LOOSE ENDS

Well, tomorrow is the day I leave for the West Coast, and I am pretty much as ready as I’ll ever be. I am still in a near-constant state of freaking out, but I’m sure that once I’m on my way, that will recede. I’ve got my panniers packed and all the gear is weighing in at 47 pounds and holding. I’ve cut everything I can possibly cut---I removed a pair of socks and an ink pen and added a troll, a tiny vial to use to capture Pacific water, and a miniscule string of 95 beads. People who’ve ridden with me have met the troll, Latrelle. He’s got blue hair (and lots of it) and has always been on my handlebars or stem. He was with me on Jackson Pass, and also across Oklahoma---he’s one of my good luck charms. You can’t cut a good luck charm. The Pacific Water vial is part of a “coast to coast” ritual, one that I’m not too crazy about but will participate in nonetheless. Cross country cyclists often take a little bit of water with them from ocean to ocean. I would prefer to collect the water and mail it ahead to our friends in Maine, but that circumvents the concept, I guess. The miniscule beads are from my friend Deb, who brought them over today along with her special energy bars. The beads each represent a day on the trip, with full moon beads marking the moons, and each bead carrying a blessing for strength and safety, protection and courage to get me through that day. I’ll string them around my stem and be happy to know that those good wishes travel with me. We’ve been so blessed with love and support from all corners. I am humbled, and thankful.

Kami and I each will be carrying our own gear (clothing/sleeping bags, etc.) and then we divided the “group gear” into halves. This was a tense and adversarial process! First, we collected the items that were proposed to be useful to both of us. Some were undisputed: the tent, the cooking equipment, the bike repair tools, the sunscreen and bug stuff. A few things we both wanted, but admitted weren’t strictly necessary, like the Scrabble game which I took in my gear. Then, there were things that one of us thought we both needed, and the other thought no one in their right mind needed: the 50 foot piece of rope, the 5 boxes of waterproof matches, the pepper spray. She made an impassioned defense of the rope, but I still don’t understand the utility. Ditto the overkill on the matches, and also the pepper spray which I fear will be used against me. I’m not carrying any of that. Yet.

My friend Bryon, a cyclist, came by to say farewell. I showed him the elevation map of the first week in the Cascades, and he didn’t blink. I appreciate that! We rode together some last summer when I joined our local bike shop’s Thursday night rides. I was often the only girl on those rides, and Bryon always stayed beside me, or ahead of me blocking the wind---these small favors got me where I am today. Freaking out!

My friend Layne tossed me this Chinese bit of wisdom this week: LEAVE ONE THING UNDONE. I am pondering that one over---I asked her if it had to be intentional, and she said “yup” (more or less). As far as I know, I’ve paid the bills, squared the house away, made the necessary calls, cancelled the appointments and papers, hired a lawn fellow, weeded the garden, notified everyone who might need to know. I’ve been to the bank, put stuff in a safe deposit box, balanced accounts… What will be the one thing I don’t do? It’s a leap for me to intentionally not do something---but it sounds like a good idea. Oh!!! I don’t have a way to get back home from Maine---that might be my one thing left undone!

Plan B

I’m trying to limit what I write about on this blog to topics that are directly related in some way to our cross country bike trip, and this note is ostensibly about the PLAN B that my friend Mike (not the mechanic, but my friend in Houston) proposed this week. I wish I could link an audio clip to this page, and everyone could hear it for themselves---he left it as a message on my recorder, and it involves three months in Mexico, a disco, a bartender with a sideline occupation, and an all you can eat mealplan. Doesn’t sound too bad, actually! I met Mike in January of 1980---it was the first day of Spanish 102 at Texas Tech, and I was on the back row of a small classroom when he bopped in wearing a football letter jacket and wedged his way into the desk next to mine. The professor, a blond haired blue-eyed woman from South America began calling the roll, and I looked around to see the faces that went with the names. She stopped midway down the list and exclaimed, “WHOA!!! HO!!! ……” then she announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, MICHAEL JACKSON!” and she began singing THRILLER and moonwalking down the side aisle. I was cringing with embarrassment for the poor student, until I realized it was the guy next to me who was singing and jiving in his seat, grinning with the good nature that is his trademark. I laughed and asked, “Michael Jackson?”, and he replied, “Call me Mike..” and started sniffing my hair and licking my face while the professor continued her routine. That pretty much did it for me. I went to all the TECH football games, and yelled for him all the way. My parents were football fans, and the next fall when TECH was in town for Thanksgiving my mom was concerned about what Mike would do for the holiday. She insisted that I invite him, and any of his teammates to join our family for the meal. And so it was that he roared onto our quiet street in his gold TransAm with the monstrous bird decal and glass packs, with AC/DC rattling the neighborhood windows and then zoomed into our house with his teammate Hans. Mike was a wide receiver---lean, fast, with great hands and he’s smart, too. Hans may have been the center, I don’t recall that part, but suffice it to say that he wasn’t exactly lean, fast or smart. They demolished the food, and Mike charmed my mother with his goofy musings about her cooking----including a lengthy monologue about the relative squeakiness of her green beans. She remembered that Thanksgiving at every subsequent Thanksgiving until her last one. Always with a smile, and an inquiry about Mike. For the remainder of our careers at TECH, Mike and I synched our schedules to take our classes together----memorably a lot of radio and television classes where we developed programming that would never make it on air even in this age of limitless satellite stations. The only time I remember us disagreeing about our class choices was when we each needed a P.E. credit. Why an elite college athlete like Mike needed an additional P.E. credit, I don’t know---but he wanted to learn how to scuba dive, and I wanted to take bowling, and neither of us would budge. Gee, I wish I had learned how to dive, ---I already knew how to bowl!

I introduced Mike to my friend Jane at a party at my house, it was a costume party where he came as a frighteningly good Diana Ross and I think she was a Boy Scout---they married a few years later and now they have an almost 18 year old football player of their own, headed off to U of H to play ball. I wonder if he will be taking Spanish and talking about squeaky green beans?

So, thanks to Mike for PLAN B---what to do if we get tired of riding our bikes and need an alternate plan. If we go missing this summer, check out Playa del Carmen first.

test post

I am Personal Assistant for Technical Issues to Laurel, Head BlogKeeper. I will be making posts for Laurel and Kami when they don't have access to Blogger, or whenever I feel like it. Insubordination rules. This is a test post to make sure I can do it!

I've known Laurel for longer than either of us would probably care to confess, but we never see each other, so here is a virtual wave: (Hi, Laurel!) (and Kami!)

I'll go now.
Barb, VOF (Very Old Friend)
aka AuntBeaN

Mike

My mechanic, Mike, rocks my world! Today was the “pack and ship” date I had set for sending the bikes to Seattle, and so I went to the bike shop this morning with what turned out to be 116 pounds of TREK bikes and hard cases and together, Mike and I broke it all down and loaded it up. I was more or less freaking out from the various stresses of this trip, and spending an hour with Mike was like spending an hour with a ZEN master. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit over the past few years, and I know him to be an extremely thoughtful man. When we were first contemplating this trip, it seemed like our Specialized bikes would work out for long distance touring, but after taking them out on the road last summer we realized that we needed bikes that were better suited for the load. I researched some of the choices, and ultimately decided that the 520 would be the best bike for me. I talked to Mike in March about getting one, and about the way I wanted to trick it out---he listened carefully to what I wanted, and nodded. At first, he hit a roadblock finding my size, but he knows somebody at TREK, and the next thing I knew, my bike was in the shop getting fenders and racks. In addition to being thoughtful, Mike is a man of few words, so I was extremely gratified when he asked me whether I wanted silver or black fenders---I thought about it for a half second and knew instinctively that I wanted silver. He smiled, gave me his blessing: “cool” and admitted that silver would be his choice, too. He never told me what I should get, he just asked the right questions along the way. For example, this morning as we were loading the bikes, he asked me if I had all the tools I needed---and I started listing what I was planning to carry. My bike tool, a little adjustable wrench, my pump, and patches, spare tube, tire boot, levers….I think my heart started racing when I was listing the things but he said, “cool” and assured me that my tires were bomb and I wouldn’t have any troubles. I also told him I’d have some lube, zip ties and of course, DUCT TAPE and he told me his duct tape mantra which is beautiful, but profane or I would repeat it here. When Mike says, “no worries”, it has the soothing effect of totally wiping all the worries out of my troubled mind. I’m saving the image of him in the shop, telling me “no worries” for the day I need it. Mike has always acted like the idea that I can ride my bike across two countries is perfectly reasonable, and I am so grateful for that. It’s also way cool that in a town of more than 60,000 people, I can still call the shop, ask “Is Mike there?” and hear “Hey, Laurel” before ever saying my name. I might be the only one in town who can make “Mike” a two-syllable name, though. Mike is a RED BULL athlete, and this summer he’ll be in Durango anchoring a four person relay team made up of a paraglider, kayaker, trail runner and mountain biker. They’ll be tackling some extreme mountain terrain and criss crossing the Continental Divide! Keep a good thought for my favorite mechanic---a thoughtful guy with a halo shadow of red hair and heart of gold.

LUXURY ITEMS

My brother David and his wife, Carmyn are planning on meeting Kami and I as soon as possible on the bike trip. They are leaving Texas the moment their school lets out, and driving to Washington with their homemade tiny-teardrop trailer tagging along. We are so psyched to have them along with us for part of the journey---they’re excellent campers and along with providing support, they’re more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We’re not sure where our paths will cross, but are hoping it will be in the Cascades. All along, we have anticipated how wonderful it will be to hand off our 50+ pound panniers to them to carry, leaving us to just ride our bikes without all the gear. Then, my brother told me that he would carry “luxury items” for us! If we would get them to Texas early he would throw them in with his stuff. Frankly, it made my head spin! LUXURY ITEMS! That I wouldn’t have to carry on my bike, but would have access to for a couple of weeks. What to take, what to take. At first, he said, “like your pillow…..” and I thought about how great it would be to have my little buckwheat pillow under my head each night. Then I thought about how sad I would be when he took my luxury items away from me! So, I’m in Texas, and I have brought my bag of luxury items to give him. It’s a mind-blowing experience when you inventory your “luxuries” and it amounts to:

Hairbrush, pillow, pajamas (don’t ask), tennis shoes, pants with a zipper, mango lotion, eye drops, vitamins, tiger balm, black currant tea and extra socks and underwear. Oh, and my most major of all luxury items, a BOOK. I’m not sure when I learned to read, but I was reading all my older brothers’ books when I was in first grade---and since then, I’ve always had at least one book I was reading. Early on, I decided that I wasn’t going to carry a book on my bike, but I was sad to think about spending three months adrift. Then, I realized that I could download a book to my iPod, and if I have enough charge left at the end of the day (doubtful), I could just listen to someone read me a book at night! Unfortunately, something tragic has happened to my iPod, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to download a book to it before the trip. I’m so grateful that David will bring a book for me, but choosing the book for this trip was one of the hardest choices I’ve made regarding the journey. I hope I made the right choice.

Shakedown ride

We took our “shakedown” ride this weekend, from St. Joseph to Melrose. The purpose of a shakedown ride is to test all your equipment and gear, to be sure that it all works, and that you have what you need for riding/camping/eating. Because of scheduling conflicts between now and the beginning of our cross country journey, we knew we had to take our show on the road this weekend, or we wouldn’t be able to do an overnight ride. Unfortunately, there were no open campgrounds on our route---but we discovered we could camp in the city park of Melrose. So we prepared to ride there and test our new tent. On Saturday morning, the Weather Channel forecast a 30% chance of rain, changing over to snow and temperatures in the thirties, dropping to the high teens overnight. Not ideal, but the odds seemed to be in our favor. So, we loaded up the gear—8 panniers, 2 handlebar bags, tent, sleeping bags, bikes and ephemera and drove to the trailhead. When we got there, I set my bike up pretty quickly, then waited for Kami to get all her gear strapped on. This is when I learned the first lesson of the shakedown. As I was fitting my helmet on over my toboggan, she asked, “What did you do with *my* bungee cords?” and I said, “huh?” and although there was a tangled knot of bungee cords clumped in the floorboard, she insisted that I had somehow purloined “hers”. So, I said, “I thought those were my bungee cords” and a spirited discussion followed, resulting in me removing my sleeping bag (and bungee cord) from my rack and noting that the rule, apparently, is “if you put the bungee cord in the car, it is yours. If you didn’t put it in the car, it isn’t yours”. I refastened my sleeping bag with the longest bungee cord I’ve ever seen in my life, and we hit the road. We had been riding for about 10 miles into a bitter headwind, when we could no longer ignore the dark clouds ahead. We decided to pull over in the next sheltered area to put the rain covers on our panniers, and just as we stopped, snow began falling. Not lightly, either. Big snow. But, it wasn’t sticking to anything, and we found a tube of tent seam repair at the spot we stopped! We took off again, headed to Melrose. The wind was relentlessly in our faces and cold, but the snow stopped after about fifteen minutes. We got to the city park at about 5 and found a secluded little spot next to the river to set up our camp. We got the fabulous new 2-door tent up really quickly, and I dove inside to get out of the wind and unpack our gear. Frankly, it was freezing. After dumping our bags, we rode our bikes to Main Street and decided to eat at FUNKY’S RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE, although “decided” makes it sound like there was a choice. It was great to be in a warm spot, and have a hot meal. I had eggs and potatoes and toast, and Kami had chicken tortellini soup, although curiously, it had floating wads of ham in it. It was time to return to the park--- we began a game of scrabble (I carried the game in my small pannier. It seemed like a necessity at the time) but called it due to darkness. I left to find a restroom, and when I came back in the dark there was a car pulled up next to the tent! It was the Melrose police, collecting $10 for camping. I asked the policeman if he would come back through the park to check on us overnight and he said he would, and added that it was going to be a cold night for camping. Kami later asked me why I was gone so long, and I admitted that I had not only found a bathroom, but it had one of those hand dryers and I had been shooting hot air in my rain pants for the preceding ten minutes! I was trying to create a “hot air balloon” effect in my pants, but it didn’t work that great.

As the freezing wind whipped through the mesh panels of our tent, I realized that this brand new tent was certainly well-ventilated, and then it was brought to my attention that our new tent is a 3- season tent. I think I know what season it doesn’t cover: Minnesota. I started thinking about all those Everest documentaries I've seen, where the people are freezing in those tents, and drinking cooked water---the thing they've got going for them is they're also extremely oxygen-deprived. Unfortunately, I still had enough oxygen to know how cold I was! I put on all my clothes and burrowed into my down sleeping bag, Big Agnes, for the night. Big Agnes is rated to 15*, but I’m not so sure. The next morning, Kami left the tent briefly and came back to announce: A) Our tent was covered in snow, and B) The Ceremonial Cooking of the Oatmeal was cancelled due to “inclement weather”. I reached into the ice box (also known as the vestibule of the tent) and removed the diet coke I had deposited there the night before and had a stiff drink. We decided to pack it up and ride 6 miles to Charlie’s Café for breakfast. It was awkward trying to get everything back in place while wearing full-fingered gloves, and it took us twice as long, but we got it together and left for the road feeling pretty good.

The wind that had hammered us the day before seemed to be blowing from the exact same direction and with the same strength, and we flew on our bikes to Freeport for breakfast. When we came out, it was snowing again, and it snowed on and off the rest of the day. I found a penny, and saw three bluebirds. Life is good! We rode back to St. Joe without any troubles at all and feel like our equipment and gear are in good shape for the ride. We can even do a little arctic camping!