across at the rail line and the familiarity of the rock face and suddenly feel de ja vu punch me in my dial. Is it possible I came through here on the California Zephyr a few years back? It looks so familiar…

Looking back across the road, I see Precious and Zimmerman looking small-set and insignificant against the rock face. It feels good to be alive. That’s all I can say really. I’m kind of wasting time, since I have miles to go today, but also not really spurred on by this fact. Time will move on and so will I and we will get there when we get there and another day will be done. The wheel keeps turning with me in it.

Second Breakfast!

As I crawl into Hot Sulphur Springs, I look around and see a sign. The Glory Hole. There is no way in hell I am passing up a sign like this, and park the rig out the front. Swing the door open. Enter.

It’s packed with locals, which is a good sign at any time. The awesome heart attack on a plate is recommended to me, though you might know it by its other name: Blueberry Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast. This is without a doubt the best second breakfast I’ve had on the trip so far and worth any pain to get to. Not that I’ve had a lot of that today. Yet.

It’s so large and fat and buxom I can’t eat it all and I don’t have a zip lock to stuff the rest in. Gotta get zip locks. This cannot happen ever again!

After I’d finished and was sitting there staring at my plate, wondering if I just needed to wait a while so I could fit more in, the guy who served me sat down and started talking. We chatted about Byers Canyon and he mentioned he was a bit of an amateur photographer and had taken many photos over the years. Never gets tired of it. A woman at the next table next began to pepper me with questions about what I was doing and where I was going today.

“Walden!” she said. “You’ll never make that, that’s too far!”

She wouldn’t believe me when I said it wasn’t. Then she told me how many hours it takes IN A CAR and about the mountain pass. Her genuine negativity about my ability to get there started to get a bit tiresome to tell the truth, and she wouldn’t be talked out of it. Wouldn’t believe. I cracked.

“Honestly,” I said. “People do it all the time. It’s the ROUTE!”

It sunk in. Finally. Her brain absorbed the facts, and it became obvious I wasn’t going to be talked out of it, so she calmed down a bit. Changed her tone.

Told me where to eat in Walden.

“If you get there.”

As I left, she wished me luck, like I was heading out into the frozen tundra or something.

Fat and happy, I push on. After seven-and-a-half miles, I make a hard left onto the 125 and begin what will be the first real climbing of the day. Up towards the Continental Divide at 9,621ft. I’m hoping after that I’ll have a glorious freewheel all the way down into Walden, but you can never tell with these things.

It’s an instant sharp climb after the turn, before it eases into a steady grind. I see my first moose sign and want to stop to photograph it but can’t stop. Or don’t want to stop on this incline. There’ll be more and perhaps I’ll even see a moose in all its moosey flesh! I pencil in ‘moose sighting’ right under ‘bighorn sheep sighting’ in the ‘Things I Want to See’ column. There is only one word in the ‘Things I don’t Want to See’ column.

That word is Bear.

The initial climbing is quite irritating and repetitive. Fortunately, there are lots of pretty things to take my mind off it. The aspens shimmer, the pines shine green. A few wooden cottages peek out amongst the trees. Slow climbing makes me alert and very aware of blind corners. Listening, always listening for the approach of a car or an RV from behind. I use my mirror as a preemptive strike in these situations. An early warning system which gives me time to stop and LOOK as they pass to make sure they’ve seen me. There’s no real shoulder, so no real need to startle a motorist in this deserted scene with my presence. I keep my eyes peeled. I scan hillsides and fence lines for signs of moose. Let me see a moose!

The sky is impossibly blue. It’s not natural, yet is. I try to find the best things to photograph against it, to show off its stark depths. Options are limited. Mountains, trees, roads, or powerlines.

After the initial climb in the open, I find myself flanked by aspens and going through more rolling terrain. Climb then roll, climb then roll. Through a section of roadwork I am cheered along by a man in a hard hat and giggle at him. On and on.

I see my first covered wagon on the side of the road. It’s a billboard of sorts, advertising customized rides: ‘Basic to the Extreme!’ That sounds like a delightful day.

Cammo-clad mountains. The grey and rust tones of the dead pines, the green of the still living, the light green of yet-to-turn aspens, and the yellow of the ones who’ve already committed fully to the cause. Harlequin hills.

I’m at about 8,300ft now, but winding through. I climb for a bit, then down I go, then climb again, then down I go. I feel it’s a constant grind of give and take and am I really getting anywhere? Am I gaining any altitude? Will there be progress at all today? Was that lady right? Will I NEVER make it to Walden?

Willow Creek is on the flats. Snaking through. It’s very scrubby around it, like the edges of it are probably wider than it looks, but it’s overgrown. There could be a moose right in there and I’d never know it.

The further I go, the worse the beetle devastation seems to get and I try to imagine what it must have looked like before they invaded. To have all these majestic trees in their full glory just there and green and on fire with life.

But now, they droop their rusty needles and their cones litter the ground and every now and then there’ll be one standing there thinking ‘please don’t notice me beetle, please ignore me. I am a nerd tree. No need to bully.’ But I guess it will come. They will all succumb. It’s heartbreaking.

But I’m in the woods proper now, at least. Trees are choking the scene, and the creek is still present and minding its own business. There are rocky outcrops rearing up from time to time, with straight-backed pines on their faces. It’s dense, though made less dense thanks to the beetles. Occasional thick sections of beauty. Not a lot of traffic, which is just as well as there is no real shoulder and the corners are quite blind.

Moose!

Not a real moose, but a giant statue of one next to a very fancy wooden entrance to Moose Run. I say a giant, but I’ve heard they’re actually that big in real life, and I stop to take its photo. It might be the only one I see. It’s dark and ominous looking as it stares out at me from its rocky perch at the side of the gateway.

Further on, in what I think is the Arapaho Forrest, sportscars begin to whizz past me. Engines revving, and growling past this little speck of bicycle on the barely-there shoulder. Corvettes and Ferraris and Porsches. They come in waves of two or three, then one larger group of five. Porsche, Porsche, Porsche, Maserati, Porsche.

They are burning up the road, and the solitude. I stop each time I hear them coming.

As worrying as they are with their Need for Speed ways, I’m getting more concerned about time now. There’s still eleven miles to go to the top of Willow Creek Pass and if I stick to my current 6mph (which I’m not sure I can, because I still have to gain another 1,000 ft yet) it’s going to take me two hours. That’ll be about 3.30pm. And I’ll still have 30 miles to fly to get to Walden after that. This will need to be my Kessel Run.

Keep going kid. Just keep going.

A rock formation, like a slice of layer cake cut straight and tall, stands out amongst the trees. It reaches high and blocky. I realize now that trees hide more than animals. They’re hiding the earth, squished out and broken. The hard truths of geological shift. A bit further on and I come across a small pond to my right, reflecting the mountains. The surface still and dark.

The sound of water has been a constant on today’s ride. It doesn’t help my bladder at all to be hearing the endless trickle of the earth leaking. I scan the map for toilet or campsite icons. Will be a bathroom there? Or there? Oh, I hope so. Right now, this constant pressure is greater than the one to make it to my destination.

There is a bathroom. You can rest your minds, just as I do. I breathe a giant sign of relief, then swing out of the campsite and continue on my trudging way toward Willow Creek Pass.
The scene opens up a little on either side of the road. A rusty beard of a plant hugs the ground on either side as it stretches over to touch the tree line. The creek, no longer visible, seems to be a soak under grass. I can’t see where it is, but imagine it secretly flowing in a marshy glee of invisibility.

Off to my left now is an impressive sight. The coloring of the mountain, the slope of its left thigh curving while the right leg of it curls around on the other side to form a faux crater, broad and open. The sun hits it in a very specific manner, as though to say ‘look at me, look at me!’

It should know it’s very hard not to look. It’s the most dominating thing in the landscape.

Glancing at the map, I posit that it’s probably part of the Rabbit Ears Range, which no doubt forms part of the mountain pass I will cross today. I see no rabbit ears though. Nor moose. But there is always hope.

And now, another rock sliver, this one with the top outline like a jagged elevation chart. It’s face red-mossed and grey with age. Edges shuffled off and scattered on the ground below. Such contrasts.

I kick on through this lower mini-plain, curving and rolling in and out and back into trees. I can feel it. The start of the real climb is a just on the edge of my page, but for now, there is the gradual sneaking up motion of it.

It’s 3.20pm by the time I reach the top of Willow Creek Pass and I meet the Continental Divide again. It’s not a tough climb, just slow, and I spend my time watching the elevation number on my Garmin get higher and higher. I’m tired now, and time is flowing way out behind me faster than I like. It’s hot on the climb, but there’s an amazing aroma of pine needles and wood, a bit like when a chainsaw first cuts into it, though I’m hoping that’s not why. A sweet smell. It’s a joy to climb, but a climb nonetheless. I’m fairly exhausted when I get to the top.

I pull in front of the Continental Divide sign to get a photo and notice a car sitting there. It reverses back to where I’m standing and the window rolls down. I’m buggered and puffing like mad. They don’t seem to mind.

“Do you know where the trail head is here?” asks the driver.

What must I look like? A local? I tell him no, that this is the first time I’ve ever been here, and we begin the usual ‘what are you doing?’ chat. The are stealing my time from me, but I don’t rush the conversation. As tired as I am, I know there’s a nice descent coming up. It’ll revive me. It’ll bring me back.

It only lasts two miles, but it’s a joy. I fly and freewheel and soak it up. Please never end! It does. Too quickly. We’re back to up downs and then open land and there’s a new development: wind. In my mind, I decide that I will make it to Walden by 6.30pm. That will be my goal. No dilly. No dally. Rally rally rally. A less than 12 parsecs effort.

The town of Rand comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Nowhere to stop for food and I’m all nibbly with it. In fact the only thing of note is the Scout FWD with Rand Police written on the side and a creepy figure within, sucking on a cigar. Nice to take a photo of something that’s not a tree or a mountain, but still a bit disturbing.

I am well and truly out of the mountains now. Just high plains I guess. They stretch for miles on either side. Some display hay, some just scrubby grazing land. Pretty much treeless.

The clouds are kind of rolling in behind me as I look back towards the mountain range. Not sure if the weather is going to turn: they don’t look ominous, just puffy and bored. The ride itself today is becoming a bit of a drag and there is a slight afternoon chill entering this act.

I start to fixate on dumb things.

“My face needs a windshield.”

I stop to make this voice note after being struck at speed by a giant bug, which is happening very regularly now in the droning afternoon air. They hurt like crazy and each time one strikes my cheek or neck, I swear loudly into the wind. It’s pointless. The words blow straight back into my mouth.

If that’s not irritating enough, the road with its constant kerkunk, kerkunk, kerkunk due to grooves running from one non-existent shoulder to the other, is slipping my hands slowly toward the end of my rope. Every 12 to 15 feet apart. Kerkunk. It’s a constant rhythm that jars my hands and ass. Annoying.

Traffic is rare, so I try riding in the middle of the lane to alleviate the problem. Then the middle of the road, straight down the line. Now the other side of the road. Law breaker! Nothing helps. With 15 miles to go there’s a fair chance I will be insane by the time I get to Walden.

These are the flat times. The pancake country times. I’m out on the flats for real, and the mountains are but a semi-distant memory. Well, not that distant. They crouch on the edge of this view, like biscuits on a saucer while I sip the tea of my ride.

Round bales in regimented lines patrol the fields in dotted and synchronized beats. Unlike me. I go across the beats of these grooves both in time and syncopated rhythm.

Sadly, my ass is the kick drum.

We are nearing the golden hour. It’s the only positive thought I have. That the sun is ready for the show, and about to lick the ground all over. In this light, even I will look good.

Kerkunk.

As farmland disappears and we morph into the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, the afternoon drops its gaze. The road is incredibly straight and determined now, but not as determined as me. Straight maybe, but it’s no longer flat as it ducks and dives and rears in slow motion. The climbs look fine until you’re on them, and then it’s just struggle and sigh. Very tired now. Tired and sick of it all. Kerkunk.

At the top of a roller I stop and look at the road behind me. It is the same in both directions. Squint. Look ahead. Walden is nowhere in sight. The only thing more empty than this road is my mind. Empty to a point. Unfortunately Brain has taken it upon itself to take the kerkunks as the beat for a song I have composed in my mind. It goes like this:

I’ve had enough.
Enough of today.
[Repeat endlessley. Throw in a tuneless whistle every now and then]

I wait for a car to pass. Watch it approach for a very long time. A speck. A glint in the sun. It jets by in a whoosh and I envy its speed as I watch it stretch out away from me.

Walden sneaks onto the edge of the page, off to my right, and I’m grateful. The afternoon is getting long in the tooth and my gears are skipping a bit. But part of my mind knows this is a classic cycling illusion. That just because you can see it on the flats, doesn’t mean it’s close.

Plug on. Kerkunk. Kerkunk. I’ve had enough. Enough of today. *tuneless whistling*

The light drops, the afternoon creeps away from the approaching dark and finally I am there. I pull into the first hotel I see. That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

No vacancy. Hunters everywhere. Down the street I roll, beat and wrecked and slump-shouldered. Cowboys! I pull into the The Round Up hotel and pay with cash. A plastic tag, a metal key, a flimsy door, dark tiny shower, and a tired, sad room. What a pair we make.

I shower and flop down on the bed wrapped only in a towel. Holy Bible on the side table. A depressed lounge chair. Wood paneled walls, thin and cheap. I hear the guy next door speaking on his phone. My eyes shutter. It is Heaven.

Later, I order Chicken Fried Steak for dinner, a beer and giant glass of water. The waitress takes for ever to bring me the water and I can’t help myself: I drain the beer in one go. One unstoppable go. It’s frosty and cold and tickles my nostrils and waters my eyes and as much as I like beer, I need water. Badly. But the waitress isn’t interested in me, and tends to hunters with their tired and grubby faces. Their fat wallets. The checkered shirts and cammo hats and drunken laughter.

Need more liquid.

I demolish everything as it arrives. Bread. Steak. Mash. Water. More water. Then more. The steak is not as good as that one in Virginia, but it fills a hole. I walk back to my sad cow poke room with a spinning head, a full belly, and air sucked in through my nostrils.

The chill is really setting in.

Couple more photos here >

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 13, 2010
From: Kremmling, CO
To: Walden, CO
Distance: 78.41 miles
Time: 8:11:59
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > COMING EVENTUALLY

In the cool morning air, the girl draws deeply on her cigarette. A lung absorbing beat, then a smoky, tired sigh as she exhales directly into my face. It’s an accidental discourtesy and she catches herself immediately. I blink with it, as she waves her hand between our faces to shepherd it away.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, with the wrinkle of brow that holds the proof of her apology. Then, in a moment of apparent self-loathing, adds, “I’m so unhealthy. Not like you.”

So quick to put herself down, I think. She doesn’t know what she’s capable of. She has no i-dea.

“You could do it,” I say. “Anyone can do it. You get used to it.”

She doesn’t believe me, I can tell. Slight raised eyebrow and a ‘yeah, right’ grin.

We are standing under the awning of the hotel. Me, waiting for my SPOT to check in with the satellite somewhere out in space, and her, taking a break from her front desk duties.

It’s later than I wanted to leave, but I was a victim of circumstance. I woke up snuggled tight in warm bedclothes, my body shape compressed into a heavenly mattress. It was 5.30am, exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit and truth be told, I just couldn’t face it.

Breakfast. I’ll need a breakfast of champions to get over Hoosier Pass, I thought as I lay there. Then I remembered breakfast didn’t materialize until 6.30am, so why should I?

Snooze button. Roll over. Back to sleep. No guilt, no drama. If I’ve learned anything at all from this trip – along with ‘don’t fall off if you can possibly help it’ – it’s to be flexible and give yourself a goddamn break about decisions that will slow you down. If your choice stops you becoming the most efficient thing on two wheels in the county, don’t consider it failure. Consider it adaptation. And everybody knows adaptation is the key to evolution.

So, yeah. I’m just following the laws of nature. I am as a moth turning my wings black during the industrial revolution so predators can’t see me here, snoozing on the coal colored tree bark. I don’t make the rules, I just obey them. Adapt or die. Or to put it another way, there is no need to freeze your arse off as you climb to the highest point of your entire trip.

An hour later, I’d shuffled out to the little breakfast room, ate my cheerios, scoffed down a coffee, snagged some grapes (score!), inhaled two tiny bagels and pocketed a few extras, then went and finished packing. Rugged myself up to the absolute maximum layer-level. Leg warmers underneath leggings, booties, wool base layer, jersey, and wind shell. Balaclava to be rolled on prior to departure. Checked out. And that’s when the front desk clerk (the smoker), came and opened the doors for me so I could wheel Precious out with the greatest of ease.

“What made you want to do it?” she asks, and I explain that there is no explanation. She doesn’t need to know I can barely follow the line on the map in front of me, let alone my own logic.

“I’d be too scared to do something like that,” she says, and we both turn as two men in camo gear with trucker hats come out the front of the hotel and walk across to their bright white rental RV. She shakes her head thoughtfully, throwing her smoldering butt to the ground and grinding it out. Watches as I pull the balaclava over my head and clip on my helmet. The only bit of skin visible is the chilled pinkish circle of my cherubic face as it peers out. I look at her.

“Overkill?”

“Nah,” she says. “But it’s gonna be nice later. Good luck! Be careful on the pass.”

And with that she turns and heads back inside.

The air rips in beside my body and nuzzles up to my exposed cheeks. A small but stiff wind snaps and cracks the flags on the flagpoles at the edge of the parking lot.

Gloves on, jacket zipped, load tied. Won’t get anything conquered by lollygagging here, I think, and push off out the driveway.

The sky looks muted and cold-shouldered. The clouds, a grey, pasty sheen of sweat laid on the heavens above. I spy blue flecks here and there, over toward the horizon, and they hint at the potential for peeling back a bit later in the day. But for now, it’s just cold and hard and unpleasant as I try to guess where, on the far mountain range, Hoosier Pass actually is. Small peaks deftly reach out to touch the cloud ceiling and here am I, way down below, wondering where I’ll touch it for myself.

I get lost. Immediately. It appears I can lose myself just as easily in a tiny town as a giant one, and I’m slightly amazed that I’ve managed to do so in such a short time. Taking what I think is the bike path, I end up on the other side of town heading off and away from my goal. But ten minutes later, a little squeak of a climb and I’m on the Alma path proper. Back on track.

One of the tidbits of information I’d received the previous day was that the bike path was not in very good nick. And I suppose, compared to the road running beside it, this was a true statement. But I’ve suffered over some mightily deteriorated road surfaces already, and this one seems rough but tolerable. The cracks are wide and generously filled with black asphalt, and although bumpy, are respectful of me. The clunking reverb in my knees and wrists slowly shakes me awake.

Fences, like pieces from a game of jacks, line up to my right, while to my left traffic whizzes by on the 9. The day is subdued and currently void of much color. It’s wearing a ski mask of its own, it seems. Hiding the brightness from me. I breathe heavy and hard into my balaclava as I heave up little rises. The air from my own lungs acts as a space heater for my chin.

It’s quiet. Bare mountains ahead and all around, with small snow pockets hiding here and there. A reddish-brown hue to the slopes, with a black smudge throughout, then to the tree line, thick and green. Logs lie beside carved forest trails.

I’m being funneled into a gap in the mountains, where I assume I’ll pass through Alma before beginning the great, vast climb of today. It’s secretly thrilling. Every mile further, more of today’s mystery revealed.

My arms swim in my own sweat, held closely and lovingly by my wind vest. I shuck the jacket sleeves and am made cold by the damp fabric of my base layer underneath.

The word ‘barren’ appears on my brain dashboard, but I swipe that away. Seems a harsh word for an independent landscape. A determined visage. Cocksure. Firm.

The clouds ebb and flow. They reach in and streak across the sun to block its sightline and turn my whole world grey. The temperature drops, but the sun won’t give up that easily. Every now and then, it touches me on the shoulder or waves from a spot far off.

Yellow. There is yellow raising its hand amongst the deadening trees. The beetle infestation has taken its toll here, and many of the pines are sad and defeated by them. Scattered in amongst the healthy, proud greens are the withered and sickly. Their tall and lifeless bodies poking out of the canopy. But the yellow of the aspen is defiant. Life goes on. Autumn is on its way and no John, Paul, George or Ringo can ruin it for them, no matter how you spell it.

As I approach Alma, two joggers appear. I am black ninja-ed in appearance. They are pastel and tank-topped, tanned and chatty, as they trot along, seemingly oblivious to the temperature. That’s just for show, I think. They can’t possibly be comfortable. It makes me shiver just to gaze upon them.

Closer. Log houses with sharp-angled roofs materialize between clumps of trees, their dark stain accentuating the brushed greens and turning yellows. Humans, carving out their homes against this mountain backdrop, which stares down on them like the moon to the earth.

I look ahead. Mountains fall dramatically into the valley, their faces bruised as they’re pulled down towards the earth’s floor. They beckon to me, these mountains. This way. This is the easy way up. Follow the path through here.

In Alma, I stop on the edge of the street and do a quick strip show. The climb is rushing up soon, and heat will rise and roll off my skin and get trapped by my clothes. Balaclava squirreled away and normal beanie on, I sit on the curb and peel my booties off. Pants follow quickly, leaving me with my shorts, knee warmers, base layer, jersey and nerve.

It’s the nerve that takes a breath a short way out of Alma as we all observe the road ahead suddenly rearing up before twisting its way towards the top of this mountain. Up and across, I follow it with my eye as it hugs its way around in a lazy curl. The sign at the bottom states it’s four miles to the top, though it looks to the naked eye to be only two or so. But there’s a whole section not visible as it snakes around and out of view, cutting through the trees and making its logical way through the pass. This is going to be a long, hard slog.

It’s a funny feeling, to know you’re at the bottom of something you’ve been dreaming about for months. To know that once at the top, you shall go no higher. Some part of you says ‘it’s all downhill from here!?’, even though you know that’s not true.

The joy rises up in me, and I tamp it down. Because I’m not yet there. Don’t count chickens before they’re nuggets and such.

The climb up that initial grade is a straight up crank. I find a gear that pleases me and heave away with a steady rhythm. I’m in no hurry, not really, so I stop a few times to look out across the valley as it begins to sink away behind me. More houses nestled there, with aspens at their backs and the mountain’s moon face reading over their shoulders. The color mix – the shades of greens and yellows and browns washing and seeping into each other – is a true camouflage uniform palette.

I’m making progress, though it feels barely noticeable at times due to me looking straight ahead as I pedal and just concentrating on the grind. But it’s noticeable in my legs, for sure, and my heavy breaths reveal the true effort as I packhorse it up. I turn and look and see with some satisfaction that yes, I am getting even higher and there is some significance to that. A weight. A stature. The going ahead of going ahead. After that initial steepish start, the climb has settled in to a leg turner of considerable constants.

Perhaps a 5 – 6% grade? Steady. Reliable. Honest.

The road meanders and dreams. Slight curves and welcome straights. Traffic grinds its way up, while trucks groan their low-gear down groans. I’m on my way to that grey ceiling, through the rocks and half-dressed trees; their foliage stripped on what I’m guessing is the winter wind side. The temperature is dropping.

There is a large pull off to the left and I swing across the road to it, figuring something this large must hold some kind of view worth stopping for. I look down to the valley floor behind me. Streams squiggle their way across the marshy board, and it’s pretty as hell.

I eat a Snickers and chew my cud. Thinking. The flats below worship my height. I am chilled, but smiling as I turn and look back toward Precious, made to stand out against the rock face behind him.

We are achieving something today, boy. Can you feel it?

I stand in the stillness and absorb the quiet. A truck crawls past. There is a snap to the air and the brief splash of sunlight I had disappears as the clouds ooze back in like the boring cement of a government building.

Pushing off, I cut diagonally across the road to get back to the right side and continue my way up. This old trick smoothes out the grade to make it easier to restart in such a small gear.

The blue is creeping up behind me and pushing the grey back in this weird tug-of-war sky. The moonfaced mountain creeps in closer to look me up and down. Its crater face is marked with snow smudges and sharp fall-away places. Smooth from a distance, they are pocked and haggard up close. Fingernail scratch marks down their chalkboard cheeks. Their shoulder blades bristle under the rusty skin of them. Cracking knuckles flexing muscles. Sweat slurries on their rocky faces.

These mountains mean business.

I round a bend and there’s a kind of bitchy breeze that attacks without warning. It’s going to be very chilly on the summit. Climb climb climb. And then, all of a non-fanfare sudden, I’m at the top. No warning. There’s a hairpin turn sign and I think ‘oh, there’s gonna be some switchbacks’ but there aren’t. I’m just suddenly there, looking at the sign I’ve been imagining for quite some time. Hoosier Pass. 11,542ft. I am perched on the Continental Divide.

There’s a woman there, taking a photo, and as I pull up I ask her if she minds taking mine. After a few tense moments teaching her how to use the iPhone camera (I will always treasure the photo of her feet), she captures my victory salute. I can’t explain the feeling. The only word I can think of is ‘huge’. I am here. I am doing this. I am better than I think I am.

The woman wanders across the road to meet up with her husband, child and dog and they trek off on their hike up the trail. I proceed to do what I normally do in times of triumph.

I dick around.

Even with one glove off, I’m aware of how cold it is right now and it makes me unwilling to leave my hand exposed to take photos. But I pose the camera on the ground and snap some of Precious and me in front of the sign.

It’s really something to see a sign that delineates the Atlantic Ocean Watershed on one side and the Pacific Ocean Watershed on the other. I mean you know it’s true, that they’ve not moved at all and have always been on their respective sides, but it’s another thing to see it on sign. Water will be flowing to a different ocean now.

Take that, brain.

I look around for someone to talk to. It’s a grin worthy moment for me, but there’s no one around to say, “Hey, you know what I just did?” No-one to share this moment with. So I do what any lonely old modern soul would do. I tweet the photo of me at the summit and wait for my digital back slaps.

I spy another sign, off at the edge of the parking lot, and wander over with Precious to read it and eat my victory Gummy Worms. Purchased for this very moment. As I chew away on their wormy bodies, a car pulls up and an older couple gets out with their dogs. I’m itching for them to ask me something. Ready to explode with my achievement.

Look at me! Look at what I have done! Ask me about it! My throat is choking with it. But they quietly putter about, then lock their vehicle and head off to go hike down the trail.

They don’t even look at me.

The sun gets it, though. It is now out in full, hard glory and shines on me. You giddy fool, I think. You hopeless, idiotic, grinning buffoon. I’ve named and trademarked this feeling. It’s called Grintonium™. It’s actually an element of exquisite happy power. Its logo depicts a grinning Panda astride a rocket ship, orbiting a hot crumpet planet with maple syrup seas. It is the epitome of pure joy.

But enough of that. It’s time to go. The sun is both out and not again, but percentage-wise, it’s leaning more towards out. I look over at the start of descent and see mountains and mountains and more mountains in the distance behind. They just keep coming, like pins waiting to be knocked down, and I know I will have to do that. Knock them down, one-by-one. From here until I hit the Pacific.

Trees. So many trees.

But before I mount up, this Cinderella has to slip her own booties back on. I zip the sleeves back to my jacket and wheel my way to the road. Here we go. Down.

Twenty seconds in. Holy crap, I’m so glad I wasn’t coming the other way!

The descent is switchback-y and steep. Way steeper than my approach from the other side, and I fly down with my eyes leaking, my cheeks reddening, and my brakes hesitating with their grabbiness. Generally being dicks about the slowing down part of their job.

The metal guardrail holds in the pinball that is me as I hairpin it down. Directly below, I see the next shelf of the next switchback and take it slow to that point. Stop for a breather.

I would HATE to be climbing this. Would I? I don’t know. Yes. Yes, I would. This climb would have me reaching for swear words normally reserved for super-special occasions, such as total dick moves by racist arseholes or those wankers who take two parking spaces at the supermarket.

After the switchbacks, I enjoy long sweeping bends that disappear into sad and droopy woods. I crab around them to see what’s around the corner. Stop. This is the best photo. Start. Stop. No THIS is the best photo. Too much stopping. All those photos are crap.

Another long, sweeping bend and gradually, gradually we get lower and lower and down to yellowing carpets of flatland with a sneaky creek running through. Scrubby now. We roll through the small town of Blue River.

Spying a tiny lake before Breckenridge, I stop to admire the view. A few houses cuddle up to its shores. So far, this day has revealed all sorts of extremes. Mountains, lakes, streams and moon faces. As I edge closer to Breckenridge, I see the snowless ski runs etched on the mountains ahead. Run after run of cleared away trees, zebra stripped and curving through. I have no concept of what it must be like here during in the snow. The only kind of snow I know is New York snow. And the only runs you see there are road-soot black (and sometimes yellow), mostly snow blown, and cold salty messes.

In Breckenridge, I want to buy toe covers and get lost looking for a bike shop. Conscious of the day dribbling away, I give up and ride on to find the bike path leading out of town. It takes me alongside a crystalline stream of gurgly, bubbling water, then runs me down on a gentle downhill for a long time and I cruise and rest and enjoy. There are people everywhere, cyclists and runners and families walking dogs and amazing, amazing, amazing. I feel completely overdressed.

The hunger pang in my stomach becomes quite a triangle clang and I push on towards Frisco, determined to eat something, anything, there. Snickers and worms are just not going to cut it as a lunch.

The path pulls away from the 9 and I go up a rise and stop at the top to take my arm warmers off. Cyclists pass, and one calls out “Go Aussie!”, and a wave of Grintonium™ washes over me. I glance back at my flag. Good one. Job done.

It’s a serene section of bike path, this one. Through woodlands and scrub. The only sounds here are nature and the click of gears as someone approaches to pass or whirrs towards you, emerging suddenly through the trees and flying by in peaceful, mechanical song.

The mountains dominate my view and it is so beautiful I have no real words for it. This planet. I mean, wow. Thesaurus needs more words.

The pines and aspen are close to the path as I click by. Hugging in. Crowding, turning heads as I pass. The path weaves up and through them, their ceiling high so all I see is this corridor. The way forward. All I gotta do is follow the bright yellow line. Trees are straight. Reddish trunks, knotted bark and stubby limbs. Cones. Mixed in are the tall, dead ghosts and I weave around corners and wonder what’s around the next one.

Baby aspen, brightly colored, crouch closer to the edge, struggling to take hold. Suddenly, I’m spat into a clearing of sorts to a view that is brake-worthy. I look over toward the 9, which has reappeared on a bend that curves back again before disappearing into mountains. Choosing its line, the road sticks down low and is dotted with fast-moving cars.

But oh, what mountains. They are jagged and rocky, with pines in their wrinkles and bum cracks. It’s an exciting view. A thrilling moment. There’s your day, girl. Right there. I will be etching and crawling my way through these beasts all afternoon. Sneaking by and hoping they’ll be gentle with me.

Near Frisco, I see a sign. 10% grade. Going down. Whee is a word. I use it freely now. Unfortunately, I get caught up with all the wheeing and miss the turn that takes me into Frisco. Lost again. Story of today, apparently. I realize my error a bit too late, meaning I have to backtrack uphill to get to it. But it doesn’t take long and pretty soon I’m in the center of town looking for somewhere to stuff my growling stomach.

The Butterhorn Bakery proves to be a great pantry from which to shovel food into my nutrition hole. I order up a turkey and avocado sandwich with provolone and it’s so large I can only eat half. At first.

The leftover half is too fat to carry, so in a fit of “damned if you’re gonna leave THIS behind”, I slowly and with game-show determination, torture it in. Bite by overfull bite. I chew and grimace-swallow, as though being forced to eat my own words. My stomach hurts, but I kill it with a calorific onslaught of Take that, Belly!

While it digests in a sort of barely contained rage I shop for, and find, toe covers in the sporting store next door. No more full winter booties. Just wind proof and fleece-lined for my little toes on the frosty mornings. Nine bucks. Not bad.

The Frisco bike path is poorly marked, and guess what? I get lost. I find myself in a hamster wheel cul de sac with a sign for the path pointing in two directions, with no indication which way is the right way for me.

I followed my gut. Yes, that angry gut that was busily digesting all that food. It took its revenge by letting me ride the wrong way for a while until my internal compass kicked in and spun me around on my axis.

Much later, on the other side of Silverthorne, I check the time. It’s ten minutes to three and it’s still 37 miles to Kremmling. This is going to be tight. The elevation chart buoys my mood by suggesting, via a downward trickling line, that it’s mostly downhill.

So, I booked it. Decided to step on the leg gas until the engine squealed for mercy.

The shoulder now is wide and generous and after a small nerve detox, I begin to calm down. To relax. A few runs of slight downhill speeds and I start to think I can make up a lot of wasted time in these miles. On these long, slow declines.

The Blue River crouches to my right, weaving over and away and back again. Scenic. Serene. Calm.

Now out of the close-quarter tree people, I’m given room to breathe by an open and welcoming valley. A floor to dance on. A river to admire. Just me and my thoughts.

And Ray.

Ray cycles up beside me, out for his afternoon training ride, and we chat in an old friends way, though we are complete strangers. The questions ooze out of him, like oil from a leaky sump. He bones up on trailer pros and cons, and I school him on the intricacies of the TransAmerica trail, and then science butts in. My mass takes its toll as the road begins to slope upwards up for a spell.

Although pedaling with the same intensity as before, I begin to slow, and at some point he decides to cut the heavy, snagged bait of me from his hook.

“Well,” he says. “Have a good ride,” and I watch as he effortlessly pulls away as though I’m standing still. Which, comparatively, I guess I am. Before long, he disappears. I plod on.

A slight downhill nudges my momentum and I haul along at about 18mph. I do calculations (always risky for a writer), and figure if I keep up these speeds, I’ll be in Kremmling by five thirty. Maybe six o’clock.

Screaming down a fast hill and boom, I’m crossing a bridge and glance over to see the river, wide and luscious. I throw out the anchors, rationalizing that I’ll never be back here again. In this spot. Looking at this gorgeous river from this bridge. And if my brain yelled “gorgeous!?” after just a cursory glance, I should probably capture it in a photo. So, I park the bike and walk back.

There before me, is a whole river of Grintonium™. Bottled at the source, made pure by natural river rock filtrations and fondled by the leaves of riverbank trees. Grintonium.™ A smile-icide for the deadinsides.

Further on I ride, and to my left the Eagle’s Nest Wilderness resides. The mountains seem angry there. High and jagged, bare and mean. I have no real context of which mountain is which, so take a guess from the map. Dora Mountain there? Mt Powell, there perhaps? I wish at times there was an audio recording like you get at museums to set you straight on what’s what. “Yes, and to your left is Eagle’s Nest, so named because Don Henley has built taken retirement residence in a tree out there somewhere.”

A short while after crossing the Blue River again, I turn onto a smaller road. The 30. It seems odd to leave the 9, since it’s as smooth and flowing as Fabio’s hair, but there must be a logical reason for it. The map says jump, I jump.

A stabby rise up from the valley floor and I stop to search for the logic. The river is back to my right and I’m looking down on its wide expanse to see two girls frolicking at its edges. It’s deep and green and inviting here, and I imagine this scene if I were on time. If there’d been no accident. Ten weeks ago, it would be very hot right now. Hot enough to succumb to impulse, shed clothes and dip a tired body into the still, cool waters. But that was then and this is now and the afternoon chill is already sneaking up. No impulse to dive in today. Just an impulse to hit fast-forward and be in Kremmling already.

As I creak on, I spy the river snaking up and around the bend, and there, down in the middle of its throat and standing in the water is a human. In waders. As grey as the river rocks around him. I watch as he slowly wades across, each movement indicating he is finding secure footing before adding his weight. He stops, then casts. Winds his line back in. Casts again. It is a glorious day to be out and in it.

The river runs to the Green Mountain Reservoir and it begins to stretch out its body, wider and wider.

I’m close to Heeney now, and across the water I see raw mountains like slurry heaps, with tree candles dotted in their curtain folds. Dirt falls off like sugar from a pile. Their rawness is mirrored in the surface of the clear, green reservoir.

Wider and wider the reservoir’s real estate spreads. With each increase, there’s an uptick in boat traffic and water dwellers. I look across to the 9, cut into the mountain on the other side. It looks flat and straight and I think “so much faster to be over there”.

But you wouldn’t be seeing this, I think. You’d be missing it all.

True, but I probably wouldn’t be worried about the day trickling away. And the hills wouldn’t be stabbing me in the quads either.

In Heeney I get an attack of the juveniles and stop to take a photo of a sign.

Master Bait and Tackle

Giggle.

Then I stand and look at a little rise right in front of me and complain bitterly at how there is no grocery store here, even though the map says there is, and at how I’m just about bloody done with grinding up hills today.

Finally, I reach the reservoir wall, and come to a halt. Kick the stand out and wander over to the edge to look down the other side to the trickling river below. The craggy mountain rears its thick neck here to the right, and I can see the blasting lines and crumbing rock, where clinging trees abound. Down the wall to the steep valley below, a cluster of buildings, and not much going on. I flash to a scene of the wall bursting, of water flooding the valley below, and conclude I’ve watched too many movies for my own good.

A police car is sitting nearby. I pull a face. It’s sitting exactly where I want to take a photo, and I blanche at the authority of the stripe and the uniformed man inside. He looks over the water, to the pleasure craft and people being pulled across the surface in rubber tubes, and appears bored.

Pleasure craft and tubes, I think as I pull off and crawl through the cutaway rocks and back towards the 9. It guess it’s the weekend?

The afternoon grind settles in under my kneecaps as I admire the changing color of the sagebrush and the length of my shadow upon it. I see a clump of it come out from behind a car to the open trunk and realize that it’s a man in full hide-out shaggy brush gear. The tattered material hangs from his clothes as I watch him begin to store his gun away in the back of the car. Wonder what he was hunting that required such full immersion into this landscape?

The sun is lazy with its heat now, shrugging at the cooler afternoon air and I’m sensing its impending surrender. The afternoon colors are on the turn as I pull back on to the 9 with 12 miles to go and the threat of dusk looming a few page turns ahead.

The 9 has developed a rash of end-of-day traffic, and the shoulder all but gone. I hone my skill at the one-eye-mirror squint, and restlessly scan for ambushing RVs and camper vans and trucks. To them, I am but a blurry speck to their squinty westbound eyes, so I am my own guardian. I am Captain Caution. Princess Paranoid. The Lone Defender of my own Stay Alive Faith.

We are almost at the golden hour, where the yellows bleed and everything looks more beautiful than dry. When even the deadest, most desiccated earth on these rolling, bare hills looks filled to the edges with life’s energy.

I pull off at the top of a rise to wait for some trucks to pass, knowing I won’t be visible to them, and soaking up some of the last rays of the day. Ahead, I see the glint of Kremmling through a hill cutting, and my heart lifts that I will make it before darkness fully falls. I attach my headlight and turn it on in preparation for the change in visibility.

The shadow has swallowed me already as I roll down to the right of town and tackle a long, left hand curve. I glance up and notice the rippled bare hills behind the town are still basking in the soft sun.

A chill is falling, and the sweat on my face sucks it closer, but I push on. On through the town and past barking dogs, one giving a spirited chase for half a block. Through Serengeti-sized herds of insects, who beat their wings against my face and fly into my mouth when I breathe. Through the outskirts I roll, then on toward the center of town.

It’s quiet with the nighttime air. The first hotel I see is the hotel for me and I swing into the driveway and straight up under the awning. I stand for a while, just being still and looking back out toward the road as pickups and cars move through the lights.

Later, I sit in the fragrant air of a quaint Mexican restaurant. A bowl of bottomless chips and a cheeky salsa at my right hand, a cold margarita at my left. My legs are cheap dates and are drunk almost instantly, their ache fading away and becoming a pleasant tingle.

Enchiladas Regularas in the stomachila motorillo. They are hot, spicy, dribbly and wet. The drunken legs of the first margarita order up a second and in no time at all I’m bombed bombed bombed. I spoon in the last dregs of rice and tip the waiter like a loon, before strolling back to the hotel in the cool evening air to flop onto the bed. Tired, fat and achingly happy.

I fall asleep to an early X-Files, where Scully’s hair is high school-neat and Mulder is a wild young scruff of a wanting to believe man.

Willow Creek Pass is tomorrow, but Heaven is now. Proudly Sponsored by Grintonium.™ Available on all cross country bike tours.

Full photo set here

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 12, 2010
From: Fairplay, CO
To: Kremmling, CO
Distance: 84.16 miles
Time: 8:20:15
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 48, The Cow Poke Day

I’ve experienced the arctic chill of a cold look. The pyroclastic shiver of cold, hard cash sliding between the seams of my jeans pockets. I’ve heard tell of folks with cold, dead hearts, frozen to all including the docile faces of puppies. But lemme tell you this. There ain’t nothin’ colder in this world than chamois cream applied to the nethers at 30 something degrees Fahrenheit.

Now that. That is too much information.

The little girly squeal in that moment. The face all clenched and wincey. But this is the mountains girl, and in the mountains you’ve to be all “Form of. Lioness!” Not all squeal and frosty flinch in the ice box of your woodland cabin.

But man alive. That chamois cream. Brrrr.

I peel back a hessian curtain and look out in the low light. A semi-fog specter of mountain air and I can just tell it’s a frigid beast of a morning out there. I don’t need to go callin’ on no pit toilet to know this neither, ma’am. Why am I talking like this? Did I trip into a Coen film in my dreams last night? True Git?

Poking my head out the wooden door, I examine the pile of ice cubes that had been dumped on the grass the afternoon before. They have not melted one little bit. Held their shapes as though still in the mold. Brain processes this information. Brain draws a sketch on its chalkboard.

“Better dress right,” it drawls. “Better wrap the girl up in swaddle and such.”

Stop it.

Creaking and groaning commences. Knees and neck. Stiff canvas bags and cargo nets. The trailer sounds like it’s about to snap in half as I stand to warm up the knees and pedal out of the still shadowed town. Fog breaths. Rugged up. All aboard the Noodle Stage and back to the route. Down the hill for a half a mile or so. Pony Expressions? Yeehaw.

Stop it!

Shaded by the trees in a punishing air, I fly downhill and back toward Highway 9. It’s a little too shady for sunglasses, so my eyeballs take the brunt. Naked and exposed to the cold air, they leak uncontrollably as I hit speed. Crying with it, stream-faced and brittle-teared, I finally break out of the shade and into the early light.

It’s like coming out of a tunnel. This is the mountains. These are mountain mornings.

There’s nothing out here on the road but me and my mind and the occasional early morning car. Wheel on. Breathe it in. Breathe it out. Happiness slaps me on the back and playfully shoves my mood. Go’on. Admit it. You’re in a jolly today. And you don’t even know why.

It’s true. I try not to pry though, lest I ruin it. Lest the jolly bolt. Best not to jab at moods. Pick apart their seams. Just wear the jolly jumper until it gets too hot.

A couple of miles down and I stop. Grinning. It’s gonna be one of those nature girl, grinning like a nutjob days. Ugh. Hick on the loose, lookit! Lookit stuffing that funsized Snickers in her ridiculous maw. Mountain lioness, meet mountain loon.

Breathe the day in. When the cars go away and the road is empty and it’s just me and the morning and I stand really still, like now, it’s DEAD QUIET. Not a peep from the world. But there. Occasional little twit of a bird coming home from night shift, but that’s all. The insects aren’t up. It’s just me and Precious and this road and these hills and this incredible air that’s taken on a different personality lately.

I can feel the fall coming. The autumnal breath of it. On my cheeks. It is coming in a vacuum-sealed packet of fresh. Serves to remind me that my clock is running out and I don’t have time for all these reflective bullshit thoughts. I best be moving on before some freak snow storm jams a stick through my spokes.

Two deer pause by the side of the road and watch my approach. I fumble with my winter gloves as I attempt to skillfully get out the Nikon. They skitter across the road. A gait of proud mathematical stride. Of triangular grace. In unison, they leap off the road and into the grass and up into the shelter of trees.

You jerks.

Couldn’t stand still for two seconds while I got out the big lens, could you? Why so camera shy? I’m only going to steal your damn souls! I glance at the screen on my camera. Another shit photo to bore people with. Look! Deer! You can just make them out here if you get out your magnifying glass.

Miles pass and I begin to peel off layers. A few, sharp, leg loosener climbs and gentle hill groans massage my legs. Today will be a gradual increase in elevation, and for now I’m still in a gentle divot between hills. A valley. It opens up to reveal grassy flats and eroded criks. I see the grey road clearly creeping steadily ahead of me. Up. The subtle incline, the open meander and twist. A few shy houses dotted up and away from the road.

Great moments of stillness. An occasional and slight breeze. Gentle nudges forward. Keep going, kid. Keep going.

At the top of a climb, my head becomes a radiating mushroom of fireball heat and I shuck my helmet off and stomp out that fire. Stuff my beanie back in my pocket and let the air ruffle my unkempt hair. It’s a slow striptease of a morning. Knee warmers off. Jacket unzipped for climbs. Descend with it zipped to the choke of my throat.

Roll on. Grind up.

I guess this is grazing land. Of sorts. But I see no cattle. Just deer. Some fences and overgrown goat tracks carved into hills. Yellows and aquamarines. Fences hitch and strain. They tense to keep something in. Or maybe me out?

There’s a weird kind of barren feel here. Even though the hills are dappled with trees, down here it is rocky and dry. Grass is thrown around like grated cheese on a nacho bed, and closer examination shows the dirt thinly disguised. The occasional tree in a rocky outcrop hangs on all thorny and thug-like.

More deer. These ladies have white chests and underbellies and bums. A few white neckties on their throats. Short antlers and innocent faces. These ones are super models. The ladies auxiliary out for a trot. Two bucks are further off.

They bolt when I clear my throat.

When they think they’ve escaped my weirdness, they stop and turn and stare back at me. I gaze beyond their position to the treeless mountain-side behind them. The tawny grass is laid out like a blanket right up to the treeline. It reminds me strangely of home.

Apart from the deer. And the pine trees. And the grass. And the snakes I don’t recognize. And the flowers and the air and the land and the…everything.

Glancing down as I pedal, I check the elevation readout on my Garmin. I am 200 ft below Currant Creek Pass. 2.5 miles away. Two eagles circle above. At least I hope they’re eagles. Cranks turn. I rejoice as feet rise and so do I. It settles my mind, this elevation readout. Soothes it like a mother smoothing the blanket on a child’s bed.

We crest the pass. 9,404ft. I stop and eat a mutated snickers which, due to last night’s cold, has hardened into a very strange shape. Sigh and sip water. Unroll the scene and think on it. There, the far off grey daub of the Rockies as they crowd around the horizon. Hairless. Treeless. Naked and calling. It’s a sight that’s both intimidating and thrilling.

Lower, I see the road twisting up on closer climbs and I know these legs will have to tackle a few more before reaching Hartsel. The road goes that way. So that’s the way I go.

Although I’m averaging 5mph on the climbs, descents like the one after the pass bring the jolly back. Ramp it up and tossle its hair. There is no foul mood that cannot be tempered by a good fly on high with wind in the neck hair and a grin on the dial.

The road tries to set a rhythm to my song. It does this via large cracks across the surface. A ca-clunk ca-clunk ca-clunk beat of black squiggle fill and butt jarring irritation. I wonder if the cracks are caused by the road expanding and contracting in the cold. Even road’s gotta breathe, I guess. Clear their lungs and suck in the mountain air.

Another climb and a downhill later, a magnificent valley floor opens its kimono to me. The serious mountains – the ones with actual height and might – ring around my horizon. My constant forward progress means that they’re starting to plot to outflank me. Sneaking up to my right and left. A smoke plume wisps its way into the sky and the farm girl in me thinks someone is burning a funeral pyre of rubber tires. Another part of me is all ‘smoke signals on the horizon. What can it mean?’

Now that I’m out in the open for a while, the chilly breeze is giving me a squeeze. It’s a beautiful day though. I’m glad to be in it and gazing out at these open plains and yellow clumps of I don’t know what flowers. This feels like a new chapter. One of those moments where a flip is switched, or a page turned in the playbill. New Act. It’s ok. I will chew the scenery right up.

Glance back at the rolling hills retreating behind me. This way I shall not come again.

The fences are straight and tight and serious. Steel posts, threaded with barbed wire and netting flank me. I am in the channel. The delivery chute to the Rockies. Rider up!

One-by-one, I knock down the hills separating me from the larger landscape. From the mountains ahead.

In Hartsel, I turn onto the 24 briefly, and stop to eat lunch at the H.O.B Cafe and Saloon. Which is also breakfast. I find myself strangely tickled by the word saloon, and am once again amazed at how touristy I can be. Will the piano player stop when I strut in with my helmet hair and raccoon eyes?

There is no piano.

The chicken burger with swiss cheese reminds me that swiss cheese seems to have a different definition out here. But never mind. The thing is hot, the fries are golden and buxom. It’s a tolerable meal, made great by virtue of it being hot and fresh. I inhale the burger and ignore how the pickles have molested it. Push them to the side of my plate and try keep the fries out of their repugnant juice.

My chocolate malt shake arrives. It sits there all globby in a sexy bluish retro glass that I oohhh and ahhh over, then nerdily tweet a triumphant photo of. The shake is thick and cold. The taste divine and I squint with mini-icecream headache stabs as I survey the joint. Strange mix of people in here. Locals and sunday bikers, but I keep to myself and just watch. The laughter. The jokes. The patient waitress who’s seen this show a billion times before.

Outside, fat and happy with the encounter, I glance toward the Hartsel Jail, a white building with hand-written letters announcing its purpose to the world. The Sheriff’s office at one end. Anyone looking to get deputized to go chase the Whatchmacallit Gang will be sorely disappointed. The screen door hangs off its hinges and the building is obviously derelict. The west. Sure ain’t what it used to be.

Before long, I’m back on highway 9 and headed toward Fairplay. The traffic has been steadily picking up all day, due in no small part to the amazingness of this sunday. Motor homes and fisherman’s pickups. Lots of motorcycles. They roar past and not for the first time on this trip I think ‘that’s the way to do it. That would be way faster.’

The day is bright and clear. In the reedy grass to my right, I spy a lone fly fisherman stepping through a stream and searching for a spot. He’s a lone soul in a big scene, just like me.

And it is big. To my left and running parallel to me is a licorice allsorts kind of view. Stacked up, row-on-row of color and form to define each type of player in this landscape. Closest, the rippling grass on lower plains, flat and alluring. Adjust the scope and step back to the reddish balding and tree-free slopes slightly beyond. Further, much further I squinty-eye go and there’s a fine layer of thick tree darkness on far-away hills. And then. The very last player on this horizon. Grey jagged mountains with scarred faces and rough-hewn muscles to flex elevation at me.

Above us, only sky.

My happy state is beginning to annoy even me. How strange it is, the human mind. The highs and lows of it. From day to day, there is no rhyme or reason to its functions. Mine is a kite soaring wildly in the breeze. Some days it tricks and turns and whoops the joy holler in mid-air. Other days, it flaps wildly before arcing straight into a power line. Fried. That is all.

But today, we are joy-hollering and beating chests and drawing out the word ‘maaarrrvehous’ in our mouths.

More motorbikes pass. A few motor homes. Sunday travelers, all.

I creak on. A long straightway before me. Up ahead, the sun catches on the chrome of two motorcycles parked by the side of the road, riders beside. They are in the throat of a dirt driveway, chatting.

When you’re approaching something slowly in a wide-open space, you have a lot of thinking time. You plan, you posit. You sketch things in your mind.

How will I react as I draw closer to their position? Will I politely lift a hand from my bars and wave? Give the time-honored ‘how-yeh’ nod? Say hello and keep on down the road?

Closer. Silence. Awkward glance. Will there be eye contact? Of course there will. I am a jaunty so-and-so and I don’t get a chance to look at many people in my day-to-day.

I spin toward them and wave as I approach, my mouth held in a tight but sincere grin.

From their direction, a sentence takes flight. It flaps its little wings up to my ears as I mosey.

“How was the milkshake?”

You know when you hear something but it doesn’t really register? Like there’s some kind of transmission interpretation delay. And then your mind bluffs and pretends that it comprehended the thing, so you smile and chuckle as if to say ‘ah, good one’ to buy more time. Just so the old noggin can fully process the situation.

Mine does that. And then it processes the sentence, at which point it goes:

WTF?!

I slow and turn and stop just past the driveway. Woah. How do they know about the milkshake? Brain bells, alarms and spook detectors going off. Brain whispers, ‘That was weird. Creepy.’

Here’s the thing. Before I started this trip, I’d gone back and forth in my brain box about just how much to share in terms of location. As a loner she-wolf at the gates of dawn and taking no prisoners, you’ve got to be careful ‘bout how to guard the wolf den at night and just who’s untangling your fur with a sable haired brush.

My parents know where I am, sure. My friends. too. I gave them access to the SPOT tracker URL which shows my location every 10 minutes. I am practically micro-chipped like a city cat. I hadn’t not shared this URL with the unwashed masses, but honestly, anyone with half a brain could look at the TransAmerica route and probably work it out. Where I am. Where I’m going to be.

Add to that an excitable girl who tweets photos of milkshakes they’ve had for lunch, and that triangulates things quite nicely.

So in that moment, my choice. Gotta think. Gotta think, fast. Grab the HALT! dog spray and nab these leather-clad puppies in the face OR say ‘g’day and have a yarn. Dare I ignore the many years of the fear-mongering media conditioning?

Chant it. Mostly harmless. People. They mostly be.

So I start to jawing with these strangers. As I look into the open and genuinely tickled faces of Grey and his brother Will, I wonder if they realize just how narrowly they have avoided a dose of US Postal Service endorsed capsaicin to the dial? Of course, I say narrowly, but truth be told, they would’ve had to patiently wait while I dug it out of the cavernous depths of Zimmerman’s bag.

Just, hold it there, fellas. ‘Scuse me. It’s in here somewhere.

I’m no rube. It’s a fair bet that most strangers who turn up at your door have got something to sell. Most times you’re right to treat them with suspicion and a healthy dose of ‘get the hell off my porch’. But sometimes, you should put your misgivings to one side. All it takes to set things to right is a glint of recognition. A shared spark of an ideal or dream in the eyes. In this case, find a common touch point of being on the road and open to experience and sunshine and air.

I look at these blokes with their denim and leather and chrome and exhaust and see them for what they are: good eggs. As a retired egg collector (for that was my chore as a child), I know a good egg when I sees it. They aren’t cracked. They aren’t green. (Though here’s a tip: when you pelt a green egg way up high in the air, it will will explode on impact when it hits the earth. Or your brother. These lessons are free.)

These good eggs are out for a sunday ride. They figured they might get lucky and stumble upon my caravan of incompetence in their travels, and they did. Lucky day. I show them where Precious keeps his brain and we chat for a while. They give me a memento of Colorado, a fridge magnet with a snowcapped mountain scene, and I put it in my handlebar bag before hustling on my way.

Strange. Chance encounters. This particular road on this particular day at this particular time and there we three were. A bubble blown in life. We glisten in the sun briefly then drift away and are gone.

Man, that was a good milkshake.

More fly fisherman standing in clear water streams. Sunshine catches a line arcing out and into the air, and there’s a certain grace to it. The wind has picked up slightly, but I’m nearly at my destination so it doesn’t really bother me too much. There is no anger to it. No malice.

I can make out the shape of a town ahead and I know it’s Fairplay. Somewhere behind it is a dip in the rough peaks of the mountains. A pass. Safe passage. Am I ready for tomorrow? On I go. Soaking up some sunshine. It’s a pleasant balm on my reddening face.

Just as I turn on to the 285, I notice for the first time the yellowing leaves of Aspens. It reminds me, yet again, of how late in the season I am. That leaves are turning, that fall is closing in on my position. I should be concerned I guess, since I’m about to head into the Rockies for real and will spend quite some time making my way up their knotted spine. But all I think as I see the bright contrast of the Aspen’s yellow leaves against the green pines and reddish earth is “pretty”.

A gust of wind sweeps up the leaves and I find myself showered by golden foliage in the afternoon sun. They flutter around me like autumnal butterflies as I roll past the edge of town and toward the closest hotel.

It feels like ticker tape.

I have arrived and finally, finally here’s my parade.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 11, 2010
From: Guffey, CO
To: Fairplay, CO
Distance: 45.14 miles
Time: 5:09:50
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 47, The The Grintonium™ Day

The donut is stale. I eat it anyway. After last night’s too-lazy-to-schelp-out-for-food state, I can’t help but stuff it in my willing gob and masticate the shit out of it. My lips are no doubt dusted by its powdery spell. My brain, numbed by the action of blindly chewing.

Picking up a plastic spoon I shovel in, with slow, methodical patience, Cheerio payloads and ignore the milk dribbling down my chin. The bowl is made from foam. The table, laminate. I watch with half-baked interest, the weather report flashing on a TV, set heavy and high in the corner of the room.

It’s 6.35am and the day is ready to open its fluffy bathrobe to my merry band of idiocy. What I need. What I need right now is some thick and acidic, water-scaled coffee straight from that leaky percolator.

Check.

What I need right now is to dawdle a little. No rush. No hurry. Take my time.

Check.

I only have to do about 80 or so miles today. Only ten more than I intended. And all uphill. Good times. Idiot. You should’ve done them yesterday! You shouldn’t have packed it in early! Regrets?

Check.

I glance away from the screen and stealthily observe my early morning, Super 8 dining companions. Mostly men, sitting alone and eating in concentrated silence. Owners of the phalanx of SUVs and work trucks outside. I eavesdrop as one checks out.

“See you next time,” he says to the receptionist. The familiarity is obvious. This is a common stop. This is his life. His life on the road.

The wind will be a North Westerly today. This is why I dawdle. This is why my feet drag. I am heading North West, into the face of it. And again, not to belabor the point, uphill.

When I slip my key over the counter to her, the blonde receptionist tells me it’s not going to kick up for another hour or so. A second regret sidles up, cups its hand over my ear and whispers:

“You shouldn’t have dawdled. You’re gonna pay for that SO HARD!”

So that’s two regrets. I should’ve made it to Cañon City and I should’ve left earlier this morning.

I’m terrible at this.

Packed up and finally ready to turn out onto the highway, I pause. The stop sign sits red and enthusiastically hard against the blue sky. The morning is newborn and fresh. Fresh enough for knee warmers, but I’ve rejected the sleeves and am feeling comfortable with it. In the far-off distance, I spy with my little eye, hills washed with a sleepy yellow hue and acned with green trees. Right. Enough procrastination. Away!

Heaving off, I turn right and roll down the hill towards Florence proper. Squat buildings crouch in the morning light. At the first intersection I come to, I see the hamburger joint that my tired body decreed ‘too far away’ last night, and see now that it was easily within reach.

Never mind. Bygones and all that. I turn left and leave it behind. I will eat second breakfast in Cañon City, I think. In Cañon City, I will eat for real.

Down we go, through Main Street, with its nose-front parking and not-yet open storefronts. Through leafy streets, still and muted with the quiet of morning. On toward Cañon City.

Miles roll by.

It’s pleasant and smooth and rolling. There is no wind. Not yet. The road is beginning to cut into hillsides as it rises toward my future quad pain, but it’s not yet tough to me. The traffic holds that excited energy of morning. Of a page unwritten. A day not yet begun. Curves and corners. Dips and rises. It’s refreshing to not have boring straights. To spin my compass needle left to right and back again. It’s lovely and warm and I’m back in love with the adventure.

Today, today is going to be a good day.

I pause in Lincoln Park to admire a leafy cemetery. An ornate gate. Headstones spread out and given room to breathe. I’m not sure why it makes me smile, but think of NYC with its shoulder-to-shoulder gravestones and appreciate the real estate. Here, in this lush arena, skeletal souls are given room to breathe dirt freely. I think I would quite like to take my final rest in a place such as this. My eternal slumber uninterrupted by JFK flight paths and the chatter of overpopulated deadybones, cheek by jowl.

But let’s not dwell. These are morbid thoughts for another time. Procrastination seems to be pulling out all the stops this morning.

Before long, I’m on a bridge in town and peering down to a clear river below. The water is glassy and inviting. Big river rocks wink at me from under the surface, occasionally rippling for my pleasure. Thick trees line the far bank.

This is a mountain river. It feels different to all that have come before. Look at it. It’s as pure as pure and I can tell at a glance that the water is cool and fresh and just the kind of remedy for tired feet with socks shucked off in the heat of an afternoon.

The map informs me that it’s the Arkansas River.

Morning shadow reaches down to touch it with reverence. I look upstream and see pocked-faced mountains far off. I think that’s where I’m headed. I think that’s my destiny today.

A can of peaches, a chocolate milk, and an interested bystander conversation later, I suddenly realize that I’m actually already in Cañon City. That I somehow missed the subtle blending of towns and the city sign announcing it as such, simply because it faced the wrong way. As I look at it now, it cheerfully broadcasts news of Royal Gorge and that I can, if I so choose, drive right to the top of it. I admire the typography, the color, the style, without really absorbing what it’s saying.

Down on the Boulevard and the signage of the town is trumpeting its cowboy spirit. Shoot ‘em’ up attitudes and hunter pornography of giant buck-head paintings peering out from pawn shop stucco.

This road is ample and generous. I roll on. Signs, signs, signs. Royal Gorge, Royal Gorge, Royal Gorge. Perhaps I should’ve read up on that a bit. Since they’re hyping it so much, I’m guessing it’s probably a bit of alright to look at.

Enter stage left, regret number three.

But no time, no time. Out of Cañon City, past yet another Colorado correctional facility and I climb a curve then settle in. To my right, a craggy red, eroded rock face shades me from the sun. Its nakedness and rugged hue makes me feel like I’m walking into a western script. I look around as I pedal.

Lumps and bluffs and rocky hidey holes. Bushes glued on rocky faces. Reds and oranges and yellows. The sun must ache to splash on it in the afternoon. Visible sediments, and striations and layers. Dinosaurs out here, I HAVE NO DOUBT! (Plus, I saw on the map a shout-out for the Dinosaur Depot Museum, so there’s that.)

Signs continue to sprout up like mushrooms for Royal Gorge activities as the sun gets higher and stronger, and off to my left I admire the sharp rise of shrubbed crags and bonsai wanna-be escarpments.

Wheel on.

The personality of traffic is changing with the land. Mile by mile. More and more RVs are groaning their way past now, some wide and clunky and unwieldy. When I see them in my mirror I blanche. Wide berth fella. Drive safe. See my flag. Value my life. Value your own.

Feet continue to drip off behind me, but the elevation increases slowly so the climbing is not too taxing. Not yet. I plod on in an easy gear, slowly. Sipping my Nuun and quietly breathing. Thankful for the wide shoulder so I can daydream a little, all the while counting roadkill. Do I count that one there? It’s a bit too Skeletorish. Too far gone. Don’t count it.

Cloudless. Dreamy. I am well and truly taking my time.

Although conscious of climbing, I’m still in a reasonably wide open space with hills to my left and right. Occasionally, they come in close in some kind of Strip the Willow dance, before stepping back again.

The grade changes. Not a lot, but I can tell it’s getting more intent on making me work for today. It banks up and I pull off to the side of the road to refill my bottle. There is no sense of urgency to me, though I know there should be with all the miles I need to eat today. But all in good time.

When I look behind me I realize all this going forward has in fact lifted me quite high already from the valley floor. It’s quietly dropped back below me. I am ABOVE things. Up up up! Here we go!

A throbbing in my head. An ache in my legs. The wind in my face. I climb. Looking at the map, I see that in about 25 miles I will be at 9,000 ft. Knowing that Hoosier Pass, the highest point of this trip is at 11,532ft makes the 9,000ft more exciting to me. But that’s another day. That’s tomorrow in fact. I giggle. Tomorrow I will be at the highest point!

But for now, here I am with my headache and sore legs and struggling up a sudden sharp incline. I deploy a ‘you can rest at the top’ mind bomb and breathe a massive sigh of relief when I get there. It’s a sort of natural plateau. An evening out of land for a breather. I take it, willingly.

To my left, I see mountains lined up like a choir. Tallest in back, then stepped down in size to the next row, then to the next smaller, closest peaks. I look back up to the back row of that choir. Stark naked and steep. Hope they’re not a feature in my playbill.

A bit further down the road, I see that lined up there are whitewater rafting companies and RV parks. A small store with a cafe. The shout for second breakfast goes up. We’re close to the turnoff for Royal Gorge, I think, as I pull into the gravel parking lot. Inside the store, I decide I don’t want to commit to a sit down second breakfast, so buy two bottles of water and order a sandwich. Scan the guest book and see some familiar touring cyclist’s names. Those who have come before. One who was a day in front of me before my crash. He must be finished now.

Sitting on the bench outside, I peel back the greasy paper and inspect the butter drenched bread and thick bacon cuddling with the eggs in my sandwich. My fingers are oily and wet with it as I slowly devour this heart stopper in the stillness of a parking lot. It’s cool in the shade. No sound, bar the occasional roar of a motorcycle and the gentle laughter of the cooks in the kitchen. It wafts out through the open window, along with the sizzle of bacon on a skillet.

Zimmerman’s tire looks weird, I think, squinting out at the trailer. It’s streaked with a line at the bottom, as though I’ve been parked in a puddle somewhere. An RV rumbles by. I forget about the tire and am again focused on how utterly drippy with butter this sandwich is. To the point where I throw half of it away and wipe my greasy fingers on my knee warmers. I know I’m going to regret that loss of climbing calorie fuel later.

Pulling back out onto the road, I get about 30ft before realizing something is sluggishly wrong. There’s a very strange sound coming from behind me. A flump flump flump. I stop and get off. Pull into the dirt just off the shoulder and kick out Zimmerman’s stand to balance the train.

The tire. The tire is flat. But only on the bottom, Sir! *boom-tish*. What I thought from a distance was a streak of dirt on the tire was actually the crease of rubber made when a tire is sad and deflated. I sigh. Grunt. Ugh. The spare tube for Zimmerman is in the very bottom of the bag. I glare at it. I’ll need to unpack the entire thing.

So, there on the side of Highway 50, I begin the long and painful process of unloading the trailer. This will eat more precious time, but I don’t hurry. Once the weight is out of it, I slip the wheel off and go about the business of changing the tube.

I find a sharp sliver of wire in the tire, then inspect for other stabby hitchhikers. Nothing. Cars whizz by. Men on fat motorcycles with pillioned girlfriends enjoying the sun growl past. No one waves to the touring cyclist busily pumping up a small clown wheel.

Later, on Highway 9 now, and we’re crawling towards Fairplay, my intended destination for the day. Everyone in the party seems content now. Precious is quiet, Zimmerman groans his approval. I roll up and down. But mostly, up.

The mood is light but reflective, and I stop frequently to stare out and sip water. Listening to the sounds of the day.

“You need to remember these sounds,” I think. “The smell of the air.”

I will need to remember it all.

Climbing a bit further, I hit a nice downhill stretch but screech suddenly to a heavy and hard stop.

To my right, hulked in a paddock, is a stunning Airstream trailer.

I don’t think this is a major spoiler to anyone, but there’s a lot of Americana in my mind. From my childhood of gazing at comic book advertisements and devouring movies and television and books. My overstuffed suitcase head romanticized many things while lying on carpeted floors in a farmhouse in the hills of NSW, Australia.

It marveled over mystical things. Sea Monkeys, Dunkin Donuts and Drakes Coffee Cakes. What must a Twinkie taste like?! How must it be to pledge allegiance to a flag, to have show and tell, to see rollerskating waitresses at diners?! Oh, what a magical land it must be!

And nestled in that brain, amongst the cheap baubles of stereotypes, is a painting in an Art book I won once in a competition. A hyperreal painting, by Ralph Goings, called “Airstream.”

I appreciated it on two levels. The hyper-reality of it thrilled me to bits, but the chrome of the trailer, now that was something else. The metallic majesty of this object made me tingle. So different a life Americans must have. Down Under, pop-tops and Jayco Caravans littered my childhood (though we never had one). But in America, caravans were flashy and were extroverted in their stance. They were unashamed to be seen. They stood out and were pieces of artworks themselves. The Airstream is the caravan Apple would design.

And now, here it is. The Airstream in the painting. Out in a lonely field, silver and shining and just THERE. I take a photo. The brushed metallic surface smiles at me.

America, I never thought I would ever be here. But here I am. In fact, I am all over you. Rolling tires and heavy feet. The moistness indicator in my eye blinks wetly to show my admiration for your vicious splendor.

And with one last longing glance at the silver bullet, I push on and leave it behind. It has cheered me up something chronic.

But now the climbing’s not messing around with me. The black tar scribbles on the road in front are mesmerizing and scatterbrained. Around me, hills are becoming mountains, I guess. Pine trees are beginning to dominate. After a while the climb becomes more gradual again, and I have plenty of opportunities to rest from the wind/climb combo while on natural plateaus.

A blinking light on my brain dash flashes. You are running out of time, girl. Time is seeping out of the hole in the corner of your plastic energy bag. Calculations ensue. With each mile, taken at the current speed, the goal is not moving closer, but ever further away. It is alarming.

I climb slowly and methodically, pondering all the while. Past elaborate ranch signs, and intriguing road names such as Hole in the Wall and Tallahassee Road. Horse Thief Gulch Road.

And then I pull the trigger. Make a decision. I’m going to stop at Guffey. There’s just no way I’m going to make it to Fairplay based on current progress. It’s 2.30pm and I still have 40 miles to go. Current speed, 5mph. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. The afternoons are coming in faster and colder and I still have 2,000ft of ascent to Fairplay. Pull the trigger.

A goal is shot in the chest.

Steady. Plod on. The swagger of the trailer creaks and cracks. My lungs wheeze and whine. Legs churn. I reach the top of what seems like a long kick uphill and pull over to make a voice note, pausing suspiciously as an oncoming car pulls over across from me.

Killing the engine, a man steps out and crosses over.

“I passed you a ways back,” he says. “But I couldn’t stop. I was late for a meeting. You were climbing. Looked like slow going.”

His name was Dale and we had quite the chat. I was glad I’d decided to pull the pin at Guffey, because we spoke for so long it would have well and truly torpedoed any grander plans. He asked if he could take my photo, and I obliged, though it’s still an occurrence I’m not comfortable with. Having my photo taken by other cyclists, sure. But random strangers driving by? Not so much. I give him my card and ask him to email me a copy. I think about what I must look like, and how, should I ever receive this evidence, I shall probably be colored amazed by it. Will I look at my tan, my unkempt hair, and think “you were the shit back then”? Or will I think, “You look beat. Wrecked. Scuppered.”

I guess we shall wait and see.

There are pretty yellow wildflowers everywhere. Sprinkled throughout, like errant wedding confetti, I spy tiny white and purple daisy-like flowers. I don’t know any of these plants. I feel like such a foreigner. An alien.

Tangled trees with pine pedigrees are thickening, not just in girth but in presence. They are short and squat, but most stately in their demeanor. Regal and discerning. I feel their gaze.

To my right, I see the top of a mountain, quite bare and stark. A few take a stand. I can see a distinct separation where the snow line must be, and I’m grateful that I’m still early enough to miss seeing even a glint of white stuff inside its borders.

Again, I’m reminded that I’m outside the ideal window of travel for this route. That my accident delay means I’ll need a fine combination of luck and timing to get me through the Rockies unscathed. Please let me be untouched by early snow and freezing temperatures. Much respect. Hat tip to you, Earth. See me seeing you. See me recognizing that I’m entering a landscape that might turn around and sock me right in the damn jaw if I don’t time this just right.

Up, up, up through this slow winding valley. Fast downs and ups again amongst the burgeoning trees and more wicked terrain. Rocky faces with small dangerous pines clinging. Wild greens and mysterious noises in thick brush.

On a rocketing downhill, a deer sticks its head out of the grass and scares the daydream right out of me. A very different breed of deer from back east. Solid and stocky build. A ‘mess you up’ demeanor. A gang member of a non-white tail herd. With a dark-eyed look of death, he bounds off, startling a rabble of others into flight. I didn’t even know they were there. They are huge and sinewy. Bet they’d be good climbers…

For a mile or so, an airborne beetle follows me. At least I think it’s a beetle. Its machine gun ratatat is unending and I stop a few times to try catch a glimpse of it as it spirals up and around and behind me. Not sure what its beef is with me, but I catch a glance at the body. It’s fat and serious. Another strange creature in a strange landscape.

It’s not incredibly late, but I can tell the days are getting shorter. The shadows are encroaching on the day, trying to sneak in and steal the afternoon. They throw their chilled wet blanket thoughts closer and closer to me. You can’t have me yet, I think. There is no rush anymore so you may as well back off.

I turn off the main highway and begin a short climb up to Guffey. A steep kick and I flake out, walking a short half hill until I can roll on into the town with a mountainous chill at my back. I think it’s the first time I’ve been conscious of the approach of fall. That the season is on the turn. The air has a crispness and nostril chill aroma to it that suggests a sharp fall in temperatures tonight.

Not for the first time I think: “I’m in it. I’m in the wild.”

Turning down a street, I see a small bar. Inside, I speak to a woman named Joanne while I chug down a large glass of icy coke. She tells me to head down the road until I get to a stop sign. To go straight. She tells me I’ll see a lot of… And then she pauses while choosing her word carefully.

“Well, some people would call it junk, but don’t call it that in front of Bill,” she says.

Bill is the guy I’m looking for. He’ll rent me a small cabin for the night, but I’m to come back to the bar later for dinner and a beer. Joanne will be expecting me. I greedily finish my drink and head off.

Now, I’ve seen glorious things before. Real natural beauty that takes your breath away, and spectacles of extraordinary wowness. Things that you’re supposed to ooooh and ahhhh at. Things that are constantly surrounded by the whir of camera motors snapping and an air of ohhlala. But here’s a confession: my brain is equally seduced by the allure of a mighty collection of old, ratty-ass junk.

And I hit paydirt at the end of the street.

Old and dead car carcasses litter the grass. Ancient advertising signs smile at me. Animal skulls and pelts hang shyly from the facade of the most tricked out garage of knick-knacks ever. Motorcycles, hubcaps, hay rakes, and a prehistoric Pepsi machine. A fake (I assume) human skeleton ‘hangs’ from a light fixture out the front. An old hot rod (or rat rod as I find out is the correct terminology) hulks out the front with a skeletal passenger inside.

I am in hoarder heaven.

As I roll up, a guy with a large white beard (Bill, I presume), pauses his conversation with a local and says to my tired face:

“Well, you’re the latest one I’ve seen yet!”

“What do you mean?” I ask, pulling up but not dismounting. Not yet.

Turns out that I’m a late cyclist. That they haven’t seen one stop by in quite some time, seeing as how it’s so late in the season. So, I tell my dumb story, about the crash and the arm and the helicopter, at which point Bill says:

“You sound like you need a beer. Would you like a beer?”

Minutes later in the cool afternoon sun, in front of a shambles of a garage that I’m quite tickled by, I find myself drinking a can of beer camouflaged inside an empty tin of whole baby potatoes.

“Sheriff don’t like us drinking openly on the street,” says Bill, and I laugh. This beer cozy of a can looks vintage in itself. The potatoes in the picture look ancient and from the 50s, but I quite like the image is cuts of me in the scene. Of a touring cyclist, sweaty and beat down from the day, enjoying a crisp cold one hidden inside the shell of a Baby Whole Potato tin. Actually, I feel kind of like I’m in an episode of Northern Exposure. In the notes for this movie, Bill will be described as ‘a real character.’

We chat for a while, pulling on our beers and laughing in the fading light. The other guy waves off after a while, and I stand and listen as Bill explains a little about the history of how all this stuff ended up here. In this place. Across the road, I am struck by a set of rearing skeletal horses pulling a prison wagon with a poor mannequin soul trapped inside. One horse skull is wearing sunglasses.

“I like your horses,” I say, and he laughs. These are real skeletons. The farm girl in me is pleased I know my animals based on their insides as well as their outs.

Finally, we get to talking about a cabin. There’s a long, drawn out “Weeeeelllllllll…” followed by “do you have a sleeping bag?”

I nod, though I’m not sure where this is going.



“I had a friend staying in one cabin and he left today. I haven’t had a chance to make the bed yet. If you don’t mind sleepin’ on top of the bed in your sleeping bag, you can stay there for free and I won’t need to clean it up too much.”

The cheapo in me likes the sound of that.

As we wander over to the cabin, he points out the rustic wooden outhouse and washhouse. I AM in a western! The cabins are smashing. Wooden and cliched. I am in the Hogbarn Cabin, which I find out later is actually supposed to be the romantic one. A giant pelt looms on the outside wall. Snaggle-toothed animal skulls warn away evil spirits (at least, that’s what I’m telling myself).

In we go.

I frickin’ love it.

Bill picks up a few random pieces of rubbish and stacks some newspaper into a neat pile by the pot bellied stove.

“I don’t think it’ll be cold enough for this,” he says, indicating to the stove. He pokes around a bit. “And he’s used all the kindling anyway. But I’ll grab you a few sticks of wood”.

My eyes don’t know what to absorb first. The curtains made from burlap sacks? The welded horseshoes used as hooks? A classic white enamel dish to wash my hands in?

Bill eyes my water bottles.

“Where’d you get that water?” he asks, and I say the hotel. Very swiftly, they are removed from my possession.

“Don’t listen to what anyone else tells you,” he says. “Guffey has the best, purest water in the world. I’ll fill these up for you.” And off he goes, taking my water bottles with him.

When he comes back, he makes me taste it, watching my face for signs that I am flipping out over it.

“Mmmm,” I say, not sure exactly how to respond. I mean, it is pretty smashing, but I’ve been sucking water out of plastic bike bottles for weeks now. I could suck water from a wet sock and think it was quite thirst quenchy. As long as the sock was clean.

I sip again. Actually, it is pretty nice. What I like most about it is that it’s cold. I mean totally frigid. The bite of the mountain air keeps it at a totally chill-pill temp and the action of that as it hits my throat makes it feel all the more clean. All the more pure. It makes me smile.

After a short tour of the facilities, I’m left alone, though Bill says if I’d like to look through the town museum to just let him know and he’ll unlock it. I’m tempted, but all I really really want to do is eat.

I shower with a hand held hose in a drafty wooden room. Magic.

Joanne shows me outside to a table so I can catch the last of the afternoon’s rays on my freshly washed skin. She brings me a beer and a steak with a baked potato and I sit and scribble notes into my book. A large group of people – hunters, hikers, or regulars, I can’t really tell – laugh and skylark about, forming a larger circle with more chairs and more laughter as time passes.

Heavy legged and tired, I catch a chill as the sun finally dips behind the ridge-line, but these people recline in their short sleeves and don’t seem bothered at all. Shiver. Suck in free wifi. Then leave.

The fire won’t start, though it tries valiantly for a while. A thin trail of smoke eeks out of the chimney before finally dying. It’s probably not cold enough for it anyway, I think, not willing to admit that I don’t really understand all the draw latches and secret compartments that no doubt get the oxygen moving through it in a certain way to guarantee a flame. I blame the lack of kindling, rather than my incompetence.

Moving across the room, my finger wanders over the stacked VHS tapes on the bench before settling on one. I jam it into the player and fire up the tiny bubble screened TV. Raiders of the Lost Ark springs to life. I follow it with Dave. I’m tempted to watch The Man From Snowy River, but my eyes are heavy and I’m hoping to start early in the morning, so I lay my skeleton heavily down, deep in my sleeping bag, and kill the lights.

Fairplay. Tomorrow I will make it to Fairplay. And then? Then Hoosier. I will kill Hoosier Pass. I will bury its boney body in my cemetery of the conquered.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 10, 2010
From: Florence, CO
To: Guffey, CO
Distance: 41.69 miles
Time: 6:10:11
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 46, The Ticker Tape Day

Meat tearing and re-tearing. The gnaw and groan of muscle and gristle as it fights against the protesting crank. The uphill. Actual uphill – not the slow, lazy yawn of Kansas to this very point – works against the motion like an irritating grain of sand in an oyster. No pearls in these legs. No hidden treasures to be ripped from femur bones.

And yet, and yet. Why? Why do my legs hurt? I’ve just had two glorious days of doing nothing but eating, and drinking, and lying around on the couch while pretending to be an aunt to three kids and two cats. Why this agony?

I grind on. I want to cry.

This savage wind. This brutal thug of a headwind is determined to break me down brick-by-brick. To remind me that I’ve slipped up. That my attitude needs adjusting. This journey is far from over.

This journey is only just beginning.

And to think, just a few scant hours ago I was sitting at a breakfast table watching three kids dig around in milk bowl pools for cheerios. Listening with a wistful grin to their chatter and banter and general getting-ready-for-school shenanigans. Just hours ago, I was singing my guts out in a rental car, excited to be getting back out there. Thrilled to be charging headlong at it yet again. Oh, what an adventurer you are, Janeen! Oh, you’re getting things done now! You’re really moving the needle!

And then the slow seep of reality. Of once again being in the deserted wasteland of Pueblo airport, slowly packing the trailer and rolling things into tight wads to fit into small spaces between camping gear and clothing. Jamming food into panniers and bodies into lycra.

With one last look at the rental car, I’d pulled back out into the flow of my story and felt pretty cheery with it. Slight breeze, but not too tough. Magical sun, but not too hot. Whimsical mood, but not too scatterbrained.

Out on the highway and in the periphery, I saw grey tennis ball-like objects popping up to watch me pottle by. Small, varmint heads on periscope necks that swiveled and followed my movement and what they hell were they? Prairie dogs? Gophers? Giant rats? They were everywhere. Appearing suddenly, then zipping stealthily from one mound of dirt to another, before finally choosing their earthen castle and crouching there. Cold stare. Glassy eyes. More creepy than cute.

It took a while, but I’d finally made it to the center of Pueblo and the final panel on Map 7. Another one crossed off. One small triumph in the arena of ticking boxes off lists. I folded it neatly and squirreled it away in my pack. Out with the new one, crisp and clean and unspoiled by sweaty hands.

Of course, I misread it immediately and got a smidge lost, but it fed me into a drive-through ATM. I enjoyed standing at the machine, taking up a full lane and smiling at the gawping driver next to me as he rolled his eyes over the Precious and Zimmerman rig. Howdy, pardner. Nice day for it.

Crossing a bridge we rose to higher ground and turned on the top side of town. Abriendo Avenue. Toward the end of it, I pulled into a Rite Aid for fuel, and stood squinting under the awning while chugging down a chocolate milk. It was hot, but peaceful. Even the traffic seemed to be on half mute in the clear air.

I was aware of the smudge of pain on my legs then. A tightness in the quads and a sensation I can only really describe as a restless fatigue. One that I assumed would go away the more I pedaled. The more I worked the ‘rest’ out of them. They’d groaned a little as I’d bent to secure two water bottles under the trailer net, and sighed in defeat as I swung my right leg over and clipped in. Again again. Here we go again.

Down the road and a curve, then another. I found myself in a city park. There was mention of a zoo, but I saw no evidence. Passing recreational joggers and noodling cyclists, we portaged along in a comfortable silence. A nod of hello here, and hand lifted off the bars in a mini-wave there. We must look weird, I think, this strange caravan of filth.

There was no real wind here, just a warm and wafty breeze and the companionship of thoughts. The park spat us back out and we began to negotiate a few small rollers. More climbing than we’d done in weeks and my brain began to click into rewind, searching for the muscle memory on how to do this kind of work.

We turned. A hard right onto the 96 and finally shuffling off the shackles of a township. Back on the open road and free free free! Now, we are restarting. This is it. We’re back to it. Picking up where we left off.

An hour. That’s how long it took to get through the town, from the airport out one side to highway 96 on the other. The nerves started then – will I make it to Canon City after my late start, 3 hour drive, and slow dawdle to here? It’s past noon already. And I’m basically only just starting for the day.

The wind picked up almost immediately. Almost the moment I turned onto that road. A determined wind that I’d call directionless, but for the fact it had a swing shift of head on with a right hook emphasis to head on with a left to the nose follow through. Never, not once, did it come from behind to give me a shove. Not once.

I started to climb a dry hill. It was open and clear and a little bitey to the legs, but I wasn’t unhappy. I was actually kind of grinning. To my left, the hillside was craggy and raw. The west, starting to flash its knickers at me. Eroded and dry, those rock faces reminded me of spaghetti westerns and I thought suddenly of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne and horses and saloons and spittoons. The blue of the sky pressed down and I rolled on up past yellow daubed hills and swishing grasses. Wildflowers and wildhearts. I stopped, not because I was tired, but wanted a photo. Things were changing, I could sense it. There was a shift. I could feel it radiating right up through the road.

I crested this opening act of uphill and laid my eyes upon the future rolls and leg aches ahead. We rolled on, past driveways that seemingly lead to nothing. Gates and broken down fences. The landscape held back. Didn’t reveal itself to me fully. Not yet.

Before me I saw a long, languid, cat-stretch of up. I could see where it disappeared between the logical dip of two hillocks on the rise, and calculated my effort between here and there. It didn’t look steep by any means, but long and slow and sloggy. And as if on queue, the dull ache turned up its volume a little higher. Hear me, hear me now!

There was a little thrill within me, because I knew that when I got to that point on the horizon, I’d be at 5,000ft for the first time on this trip. That’d be a milestone. Climbing since Kansas to get to that, and only up to go. The warmth of the day was seeping into my clothes as the wind toyed with us. It swept around like a broom, this way and that, but never from behind. I was growing a little tired of its upper cuts and cheek slaps.

Towards the top, the cacophony of grind whined in me like some kind of high pitched dog whistle. This ache should not be there. Not after two days of rest. Did my muscles seize up and atrophy simply because they thought they were done? What kind of cruel joke was this? And then there was that other thing. The lump of sobbing coal in my throat, wearing a coat of utter defeat, and doubt and helplessness. It rose like reflux, trying to get out and make me break down. The wind, the wind. The ice-bucket of reality thrown into my flinching face and I wanted to cry.

And here we are. At the cry zone. But I don’t.

I grind on.

There is no way but ahead.

Five thousand.

With that elevation now tucked neatly into my belt, I stop and sip on a gatorade. The road curves down and off ahead of me. Following it with an invisible finger, I see it seep down and disappear behind a rise. Drawing an imaginary line across the obstruction, I project where the road leads. Scanning right, over a gentle yellow hill and far into the distance and there. There it is. It pops out, grey and skinny, to a plain that looks to flop its mattress down on the earth for miles and endless miles. Golden tussocks wave. That might be a nice downhill.

My eyes lift and scan the horizon.

This is new. This is hard to ignore. There, there before me is the ever-increasing vista of the mountains. They are still far from my reach, yet starting to crowd around me and loom. Poised to encircle me in a threatening embrace. Their color, their blue mood and stoic resilience as they half-ring the horizon: it both excites and fills me with dread.

So down, down I go. This should be super fast and fun – I can feel the slope and the weight of Zimmerman trying to urge us on – but the wind is pushing me back and I can’t really enjoy it.

Little groans of my spirit trail behind me. A few rolling climbs and then a more straightforward, no bones about it, no mixed messages slog through rough road and wind plains. Each descent followed by ascent up a slow rise reveals more of the same scene.

The wind is killing me softly with its song.

The mountains. The mountains look huge. Daunting. But this push-around wind and these sore legs seem to be doing their best to not let me get there. I stop. Deep breaths. There’s no point in having a cry about, you idiot. That won’t get you closer to Canon City. I record a voice note about how I’m feeling. It ends simply with Ughh. [pause] Ugh. [pause] Ugh. [long pause] Uuuuurgh.

These are quality moments between me and my mind. Talking into that stupid thing feels ridiculous. It’s so ‘dear diary, a boy looked at me today, giggle’ and childish. But I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget what it was like to be here. Right here, in this moment where I was in unexpected pain and filled with doubt and confused as to why my legs hurt.

Plod on. Time passes. Heave and haul and onward. Head hangs, back bows, shoulder slumps, and just keep turning. Canon City is slipping off the table, I can feel that. The turn of the earth is tipping the sun and the final destination with it. Best to just let it go. Best to just accept it.

Up ahead, I see a road carved into the side of a significant hill. I see no dots of traffic moving along it, so part of me is hoping it’s an old sheep track. And then, there. The slow crawl of a sedan coming down. I round a bend and scan the long uphill with dread.

A cyclist, flying down the very hill I’m about to attack, whizzes by. Envy rises up and shakes its fist at him, while I give a jaunty wave. My smile isn’t genuine. He’s really hauling ass, which means it’s steep. With a sigh and the dead weight of Zimmerman pulling at Precious’s skirt with mighty tugs, I begin to climb.

Unwilling. It is a word fitting for this occasion.

Steeper. Steeper. I stand and bully my legs to the task. But when the will has waned, impetus packs its little rucksack and runs away from home, too. I stop. Take a drink. Back to it. A little further, then stop again. It dawns on me that I am simply prolonging the pain here. First, it is for gummy bears and the sticky comfort they bring. Then for a morsel of Snickers and the chocolatey joy and distraction it brings. Then for a quick nip over the guard rail and down among the shrubbery for a pit stop.

It’s getting too much, and I half-heartedly push the bike for a few steps. Stop myself. I haven’t walked the bike up a hill since the Ozarks. I mean, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

Pep talk. Where did badass Janeen go? It’s as though by taking two days off where I was not alone has wiped my mind of the memory of this thing. As though this sudden disillusionment has stripped the linen off my confidence bed. A bed I spent the last month making. I swore never again to walk that bike, and yet here I was, doing just that.

Pep talk. Buck up. Time out and sit the brain on the naughty chair. Looking at the map, I could see that up ahead, there was a hard turn at Wetmore. A turn that would put this arrogant can’t-make-up-its-mind wind at my back. At my back for eleven miles. Eleven miles and I’d be in the town of Florence. And that would be where the victory parade was. The bunting and the confetti and the ‘oh, fiddlesticks to this’. Swing into the first hotel I see and take the loss and get back on the horse tomorrow. New day, new me.

Nine miles short of Canon City.

I walked the bike to the opposite side of the road so I could get a flatter run up for the remount. It can be hard to start back on a steep incline with all the weight, so it’s just common sense not to have embarrassing ‘drop the rig’ accidents because you’re too stubborn to use your brain. With a new grit and quite a tight and determined expression, I bent my back into it and got moving again. And before long, I was up and over. And hurtling on. And making that turn through the town of Wetmore and onto that eleven miles.

Oh glorious road. Straight and fast and kind of fun. For the first time all day, I was flying. Enjoying it. Eleven miles of an almost tailwind (it was still a bit off and non-committal), and a slight downhill all the way. I let out a bit of a yell. A whoop, which for some reason I’ve started doing in the lonely times and when the spirit of flight squeezes my heart, and I actually throw myself into the task. I feel happy. To the point where I start ignoring the fast fading light and entertain the idea of still striking out to the original and true planned destination.

But I’m toast. I know it. Absolute crispy rye held too close to the toasting wires and waiting to have the black bits scraped off with the back edge of a knife. The golden glow of a Super 8 sign high and to my right in the distance. My heart skips. Sanctuary! Sanctuary! (Rings bell)

No heart to continue on to Canon City though. Not enough heart to even make it all the way into Florence either, as the Super 8 siphoned me off the road and into its parking lot. I am done. So done and ready to worship the pattern right off what is bound to be an ugly bedspread. Ready to cuddle with the terrible decor and make peace with scratchy sad sheets. This was my oasis in the desert of ouch. My lighthouse in the storm of ‘let this day shut its piehole’.

Time to take a moment. I propped the bike up under the awning and had a little sit down on the curb, appreciating instantly the warm comfort of the concrete in the golden glow of a dying afternoon. Slowly pulling my gloves off, finger by finger, I sigh heavily and just… sit. Exhale, slow and long and puffing out my cheeks to release a mega sigh. What a frickin’ day.

Rising tiredly, I wander in and up to the counter. The woman behind smiles. The lobby smells of smoke.

“I need a room,” I say. “It’s too windy to keep going.”

A floodgate opens. I’m suddenly chatty and happy and laughing and oversharing. I ask her about food options and she tells me that everything is down the hill and in town. I can’t bear the thought of getting on the bike again in this wind, so I spend a short while lugging bits and pieces in and out through an awkward door and vestibule, and rummage around in my bag for some peaches and an old pasty. Coke from the machine. A snickers. Some pretzels. It’s not much of a dinner. I know that. Don’t judge.

Later, after a life-affirming shower, I wander outside to send a SPOT checkin. The sun is alka-seltzering out. The wind is fresh on my still damp hair and I squint down in the direction of the town below. There’s a hint of it there, but I can’t really see it. It’s that quiet dusk time. The parking lot is now filled with the pickups of wandering types and road crews. Sucking in a lungful of air, I go back inside to officially die.

I kick back on a bedspread that’s green and speckled with the vomit of a pattern that would probably be ok if they just got the colors right. Switch on the tele and numb my mind. Writing lasts for as long as it lasts and I find myself waking suddenly with the laptop burning my bare leg and my body half slumped over the maps. That settles it.

Don’t be a hero. Go to sleep. So I do. I do. It’s early and I fail even at writing anything of substance. What a fail of a day all ‘round. But also a win. For I am now officially 48 miles further than I was yesterday. Which is 48 miles I won’t have to ever do again. Not even in my nightmares. And I say that with confidence, because a side effect of such great tiredness and fatigue is that I’ve stopped dreaming completely on this trip.

When I conk out, I sleep like a corpse. A wonderfully toasty, content, brain dead, in love with pain corpse.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 09, 2010
From: Pueblo Airport, CO
To: Florence, CO
Distance: 48.12 miles
Time: 5:22:45
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 45, The Skeletal Day

I don’t believe in signs. STOP signs, sure. They’re not wired to lie, set – as they are – in intersectional domination at the corner of ‘oh crapsticks!’, and ‘this is gonna hurt’. Hand on Santa’s grab bag, I believe in STOP signs.

No, I’m talking about those mumbo-jumbo signs that futures are cooked up over and fancy stories about equine giddyuppers, of which there are four, are hatched about. Signs of things to come. Events yet to occur. Hints at our destiny and coy, creepy winks to our unknown futures.

“She shoulda seen the signs,” they’ll say, looking back to an event, unrelated, that could’ve been held to the light and made to glint a certain way to indicate…doom. Or something.

I don’t believe in signs.

I’m a pill.

Slouching on a hard, orange plastic chair in the barely-awake morning I spy the desiccated dollar bill wedged in, low, behind the Pepsi machine. Cobwebbed and dusted. Dejected, rejected, neglected and now, most certainly mine. I look around, take a swig of the Pepsi and squint at the scene as the fizz hits the back of my throat. Suspicious.

Candid camera? Fishing line attached to a corner, and someone poised to pull it away at the last possible moment, perhaps?

But there’s no-one around. No signs of life. The only thing missing from this scene is a post-apocalyptic tumbleweed sauntering across the road, and some ominous, worlds-end music.

Man, I’m starving.

Using the invisible string at the top of my head, I pull myself out of the grubby chair. Squeeze my rump between the heavy table and over to the treasure. Wiggle my fingers in there for a lousy buck. Stripper in reverse. The more I shake it, the less I earn.

“Dirty,” says eyes, assessing it.

“Sign?” asks brain.

“Hungry!” yells stomach.

I plonk myself back down at the lonesome table under the awning of the deserted grocery store in the tiny town of Crowley. Examine the bill. Snap it tightly between my fingers to loosen the previous owner’s karma and assert my authority over it. George Washington stares back at me.

What’s that, Prez? Speak. What are you trying to tell me?

I stare deep into his colonial eyes. Ping!

“Look to your right,” he says. “See that SIGN on the door? That’s an actual sign. It says CLOSED. Interpret that, why don’t you?”

It’s Monday, George. I don’t have time for this. Just tell me why it’s closed.

“Reach deep into the empty caves of your brain,” says George. “Think.”

One, there’s no need to get all haughty about it, and b) for a dude rumored to have wooden teeth, you sure are lippy.

Cogs turn and ratchet into place before meshing in a pleasing fashion. Ahhhhh! Got it! It’s Labor Day!

I’d forgotten. Evidently, the early morning start had shaken the Magic 8 Ball of my mind and all that’d come up was: All signs point to Dumbass.

Sign 1: The creaking floorboards in the Hotel Ordway
On occasion, I imagine myself to be quite stealthy. Nimble as a cat with paws padded and joints well-oiled to hide the arthritic crack and snap of their age. I see myself creeping by armed guards as they protect some fortress, and all that ninja badass running-up-walls malarky. But even Ninjas can’t beat a creaky floorboard.

Each gently placed bare foot on the prehistoric floor of the Hotel Ordway elicits a cry of such ancient wooden torture I freeze in place for a good few seconds. Listening. Waiting to hear movement, signs that I’ve woken all the guests. All one of them. Nothing.

In the darkness, I lift my other foot and gently place it ahead, all creepy creepy like. Same deal. The boards whinge and complain with such raw vehemence I think they really just want me to get back into bed and wait for the sun to rise. I could do that. That’s actually a great idea. But here’s the rub. I have no food. I am starving. I barely had dinner last night. I must get to a place with food and chocolate milk to stop my stomach creaking like these floorboards.

That, and there’s supposed to be a wicked wind later today. I’d like to avoid that, if possible.

Because today’s the day. Today’s the day I RENT A CAR and GET SOME REST and DRINK A BEER with old friends.

Nope, these floorboards are not a precautionary sign of ne’er-do-well-ery. They’re a firewall of negativity which I choose to ignore. Outside, I crunch across the stones out to the back stairs to rescue Precious and set him up all eager and twitchy on the sidewalk at the front. The green neon glow of the hotel sign looks on. A crescent moon hangs there. A simple, warm and wafty breeze tickles.

I trudge in. I trudge out. I sherpa on. In and out of the room and all the while creaking creaking and ‘don’t go!’ boards cry. And I don’t care.

I’m booking it out of this joint and no cedar-stained motion sensor alarm is gonna stop this train!

Sign 2: Even correctional facilities look sexy in the sunrise
Things are what they are not. Or not what they are. Or appear to be. Stop it.

Ok, so I’m riding along in the absolute darkness and my headlight is being a total jerk and slipping down to show me my pannier, and my stomach is being spasm-y because I need to stick something in there. I’m just stating the facts, ma’am. And this goes on for while and I don’t think much of it because I’m too busy having to stop and fix the angle of the light. That can really take up some think space.

Owls hoot. Frogs croak. Stomachs grumble. Welcome to the circle of life. Cacophonous audio. Cricket chatterboxes join in. Whirring wheels and spokes and chains.

From the darkness to my left, high-powered spotlights call my attention to their stage. There, a state correctional facility squats. All moody and sullen. A watchtower. A fence, high and pious. The buildings, low and sprawling. I take a photograph, though I’m not sure why. Instant thoughts of escapees in ditches, and me with my stupid lights and clueless thoughts. My photos will be the only way the police will be able to track my movements. Best to take as many as possible.

Light is creeping now. Purple and bruised blue hues and I’m standing there long enough that the sun begins to peek over the silhouettes of the land behind me. I look back. Decide to wait for it. Wait for it.

It’s a stock photo sunrise. A pure egg yolk yellow with orange juice morning. The colors dab the underbellies of clouds strung out on the sky and bounce the light back to the ground. Emotional orange changes to warm yellow. The correctional facility is shaking its polaroid from menacing and dull to golden and happy. It could be a sign, I suppose.

Things are not what they seem.

Or they actually are, but the mind plays tricks when the sun gets involved.

Sign 3: This dollar bill

Will there be anything to eat before Pueblo? What if I have to do this 45 miles on an empty stomach? Eh. I get up. Tuck the dollar into my handlebar bag. Swing the leg over and clip in. Off I go. I can bumble my way through a day with no gas in the tank. I know what lies at the end of it, and that’s enough to spur me on.

Sign 4: The Mess
The Mess is positively glistening on my plate. My stomach is doing elaborate cartwheels in anticipation of having it slide all over its acidic walls. It’s a sign – that not all signs are bad.

For example: Uncle Billy’s. That’s a good sign. Name your cafe using familial terms and people will instantly think of home-cooked food and… ok. You had me at food.

OPEN. That’s a GREAT sign. I push on the door and it swings inward and reveals to me an old-fashioned red-and-white checked tile floor. Comfortable red booths. Stark white laminate tables. Grill smells.

A young man emerges from the back wiping his hands on a rag and asks if I’d like a coffee. It feels as though he’s asked me this every day. Like I’ve come in here every morning my whole life and this is our routine.

I read the menu and see the next sign. It’s a sign of contentment to come. It’s called, “The Mess” and consists of scrambled eggs, sausage, cubed ham, and bacon bits all mixed together and topped with cheddar cheese and salsa. It costs $5.95. My heart pole vaults over the joy bar. Nothing but air. To call a menu item something so bold is a truth-be-told sign. One that I must embrace.

Order. Smile when he says ‘good choice’. Move to the booth and sit. I am the only customer in this cafe in Olney Springs. I feel very special indeed.

The Mess arrives and I gasp. It is massive. It is immense. It is glistening and teasing me. Potato skins wink. Red peppers alluringly show me their rumps and ham cubes smile coyly. The smell is intoxicating and steam pushes this divine odor right up my nostrils. It tries to force my eyes closed. Egg and cheese and the sharp snap of a cheeky salsa. It takes all my willpower to not just plant my face in it and chow down. Cutlery. I was raised right.

It beats me though. I can’t eat it all. Even as I get the check and thank the young man for being open on labor day, I keep looking back at the wreckage of it. Wonder if I can sit down and just shovel.

“It was awesome,” I say. “A real surprise treat!”

He looks happy and I am distracted by his smile. So distracted that it isn’t until I’m well on down the road and back in love with the glorious day that I realize I forgot to leave a tip. I kick the guilt trashcan around in my brain and it clatters on the cobbled streets of my conscience for many, many miles.

It takes a mountain range to silence it.

The land is really starting to change today. The earth has more form to it. Slow bubbles of hills rise up, smattered with wildflowers and tussocks of unidentified grasses. Bushes like acne, stands of trees clumped together in council. The word ‘height’ is entering my vocabulary again. Green is making a strong comeback. Black-eyed Susans are still like ponds of yellow in my viewfinder, but they’re more forcefully set off against the sweeping hues of greens and browns and all-round general sense of ‘this is different to what you’ve seen before.’ Twisted trees and saggy-panted shrubs. Cactus hiding in the grass. Prickly pear fruits peek out with spiny determination and watch me go by. Thistles wave behind broken-down gates and fences.

The road is getting more of a poker face too. Not so straight anymore. Curves and rises and ups and downs, and edges littered with the bodies of dead snakes. Dried blood pools of animals whose carcasses have been snatched away, probably by those birds circling overhead. Here, the signs are peppered with bullet holes. But these are real signs to dictate speed. Not life-signs. Though kind of signs of life.

I pop over a rise and see the subtle silhouette of a mountain range in the distance. It begins as a smudge to my left and my gaze follows across the horizon to my right as it gets higher and higher until it disappears behind the cover of a closer hill.

Elevation, baby. That’s a whole mess o’ trouble right there. My daily life, my struggle against the map, is about to change. I know it. I know that all these days of constant slow up-and-up are about to change to sudden, even slower up-and-up. It’s about to get significant. It’s about to amount to something real. I can’t even explain the tingle and the smile on my face. This day, this awesome day. Leading to a rest, sure, but beyond that. I’m at the front door of the Rockies. I’m ringing the bell. I am so excited, I could warrior cry.

But I’m not there yet.

It’s pretty hot, but the wind is taking the edge off, so I don’t really notice how much I’m sweating. Just keep going in a kind of happy sing-song manner. So many dead snakes I start to think that’s a sign for sure. That I shouldn’t ride so close to the crumbling edge. That one could lash out and ankle bite me and that would be the end of it. Stupid thing to think about, really. But still, I assert myself in the lane more. I am mindful of the blind edges and unkempt grass.

Rounding a bend and the mountain range peels back a bit more of its chocolate wrapper. It reveals a little more of itself to me and I see the bald grayness of a very, very high mountain. Bald? Past the treeline, I guess, though I can’t see any snow. I am a little frightened by its presence. I mean, that’s really high. Hawks wheel and arc above. Fate. What awaits?

Not far to Pueblo now. I have the constant company of a rail line at my side and I roll through the small town of Boone. Another deserted place with nothing open and nowhere to grab a snack. On the outskirts of town I spy a man in a huge shed packing onions into bags and loading them onto a pickup truck. The wind has dialed up past breezy now and the golden shucked onion skins fly across the road and get caught in the grass. Their wispy demeanor as they cling to the roadside gives me a pork floss flashback and I come over all hungry again.

Outside of Boone and powering towards me comes a long locomotive. It storms by, black smoke rising from its belly and coal groaning in its open bins. The engineer waves to me and I jauntily wave back. Two ships passing in the day, crossing paths in lonely Colorado.

The shoulder suddenly becomes very wide as I approach the intersection of the 90 and the 50. Traffic is heaving on this road and that most certainly is a sign. Sign 5, I guess. These people are headed somewhere big. Places to be, things to see. I am close now. Very close.

I turn onto the 50 and suddenly the wind is there. In my face, all ‘woah, where’d’ya think you’re goin’ in such a hurry, lady?’

Fully force it hits. Right in the kisser. Slap slap, back. Get ye back, plebeian! This could be a sign, too. But I don’t think so. Sometimes wind is just wind. Ask a baby.

It becomes quite comical quite quickly. If I wasn’t in such a good mood about picking up a rental car and having two whole days of rest stamped into my calendar, I imagine I’d be quite cross right now. Seething, perhaps. This is really just what I need, because there’s a window of opportunity to pick up the rental car at the airport – between 12 and 1pm – and I’m ahead of schedule.

Struggle. Head down. Push against it. It’s like a door stuck on carpet. Laugh like a maniac at the futility of it all. Cars and vans and RVs whizz past with consummate ease. Flashy boats and horse-floats. Time off. Barely noticing the speck of humanity being blown around on the shoulder. Fighting. Fighting for her survival.

What a sight I must be.

Notch it up, wind. Ok. Stronger now. Grit in my eyes and lashes attempting to fend it off. Dust sticking to me, coating me like a chicken about to be deep fried. Throat dry as wood chips and lips still angry at me for what, I don’t know.

Hay bales are scattered here. I pass broken biscuits of lucerne strung out on the road’s edge with twine twisted in their bellies. Two whole bales of feed down in the ditch. Some farmer is gonna be pissed.

Lift my head into the assault and see planes flying in, way up ahead. Must be close now. Six miles to go. What luck, I just happen to be going 6mph with this headwind. Now I have a real sense of time. I’m still going to be too early.

Close to the turnoff for the airport, I spy a gas station with what looks to be food options. It’s a hive of activity. People pumping gas, fueling boats and washing windscreens. Stocking up on beer for the holiday. I wander around the aisles picking up packaged items and putting them down again. Examine pastries through glass cabinet doors, assess the sugar content of donut glazes merely by looking at them.

Zoning out the static and white noise of belligerent children with red slushy-stained lips and grabby confectionary-seeking hands, I settle on a bear claw and a cup of fruit chunks for myself. A chocolate milk of unfamiliar brand and some Hot ‘n’ Sweet beef jerky for the car. Outside, I lower myself down to the cool concrete and begin to eat. Watch the world go by and judge it pretty harshly in the midday shade. I can Judge Judy like no-body’s business.

You there, you should go put those chips back. You there, you don’t need more beer, look at what its done to your belly. And you momma, get a reign on those brats or they’ll grow up to be cowboys.

Beat up cars park and I watch as their schlubby drivers enter, then emerge with vats of soda and cardboard bricks filled with beer. Hotdogs and deep-fried golden…I’m going to call them dongs. Gossip girls with phones glued to their ears slide into back seats. Bedazzled leggings and pulled-back razamataz hair.

If this is a sign, I can’t even begin to guess at what it means.

Back out on the road and the wind is just as ferocious. Dust is picked up and organized into a billowing tube of movement that I see heading right for me. I stop and brace for the sting of dirt hitting my skin and face, but see it rise suddenly in front of me and go over my head. This wind is starting to be a real drag now.

Turning off the road and toward the airport, I find myself on a wide open boulevard, devoid of traffic. I turn again and trundle past the aviation museum, smiling at the fighter plane and old transport hulks positioned behind its fence.

At the terminal itself, I find myself pretty much alone. The Hertz counter is silent. The baggage carousel also mute and still. I am early, with 45 minutes to kill, so I get changed and sit out of the wind just inside the door and let myself be pleasantly licked by the air conditioning.

Two security guards enter, then disappear into the belly of the terminal. They don’t give me a second glance, but on their way back, stop next to Precious and say a few words to each other about him. Point at the trailer. Move on. I watch them leave, then lower my gaze to the pile of stuff I have to load into the car. Can’t quite believe I’ve managed to lug it over 2,000 miles already.

The Hertz lady is cheery as she unlocks her booth and stresses that the flight must have been early and how sorry she is that she wasn’t here. I explain to her that there was no flight for me. That I am bike-bound and she’s full to bursting with questions.

Brave. She uses that word. Stupid. I use that one. We laugh. I never get sick of my joke.

I sign stuff, get keys and am spat out onto the sidewalk at the car that’s been sitting in front of Precious the whole time. A white Corolla. Indignity attacks and before long, Precious finds himself sans wheels and packed tightly into a car trunk. Loaded up and relaxed, I get in and pull away from the route I have been on for 40-something days.

The temperature gauge in the car says 97 degrees. I’m glad to be out of the heat.

One of the first thoughts I have as I pull into the auto-stream of cars on the road is “THIS IS SO MUCH FASTER!”

I’m not even trying to make a joke. It’s a revelation to me. That something can move this fast with ease. It’s exhilarating and for a split second I entertain the thought of driving the rest of the way to Oregon. I could totally fake it. Stop every now and then and take a photo of the bike and me ‘gettin’ it done’. Who would know? But the thought disappears as quickly as it appeared. That wouldn’t make me happy at all.

With music cranked and my foot getting used to not being attached to the pedal, I fly along this road and join the human race. I duck in and out and pass and tail and I’m just happy in the river. My legs are tired and tingling but content, and when I stop at a Popeyes and stuff chicken in my face and spoon gobfuls of mashed potato into my mouth it’s as though I can literally feel it glueing torn muscle and sinew back together. The icy root beer is like salve to my fatigue.

Back in the car and the radio is playing music I’ve never heard, I’m that far out of the mainstream. Up ahead, the sky looks ominous with smoke. There’s a large fire in Boulder today, and I’m driving right into its domain.

Three hours later and the sun is masked by a smoke monster as I skim the outskirts of Boulder. When I pull up at my destination, I am met by Heather at the front door. Ash is falling, the smell of smoke overwhelming, kids are shyly being introduced to Precious.

I am here. I have arrived.

Sign 6. People like your bike better than you
It’s 8,30am and Precious is flat out and lying vulnerable on the street in downtown Boulder as I reach into the back seat to get his wheels out.

“Is that Precious?!”

I hear the yell come from across the road behind me and freeze a little as my brain questions whether or not I actually really just heard that or not. I stand up and look to see a bloke crossing the street with a very broad grin on his face. He stops suddenly.

“That…” he hesitates. “That probably sounded a bit weird.”

I nod and indicate that yes, it was weird and actually kind of creepy. Imagine you’re in a town you’ve never been in, on a street you’ve never been on, and a complete stranger calls out in recognition to your damn BIKE.

“I’m Meatflag,” he says. If ever there was a sign, that’s it. It doesn’t really ease my tight-shouldered stance. “I follow you on twitter. I recommended the bike shop.”

Ah, ok. With you now. Things are cool. Rad. There’s a little light fitzing in the back of my brain. One of bitterness and resentment aimed squarely at Precious. Because honestly, just once I’d like to be recognized before my damn bike. I am the one that’s doing all the work here, after all! But the rational part of my brain blacks that light out and I accept this encounter for what it is: kinda cool, actually.

We chat for a while and I get some food recommendations. I leave Precious at University Bicycles and feel naked without my bike in my life. At least when he was in the car, he was still with me. Does that mean the sign is that I can’t live without him? That’s just sad, although when I pick him up the very next day I actually get excited to see him before he’s wheeled out all clean and newly shod.

Sign 7. Ignore the signs. Just do what you do.
I am human again. Held to the bosom of old friends in the comfort of their house. Their hearts. I’m not great at keeping in touch with friends in general, so always hope that brief catchups, however sporadic, can adequately communicate my love. That they’ll see that in a world of things that mean little, this means something. That it means something to me.

Pete is off to Seattle, so I only see him for a night, but over the next two days I greedily absorb his family into my pores. I read bedtime stories, talk silly, and eavesdrop on kids’ whispers and giggles. I drink cold Colorado beers and have real grown up conversations. I eat well and stare down a cat on a staircase. My brain slowly remembers – this is how to be with people. I wrap myself in a decadent duvet and sink down deep into a bed in a real bedroom and sleep until I wake up naturally. Breathe deeply. Do nothing much of anything.

It is heaven for me. This pill.

On the drive back to Pueblo to drop off the car, it hits me again. I don’t believe in signs. I don’t believe that the world is trying to tell me anything, except to be present in it. I have a map and a bicycle and a place to be. I’m still breathing. I’m still here. I’m still alive and I’m ready to go.

And that’s the only sign that matters.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 06, 2010
From: Ordway, CO
To: Pueblo Airport, CO
Distance: 45.10 miles
Time: 4:39:26
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 44, The Gristle Grind Day

White jawed and invisible whiskered, I watch him watching me watch him and gently continue my pedal towards his mark. In the crisp morning, the horizon has an endless girth. From eye-corner to eye-corner. Flat, featureless and unbroken. The road slices through its gut, focusing my gaze on the task ahead. That task being to simply put what I see in front, behind.

The road. An unrelenting forward force. Black, cracked, and with the promise of escape laid upon its stubborn shoulders. It’s a mesmerizing presence. Needless to say, anything that suddenly appears on it is like a streaker at the cricket. A typo in the script. A fly in the otherwise dull ointment.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is such a fly. A white and ginger oddity framed on the canvas of a dark road.

He’d fox-in-a-box popped from the grassy cloak of the road’s edge moments before and now stood motionless, watching my slow approach. Slender and quizzical. Suspicious-eyed and curious-eared. His rusty tail conducts an invisible orchestra.

Adagio. The grass waves. I pedal. We lock eyes. It must be love.

He’ll get spooked soon, I think as I continue my methodical pedal grind. He’ll get spooked and dash back into the grass. Duck and cover, dive and roll. Be gone, like run-off down a lonely, Colorado drain.

I cross an imaginary line in this Colorado standoff of Fox v. Fembiker. But he does not soft-sock trot into the safety of the grass. No. He bolts. Straight down the center of the road and away from me, following the faded yellow line that dots its way off into the distance.

Mondrian landscape with canine figure.

His tail’s gone all allegro and he’s bounding, bounding. As if to say, “C’mon, chase me! It’s fun!” Stops. Looks back. A slight pause, mouth open and curious, then off again. Down, down, down the road.

I’m grinning, stupidly and secretively. My pace remains steady as watch him retreat. I don’t give chase.

My legs hurt. I mean, they really hurt today. Four miles in and fatigue is chomping away at them. An ache spreads from mid-thigh to hip and back down to knee. On both sides.

Fantastic Mr. Fox disappears from view. sucked into the crack between blue horizon and black road. Pffreewrut! Gone.

I am alone again.

The sun is not flexing its fierceness yet, preferring to creep up and slow roast no doubt. So I’m left with the fresh light and optimism of a cool beginning. I like the early morning starts, with my shadow stretched out in front and the sun spooning at my back.

Looking down, I ride over myself for most of the morning. My cycling shadow getting shorter, the day getting hotter, my ache getting greater. A squint creeps onto my dial as the light swings overhead to blast me more aggressively than is necessary. There’s a wind from the west and I’m slogging headlong into it. The thermometer is supposed to reach 100F today. Something to look forward to. My legs disagree.

Ugh. There’s nothing out here. Nothing.

Plowed fields glare at my impertinent dismissal of their brown presence. I don’t care. I focus on the little things. The strewn items of garbage (there are a lot of one-shoed people out here it seems), the cracks in the road, the squiggles of drunken tar trying to fill them in. The clunk and bump of me going over them.

“Snake!”

I’m not sure why I say that out loud, perhaps a mix of boredom and terror, but there you have it. My first snake sighting. He motors at speed across the road in front of me and out into the safety of the grass. I don’t stop immediately, but I do stop. Look back. A viperous periscope of a head ratchets up in the grass to give me the ol’ snake eye. Cheeky bastard.

Open the file cabinet in my mind. File it away. SIGHTING: Snake: TYPE: Unknown. REACTION: Terror, followed swiftly by disaffected apathy. Noting it in case nothing else happens today.

Soon after, the tiny town of Haswell rears into view. It seems a little broken down and busted up. It’s unfortunate that many abandoned buildings in small towns are on the main drag. Still, they make for good photos. A giant texaco logo on the side of a desiccated building looks artistic rather than commercial. Weeds through floorboards are quaint. Peeling paint, endearing and aesthetically pleasing. Easy to say when you don’t live here. I glance towards the lush green park where cyclists are allowed to camp. It is a green beacon in this brown town. A quiet mood blankets me. If I stay any longer, I’ll be depressed all day.

With a sigh, I push on. It’s getting progressively harder to will myself to keep moving and I recognize that today is going to be one of those battles in the mind rather than battle in the legs.

Steel yourself, mind. Gird your hemispheric loins. When the day has its temperature tantrum, you must be strong enough to ride away and leave it kicking and twisting in the parking lot. When the dry wind is stealing your soul right from your open pores, you must have the fortitude to spit at it. But in a direction that does not fly straight back into your face.

Are you ready, mind?

No answer.

We pedal along in silence. It seems even Precious has the blues.

On a particularly long and monotonous stretch, I stop. Traffic is non-existent. I twist my body around and scan the road behind me, all the way back until it’s a dot on the horizon. Nothing. Not a car in sight. No life beyond plants. Looking ahead yields the same result. Unclipping my other foot, I get off the bike.

Where’s a fox when you need one?

In an effort to bring excitement to my day, I kick down Zimmerman’s stand and pose my steed in the middle of the road. Are you ready for your closeup, Precious? I discover the advantage of a featureless landscape. He is a giant out here. A star. A majestic presence framed by a respectful scene. Colorado and Precious. A love song of the ages.

But, still nothing. I stand in the middle of the road surveying the scene. Sip on my water bottle. Squint. A car. Far off behind me and appearing to crawl, though I know it’s probably speeding. My movements are unhurried as I stroll back to Precious and slowly wheel him to the side of the road.

The car is closer now, it’s blue. Or is it green? I still can’t quite see it clearly, but I’m suddenly self-conscious about being out here by myself. About what I must look like. What a sight I must be. Isn’t it weird, me just stopped on side of the road, looking at nothing? Isn’t it fruity?

The tension rises, the anticipation of the car’s approach. I swing my leg over the bike and stand still, looking straight ahead and casual. It will look as though they’ve just caught me at a time where I’m pausing to tie my shoelace, or eat something. Nothing to see here. Nothing suspicious about a girl alone in the middle of nowhere with a bike.

With an an air-sucking ‘whoosh’, it goes by. Then a motorcycle roar, hidden by the car, startles me in a second whoosh of noise and fumes and leather-clad whoops as the pillion girlfriend cheers at me and waves.

I watch for a minute or two as they pin-point disappear.

Alone again.

Colorado has a slightly different feel to Kansas so far. But not much. There’s a swagger to the not-quite flatness. A sly nod and wink in its dry face. Still, monotony is monotony and I’ve just about had enough. Where are the mountains I’ve heard so much about? Just give me the damn mountains!

I won’t deny that things are starting to change. Black-eyed Susans are beginning to dominate as my road side audience. They nod and wave, and if I get too close the larger ones flick me like triffods in annoyance.

Their petals are burnt, their centers angry and black. They’re raging against the same wind as I am, and I feel their defiance. I think they’re having better luck than I. My shoulders are beginning to sag and I’m slowly being worn down by the heat and the wind and the dry water-cracker taste of the scene.

In Arlington, I spy a procrastination station and eagerly pull in. There’s a small mesh picnic table, a wooden outhouse with a crudely latched door, and glory upon glory, some shade. It’s a tough day in the battleground of my brain today. Struggle against the frown maker of my mind. I don’t want to go on, I dread the energy sapping heat of the wind. I revel in the joy of simply sitting on this picnic table and sipping my Nuun and eating my snacks and stretching my legs. I could sit here for hours.

It’s a stupid heat and its stupid hot. The air is dumb with it and whispering all through my sweating hair and over my ears and across the red-glow of my flushed cheeks. I mean to end you, it croons.

Twenty-five miles to go and my motivation needs a therapist. An email picks me up. It’s from Heather and she’s managed to sort out my car rental problems for tomorrow. I just have to get to Pueblo and pick it up. Then I will have two glorious days of NOT hurting my legs and NOT simmering in my own juices and NOT complaining about the damn wind.

I just have to get to Pueblo. All that lies between it and me is today and a bit of slogging in the morning-morrow. Kick in the pants. Get the off the bench dance.

Off, off, off we move, pulling out onto the baking road and behind the exhaust pipe of the day. A hot waft of head wind, demoralizing and accusatory, slaps into my angry skin. Annoying. Sweat appears and is left crusty and salty on my face. I feel the shell of it at the corners of my eyes when I squint.

My lips are sticky to the touch, a battle I’ve been waging all day. Is the lip balm a cure or a cause? A film of dry-lip grunge forms a tight line across my mouth and I wipe it onto the back of my glove like some kind of saliva slug. I am both fascinated and disgusted by this development and have been playing scientist with it. Experiment 1: More lip balm. Experiment 2: Less. Experiment 3: None at all. Experiment 4: Open mouth riding. Experiment 5: Closed mouth riding. Conclusions: All I’ve really learned is that closed mouth riding is the worst. After a time, the film on your lips becomes glue like, and opening your your mouth is like ripping apart a zip-lock bag. Only parts of your lip come off with it.

Squinting ahead, I gaze into my future. I want to close my eyes to it and sleep while riding. Not very practical, but my brain entertains the idea for a beat before discarding it. The sky is a gradient of rich to pasty light blue. There are no clouds. I yearn for a tree sighting to save me from the drudgery of this mundanity.

It’s not a tree. Well, there are two trees down there, but it’s what lies beyond them that startles me out of my jaded thoughts.

I crest the top of a small rise. Black-eyed Susans are flanking my progress, intruding my thoughts with their frantic ‘look-at-me’ movements. But I am looking straight ahead, my eye having caught sight of something in the distance.

The road stretches out straight for perhaps half-a-mile before beginning a slow, languid curve to the left. Hugging this curve is the railway track. It has been stalking the road all day, never more than a hefty loogie away. But now it has become the focus of my vision. For sitting upon it and stretching out along that very languid curve, all the way to the disappearing horizon, are motionless rail cars.

I’ve read about this. I know they’re abandoned and this will go on for miles, although I can’t remember how many exactly. The excitement I feel is not because I’ll have something new to gaze at. No. I’m excited because I’m hoping they’ll act as some kind of awesome wind break for me. That they’ll protect me from the constant playground bullying of a rude wind.

I inch closer. Closer.

They’re larger than I thought. Double deckers. Car carriers, perhaps? They brandish their airy, mesh sides with pride. Ancient paint cracks and surrenders. Graffiti at human height, brand graffiti up higher. Union Pacific. They’re Building America, or so they claim.

Here, the yellow flowers provide a phalanx of protection between the road and it. I consider stopping and wading through for a closer look, but am put off by the potential snake-to-ankle-bite ratio that is hidden within.

As a wind break, these mesh-sided abandoned train children are hopeless. Directionally, it’s just all wrong anyway, so I simply plod on in bitter silence.

My flag flaps and cracks in the wind. It’s angry too.

The road ripples up ahead, slowly rising up and up to a logical crest that I must reach. The train to my right, dead and unmoving, shadows it.

A break! In the train. A polite interruption for a side-road to cross the tracks, then the carriages resume as though nothing has happened. Another. I stop and take a photo, knowing full well there is no way to adequately capture the grinding length and determination of this odd Colorado occupant. I can pass through. It just sits. Alone. Aloof. Unloved. Forgotten.

Not far to Sugar City now. I can already taste the freezing cold Coke that I’m going to have. It fires up the anticipation in my mouth and becomes the single thought in my mind.

And then it isn’t.

I become aware of a vehicle behind me. Not overtaking. Lurking. There is no approaching vehicle – one that it might be waiting for so it can safely pass – so I’m a little creeped out by its presence.

Keep pedaling, girl. Just keep pedaling and it will go away.

It doesn’t go away. In fact, it slowly crawls up beside me. A red pickup truck, beaten and grumbly. I hear an amazing drawl of a voice get thrown out the window at me.

“Ma’am, do you want a ride into town? It’s mighty hot out.”

Sam Elliot. It was Sam Elliott. Well, his doppelgänger with a glorious and mighty grey mustache that was fat and alive and no doubt had its own wife and family in another state.

A dog sat behind his seat leaning over his shoulder, tongue out and smiling at me. Keenly observing the interaction.

I laughed and said no thank you as I calmly continued pedaling. Explained that I was almost there. As he drove along beside me, he continued to re-iterate how hot it was, as if I hadn’t noticed, and urged me to accept the ride and get out of the heat. Explained we could throw the bike in the back of the truck quite easily.

The look of worry on his rugged face made me fall in love, just a little bit. His western shirt, his rugged working-man arms all tanned and leathery. The faithful dog of this man’s man, dribbling on his shoulder. And that mustache.

I turned him down though. Letting him know why it could never be with a subtle, apologetic grin. With a ‘well, ok’ and a ‘be careful’, he powered off and out of my life. The red truck disappearing over the rise as fast as it had materialized beside me.

Before long, I crest that same hill and spy the silos of what must be Sugar City ahead. There’s a giant smudge on the sky behind it and my heart trips and skips and flops down on the ground. It is a mountain range. Masked out and bruised. Is that the start of the Rockies? How many days is that away? Am I nearly there?

Everything points in that direction. That abandoned train, that wire fence, that groaning, buckled road. This way, they say. This way to the doom you so desperately seek.

It’s a join-the-dot puzzle in my brain to get there. From this dot of Sugar City, to that dot of Ordway, and on and on until I can look down at my piece of paper and see the shape of the mountains sketched out in front of me. Sharpen your pencil, Precious. We’ve got work to do!

Sugar City is sweet with a true sense of life having passed by. It’s a mood not helped by the run-down, abandoned houses just as I enter the town. But I have other things on my mind right now. I’m gasping for the syrupy poison of a coke, with its sugar and fizz and the anticipated joy at it hitting the back of my throat.

At an intersection, I spy what looks like a store and mosey over. Cupping my hands up against the glass, I peer in. Closed. Sunday. I’ve completely lost track of days.

Luckily, there’s an ancient and faded coke machine lurking in the shade. I slip my coins in and get a freezing coke. Slam it down. Buy another, then slide down to sit on the cool cement and sip more gracefully at this one.

The streets are empty. I can hear the sound of a radio somewhere, snatches of music carried on the wind. A car pulls up in front of me and a man leans out. Seemingly oblivious to my appearance and the Australian flag flapping defiantly right in front of his eyes, he asks me if I’m from ‘round here. I laugh and say no. He seems confused as he drives off. I’m not in the mood to chat. The heat has soaked the words right out of me.

Spat back out on the other side of Sugar City and with a blast of astonishment I see the abandoned rail cars have picked up right where they left off. Having crossed the railway line in Sugar City, they’re now on my left and continue on for about 2 miles. I look down at my Garmin when they’re done – 13 miles, all up.

Ordway finally saves me from the day and I begin hunting for the hotel. A man sells watermelons from the back of his truck. People are pulling boats out to the lake nearby. Fishing tackle is being purchased and I remember that tomorrow is Labor Day. A long weekend.

I can’t find the hotel, so head back to the intersection where I’d also seen a sign for camping. Wandering into the grocery store, which is also a gas station and a diner, I pick up some chocolate milk and water as I wander the aisles. It’s an eclectic place with food, hardware, birthday cards and fishing tackle. I pick up a can of peaches. It’s $4. I put it back down.

While paying, I ask about the camping and am told to just wheel the bike around the back and set up the tent. I baulk, having seen the back of this building and its imprisoned trees, car bodies, dirt, and no peace of mind for a lone lady biker. Sensing my hesitation, the attendant gives me directions to the hotel.

“It’s nice,” she says. A lot of bikers stay there.

Outside, I chat with a curious fisherman and drink my milk as boats and people come and go. A second stranger joins the conversation.

“She’s going all the way to OREGON!” explains one to the other, and I shiver with pride at the wonder in his voice. Yes. Yes I am going to Oregon. All the damn way.

When they move off, I notice my rear tire. It has worn past the point of threadbare. The black rubber has completely gone in several places, the result of hauling Zimmerman and my fat ass over 2,000 miles of blacktop. Peering through a worn patch, I conclude the tire is still bulletproof. Well, bulletproof enough to get us to Pueblo. I do have a half-worn spare, but don’t think I’ll bother switching it out tonight. There are no downhills tomorrow. It’s not like I’m going to have a high-speed blowout that will, I dunno, break my wrist or something.

The Hotel Ordway is quaint and lovely and historically awesome. The foyer a wink at a time gone by and I’m tempted to call it a parlor. Due to a general unwillingness to haul Zimmerman’s bag up a flight of stairs, I opt for the more expensive downstairs room and settle in.

Food. I’m nearly out. After a delicious shower, I wander over to the grocery store to grab some supplies. The air is sleepy on my freshly showered skin and the snug afternoon feels friendly and gentle as it tousles my still damp hair. By the time I dawdle up to the door of the supermarket, it has closed for the day. A girl smiles apologetically out at me through the glass as she mops. I smile, then turn and go back to the room.

My last can of peaches makes for a sticky dinner. My last Snickers, desert. At around 9pm, in a sudden fit of worry, I rush out the back of the hotel to the staircase where Precious lurks in the darkness. Run the cheap security wire around his body and latch him to the railing. I doubt anyone would steal him out here, but it’s a ‘did I leave the iron on’ situation and I’d rather not worry about it all night.

Writing up my notes for the day, I smile at certain remembrances. The fox. The mustache. The train. The spiders in that wooden outhouse. The heat and the wind and my body’s annoyance at my brain making it continue moving despite the ache. Looking back at these moments, assessing them, I’m surprised at how I am somewhat disconnected with the scene. As though I’m looking at someone else and witnessing their journey. Their struggle. I shake my head. I have no idea who that person is. Strange to think it’s me.

The brain and the body. It’s easy to look at them as tools, particularly since one literally controls the other and makes it fire in controlled patterns and movements. But a person’s soul, their personality, it’s the part of the equation that is frustratingly unpredictable. How will they react? Fight or flight? It can so easily let you down.

“I can’t do this.”

At some point in every day, I have this thought. That I can’t do this. Sometimes it’s a quick flash, a moment bubbled up then popped on the surface of my confidence. The ache and the futility and the doubt will pound me down. But then a door in my mind will creak open and a giant neon sign will flash at me. It blinks steadily and confidently. It says:

“There is no choice but forward.”

Or to put it another way: When life gives you lemons, kick it in the lady balls.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 05, 2010
From: Eads, CO
To: Ordway, CO
Distance: 62.89 miles
Time: 7:00:22
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 41, The Read the Signs Day

This is pure friendo country. Sparse. Vacant. Moody. The wind shimmies through the grass, getting busy in that Hawaiian skirt way, and there I am. I fly fly fly along the skillet flat earth. In the silence only Kansas can provide.

It’s not flat, of course. It tilts ever so slightly, pouring everything Eastward. I am headed west. Against the grain, against the script, and against the wind. So take a look at me now. Empty space. All odds. Hazzah!

Once again, I’m having an endless conversation with myself, wherein I repeat the same line, or variations on it, over and over and over again. Friendo this, friendo that. It’s like my brain gets stuck in a 45rpm groove, even though my legs are stuck on 33 ¹⁄₃. This wind really hurts.

This is No Country for Old Men country, and I’m going slightly Chigurh.

“What business is it of yours, Friendo?”

It’s totally my business, brain. I’m out here in this wide expanse of blah and any minute now some dude with a creepy Peter Pan haircut could drive up behind me in a murderously procured car, stick a cattle killer in my face and POP! The glassy-eyed surprise, and Bob’s your father’s brother, and don’t dream it’s over but it’s done. That’s a lot to lose in a coin toss.

Out here, no one can hear you scream. Friendo, hobo, yobbo. Don’t care. Out here the wind reaches into your gaping maw, snatches the scream right out and hurls it to the horizon. Before it even has a chance to squeak through your vocal chords.

And then there’s the nothing.

I think I preferred the darkness of this morning. The pre-dawn dash from Scott City with the mystery of the landscape and the glow of my headlight keeping my mind focused on just one thing. The road.

Remember me brain? Remember us, this morning, standing in the hotel parking lot and stamping our feet to warm our bare legs in the cool breeze? The darkness all around, with the pale yellow light throwing itself at us?

Catalog it. Tick those boxes. Read that list.

Stuff sacks lay like fat slugs in the half-light and I kneel into one to squeeze the air out. Latch it. The delicate order of packing commences.

Almost 40 days in and I have this routine fine-art perfected. I could draw a detailed blueprint of what goes where. The structure, the hierarchy, the pecking order. It’s a dance to get it all in there. A right foot in, right foot out, shake-it-all-about motion.

Seconds pass and in it all goes. This Tetris piece here, this Rubik’s cube of color there. All aboard and I top it all off with the twist down of the bag and the snap shut of the latches. Netting secured.

Ready. Set. Go.

A man has been watching me. It’s 5.10am and wicked-morn moody with it. The engine of his dark pickup is purring away and I am aware of him sitting in the passenger seat, legs out the door quietly smoking what I’m guessing is his first cigarette of the day. A thin trail of smoke rises from both him and the exhaust of his lazily warming truck.

Stepping out of the cab, he twists his body to flick the cigarette away into the darkness, then stands still looking down at his companion. A dog. It totters around sniffing tires and licking cement.

Big guy. Tiny dog. Turner and Pooch. They are jaundice-yellow in this light, as I must be. I sense him walking towards me but don’t look up.

“I wondered how you were gonna fit all that stuff in there,” he says, pausing near the junction of where I’m standing and the path to the back door of the hotel.

The conversation door is well ajar. I stick my toe in to keep it open and set about explaining the theory of weighted jigsaw. How each piece in my puzzle is shaped to fit in one spot and one spot only. That to put it in another throws the balance of the universe on its ear. That the weight and size of objects adds dimension and complexity to the puzzle.

The art is the skill is the mojo of the moment.

Due to my friendliness and rather elaborate response to a question he never asked, he perks up a little and the sleep clouds blow out for a moment. Alas, his bed head remains unmoved.

Questions. He’s full of them. Where am I going? How many miles do I do a day? Do I know that Oregon is really a long way away? Patience is a gumshoe and I answer each with quiet cheerfulness.

The sand runs out of our conversation hourglass.

“I’d better let you go,” he says. “You’ve got some work to do!”

Chuckling, I watch as he cajoles the dog through the hotel door and back inside, no doubt to grab their gear so they can leave also. On their trek for the day. On their journey to tomorrow.

Out of town at last and the darkness is final. Blanket heavy. I’m having a small problem with my headlight today. It keeps dipping down behind a fold in the top of the pannier, robbing me of 3/4 of my beam. I feel a little one-eyed.

Stop. Jiggle the light and convince it to sit higher. I push down the folds of the pannier to give the light room to telescope its neck up and over and cast its beam on the world.

And we’re off.

Stop. Adjust. Restart.

Stop. Adjust. Restart.

It just won’t obey my will today.

There are sounds. Lumbering, thumbering, blumbering big-beast sounds. Off to my right. That one was off to the left. I peer into the black, eyes wide, but see nothing.

Grotesque pictures fill my head. Of wild things. Beasts with gnashing teeth and claws and saliva dripping from clicking jaws. They’re there, waiting to strike and leap and knock me from my perch. Eager to crouch above, breathing their hot stinky breath in my face while letting their rancid fur brush against me in an overly familiar manner.

Coyotes. What are coyotes like? Do they attack? Are they wild dogs with no morals? What is there modus operandi?

Stop it, mind on overdrive. You are being demented. There is nothing out there.

Last time I rode in the darkness, there was the moony moon and the sexy stars and it was like a gorgeous dream from which I never wanted to wake. This time, there’s just the rub of the blackness against my arms and legs and chest and face and I don’t like it one bit.

The sneaky wind shoves at my back and I continue on, into the void.

It’s not completely dark. No. Every now and then, I have the joy of the semi-trailer with its wash of high-beams and not-getting-out-of-the-way attitude to keep me company.

They are being mean for no reason. The road is an empty plate, yet they seem to think they are the bread crust sent to mop me off it. An inch. They won’t give me an inch. I’m lit up like christmas – three rear flashing lights, a safety triangle, reflective jacket and a megatron headlight – and still no quarter.

One honks as it bellows by. Hey, fella, I’m just trying to get through this morning. Maybe I shouldn’t be out here, but I am vigilant about being seen. Don’t fault me for that.

These are stock trucks. I know this because of the fragrant aroma of their farts billowing out the back of their fast retreating taillights. But it’s not just coming from them. I see the familiar form of stock yards lit up and waiting for their cattle chattel and wafting their aura over to the road so that I might participate in the wonder of life on the land.

Man, it stinks. Darkness won’t hide a stench. Manure is magical, the way it grabs your lapels and shakes your nostrils open.

And Scene. Change. The light starts to crackle on through and the sky begins to rouge its cheeks. A purple orange hue to begin with. Shapes announce themselves. No lumbering beasts appear. No coyotes. Just land and wind and grass and dirt.

To my right, a phalanx of wind turbines, churning their quiet moods in the morning. Some, still in their contemplation. Others whop whop whop away. They know they look good against this backdrop of the yet-to-appear sun. Showing off, they are. I valiantly try capture them against the pre-dawn hue. Fail mostly, but figure the more shots I take, the better chance I have of at least one photo being in focus. Between the click and the capture, there is the silence of blur. Drag this one to the trash.

Finally, here it is. That first wink of a solar eyeball as it peeks over the dark sill of earth. I watch it come, then turn to see the blanket of Kansas peeled back in inch-by-inch increments of light replacing dark.

The warmth finally reaches my face, which means I’ve been standing here for quite some time. Wasted time. Time I could have been riding forward, towards my goal. I look down the pencil straight road and to the far-off shape of silo. A blip on my monitor. Time to join the blips. A motion is set and I roll along. The wind and me and my friendo mind.

Hours of straw. Hours of tussocky paddocks. A subdued blue sky, yet to hit the stride of the day.

A field of sunflowers, depressed and naked. They waited for me as long as they could, but they didn’t know I would take so long to get here. They didn’t know I’d crash and be almost three months behind schedule. I have arrived too late to the matinee. Embarrassed, they face the earth in their retirement. Petal-less and pouting. I can’t turn my frown upside-down.

Place names on the map seem to be nothing more than a gathering of silos, accompanied by a few random buildings. A sign points off suggestively. A thriving metropolis is just out of sight. Right across that railway line.

All I see is Kansas.

Kansas with its melancholy silos, strung together by rail lines. Move the grain. Don’t stand still. From one storage container to another. Rail cars stand idle.

Obnoxious sign alert: “Strong Wind Currents.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Here’s a less obnoxious sign. It lets me know that I have the power to turn back time, literally. As I cross the Greeley county line I go back in time by one hour. Not sure it really affects me, since darkness comes when darkness comes and the sun gets swept under the rug no matter what time my watch says.

But still, I stop and take a photo. It’s a little thrill. To see the words Mountain Time. Strange to mention mountains out here, with the flat-chest landscape. I am buzzing with the anticipation of what’s to come. My legs are ready. My bike is primed. I am a climbing, living, breathing machine of churn and burn and gear changes that don’t make a sound.

Just outside Tribune and the power lines stretch off into the distance until they are consumed into the smudge of the horizon. My eyes are hypnotized.

To break me out of this trance, a Sherman tank of a grasshopper flies square into the delicate skin of my throat. Big dumb thing stings as I rub tenderly at my neck. It’s actually starting to become a thing, the beetle/insect bodily assaults. Most aim for the fleshy target of my cheeks and leave attractive welts on my face. Every time it happens, I can’t help but think about how much it would hurt if one hit me in the eye – an entomological punch to the iris. Yep, that would sting.

In my mirror, I spy a pickup truck with flashing lights coming up behind me, an oversize truck in its wake. The cargo looks like a piece of the space shuttle, hollow and giant. An empty toilet roll of a load. It must be the weight of a toilet roll too because this thing is hauling all kinds of ass. It pulls out slightly to go around this speck of bike and rider and the air that pushes off this oddly shaped thing plays havoc with me.

Here comes another one. This one is wrapped Laura Palmer style, so the wind currents play differently with it and me. I am nearly ejected me into the land of Kansas like a ball from a cannon. Shaken, and possibly stirred, I pull off to the side to let a third one go past.

Oversize load. Over confident load, more like. I shouldn’t complain. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened all day!

With a sigh, I carry on. Up, up and up, ever so slowly and gradually and imperceptibly up. I need to stretch. This constant pedaling is making my quads ache. They’re taut and angry with me. My shirt billows, the grass croons and sways. My flag flaps to sharp attention. An old windmill grinds out a turn of rust and squeak.

Man, my throat is dry.

I am now going to talk about a bee. It has kept me company for a while now. Sitting on my leg as I pedal. I stop, finally, and look at him as he rests there. Remember a book I once read about bees and how they’re like swiss army knives with all the tools on their bodies. How they have baskets on their legs for the pollen. This guy’s baskets runneth over. He’s fat and stupid and drunk with the weight of them.

I swing my leg half-heartedly, encouraging him to vacate the premises. Get off, I say. Fly, be free. I want to gently flick at him now. He steps around gingerly, perhaps sensing my impatience.

I’m going to Colorado today. You can fly there, you don’t need to ride with me. This bee is a Calvin Klein underwear model and he’s waiting for me to take a photo of his package. Once I do, he leaps to his future and flies away.

Ok, now THAT’s the most exciting thing that has happened all day.

But wait. What’s that? In the distance?

I see a wooden structure break the monotony of the flatness. It is ornate. A slight curve in the road, a sweep to the right and I am upon it. Smiling. Giddy. There it is.

THE MOST EXCITING THING THAT’S HAPPENED ALL DAY!

Welcome to colorful Colorado. The words are carved with flair and panache. No standard reflective sign for Colorado. This is woodsy and natural and axey. A mountain man sign. You are entering a new frontier, a new land!

Welcome to colorful Colorado!

I look around. Looks a lot like Kansas. Sounds a lot like Kansas. Blows like Kansas. Jump the line at the sign and nothing changes. The road is still straight. The mirages still form and bubble into vapors in front of my eyes. One foot out. One foot in.

Whatever, I am still giddy with the significance of the moment. It means I’m two days from the half-way point of the route. I nearly gave up after the crash. Nearly threw in the towel in a sooky, whiney, my wrist hurts, I’m too unfit tantrum. But here I am, at the Colorado border. My head is filled with back slaps and cheers. Blushingly, I humbly accept the invisible praise.

So what do I do with this moment? I dick around for 40 minutes in front of the sign. Photo after photo is rapidly fired off. The excitement is bubbling and I prop the camera hurriedly on some rocks, then on my handlebar bag. Here’s some of Precious. Here’s some of me and Precious. Here’s me posing with the sign. Here’s me looking dumb. Here’s me without my head. Here’s one of my feet.

Colorado. Finally. I am in you.

I wonder what passing cars think of the scene. This person jumping around like a loon. But they don’t know the thrill. I throw my hands in the air and hold it. It’s fast becoming a standard victory pose of mine. A cliche for sure, but genuinely felt.

Yeah, victory. Suck it, Kansas!

With a self-satisfied lingering look, I finally leave the border. From here on to Eads, the services have dried up. I’ll have to make it the remaining miles on this feeling alone. It’s hot. And dry. I suck down some water and squint into the afternoon.

The town of Sheridan surprises me by actually having a store where no store should be.

Coke, Gatorade, green popsicle. Outside, I lean up against the metal siding and chill the backs of my legs on the cold and shady cement. It is heavenly in its simplicity. The green ice crunches under the supreme power of my teeth. I slam the can of coke down. Bliss is bliss.

I forget to eat. At the Sand Creek Massacre sign I stop and wolf down two peanut butter rolls that are flattened in my back pocket while wondering what the Sand Creek Massacre is. This is the most exciting thing that has… No. It’s not.

The afternoon slips away and the scene changes. A few hills that know they’re hills slope upwards to let me know that things are changing. The land is not as flat, and there’s a new shrub in town. A scrubby, blueish-green bush dotted around. A few trees wave hello and the wind now carries the song of croaking insects.

It’s the plodding time of the day. The goal is simply there, the final destination, and all I have to do is keep turning my legs and watering my throat. I mark off miles by cross roads. Count trucks and cars and motorcycles. Move.

I’ve had enough. My throat is sponge dry and irritated. The sweat of my arms, streaked with dust. I see Eads ahead, then sigh the sigh of someone who’s been fooled before. It’s still miles away. Probably an hour. I can touch it but not.

Plod on, friendo. Plod.

As I pull into Eads, the sun is dying a quiet death and so am I. A rundown ex-Econolodge with a broken ice-machine is my home for the night. I watch a blowfly buzz around the ceiling, bumping into the fan and zagging when he should zig. The room smells of disappointment, the bedspread tries to be optimistic but finds it hard. It’s all the colors of a morbid rainbow.

I shower off the dust of 104 miles of slog through the plains. It is over. Is it, friendo?

Apparently not. I eat in a restaurant across the dirt parking lot. A cheeseburger and a root beer. It takes forever to come, and the waitress seems to make a point of serving locals before scuffy cyclists. I am a seething mass of touring anger by the time it turns up. People have come and gone in the time I’ve been here, and now the place has well and truly cleared out. I’d New Yorker snap if I weren’t so tired.

With aching legs propped up on the bed, I call my parents. A muted fuzzy TV. A fly still buzzing. A dripping tap.

Finally, I fall asleep.

Now THIS is the most exciting thing that has happened all day.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 04, 2010
From: Scott City, KS
To: Eads, CO
Distance: 104.04 miles
Time: 10:58:43
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 40, The Fantastic Mr. Fox Day

“I’m missing a…”

I want to say thong, but I know that’s wrong. That thong is a very different breed of noun here. That to say that I’m missing one sends an accusatory message that suggests both impropriety and shady-man weirdness.

“A flip-flop,” I say. Elaine looks puzzled.

“You know, a flip-flop? Um, I don’t know what else you’d call them here. I want to say ‘thong’ but that’s not right. Um. It’s a…” I make a motion with my hands that doesn’t really indicate anything except maybe the item I’m speaking off is the size of a meal-sized trout.

“You know. They go on your feet? I left them outside last night…”

Dan laughs. A synapse of understanding has evidently flared up in his mind.

“Oh, I know what you mean. I think I know where it is,” he says, before disappearing outside.

Even though Elaine may not know what I’m talking about, she seems similarly enlightened to its fate and clues me in about one of their dogs. Bit of a pack-rat, a collector of personal property. Moments later, Dan comes back inside with my thong held victoriously in his hand.

That just sounds wrong.

“It was exactly where I thought it would be,” he says, handing it to me and leaning on the kitchen counter. He looks well-chuffed at having solved this mystery, and I turn the piece of mangy footwear over in my hands. It is undamaged. Just as beat up as when I left it out there on the lawn. A bit dewy, perhaps, but fine.

“He just likes taking stuff,” says Dan, and apologizes on behalf of the dog. He then proceeds to tell me that he too would have called it a thong. That thong means the same thing to him as it does me. And now I’m really confused about this country. Here, I’ve been told that if I’m wearing thongs on my feet that not only is it really kinky, but I need a lesson in basic anatomy.

“Well, I guess I’ve got everything then,” I say, trying to move things along. I’ve already stayed longer than I intended, due mostly to a good breakfast and some serious dilly-dalling on my part.

I head outside to Precious, who sits patiently under a tree with Zimmerman.

The dogs are out, beautiful retrievers Dan and Elaine breed as a sideline, and I ruffle the head of the one called Bear. I meet the thief, a puppy but already huge and lumbering and way too big for a New York apartment. He shows no sign of a guilty conscience as he bounds up and pushes my legs insistently with his giant head. I give him the stink eye before giving in and petting him.

“Whew! It’s cold!”

It’s Dan’s voice coming from somewhere, and it’s a beat before I see him examining the temperature gauge. He turns and wanders over to where I am fastening down Precious’s load with the cargo net. Rubbing his hands together and hunching his shoulders as he stamps the ground with his booted feet.

“42 degrees! Woo-ee!”

It is a bit nippy, and my knees are already getting their protest efforts organized for later. I pretend my arm coolers are warmers, then pull on my wind jacket as Elaine comes out to join the farewell party. This is the best I can do in the circumstances, and it’s not that cold anyway, I say. The sun is a little weak at this hour, but it’ll be full upon us very soon. And then I’ll be bitching about the heat.

The goodbye is fond and I wave as I pull away and past the ancient bike that marks their driveway. Before long, I’m sucking in the morning air and feeling the cold tears at the edges of my eyes. Moving fast is a double edged sword. I need to go faster, to warm up, but the increased speed hurls cold air right at my kneecaps and they don’t respond well to that. Seriously, first chance I get, I’m buying some knee warmers.

There’s no wind to speak of today. No wind! Well, nothing compared to yesterday. It’s a lullaby wind of shyness and a ‘pardon me, mind if I just squeeze by you’ attitude. I don’t mind at all. Calm like Schezwan. Let me enjoy the chirp of this day’s magnificent crickets in the grass and the trill of birdsong in the breeze.

The first blip on my map is Ness City, and I crunch along in a daydream. It’s straight road running and not much to look at. Fields. Road. Grass. Bales of hay take on new significance, if only for the way they stick out like acne on the face of fields. I spy an interesting spectacle – a building like a column cut in half and laid on its side. But that’s not the curious thing. People with paint have been at it, graffitiing it to within an inch of its corrugated iron life. I wonder what the story is behind it, then take a photo. Another photo EVERYONE must have. I don’t want to be left out. I must have it for my collection. It’s a stark contrast to the golden fields and plain Jane status of what surrounds it.

It’s a billboard. It just doesn’t know it yet.

With a sigh, I step on the pedals and move off. The fields are even more desolate than yesterday, or maybe I was just too pre-occupied yesterday with the gust-fest to notice it. Some are freshly tilled, baring their dirt hearts for the breeze to toy with. Power poles ride shotgun to the road. This is a barrier, they say. This is a constant. Thou shalt not pass! They’re being very territorial about it. Don’t worry, poles, I have no interest in what you think you’re protecting.

A silver bauble rests on a golden bed of crop stalks in the distance off to my right, and I know it means Ness City is over there. I know I’m going to be looking at this water tower for miles, but accept that it’s a mirage of sorts. A false reading. It is there, but not there. It is miles away, wedged in-between this layer cake of sky and crop. The road seems to be pointing me to the left of it, but looking down at the map I can see a kink in this straight line road. Not far from here I will be kicked up northwest for a bit, then bam, a striker will kick me straight into the goal mouth of Ness City.

Score!

The Skyscraper of the Plains. I see a sign for it and get a little tingle in my belly. I’ve read about this building in Ness City. About how it’s the tallest building in town. It’s obviously not taller than that damn water tower, I think, or else I would’ve seen it by now. Right?

Even as I roll into town, I am alert and ready to be amazed. Where is it? All I can see are cheap hotels and gas stations. I stop for a chocolate milk and am questioned most heartily by three gents having a chin wag outside. They whistle their disbelief at my ‘Finish in Oregon’ statement.

“I detect a cool accent,” says one. I’m not going to disagree with that and I’m grateful that someone recognizes I have one, since I worry so much about losing it. That with each passing year, more vowels check into America’s rehab and get flattened and made less unique.

Stuffing a piece of chocolate muffin into my mouth, I bid my adieus and go looking for this damn skyscraper. At the corner of Main Street and the 96, I stand looking left and right.

If I were a skyscraper, where would I be?

When in doubt, turn right. And so I do. The streets are wide and generous, and I rubber neck at a snails pace, searching, searching.

There it is.

In my mind, I’d pictured it towering above all, magnificent and proud. I got the magnificent and proud part right, but the towering thing was about as accurate as calling me British. But still, a nice block of rock to ogle at. Textures rough and ready for your hand to be run across. Craftsmanship self-evident. Windows tall and wise, set deep into the lego-like brick. It stands alone, with all onlooking buildings bowing in respect.

Must’ve been quite draw when it first appeared, all stony-faced and solid, a beacon to boon and boom. Splendid and regal. At four stories tall, it can rightly be called a skyscraper out here, I guess. The sky is so big and dominating, you can’t help but scrape it, even with your hat. Just a little taller than a stalk of grass and you’re infringing on its big sky copyright.

Turning away, I glance up at the street sign. I’m on the corner now of Pennsylvania Avenue and Main Street. Finally! Main Street USA. I’ve heard so much about it. This is where all the real people are. I look around. Parked cars, trash cans. There’s a lady, striding toward a building in jeans and a sweater. A guy drives past in a pick up, dog in the back.

It’s quiet. Main Street is quiet and very familiar.

The sky is quiet. The air is quiet. If this is the tourist hotspot, I’ve hot spotted it and now I must go. It’s just too hot for me. Too much going on. I can’t take the realness of it.

Turning back onto the route, I head out of town and toward the next Main Street, USA. The scene is plain again. Deserted. I stop and record a note, describing the sky as ‘disgustingly blue’ and I mean it. There’s not a cloud in sight, a huge change from yesterday where I felt I was being stalked, harassed and molested by them. Today’s sky is a paint swatch. Today is a clean palette day with grass slightly swishing with the breeze and the occasional passing car to startle me out of my daydream riding.

Off to my right, on the horizon, I spy three horses at charge. Getting closer, I see that they’re once again the handiwork of the metallic craftsman. A nice effect though, I think, as I imagine that’s what it looked like back in the day (probably a Thursday), when the cavalry charged or the indians whooped and I shivered in my wagon and took some ‘powders’ to calm my nerves.

But I see Kansas has an advantage over those hilly states. When you’re about to be attacked, you’ll see it coming. No real sneaking up on you here, unless you’re distracted by the skyscraper of the plains.

It’s not all emptiness and inactivity though. The fields are being worked, of course, by industrious farmers. Some paddocks burst with the rust orange of sorghum, some with corn. I spy trials of dust indicating vehicular movement, or activity far off. A field being attacked by a plow, a rancher bumping down the lane to shut a gate before the horses bolt.

I see it all. I can’t help but see it all. There is no firewall between us, no blinkered viewing. Out here, everyone’s kimono is open. Your business is my business and I can see you go commando.

Here’s a field, rich with life. Here’s a field, rich with decay. Clods and clover, stalks and chaff. Ruler straight fences, colored lines drawn and painted in earthy Pottery Barn catalogue hues. Giant rectangular bales, like clumps of cheese on a board, dot the scene. A square jaw on the face of Kansas.

I can’t take much more of this. 


My rearview mirror flashes a tractor at me. It is creeping up the road, waaay back, pulling some giant monstrosity of equipment. It’s a race, but only in my mind. I pedal harder, but it gains. The drums are beating, closer, closer. Here it comes, wide and imposing, hogging more than its fair share of the road. I finally decide it’s close enough and pull over into a the mouth of a dirt lane to let it pass. To let it win in the battle it didn’t know it was part of.

The driver waves a silent thank you and I watch this hulk pass, trailed by three cars stuck behind it. Flowing in its slipstream but made crazy by its girth.

What’s this? A little bit of a downhill! Well, more of a gentle dip in the landscape, but I notice a little rest area with a historical marker. And a tree. Actually it’s the tree that catches my attention first, and I pull in planning to eat the rest of my chocolate muffin in its shade.

The sign reads: Homestead of a Genius. I see no homestead and once again am ashamed to admit I’ve never heard of George Washington Carver. Stuffing a few more bites into my bored gob, I glance around. Am I purposefully trying to make this day drag on by stopping for these things? It’s only a 70 mile day, I should be able to knock this one on the head pretty quickly. But the gradual uphill is making it stretch on out. Forever.

It’s a plodder day. And plod on I must.

Monotony dings the bell and I’m back in the ring, but now I’m in a corridor of barely perceptible hills. Humps really. Burps of earth lazily yawning their way upward. The wind is slightly subdued and I can’t see for miles around me anymore. Just either side of me. But it’s that annoying kind of height. Like if I stood just an inch taller, I’d be able to peer over this fence, see into the backyard of Kansas and giggle at the underwear on its washing line.

But. I’m. Just. Not. Tall. Enough.

Everything is so geometrically perfect out here. It’s get out your set square time and I hate maths. Straight road, straight field, white lines, straight tilled rows and rectangular bales. Power lines stand to attention, holding hands with each other through taut wires which don’t dare to bow down. Yeah, I get it. Do not pass. Sheesh.

Constantly, constantly rising up, up. Pedaling and pedaling and there’s no freewheeling at all today. Just on and on and round and round and if you stop pedaling you stop altogether. So don’t stop pedaling.

It’s not hard. Just relentless.

Slow incline leads to slow incline. I look up ahead and there looks to be a top to this rise, but when I get there, there’s just more incline. Another false top. Another fake plateau. More huge sky. Unbelievable and vast. It’s kind of boring, and I think that’s the first time I’ve thought that on this whole trip.

A slight kick northwest after Beeler, then back to pure west again. It feels good to be going west. Hard west. It’s the direction I should be going. Right coast to left coast and the left coast is west coast and why go any direction but that? Kansas gets it. Gets straight to the meat of this coconut. Go THAT WAY! We’ll make it easy for you. We’ll draw a straight line on this map. You just have to follow it.

The earth to my left falls off into a gentle slope. A misprint on the landscape for sure, but here lies a graveyard of farm machinery. I stop and look, because when you see something different out here you have to. Just to note it for the permanent record.

Harvesters, hay rakes and trucks. Tractors of all denominations and faiths. Pickups, balers, and scarifiers. There’s a bus up the back, ancient and cool. Rusted grain bins, tires flat and hardened with age. I imagine the secret life in this place. The spiders, snakes and vermin, with vibrant communities and land disputes. Of old grain and stuffing-filled car seat rat restaurants. The smell of rotting industry. This collection of machinery is the land-based reef. The equivalent of a ship wrecked on the spine of a coral outcrop and now home to shoals of opportunistic fish.

It’s such a sight, I take a photo, but as I lower the camera I notice something else. There is a madness here. A sort of paddock based OCD. Order in the chaos. Not only are most things organized by type – tractor with tractor, plow with plow – there is also a color structure. Orange with orange, yellow clumped with yellow, a whole row of grey identical harvesters in formation.

What goes on in the mind of this hoarder? Is his wife always at him to ‘get rid of that junk?’ I salute the symmetry. I applaud the arrangement.

For at least a mile further, I am wondering if its art or commerce. Is everything on display is just advertising for passers by? A spare parts field supermarket for the curious commuter. Or is this master making a statement about decay and decline?

The heat is rising and my steady upward progression too. I look forward, at the rise up ahead, and notice the shimmer of lies each fake crest holds. A mirage wobbles and disappears. Sometimes I think I see a man at the side of the road on the horizon. Closer I go. Closer. But it begins to materialize, to shake itself into shape. The blob of his body stretches out weirdly. His head expands, his torso blips out like a cell dividing and suddenly there are two of him. He is shimmering and shape shifting. And now, now…

Now he’s a car.

A game begins in my head. What color will this car be when it becomes solid in the mirage? What size? Is it a pickup, a sedan or a truck? The shimmering pool stretches down the road towards me, taking a bite out of the horizon and making the road become sky. A trench in which these blobs of oncoming mystery float in. I am going slightly mad with it.

Now I’m noticing everything around me. Every chip in the perfection plate of Kansas. Strangers stand out in the fields. The visual sameness of a sorghum crop molested by the up-down bobbing of a filthy, industrious pumpjack. The pull of a silo in a field of maize stalks. Anything out of the ordinary, anything that breaks the monotony is a fly in my visual ointment. Something that must be documented and photographed and recorded.

A John Deere emerges from a dust cloud, ripping the guts from a paddock and letting loose the dogs of dirt. The most mundane signs get put on pedestals in my mind. I stop and flip the lid of the handlebar bag to snap a photo of one with an arrow on it, then notice my clear glasses have fallen out and are now laying beside my foot. Instead of picking them up immediately, I wait. A few cars pass close by and I send a reminder to my brain to pick the glasses up before riding off. I then spend way too long composing a shot.

Of a sign. A simple sign.

Oh, look how arty! Now the arrow is in the left corner, now the right. That signal tower in the background is really ruining this shot.

Further down the road and it’s horses! Like I’ve never seen a horse before. But you’d never know that with the way I screech on the brakes and try get them all with their long faces pointed toward me. Their painted hides are a standout against the grass. I’m so excited by it, every shot I take is out of focus.

My mind slowly grinds down to what’s right in front of me as I move on. The shoulder. My lane. My hook. My home. I follow its wide path, eyes down, stuck staring at the white strip to the left, the green strip of grass to the right. Me, focused on the grayish pink chipped asphalt that is my way forward. I stake a claim to it and play a game of fractions. Now I will ride at exactly 50% of the distance between the white line and the green strip of grass. Now 75% from the white line. Now 50% again. Do not deviate from your mission. If it remains constant, so do you.

Oh, crap. I forgot to pick up my glasses. We have a piper down! Repeat, a piper down!

There is no way I’m going back for them, even though I know exactly where they are. From now on, the grit in my eye on a low-light day will have to be deflected by my eyelashes, as nature intended from the very beginning of eyelash evolution. Time to get all Corey Hart sunglassy at night. Farewell my $10 bargain-bin lovelies. You served us well. Sorry you only made it for 38 days. May I get a meaty bug in my eye as punishment for my forgetfulness.

If I take one more photo of maize, people are going to think we’re in love. It’s not that. It’s just that with a sky as uncluttered with sky furniture as it is, and with the geometry of the day, everything is just so, so… linear. Makes me want to get out a spirit level and square this thing off. Push it down at the slightly elevated end and flatten out Kansas so it’s easier for us West bounders.

Now Dighton. Here we are in downtown Dighton. Another Main Street to explore, but I fly on through, stopping only for a snack at a gas station. As I sit inside, I watch a group of four girls wandering from business to business hawking for money for the local team. Through the window and across the road, the First National Bank catches my eye. Do they really sell roadmaps for the soul, I think, and laugh at my own lyric nerdery as I chew on my sandwich.

Outside, a young man asks me about Zimmerman, then tells me he wouldn’t be even able to ride 10 miles without dying. This is a common sentiment, though most people say 1 mile, so I figure there is hope for this boy yet. I tell him he should get the trailer for shopping, rather than the giant pickup he’s in and he laughs right in my face.

Right in my damn face. Ok, maybe no hope. As I leave, he tells me to be safe, so even though he will not be hauling groceries behind his bicycle any day soon, he’s been raised to think kind thoughts and respect those nut bags out there in the world who aren’t like him.

So there is hope.

Twenty or so miles of mind numbing road later and into Scott City I ride. Past the Lazy R Motel and some other awkwardly named lodgings that look suitably cheap. I contemplate stopping, but decide I’ll keep pedaling. It’s like I can’t stop now. Like I can’t remember how to stop when there is no curve, and I have a whole grid of a town to roll over and explore.

When I hit the 83 in the center of town, I turn left for giggles. South. I’m going south to find me a bed. Down past the high school. Down past the usual players in a semi-small town. The Wendy’s, Radio Shacks and Diary Queens. I ride for a while, thinking surely I must nearly be at the edge of town. I see a Best Western and decide I can’t be bothered turning around and heading back to the cheaper beds. My brain says cowboy up so I stop. Wheel the rig inside the front door and get a ground-floor room.

Later, I suck on a beer and eat some Wendy’s on my bed with bags of ice on my knees. With a map spread out beside me I examine the next few panels.

Reality bites. It’s Friday, not Thursday. I passed 2,000 miles yesterday and didn’t even notice. And tomorrow?

Tomorrow I’ll be in Colorado.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 03, 2010
From: Bazine, KS
To: Scott City, KS
Distance: 68.74 miles
Time: 6:48:54
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 39, The No Country for Old Broads Day

“That storm’s coming for me,” I joke to myself, immediately thinking “That’ll make a nice first line for today’s blog.” A storm coming for me. Nice semi-dramatic lead.

Legs churning, spinning, I pedal furiously, laughing to myself at the ridiculousness and futility of my 4mph headwind plight. Yes, a nice start. I’ll be able to talk about the storm and how it looked terribly menacing (fact). About how it came for me and at the last minute turned like a shy boy and went off in the other direction (hearsay). Of a wind that blew and blew and blew itself out (conjecture).

What a nice, comfy armchair start for the blog that will be. (Wishful thinking.)

I was going to start with ‘That cloud has indigestion.’ A line I’d uttered in my mind three hours earlier while standing under a hotel awning watching an impolite, burpy sky. But one ducks and dives and moves with the times. Indigestion cloud got pushed off the page with “That storm is coming for me.”

Life is hard for a first sentence. Ask any criminal.

The smile dribbles off my face and down my neck as I look up from the road and back at the storm. My heart, with its fickle on-off and kerthumpity is suddenly a flutter of nerves. Beats per minute up, up, up. I narrow my eyes in the howling wind and stare it down. It has changed clothes. Put on a new face. Clown cloud begat creep cloud.

A wide sheet of air mixed with dust and water and a very bad attitude streaks its way to ground in the distance. It moves in a steady rhythm. From heaven to earth, it’s strung along the horizon like a giant shower curtain. As if the big guy in the sky has stuck out his arm, put it on the table top of Kansas, and is about to sweep everything off it in one smooth motion.

Alakazam, alak aloot. Realization creeps up the back of my neck, tripping on all the hairs and making me shiver.

I am on that table.

That storm really IS coming for me.

Oh shit.

Hours earlier, I’m standing under an awning, checking in on my SPOT tracker and ogling a collection of off-grey clouds hovering over the houses of Larned, Kansas. Grumbling clouds. Attention seeking clouds. The biggest one rears up into the sky as though waving its arm in the air while drowning in a frothy surf. Over here, look at me!

Still waving, it grumbles.

That cloud has indigestion, I think to myself as I tuck the SPOT into my back pocket and arch my eyebrow.

Are you trying to tell me something, cloud?

A man on a Surly pulls up under the awning beside me and begins a conversation about cycling and commuting and just what I hope to achieve with my ride. Finishing mostly, I think. That’s as good an achievement as any. His advice flows freely and unfettered. It’s a freestyle conversation with good-natured back-and-forth. I nod and answer his probing questions politely.

While we make with the talk of smallness, it starts to spit. Small drops give way to a more serious attack and fat sacks of water begin pummeling the asphalt around us. The sound is cavernous under the awning and liquid bounces with intense urgency before settling into flowing rivers, making their way towards fast-puddling gutters.

I smile. The smell is incredible.

“I don’t think this will last long,” says the man, and almost on cue it slows to a steady, tolerable tempo. He makes a ‘chores to do!’ break for it and once again I am left to contemplate my next move.

Out with the map to check the phone number of the cyclist hostel in Bazine. I speak for a while to Elaine, the owner, and let her know I’m coming that afternoon. Room required. This was the place Stacia had recommended, with an option to camp on the lawn or stay indoors. Much as I enjoy the outdoors, I’m not really in the mood for it.

“Do you require pampering?” Elaine asks, and I’m struck by how awesome that sounds right now. Annoyed that I’m actually going to have to wait a whole day to receive said pampering, but I tamp down my disappointment and simply say “Yes”. Hanging up, I observe the scene.

Seriously, the smell. It’s glorious. A meteorological casserole of odors; of summer rain on dry dirt and grass and warm road. I suck it into my lungs through my eager nose, then turn to dig through my pannier for my rain gear. I must away. Must go on. With the last pull of velcro to close my jacket cuff tightly, I clip my right foot in and prepare to push off into the quiet gentle slog of rain riding.

The office door opens suddenly and the desk clerk delivers a line of dialogue to me that is as exciting as it is annoying.

“I just heard they’re predicting tennis ball-sized hail for Rush County,” she says, leaning out the door and looking a touch concerned.

And here’s me without my racket, I think. Her Phil the Weatherman routine concludes with the joyful prediction of severe lightning and 25-30mph winds.

“I don’t want you to go out there if there’s going to be lightning,” she says. I’m touched by her concern, her furrowed brow and the slight tilt of her ‘if-you-go-out-there-you’re-crazy’ head. If a local is telling me not to go out in a storm, then it’s probably a good idea to listen. But I say nothing. Just stare out, reveling in the smell. Dreaming my dumb contemplation dreams.

“You can wait inside,” she says, as if to give me an out and push my flighty brain back into the reality of the moment. “Or I can give you the key back to your room if you like.”

Snap out of it, Gidget, I think. Respond to the lady.

“Thanks,” I say. “I guess I’ll just wait inside. How long do you think?”

She tells me it should pass in an hour, so I park the bike, dig out my notebook and head inside to start writing up some notes. Good opportunity to catch up on some stuff. I’m hip to this Kansas weather jive. I’ve wised up, buttercup. I’m a stay dry, superfly.

Ten minutes later and the rain slows to a misty shadow of its former self. The sky is light and gentle with timid rain clouds. Not particularly menacing at all.

“They’ve updated the weather report,” says the clerk, sticking her head through the breakfast room door. “You can go if you want. Sounds like it’s passed.”

Well, that’s a bit of letdown, I think. I was quite looking forward to the show. Thunderbolts. Lightning. Very very frightening. Etcetera. Sighing, I close the barely touched notebook and snap the elastic band over it. With a cheery thanks and a grateful nod, out I go, under the awning again. My movements are lazy. My pace, snail like. I repack my pannier and don my rain jacket. Is the jacket too much? This is not serious rain. This is a wet-cloth-on-a-hungover-face dampness. And it really does look like it’s nearly done. I leave the jacket on, if for nothing else visibility in the grey-day traffic.

Off route, off route, says the little GPS in my head. I pedal back in the direction of the pink and black line on my map. Over bricked streets and through leafy neighborhoods. It’s a quiet morning with the residual sweat of the sky slicked across the roads. Even though it’s still lightly sprinkling, I pull over in front of a house and take off my rain jacket. Due to the heat of the morning, I’m actually getting damper wearing it than if I were just riding. Remove. Repack. Off again.

Before long, I’m out of Larned and back on route 156. Out on the road proper. Traffic has picked up and trucks are already asserting their authority over me. Can they not tell that I am the submissive here? I just want a tiny, tiny little strip of the road over here, right on the edge. Please? They care not. I plod on, enduring their rude gusts as they pass.

I’m on the Ozark Frontier Trail. A sign tells me so. I’m kind of ashamed that I’m not really familiar with what that actually means. But I see what’s around me. Imagine what it was like before anyone was out here. Definitely a frontier. Flat frontier. Grassy. Imagine driving a wagon through here on a dusty trail. Hardly seems right to complain about the lack of a shoulder when things could be much, much worse. I could be wearing a whalebone corset.

Is this considered a prairie, I wonder, surveying the grassy land around me. Is there a little house? Will laura Ingalls come bundling down a hill, all buck-toothed and pig-tailed and do something that will teach me about family values?

A truck blows by. There’s your sixteen-wheeled Laura Ingalls, kid. Only girl be rollin’ down a hill in the grass will be you if you don’t watch where you’re going. Glaring at the back of the truck, I power on. Bit-by-bit the sky is becoming more patchwork in its arrangement. Blue peeks through from time-to-time, but has no chance to assert itself. The wind is getting wilder and pushes new clouds over these blue holes very quickly.

Make a hole, fill it in. The cycle continues.

Despondent. It’s what I feel. Just drudgery on wheels. Not really much zip in the legs after yesterday’s century and the land looks so uninspired right now. A harsh judgement, I know, and as if to try redeem itself I spy a metallic buffalo beside the Santa Fe Trail visitor center. Bisonic art. I stop and take a photo, to balance out all my grassy, flatland shots and I am temporarily interested. But it doesn’t last.

Fort Larned is coming up. Perhaps it shall rise from the scene like Fort Courage in F Troop. Perhaps it’ll be massive and mighty and stop me in my tracks and I’ll have no choice but to give the nod of submission: “Yes, Kansas. I yield to your sexy fort ways.”

Not far now. Will I see it for miles? Will I be unable to cycle past its magnificence?

All I see right now is a sign indicating no hitchhiking, and rolling, tiny-shouldered roads flanked by fields rippled with relentless wind.

I’m not going to stop and look at some dumb fort, even if it’s manned by Captain Parmenter himself. I need to get to Bazine as quickly as possible so as to not drag today out. To not turn this despondency into pain. Decision made. Look at me, being the captain of my destiny.

Coming closer to the turnoff, I change my mind. Not out of guilt about dismissing a historical site, but because of the rather ominous cloud formation that has appeared ahead of me. It’s been slowly snuffing out the sun with a grey, down-filled pillow and seems intent to deliver the same fate to me.

If I stop at the fort I can wait out the rain. Probably just another quick shower, plus I can absorb some of this fine American culture whilst staying dry.

So I pull in. Again with the metal cut out sculptures. The first one is at the gate. A giant cowboy on a horse, pointing his rifle at some invisible menace in the sky. I cycle down the drive and find some more. Soldiers all in a row, marching out of a lush green field with rifles shouldered. The person who makes these metal things must be making a killing. They’re rusty and simple and something I bet my Dad could make. But he doesn’t make them and this guy does, so I should just shut up and say hats off to him.

I see a sign that directs no vehicles beyond this point, and in a fit of ‘I must obey, even though I’m in the middle of nowhere and no-one’s around’, I park Precious under a tree. Begin walking towards a stone bridge leading to the fort, which is hidden behind a row of thick trees.

And then I look back. Poor Precious, out in the open and vulnerable. I won’t be able to see him at all once I cross into this place. Fret. Worry. Stick out my bottom lip. I walk back and get him. Together we forge our way into the fort a whoopin’ and a hollerin’. Actually all sneaky, sneaky, which I find out immediately is pointless because when I cross the bridge and enter the fort area there’s a bike rack.

I can sense Precious laughing his bike laugh, a sign that I’m probably going insane. The bike rack is actually kind of useless for a bike pulling a trailer – no balance at all – so I lean Precious against the end of it and hope he stays upright. It’s ok, I say. I won’t be long. With camera in hand, I trudge off to see what I can see.

For starters, this fort is nothing like the one in F Troop. Where’s the high wooden fence? Where’s my cliche? It’s out in the open, a square formation of buildings set around a flag in the middle of the compound. The sun briefly reaches out to touch me as I walk towards the first building, though I notice the clouds crouching, waiting, watching. A battle in the sky – how will it end?

An even bigger battle is raging on the ground as mosquitoes attack my legs unmercifully. Hoards of them. Giant buggers too. I feel their sting and swat their lives away. Terrible. I move faster and swat at my legs hoping to ward them off before they get there. It’s a weird little hopping-swat jig.

“Fort Larned. A frontier fort that looks much the same as when General Custer first saw it in 1867.” This was on a sign back where I’d first parked Precious. I glance around.

Really? The first building – the Adobe hospital and infantry barracks – is a tapestry of who-was-here scrawls carved into the stone wall exterior. Deep etchings of names and dates, some more recent than others. While absentmindedly swatting mosquitoes, I spy one from 1886. It’s is the earliest date I find before giving into the buzz and sting of the little biters. I see one from 1492, but that’s probably a slip of the chisel.

Maybe I will be spared the aerial insect assault if I go inside? Into the barracks I go. Just a quick look. I won’t be long. The room has been filled with period pieces, and with quiet resignation I realize this is actually not going to be a quick visit at all. I forgot I LOVE looking at this kind of stuff. The barracks with bunk beds and abandoned chess boards, wall-mounted rifle racks and neatly hung uniforms. Wooden barrels, scabbards and non-poxed blankets for the soldiers.

I read a note on the wall about how this room was intended to be a sleeping quarters for 26 men but could hold 119 if necessary.

Each room I peer into has been lovingly touched with the same detail. A kitchen filled with utensils and LARD tins. The words ‘beef suet’ jump out at me and my arteries harden reflexively. Into the hospital ward and I’m right into the thick of the sickness. Each bed is made up, waiting for a patient that will never come. A card hangs, ready to be filled with name, diagnosis and next of kin detail. The startling words ‘nature of missile’ and an empty space to fill catches my eye. Surely missile is enough, who needs to know if it was sweet-hearted and mean-spirited?

Outside again and I’m looking towards the next building. I really should be moving on, since it doesn’t look like the rain is serious about falling. But who knows what treasures these other buildings hold? Swatting yet another a mosquito, I walk to the end of the verandah and see a cemetery a mere cannonball-heave away. Hovering behind the scene, the grey cloud that threatens my advancement should I get back on the bike.

Hmm.

Over I go.

In a fit of Noodlemania, the mosquitoes swarm over me in a misguided frenzy. But my curiosity outweighs their pointy little bloodsucking beaks and I get closer to the headstones, noticing that it’s actually a well-organized memorial. Closer, closer I go in an attempt to take a photograph. But finally the buzzing in my ear gets to me and like Custer I retreat gracefully to a safer position in the next building.

This room is filled with petrified bread. An approximation of a bakery from the time, but what kind of evil chemical must those loaves be bathed in to make them look golden and fresh as all getup? There’s probably a secret back door to each loaf with a rat living inside, and a landlord charging each rodent an exorbitant price. Poor rats. And eating that chemical has probably made them a super race, capable of overthrowing governments and putting on plays.

It could happen. I’m making a note of it.

Into the darkened tomb of the blacksmith’s shop and the metallic air of forged tools and bellows, chains and long quenched heat. And acme-like anvils.

Outside and the storm is getting no closer. In fact, it seems to be moving off in the direction of Larned now, and I breathe a sigh of relief about dodging this soggy bullet. I should go. I really should go. But there are only a few buildings left. I press fast forward. Speed touristing, here we go!

School house. A dunces cap, lessons on a chalkboard, maps on the wall. Idaho is missing? Next, the general store and they’ve really gone to town on this one. Fake meats hang from the ceiling, potatoes in the scales. Exotic boxes stamped with their contents – though the thought of the one filled with pickles makes me tremble a little. Here we have the staples of the time: corn meal, flour, spices, salted beef, tea and coffee. Tins depict simple illustrations of contents and I know they’re probably not accurate but let me live in this illusion. Another barrel. Pure vinegar, dated July 1867. That’ll be a pretty sharp batch, I think.

Faster pussycat, faster! I zip into the armory. Lots of ammunition boxes, big guns and muskets. A 12-pounder Mountain Howitzer. Next the Quartermaster Storehouse, filled with uniform supplies. Re-imagined. White Berlin Gloves. Leather Gauntlets. Every size you can imagine, even for the big-handed fellas.

As I come out the door I glance over in the direction of Precious. He is scuttled like a beetle on his back. Unable to get up. Damn Zimmerman and his power to pull down the mighty. That bike will not be happy when I get back. I look to my left. Just one more building. Look back at the helpless Precious. Or should I just skip it?

Into the officers quarters I go. It’s a little more homely. Skins on the walls, moose antlers towering over the desk. Frontier clothes and uniform hats plus all the accouterments of a frontier officer’s life. Chess boards, a footlocker at the end of the bed. An elaborate saddle in the bedroom. I look down to the floor at a giant bear skin. Imagine the size of the animal that could shuffle on that coat. Holy crapsticks, that thing was massive!

Enough, enough, I say. Time to leave. Outside and although the sky is still grey, it’s a light and sicky shade. It looks apologetic and embarrassed for not having more substance. I pull yesterday’s leftover danish from my back pocket and eat it while walking over to Precious. It’s still good, if a little gooey, and the tart sweetness of the filling inside crinkles up my eye. Man, too super sweet, but all this tourist activity has made me hungry so I endure the pain.

If Precious notices the crumbs on my lips he says nothing. I pull him up off the ground and apologize for my careless parking. Wonder once more if I’m starting to go a little crazy by talking to a damn bike so much (let’s ignore the part about expecting an answer). But is it any different from talking to myself? Really?

Back out on the road and the wind has picked up considerably. It shoves me from the side most rudely. Shove, shove, shove. Ugh. In a few short miles I’m going to turn North and from that point on, I’ll be riding straight into it. For 19 miles. I can’t wait!

But at least it’s not raining, right?

This is the one thought I’ll be able to console myself with, I think as I turn onto the 183. Nineteen or so miles to Rush Center. My time estimates are usually based on a conservative 10mph average. Typically, I’ve been doing better than that, but over the course of the day, hills or wind will even it out to a 10-11mph average. So, two hours to get there and with the wind attempting to blow the lids of my eyes, off I go.

Man. This is gonna take forever, I think, gritting my teeth and focusing on keeping the cranks turning. Let the battle begin!

The shoulder is completely non-existent on this road. The white line is on the very edge, and crumbled off in some places, so I claim more than my allotted share of the lane. But not much more. I’m a little timid about it, actually. The wind is completely in-my-face, head-on blustery, so when the trucks and cars blow by they don’t really affect my progress much at all. Kind of great, to not be blown off the road for once.

Least of my problems, as it turns out. Moving forward is the great grand issue of the day. I spin and I turn cranks and I put my head down and it is comedy. A great grand comedy. I am laughing at the wind. The wind blows the sound right back into my mouth, then ratchets up, blow by gusty blow. I am grinning like an idiot. I don’t know why. It’s just funny to me, this moment.

Fallow fields, straw and dirt witness this show and throw their bodies at me to voice their disapproval. This is not funny. This is serious. Here’s some grit in your eye to drive that point home. Let go, let go earth. Let go of your topsoil and throw it at me with all your might.

I stop. Put on my clear glasses. Barrier. I laugh at your attempts to grit my eyes and blind my view.

Miles and endless miles. A flat and shapeless horizon. And that’s when I notice the storm. That’s when I notice the weirdness of the clouds to my far left. Their wicked underbellies. Their shape reminds me of sucking Cling Wrap into an open mouth and waiting for the pop. And then there’s that shower curtain of doom, bruise-blue and streaking toward me in an effort to beat me the same color.

That storm’s coming for me. Oh, yes. Who’s laughing now?

Fear. I am afraid. A gnashing belly-jawed fear. I don’t scare easily. Fake scared maybe. But not that fear you get as a kid when you think there really is a monster under the bed. This fear is creeping and pinch-me real. Weather is a powerful thing. Beyond your control and capable of punching you square in the jaw and kicking you while you’re down.

This is bad.

Frantic, I scan the road ahead. Where is some cover? Where? The path forward is naked and barren. Nothing, nowhere, no-one. A house, passed a while back, pops its frame and trusses into my memory.

Too far back.

Two silos off in a field up ahead. Possibly, but even if I make it there, there is no protection, no shelter, no relief.

An elderly barn, wooden and eager, raises its hand in the distance. Can I make it there? It’s maybe a mile, I think. A mile of gut-busting cranking for my dear life.

It’s two, says my brain, you are in denial.

Shut up, brain. Since when have you ever been right about anything? It’s one mile. It’s most definitely one mile. I can make it. Book it, book it T-bird!

I churn my legs with the same viciousness as the wind hurling its abuse at me. I throw Precious into a bigger gear to stress the urgency to my legs. We crank, we mash, we are a unified presence in our quest to make it to the barn. Nothing can stop us. I am throwing myself at the wind. Desperate.

You are barely moving.

Shut up brain!

You are not going to make it.

Shut up! We are an engine of efficient carburetor action, smooth with viscous oil and firing pistons. We are a freight train blowing through this deserted Kansas station.

No, we are a blowfly in a bottle. Drunkenly buzzing and trapped and banging our dumb heads against the glass.

Getting closer. We must make it to the barn. We are very close. We can make it to the barn!

We’re not going to make it to the barn.

Truth, like auto-tune music, hurts. It stabs me in the face.

I pull up.

What am I going to do? I stand and look at the situation. Fear is squeezing my lungs in its fist.

The curtain rapidly moves towards me, wrapping itself around the barn in an eerie embrace. The very barn I was aiming for. It arcs around the edge of it and the wind forms a curve. A wall of wind, like the puffed out cheek of a bonsai tornado wanna-be, calls to me.

Hold me closer, tiny biker.

Ok, that’s not good. This is not a good place to be. I look around wildly and decide to throw myself at the mercy of the ditch beside the road. A wide expanse of grassy low ground that’s probably there for this very reason.

Down I go. I lay Precious and Zimmerman on their side, then get down with them. I coward up and hide myself behind the bulk of Zimmerman. As flat as I can go. I am a speck on Kansas’s windshield. I am elasticgirl. I am flat and invisible. You can’t see me. I am not here.

The wind is much reduced down here, almost cool and apologetic. A few sharp pinpricks of rain hit my legs, but nothing more. I feel the force of the curtain move over us all and in a beat, it’s passed. A swirl of frantic dust, gust and confusion and it’s gone.

I sit up. Watch it move on as it looks for someone else to freak out. It stretches across field and ditch and road and is a complete shield to what’s behind it. A sudden realization – there has been no traffic for quite some time. Locals must know to stop. I am the only idiot in this landscape. The only witness to this random act of violence.

Still shaking, I grab my Nikon from the handlebar bag and attempt to photograph its retreat. I must document my stupidity for all to admire. Lower the camera. Become aware of the sharp and insistent prickles sticking in my buttocks. Scan the ground. Some kind of native burr I guess, as I stand and shake myself off. What a strange day. My heart beat is gradually going back to normal as I watch the storm carry on. An angry mob, chasing down its prey.

Sadly, it has not taken the wind with it, and if anything, it’s gotten stronger and more agitated.

Dragging the rig out of the ditch, I swing my leg over and push off again. The traffic slowly comes back and things return to a windy norm. About ten minutes later and I’m back in the ditch, but this time simply because the wind is too strong. I am barely moving. Might as well sit it out down low where the gusts are lessened and there’s less chance of being hit by a car or truck.

It becomes obvious after a while that the waiting it out part is pointless. It’s not really dying down at all, so I pull myself up again and just get at it. Plod on, soldier. Forward is the future.

A slight turn in the road towards the east and it becomes an epic battle of me and it. Holding on for dear life to my handlebars and trying to stay upright as it nudges angrily from the side. Being shoved off the road from time-to-time, only to wrestle my way back on. And then a slight turn north and we’re back to head-on. Much relief. Odd to think that I find a head-wind to be of great comfort, but it is.

Normally, a situation like this would make me very grumpy, but I feel quite resigned to simply keep on keepin’ on. No real choice. No place to stop, nowhere to give in early. I’m actually kind of cheery. This is a challenge and I’m going to complete it.

I count down the miles. Ten to go. Seven to go. Three. Two. I can see the town. A slight detour around some bridge construction and finally, finally, into Rush Center. Home of the Largest St. Patrick’s Parade, whatever that means. I glance around at the tiny town. What does that mean? Are there irish hiding under that old tractor? Does the Guinness naturally run green here? They can’t just put up a sign if it’s not true.

Down the street and a hard left turn. Hard west turn. West. The way of the future. The way of the cross wind.

Numbers flash on my brain billboard. Two hours and 45 minutes, not including lay in the ditch time. It took me two hours and 45 minutes to go 19 miles. Ok. I chew on this fact for a moment. Turn it over under my tongue.

That’s nuts.

Kansas, you deplete me.

But a strange happiness settles into the basement of my stomach. Puts up its feet on an ottoman. Twiddles its thumbs and looks smug there in its smoking jacket. I feel as though I have overcome the great windy brute in my path and slain him with my awesome bike. Churned him up in my spokes and left him bleeding on the flats behind me. Against the wind, I am victorious. This delay has blown (literally) my predicted arrival time to smithereens, but I care not. I will still make it to Elaine’s easily before sunset, and that’s all that really matters.

I leave. I arrive. Stick to the script, all the way across America.

At the rest stop in Alexander – the fanciest building in town, truth be told – I am approached by a guy who’s pulled in to let his dog out for a walk. The dog is old and fat and trots over to sniff my hand before moving on to the interesting shrubs.

“How do you like riding in this wind?” he asks.

“Well, like is a strong word.” I say and we laugh and settle in to an easy conversation. Before I set off, he asks “Don’t you worry about being out here alone?”

Only when people say stuff like that to me, I think.

“Nah,” I say. “I think most people want to be good.” I’m not sure he understands, but it’s a thought I keep coming back to. Most people do want to be good people. They want to help. It’s hard to explain the ones who aren’t.

The miles tick by, the wind howls on, but not as bad as before. I am content to just rumble on and not think too much about it. I’m not thinking, not bitching, not brewing or kvetching. I’m just riding and it’s nice to empty my mind like an old suitcase and ride.

Before long, I am in Bazine and searching for the sign for Elaine’s Bicycle Oasis. It’s hard to miss. A rusty bike with a crudely painted sign. I pull in and up under a tree in the yard. Hesitate and walk down a path to the back door. Knock.

Elaine is on the phone as she opens it.

“I have to go. The biker is here,” she says, motioning me inside and finishing up her call.

As we chat, I watch her cut limes and put into a jug of icy water. She brings it over to the kitchen table with a bag of raw sugar and a spoon.

“I’ll let you decide how much you want,” she says, and I dig in and sift a spoonful into my glass. It’s refreshing and cool after this terrible day of fighting the wind. I tell her about it.

“Oh, a dust devil!” she says, and I thank her for letting me know what they’re called out here. I would have called it a willy willy.

“We thought you might have turned back. Because of the wind. Some people do.”

That was never an option, and I tell her so. I am made of sterner stuff, I think, but realize by sterner I mean stupider stuff.

A bit later, after I’ve showered and made myself human again, I sit at the table chatting as I watch her making dough for the pizza she’s inventing for dinner. From scratch dough, for real made-up spontaneous pizza. I am salivating with anticipation of the meal to come. We talk about biking and the town, and how long she’s been opening her house up to cyclists. We talk about careers and life and if I mind the cat being inside. She asks me how much rent I pay in New York and I tell her. Watch as her eyes widen and her kneading fingers pause before working at the dough again.

“Guess how much rent she pays?!”

It’s one of the first things Elaine says to Dan, her husband, when we sit down to eat dinner. Both are shocked at the expense. Dan names a guy down the road who paid a very low price – which might as well have been a nickel when compared to my rent – for a house.

“A whole house!” he says. “With four bedrooms!”

It is quite scandalous, I think. But I live in New York City. That’s kind of very different than out here where the wind blows and the dirt flies freely.

I steer conversation expertly away from politics and religion, and instead talk about my upbringing. They’re very interested to hear I’m a farm girl. That I was raised a certain way and understand the way of the land. That my brother is a John Deere mechanic. In fact, I get the sense that if my brother had been at the table, he would have been treated like royalty. Dan himself has a John Deere round baler that he contracts with.

We talk for a while about differences between farm and city folk. I say it’s a matter of perspective. Of what you grew up with. I miss the openness of the sky, the quiet stillness of the farm. I miss the chill of the morning which seems different in the open spaces than it does in a city. I miss the gentle wave of a neighbor as they pass on the road

“But the city is not bad. It’s just different,” I say.

After dinner, Dan digs out a newspaper clipping – a story about a farmer taking a flight for the first time – and reads it to me. It’s very familiar territory, particularly since it reminds me greatly of my Dad going through airport security in Sydney with a pocket knife in his pocket. Bloody from some farm chore, I seem to recall. Farmers, god love ‘em.

As I sign the guest book, Elaine tells me she’s noticed that more solo women tend to come towards the end of the season, and she doesn’t know why. That they tend to be older too, whereas the young things come in groups right at the start. It’s an interesting observation, and one that pegs me into a certain category. Slow old ladies.

I flip through the book, read entries. See Stacia’s name, and there’s John who I shared the youth center with in Sebree. I sign the book, but think it’s probably premature to do so. My stay has only just begun, and yet I’m talking about how great it was.

Bed comes early for me. The fighting wind has done me in and I sink into the comfortable mattress with a kind of welcome exhaustion. The bed is old and creaky, the bedspread familiar and homely.

With a click, off goes the lamp and I lay still in the darkness. Listening to the Kansas wind whispering to me as it cuts through the leaves on the trees outside my window.

“Tomorrow,” it croons. “Tomorrow we begin again. Just you and me.”

I drift off to dream my Toto dreams with that airy threat looming over me.

RIDE FACTS
Date: September 02, 2010
From: Larned, KS
To: Bazine, KS
Distance: 51.50 miles
Time: 5:36:44
View Garmin Data >

NEXT DAY > Day 38, The Geometry Day