T+155: The Final Push

Mile 4162: Portland, Maine

We leave the bed and breakfast in Meredith and push out into traffic.  It is chilly.  We have about a 50 mile ride to the little town of Cornish, Maine.  The next day, we will only have about 30 miles to get into Portland.  We both have pretty strong homing fever.  Like horses who have been on an all-day ride, but who begin to trot and can’t be deterred once they get a sense of barn and pasture, we are singled minded in our focus.  We want to get to Portland as soon as we can.

Of course, that doesn’t stop us from missing our turn and going the wrong way for a few miles first thing in the morning.  Even though we were following Highway 25, we were not seeing the lake shore as we should.  Instead we were climbing a small saddle…and making good time, at that.  It just doesn’t seem right, I tell Wes.  Let’s stop and check.   We pull off into a public area, check the map, and…can- you-believe-it—not only have we gone the wrong way, I also have a flat tire.  Grrrrr.

It is already late because of the long conversation we had at breakfast, so we try to control our anxiety as we change the tire and make our way back to what should be a connector road back to EAST 25.    (We had been going due north on WEST 25.)  25B is a short-cut, all right, in distance.  It is straight up a steep hill we can’t ride.  After a long and cranky push, we make it to the top and see the streets of Center Harbor, straight down.  I am not completely confident in our repair, so I brake like mad down the 13% grade.   Wes shoots straight down, and when I meet up with him at the bottom, he has a bug-eyed, wild-hair grin.  Near the junction with the main road, we see a semi-truck loaded with hay just turning onto the road.  He stops his truck and asks us if this the road to Sunset Hill.  Wes tells him it is, but warns him that he may not be able to make it up that grade.  He drives off to attempt it.

We don’t tarry at the lake, even though the town looks cute.  We push through Moultonborough, even though it is on another lake and has an intriguing sign for the Cloud in the Sky house.  Nope, we’ve got homing fever.  No left, no right, just go.  The road outside of Moultonborough begins the circumnavigation of the Ossipees.  We climb up and can see its western flank with big canyons and fast moving streams. 

Ossipee Mountains

As we circle around these unusual mountains, the view to our right doesn’t change.  Unlike normal linear mountains, which have a beginning, middle and end, riding the perimeter of the volcano means that mountain seems to rotate with us.  However, once we are on the north side of the circle dyke, the views to our left begin to be awe-inspiring.  The White Mountains are just a few miles away and they are impressive.  At one point, we look north and see a jagged peak far above the surrounding peaks.  A single horn of granite, the stubborn remnant after glaciers had scraped away all else, stands 1000 feet above the rocky ridges below.  We wonder, is that Mount Washington?  It certainly was the tallest mountain we had seen since the Rockies. 

West Ossipee is at 1pm on the clock of the circle.  It is the last junction before Conway, in the heart of the White Mountains.  It is also the first place we see a road sign announcing the distance to Portland, Maine: 62 miles.  There is a busy barbeque joint right at the junction.  There are lots of folks wrapping up their Columbus Holiday weekend.  We eat in the tent outside the main dining area. 

It was better people watching than eating.  Around our table we see the following sets of people.  There is a handsome young couple, both quite athletic with the tans and muscles that come from lots of vigorous outside activities, with five children.  The oldest, a teenage boy of about 15 looks exactly like his father, who looks no more than 32 years old.  The mother has long, dark hair and a kind of casual elegance that makes me jealous.  Their youngest child is probably 5 years old. They order tons of food and eat only part of it.  They all seem very confident and relaxed.

Next to them is an intergenerational family of far fewer means.  The grandmother is on oxygen.  Her two daughters are overweight and wearing tight knit pants.  They all have their hair pulled tight into high ponytails.  All three women spend a good deal of time correcting and engaging with a young tween who can’t sit still and may not be able to read.  There are numerous questions, in quite loud voices, “Do you want the chicken?  How about the pulled pork?  Please sit down!  Did you want to try chicken, or not?  Answer me!” 

Across from us is a middle aged man of Asian descent, who has led his tiny, tottering, nearly blind mother up the ramp and to a high table, where he has very difficult time getting her into the stool.  There he explains, over and over, what this place is.  It’s not clear she understands.  When the food comes, he puts a bib around her then gently helps her take bites from her sloppy, slippery sandwich.

At the far end of the tent is another extended family.  I can’t see them very well, but I have a great view of the patriarch, with his sailor’s cap, beige windbreaker, tan chinos, and deck shoes.  He looks like he should be returning from a weekend on the boat instead of the New Hampshire mountains.  He spends the whole meal on his cell phone, only breaking his conversation once, with a loud, “Oh, all right!”  while he pulls some bills from his pocket to give to two gesticulating teenage boys, who then run into the interior of the restaurant.

When I come out of the restaurant, I see Wes in deep conversation with an odd-looking fellow.  I had seen him riding down the hill to the junction on a beater bike with a wobbly front wheel.  He looked to be in his forties.  His clothes—work boots, ragged jeans, polo shirt under a flannel shirt—were ragged and dirty.  His long blondish hair was stuffed under a mangled fisherman’s brim hat.  Still, his eyes were clear, his face was clean and smiling.  He was gesturing animatedly and pointing to his bike.  I soon learn he is telling Wes of his plans to convert his bike to a recumbent so he could take a tour like ours.  He is very fascinated by the trailers and asks Wes all sorts of questions.  The conversation starts to repeat itself and it is not clear whether this fellow actually has the wherewithal to do what he says, so we gently take our leave.  As we are riding away, a young interracial couple in full black leather come riding up on motorcycles.  We hear the cyclist tell them, “See them trailers…I’m getting me one like that and headin’ out!”

A few miles down the road, through a strip of tourist oriented businesses, we have traveled 180 degrees around the Ossipees.   The main route continues circling, but our route  turns to the east, over a small pass, heading to Maine.   The country is changing from upland hardwoods to boggy lowlands with ferns and pines.  The houses are becoming few and far between.

We stop to take pictures in front of the beat-up “Welcome to Maine” signs.  We have about 45 miles to go to Portland, and still about 10 miles to go today.   We are feeling pretty excited.  It’s hard to believe our traverse of the Northern Tier is nearly complete.

Almost immediately, we see that this part of Maine is in a very different economic state than anything we had seen in New Hampshire and Vermont.  Instead of big, well-maintained “add-on houses,” we now see bedraggled cabins or rusty, raggedy mobile homes surrounded by old pick-up trucks.  There are signs, some hand scrawled, offering firewood cutting, small engine repair, or “Maine-made” crafts.   Instead carefully tended gravel or paved driveways, there are muddy two-tracks leading to yards with falling down fences.  There are also chickens on the road with great regularity.

 
There are moments of great beauty in this landscape, however, especially alongside the Saco River.  Our minds, however, are focused on getting to Portland.  Even as we go through the little town of Cornish, with its rustic shops, outdoor cafes, and groups of weekenders pottering about, we don’t stop.  Our lodging is well outside of town, in a new-but-meant-to-look old complex.  It has a bar, restaurant, and butcher shop in the downstairs retail area, and is advertising for more renters.  It’s blinking external sign, at odds with its attempted colonial tavern design, says the motel is open, but the restaurant is only open on the weekends.

Our hostess is a young, beautiful Asian whom we can barely understand.  When she finds out that we are headed to Portland, she tells us we need to go to Kennebunkport and see President Bush—the first one—he is always there.  Make sure we don’t miss seeing the bridge over the bay, she says.   She is giving us more enthusiastic travel advice when we finally interrupt her and tell we are tired and need to get to our room.  She then apologizes several times.  We are to put our bikes in a covered awning behind the bar.  Our room is upstairs.  They will be serving until 8pm tonight and no, they do not have a breakfast in the morning.

Ok.  Putting the bikes under the awning proved quite difficult because of the chained picnic table also occupying the space. Both Wes and I end up with big bruises.  Upstairs, it is clear we are the only tenants in the motel.  The room is new and nice-ish. Like the rest of the building, it is built to look nice, but made with the cheapest materials and the shoddiest construction--the simulacrum of civility.

The restaurant/bar has a number of patrons.  Most are eating lobster, which is the special of the day.  It strikes with a blow that these are probably fresh caught lobsters.  Our minds and stomachs are still in the mountains, however, so we have stir-fry and sandwiches instead.  This was probably a mistake.

We try to go to bed early, but like kids waiting for Christmas day, we have a hard time sleeping and wake up every few hours to see if it is time to get up.  We are up before dawn and out the door just as the sun is beginning to peak over the hillside.  We are passing through numerous ups and down, with small farms and little cabins.  It is not quite as disheveled as the area near the border, but this is no high rent district, either.

The road turns south near the tourist area around Lake Sebago.  We are sure that this is a beauty spot, but nothing is going to deter us from getting to Portland as soon as possible.  We have gone about 15 miles; the sun is well up.  We need to get some breakfast. 

We find a tiny, “Mom’s diner” looking café, complete with gingham curtains, and pull into the parking lot.  Just as we are about to go into the door, a young man standing next to an old 3 speed bicycle, smoking a cigarette, accosts us.  Without warning, he launches into a big story about taking bicycle maintenance classes at his alternative high school.  Before long, we have learned that he was put out of his previous school, that he loved the teacher who taught him bike mechanics, that he thought it was a great thing for people like himself, who need to learn a skill, but that the whole program was shut down because of budget cuts.  He’s looking for a job now.  He hopes he can find something to do with bikes.  He really likes bikes, what kind are ours?  Have they worked good?  Do we need anything done?  This all goes by lickety-split, with barely a breath between sentences.  Stunned, we tell him our bikes are working fine, and wish him luck finding work with bikes.  Later, he comes into the restaurant, and unleashes another torrent at a fellow sitting at the counter.  The waitress and the cook exchange knowing glances.  The waitress then helps the young man find the door and tells him can come back later.

As we are eating, two 30 year old men enter the café.  They ask the whole diner, “Whose bikes are those?”  When they hear our answer, they sit in the booth next to us, and ask us questions throughout our meal.  While they are interested, they are also just a bit disrespectful, with “Why on earth would anyone want to ride a bicycle that far?”  and “Don’t you have something better to do?”  questions.  However, they wished us well as we left, and told us we still had 25 more miles to go.  We are surprised by this.  We have been pedaling fast.  Why aren’t these miles going down faster!  The young men beep and wave at us as they drive past us a few miles later.

Bit by bit, the landscape begins to take on unmistakable signs of suburbanization.  The two-lane road becomes a four lane and the traffic is becoming more noxious.  We stop in the town of Gorham, which was originally its own town, but has been swept up in the wave of suburbanization.  We are about 10 miles from the sea.  On some material I had picked up, I see a description for a bike route that will take us all the way to the coast.  The ride on the highway is not pleasant, so this seems like a good solution. 

We find the trail right away and are following a river trail, when all of a sudden, it goes into a small park and peters out.  We wander about a bit but can’t find it again.  We wander out to a major junction on the edge of a big industrial area.  We are trying to determine if one of these roads will get us to downtown and to the ocean, when we see a bicycle tourist riding up truck-clogged street towards us.  We flag him over.

When he comes over, we are surprised to see he is a tiny, beautiful youth.  His hair is light brown ringlets curling around his bike helmet.  He has enormous blue eyes ringed with long lashes.  He is just an inch or two taller than me and looks to be about 17 or 18 years old, with soft pink cheeks. Except for his well-used mountain bike shorts and dirty wind-breaker, he looks like an angel.  He is riding a mountain bike with an odd conglomeration of bags and a huge sleeping bag.  We find out that he has cycled all the way from Portland, Oregon, and that he left the day after us, July 4.  He has never heard of Adventure Cycling, but has been making his own way using Google maps. He has been camping a bit, but mostly couch surfing or staying with various relatives and acquaintances.  More surprising, he was now turning south, on his way to Florida.  He hoped to be there by December.  He had found Portland kind of inhospitable and was anxious to leave.  He could offer us no suggestions for a route downtown.  We watched this little spirit boy mount his bike, then ride off along the ridge, heading to southern parts unknown.

We are lucky enough to find good ol’ Highway 25 again, and follow it past suburban malls, across freeways, and through an increasingly dense and packed environment.  As we go along, Wes is telling an outrageous story about how the mayor will be meeting us to give us the keys to the city…for a rather large fee, of course.  Oh, and that marching band playing the victory march at your arrival, that’s an additional $6000.   If you could just leave the fee with the bursar, I have another pressing obligation…

At one point, we are faced with a Y junction, east or west?  We would have preferred south, but that was not an option.  The east route runs us past institutional buildings and ends at Portland’s Back Bay.  Clearly, we had reached some portion of the ocean, the smell alone would have told us that.   However, the tide was out and gulls, sandpipers, and curlews were hunting in the sodden mud. 

The main portion of downtown was to our right.   We cross another freeway and have to go up to go downtown and down to the sea.   Our path takes us by a Salvation Army service center.   There are scores of homeless people hanging around, all ages, all genders, all colors.  There are those in hot conversation with others.  Some look like they are embarrassed to be seen in this crowd, some are there in body, their minds elsewhere.  No one says a words as we pant up the hill, in hot pursuit of a little piece of open ocean.

We find our way to Commercial Street.  Before us are a series of busy piers.  Some are serving the tourist trade (Whale watching, scenic tours); others, for commercial fisherman.  A few look like private mooring for pleasure craft.  Beyond these piers, we can see a glimpse of water.  We want to get there. 

The first one we traverse stops us with a locked gate.  The next one leads to a waterside condominium with private boat slips.  Although there are numerous signs saying, NO TRESPASSING, we will not deterred at this point.  We come to the edge.  There will be no ceremonial dipping our front wheel in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  It is 8 feet below the edge.  It is not open ocean, either.  We can see standing oil tanks across the bay.  None of it matters.  We have made it.  Even when two men exit the condominium and give the fish eye to the two rasty-looking bicyclists on their dock, we will not be deterred from taking pictures and sending a celebratory text.   

We made it!  It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of our bicycle journey.  Our travels are not done, far from it.  We will visit with my brother and his wife in “downeast Maine.”  We still have to get back to our cabin, then  back to Detroit, before this journey is truly complete.  But for today, for right now, we can celebrate.  We can relax.  We can begin to begin to understand all the changes this journey has wrought.  But first, we’ll pause, and relent, and have at least one day where there’s no goal to be met, no task to be done.  Aaaaah.

 

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Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

 

T+10: The Adventure Begins

ST. HELENS, OR: We mounted our bikes about 2pm yesterday afternoon, and after a few wobbles getting used to our loaded BOB trailers, zoomed down the hill to the river, then over the Hawthorne Bridge, and through downtown.  The north end of Portland is an industrial zone, with no trees and blazing sun.  We were starting our day in exactly the wrong time of day: when the sun is hottest and the holiday traffic most intense.

However, we just buckled down and pushed forward, so glad to finally be underway.  Everything is going swimmingly until about mile 16.5, when I feel a funny clunk in my tire.  I slow down, and sure enough, I have picked up a roofing nail in my front tire.  We have to cross the busy highway, which is not so easy with the bike trailers. 

On the other side of the road, blessedly in the shade, we remove the bike wheel, then spend at least 30 minutes trying to get the tire off the wheel, so we can fix the flat.  Three tools and a few cuss words later, we have the inner tube out.  The hole is a double piercing on the side of tube.  Fixing it permanently is going to be a challenge.  I get the patch kit from my bike and discover the glue is completely hardened.  Thank goodness, I had the foresight to put another patch kit on Wes’ bike. 
We patch the holes, get the tube and tire back on the bike with less difficulty than getting it off, pump the tire, and remount the wheel.  It has taken us at least an hour to do this, during which the road has emptied and entered the shadow of the trees to a greater degree.

It is another 5 miles to the first little town.  We are out of water and pretty darn dehydrated by the time we pull into the Fred Meyers in the little town of Scappouse, OR.  In the store, we drink an iced tea while shopping, order smoothies, get more glue, and pick up a few supplies for dinner.   It is a bad sign, we note, that my tube in not available at this store and I regret not getting one when we were at the bike shop.  While drinking a smoothie, still feeling dehydrated, we call the only camping nearby. 

The camp host is friendly and lets us know that there is lots of room, but that we have to go another 5 miles to get to the camp.  We’re beat, but looking forward to our first camp of the trip.  We get there about 30 minutes before sunset. Setting up camp goes very well.  We eat a good dinner of pumpkin soup, hummus, and hot tea.  We are tired and can feel strain in various muscles. 

In the tent, we stretch out, adjust our blow-up pillows.  After a good rub down with Aspercreme, the sore bicyclist’s friend, we conk out.  We sleep soundly, only waking up to the chorus of two owls hooting away in the giant Douglas firs above our tent.  

The next morning, we are creaky, but not terribly sore, but our moods are right on the edge of cranky.  Little glitches in the packing seem downright irritating, and we are still learning the easy and smooth way to deal with the equipment.

However, we are on the road by 8 am.  It is beautiful and cool.  We zip along until we find a Starbucks, where we will charge our electronics, satisfy Wes’ coffee addiction, and see how our first filming on the bike went.

We feel so glad to be out…proud of ourselves for changing the tire…already feeling the effects of taking an adventure.  Wes keeps saying: “You know what is great about being on the bike….just being in the moment.”  He is right.  We are in this moment, in a small town in Oregon, on the Columbia River, about to take in the 4^th of July festivities.  Our adventure begins.

T+9: The Not-So-Blue Portland Blues

PORTLAND, OR:  We are now on our 4^th day in Portland, and our moods are mixed, mixed, mixed.  Wes, who had been quite tolerant of the situation we find ourselves in, woke up this morning agitated and ready to go.  We wonder what do.  Should we rent a car and go to the mountains, away from the heat and into the cool beauty?  How would we get all our gear to a car rental place and back?  Should we get a better place to stay?  We are at the Hawthorne Hostel and it is pleasant enough, though it was difficult sleeping the first two nights because of the heat and noise.  Last night we moved into the dorm where, ironically, enough, both of us slept like rocks.

We have been exploring Portland.  It is a very nice, somewhat surprising city.  Some surprises reflect more on us as Detroiters than anything else.  Case in point, in the funky, hipster neighborhood of Hawthorne, where we are staying, there are three---count ‘em-- three---excellent grocery stores within walking distance of the hostel.   They are stuffed full of beautiful, fresh produce. 

I am almost embarrassed to say that I made Wes go look at the Fred Meyer store that I chanced into on our way to the hostel.  We were hot and thirsty, and I popped into this store for something cool to drink.  I wandered around, like some third world refugee, amazed at the range and excellence of the products, and the beauty and cleanliness of the store.  It is full pitiful for two full-grown adults to be oohing and aahing their way around a grocery store, but that is exactly what we did.

We notice Portland folks are much more rule adherent than we are.  If there are no cars coming at a crosswalk, Wes and I cross the street.  We have often left compliant Portlanders staring at us, as we blatantly crossed the street without the light.  At the hostel, we take responsibility for our comfort, and move our base of operations into the cool basement meeting room, only to realize later, that we were supposed to ask permission to use this area.   We are aware in many subtle and not so subtle ways that Detroit’s pioneer ways make us seem like scoff-laws in this more tempered and managed environment. 

We people watch incessantly and are surprised by the number of homeless individuals soliciting on the streets.   90 percent of these panhandlers are young, European- American males.   In every part of town, though certainly more numerous in the Hawthorne District, we see young men, often with companion animals and instruments, soliciting donations from passersby.   Wes stopped and asked two young men, bewhiskered and crusty, why there are so many homeless young people in this city.  These young men said they had been hopping trains, but that Portland was the end of the line and many folks got off here.  They weren’t sure they were staying. 

A fairly big number of mumblers and screechers make their way up and down the streets.   The disinvestment in mental health care is as fully apparent here as it is in Detroit, though the demography is different.  

In general, Portland strikes us as a very youthful city.  We wonder where their seniors, the middle aged, and children are.  We have not yet travelled more than 3 or 4 miles from downtown, and assume that families and elders might be seen in the more far-flung neighborhoods, but it is strange to us to see so many young folks.

It is true, as our friend Gail said, Portland is the epicenter of the piercing and tattoo culture. Inking is ubiquitous, pegged ears, commonplace.  We wonder if we are prejudiced when we find male fashion and bearing here a bit too geeky/nerdy for our Detroit muscle car and street cred eyes. 

But boy oh boy, is this a place for Wes’ coffee addiction.  We wander from one incredible coffee house to another, and are in fact, enjoying a beauty called Palio in a leafy arts and crafts neighborhood just off Hawthorne, as I write this blog.

This is also a wonderland of gardens.  Many people have given up on their lawns and established beautiful flower or food or shrub-scapes.  The trees are big and in the neighborhoods we have explored, there are many wonderful old houses.  Both Wes and I really like what we see, but for reasons we don't understand, it just doesn’t resonate for us. 

Is it the lack of an edge?  Is it that people are courteous here, but not particularly friendly---unlike Detroit, where folks are friendly, but not particularly courteous?   Is it that there are so many choices, so many options, for food and drink and shopping, that a sense of privilege is part of the package? 

Is it that we don’t sense the ferment and self-conscious path-choosing that makes up conversation after conversation in our delightful and dysfunctional city?  It seems the struggle for identity here is an individual quest expressed in body art and fashion.  As always, I pick up the local newspapers and rags, but don’t see many signs of collective action or identity.  Or perhaps I don’t recognize their form.

Or do we miss the presence of African Americans and African American culture?   While we perceive that this town has very many Latinos and Asian Americans, somehow, it doesn’t feel like their place, although we recognize we might not have the eyes to see it. 

All in all, we like Portland as a place to visit, but don’t feel any pull to stay here. We hear the call of the road louder each day.  When- oh- when will the bikes arrive?  We are ready to be in a more wild place.   This place might be a little too civilized for us Wyoming/Detroit pioneers.

T+6: And so it begins...we hope

PORTLAND, OR:  We arrived today to sunny, hot Portland.  We had a magnificent view of Mt. Hood as the plane circled.  It is a huge massif, completely snow enrobed.  Wes spent the entire flight from Denver peering out the window.  We played a guessing game:  “Is that the Red Desert?  Is that Bear Lake?  Is that Boise, ID?”  The skies were clear and the view was amazing.  We saw the volcanic cones of the Cascades from our window and were immediately humbled.  These mountains are obviously named Cascade because of the roaring way the water comes off the steep sides.   We will have our work cut out for us on the first part of this trip.

We have been a jumble of nerves and exhaustion that reached a boiling point last night.  Since we left Detroit on June 22, our life has not yet slowed down.   It is always a fairly rough passage to get to the cabin two days, but we have done it often and know all our favorite stops along the way.   It has become a matter of ritual for us to stop at the Pioneer Co-op in Iowa City.  Here we pick up our fill of good Midwestern produce, fresh hand-made bread, and rich organic coffees.  We know well that such delicacies will be rarities in the wilds of Wyoming.  We stop in a park for a picnic, but are chased away by the swarming mosquitoes breeding in the remainder of the flooded Iowa River.

I ask Wes, “what will we do if we when we are on the bike and the mosquitoes swarm.  There won’t be a car to hide in.”  We remind ourselves other mosquito swarms on other trips and recall our cries for mercy, and our setting up and hiding in the tent for a moment of respite.

Then it is a straight push to Des Moines, where we always stay at a Candlewood Suite and eat some of the food from Iowa City.  One of the delights of this lodging is their video lending library.  We checked out The Way, which was particularly appropriate for us to see at this time.  In the movie directed  by Emilio Estevez, featuring his father Martin Sheen, the meaning of journey is explored.  Each of the characters takes El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) in Spain, saying they are looking for one thing---to quit smoking, to start writing, to lose weight---but find that the journey brings the knowledge they need, not the knowledge they sought.  Throughout the film, the constant refrain and greeting is “Buen Camino” ---roughly good path, good way.   We are thinking a lot about the bike trip, wondering what we will learn, wondering where our tempers will break, and who we will meet along the way.

The next morning, we take a tiny detour to see a working Danish windmill.  As we take a walkabout the minute Iowa town, we see men two staring pensively into the southwest.   The wind is blowing sharply, so I ask, “Does it look like tornado weather?”  “The tornado sirens are blowing in Walnut” is the reply, which is supposed to tell us something, but does not.  We continue our walkabout, when strangers stop us on the street to warn us of “big storm coming”.  We ask where we should go, we are not from here. The answer is go to the Danish Immigration Museum, where they have a good basement.  

We start to make our way there, a good six blocks away, when another Iowa woman, appears at the door of her house and announces to us, “It’s a complete lockdown.  You need to get to shelter right now.”  She considers offering her place to us, but is relieved when we ask, “Should we go back to the Windmill?”  She agrees, “Yes, go there.”  The sky is blackening, and the wind is rising hard, when Wes and I begin running to the mill.  Giant raindrops are pelting when we duck inside, just in time.  A few seconds later, the wind is pushing the rain sideways, the trees are whipping, and it is impossible to see across the street.  The radio is screaming warnings of 70-90 mile hour winds.   We are glad to be inside, in a room far from windows and blowing tree debris.

As quick as it came, the storm left.  When we drove back to the interstate, the road was scattered with all sorts of tree debris, including a few big limbs.  Again, we wonder, what would we do if we were on the bikes during such a violent storm.   Again, we remember hunkering down under an overhang and watching a storm lash our bikes, but not us.

By the time we get to Sidney, Nebraska, it is clear that we have entered the West.  The hotel is full of oil field workers and the prices reflect it.   We choose to eat breakfast at the hotel and regret it.   Like the room, it is flashy trash: bad, cheap ingredients gussied up to look fancy, but in reality, plastic and shoddy and fake.   We are glad to realize that it is only 180 miles to our cabin.

When we get there, it is refreshingly cool, not more than 55 degrees.  The cabin is like a long cool drink on a hot day.  It takes us a little while to open it up.  I can’t rest until the full load of furniture, dishes, and whatnot has made it to its new location.    We are super pleased with how all of it works.  We argue about whether Wyoming looks dry or wet. 

Wes goes out to get a piece of lumber to reinforce our kitchen shelves, now sagging under the heavy load of dishes, and terrifies a young male moose who was quietly, and apparently habitually, eating in our yard.  Wes tells him that he doesn’t have to leave, and to our astonishment, the moose stops, seems to consider the proposition, before deciding that this yard was not big enough for the both of them.   He is a beauty, at least 6 feet tall, 300 or more pounds of moose muscle, with his 2 inch antlers still in velvet.  This is by far the closest I have ever been to a moose, and I was thrilled.

The next day is consumed by errands.   We have to get Wes’ bike shipped to Portland, and we spend hours, truly hours, trying to figure out Wes’  GoPro video camera.  The camera is communicating with the camera is complicated.  I fuss at Wes because I told him months ago to get started figuring out these systems.  He keeps saying, “Who thought it would be so difficult?”  I remind him, over and over, I did. 

The next day is the belated filing of our federal taxes, which goes well until it is time to submit and we realize that we are out of ink and the closest store is more than 40 miles away.  We don’t have internet at the cabin at this point in time, so we go to the nearby hamlet of Centennial and try three different locations before we are able to submit our taxes online.   The technology is difficult and balky, and requires downloads, and re-booting, and failures, and retries.  We are exhausted, stressed, and cranky by the time we are done.

Then we have to go back to the cabin and begin closing it up so we can be on the road by 5 am the next morning.   We work at it, and are so exhausted, we go to bed by 9, but are so keyed up, we are awake by 2 am.  We close up the cabin, (a multi-part process that requires draining all the pipes, among many other things).   Our dear friend takes us the 130 miles to the Denver airport, where with the exception of a difficult security clearance for Wes, we are happy to get on the plane to Portland.  I sleep much of the way.

When we land, we call the bike shop to get instructions and find out about the bikes.  We find out, to our (especially my) great disgust, that our bikes have not arrived. Wes’s is not due to arrive until tomorrow, but my bike and the BOB trailers should have already been here.  A call to Detroit confirms that our shipment, despite having been dropped off more than a week ago, was not sent from Detroit until Wednesday---two days ago.  It is highly likely that it will not arrive until early next week.

Wes is philosophical about it.  Perhaps this is the way the gods are making sure we get a rest.  We have been on the dead run since the first part of May and are truly beat down.  So now we chill in hot and humid Portland (who’da thunk it) and watch the funky street life.    The truth is: the trip takes you, you don’t take the trip.  Apparently, this trip is not quite ready to start…or a maybe the trip is not in the biking….but in the being on the path. That we are, that we certainly are.