daed si luap

If you've been following all three of our blogs during this bike trip, you'll notice that Ross, Julie, and I don't usually write about the same things, despite being on the same roads, seeing the same things. Consider them each like gospels, different versions of the same story, and I guess mine is most similar to the Gospel of John: very little concrete information, confusing and unnecessary symbolism, subtle clues hinting to the exact date of Armageddon and/or Beatles' conspiracies...

Not very helpful, I know, if you want to hear about biking or podunk towns or unique characters from Indiana. It's time consuming to write that all down in a public library knowing you still more hours of biking ahead of you and don't want to offend the other library patrons with your odor.

But now that I'm showered and biding my time in Chicago, here goes...

MORNING

The days usually start around 6 or 6:30. No alarm clock needed; we all wake up on our own around that time. Different species of birds sing at different hours of the morning, and I wish I had some bird calling familiarity so I could tell time without using a watch, but my ability to differentiate anything about birds is generally limited to "fried" of "baked." So I check the time using my bike odometer and as long as it's something near 6:00, I prep myself to get up.

The hardest part of this ride: putting on the bike shorts each morning. It takes a lot of resolve for me to slide out of a warm sleeping bag, pick up a pair of bike shorts that are usually cold and damp from dew, and shimmy into them. But once that's over, the rest of the day is much easier.

There's little to no conversation between us in the morning. We each pack up our equipment, break down tents, pack away sleeping clothes, fill up water if there's an outside faucet. We make breakfast, lately cereal and powdered milk. The only meaningful thing we say in the morning is, "So where are we going today?" We all look at the maps, pick a final destination that's somewhere around 60 miles away usually, and plan a first stopping point, a small town or intersection about 10-20 miles away.

Inflate the tires, check for loose screws, reset the odometer, stretch a bit, and off we go.

DAY TIME

Once we get going, it feels good. The morning, though sometimes cold, is so quiet and peaceful. Less cars on the road. No overbearing sun blistering the exposed skin. Just cool, crisp cycling with fresh legs and the optimism only a new day can bring.

As I've said before, Ross and Julie are much faster cyclists than me, so soon after we start, I'm alone on the road, and prefer it that way. It's a quiet time on the road and being with other people would be like talking on a cell phone in a monastary. It feels offensive to the morning.

I meet them at the designated stops (hopefully), and we share funny anecdotes about dogs chasing us* or fascinating road kill. We share snacks of plum tomatoes, green beans, cheese in a can, various chocolate or Little Debbie items. We pick the next stop and it's off again.

On the bike, when I'm not thinking about the distance or the soreness, I think about people I miss (yes, that's you!) or people I hate (yep, that's you, asshole). My mind replays embarrassing moments in my life, and I curse myself outloud for thinking about them. I have fake conversations with people so I have a whole script planned out the next time I see you all, and you better stick to your lines, the ones I imagine you'll say, or else none of my punchlines will be funny. I sing songs I haven't heard in years or theme songs to 80's TV shows (the new boy in my neighborhood lives downstairs and it's understood, he's there just to take good care of me, like he's one of the family). The set list also includes elton john, billy joel, beatles, system of a down, clutch, and any doo wop songs I can remember. I save "American Pie," "rocky racoon," and "scenes from an Italian restaurant" for hills because those songs last longer. Sometimes, if I'm in a particularly hard stretch--there was one point where they had closed off one direction traffic on a pretty busy road and I was trying to get past this construction stretch uphill with no shoulder and speeding semis, so I could find a safe spot to replace my quickly deflating back tire-- I say, "Powerboost! Powerboost, kid!" and that makes me go slightly faster, but for short stretches because the invocation doesn't actually decrease the lactic acid build up in my muscles; it's just a stupid thing I say to hopefully make me bike a little faster.

I picture what my life will be like when I finish this ride. Not unlike a major motion picture, there are plenty of alternate endings and deleted scenes. I also try to replay entire scenes from Bloodsport and the Rocky movies in my head to see if I can remember all the dialogue. Sometimes I'll remember episodes of the Simpsons and I won't be able to stop laughing.

And that's the whole day until anywhere from 4:00-6:00 when we meet again to find a place to stay the night.

EVENING

We pick a town that's the right distance from where we started and that looks the right size for soliciting a place to sleep. Too small and it'll just be cornfields. Too big and there will be no open space for tents, or people will be less trusting. Has to be in the middle. Then, we usually start by finding local churches and see if the rectory is nearby to ask the pastor if we can set up tents on the church grounds. If we can't find a reverend, we've usually been directed to other people, the mayor of a small town that let us camp on the river, a police officer that let us set up shop in the town park. Julie has become quite adept at asking and, as she puts it, "gets a high," when we find a place.

We say thank you over and over, then start setting up for the night. Put the stove together and start boiling water as we pitch tents, change into non-spandex clothing, pee behind trees, relax.

WE usually cook mac and cheese which we fatten up with canned chicken and some sort of vegetable: green peppers, left over plum tomatoes, canned corn or veggie medley. The dinner is consistently hot and delicious and nothing feels better than having a safe place to stay and warm dinner to enjoy leisurely. We take turns doing dishes. Then, we might do some bike repair, sing the same songs over and over with the ukulele, or, at the really cool places, build a fire. There really isn't that much down time; once we've found a place, cooked, and set up for the evening, it's usually about 8 pm. And we're all in bed by 9 most nights.

I take my wallet, bike odometer (for the time), digital camera, knife, bike clothes, lantern, and journal into the tent with me. Essentially, anything expensive or valuable to me that I would not want to get wet or stolen. I do have waterproof bags on my bike, but they are a pain to pack up until the morning. I usually jot a few notes into the journal; nothing creative, just mileage, location, perhaps some interesting tidbit from the day. Then I might read for a few minutes and fall asleep.

I have a sleeping bag and use my raincoat as a sleeping pad if the ground if particularly hard. I use my sneakers as pillows. They smell horrendous after a rainy day, but you get used to anything.

That's it. That's been my life for the last 2 weeks. Not particularly exciting, which is why I avoided writing this blog entry; i've dozed off twice just trying to type it up. Again, if you want up to date info on actual riding, check ross or julie. If you want the first draft of a straight to video romantic action comedy I've been imagining starring Jean Claude Van Damme and Ralph Macchio in a no holds barred tournament that contenders can only enter by flying a Delorian at 88 miles per hour and going back in time, then check my blog again in a few days.


*I have not read Ross' blog, but I think it might describe one encounter we had with a couple dogs. I don't know what he wrote, but let me just clarify what happened. I, as usual, was the last one to bike past a house in Ohio that had two unfriendly dogs. Past experience on this ride showed that the dogs who barked wouldn't leave their lawns, no matter how much they disliked me. But as I cruised by, these dogs kept following me off of their property, so I veered into the road and crossed it hoping they would follow me and get hit by a car, truck, or SUV. Unfortunately, there were no cars travelling the road at the time. I finally stopped on the other side of the road to assess the situation with them yapping behind. I keep a knife in a pouch under my bike seat, but truth be told, I have not been practicing dog drills, and in this state of emergency, was not ready to whip out my shiv quickly enough to maim or blind these pets. So I just stopped to see what they would do, and, true to the cliche, the bark was worse than the bite, which never came, thankfully. They just stood there barking at me, and upon closer inspection, they were not the rabid pitbull/hyena mix I thought they were at first, but instead, just fluffy, black things that came no higher than my knees. So i flipped them the bird and continued on my way.

I don't know what Ross said about the experience, but there was no point in me telling my side because I don't think, now that I've written it all down, I've improved my image at all with this testimony.