T+144: The Oldest Ski Lodge in the United States

Mile 3987: Killington, VT

We are anxious to complete the trip on or before our self-imposed deadline of October 15, and plan on moving through Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine as quickly as possible.  Vermont is an upside down triangle; our route through the state is only 65 miles across.  The pass over Killington is the last major obstacle before us on this trip. 

A typical Vermont landscape

We know we are going to have a climbing day, and it begins as soon as we leave Whitehall, NY.  We are able to get off the busy US Highway 4 and take its original route through the towns of Fair Haven, Castleton, and Rutland.  From there, we will climb the pass to Killington, where I have secured lodging at the top of the pass.  

The ride is beautiful.  The trees are spectacular, as is the little college town of Castleton, with its main street of maintained Federal and Georgian mansions.  We have truly entered New England…the architecture is utterly different than anything we have seen thus far.   In the West, old is 100 years old.  Here, the college was founded in 1787, and most of the houses were built about that same time.  Now, I understand,  in the global scheme, a town 250 years old is an infant, but the scale, scope, and sense of continuity here is so different than in towns developed and arranged for automobiles. 

However, we don’t tarry.  We are worried about the pass, so we push on.  We have been warned, over and over, that the passes over these Vermont mountains are nothing to sneeze at.  They are fairly short, true, but steep and demanding.  With the days getting shorter, and the chill in the air, there’s no time to be a tourist.


We have already made 30 miles when it’s time to find some lunch.  Rutland, Vermont is the center of that state’s granite and marble industry.  There are stone cutting businesses and granite supply houses all along the road, although we don’t see any of the quarries, they must be nearby.   In West Rutland, we follow signs to the “historic stone cutters district” and see some massive cut stones, but only one small deli “serving since 1930.”   Thinking this looked promising as it was situated in an 1830’s townhouse, we climbed the stairs, opened the door, and entered a tiny tavern with about 10 seats.  The waitress looked like a Barbie doll, with platinum blonde hair, false eyelashes, enormous, perfectly round breasts, and bright pink lipstick.  We asked about the menu, and the two guys at the little counter laugh.  She said, “We only have hamburgers and hot dogs.  Mostly, we just serve beer.”   She was understanding and helpful, however, when we asked for a place with a more extensive menu.  She directed us to Mary’s Kitchen for a real, home-cooked meal.

This truly is a locals’ place, in a converted clapboard house.  We sit in the former porch, surrounded by a group of ladies who lunch, a minister, and pair of local businessmen.  We have been climbing all morning and are kind of sweaty and rough for this genteel crowd.  We are scrupulously ignored in this setting, although we certainly feel eyes upon us.  We eat rather quickly, speak to no one, and make our way to Rutland.  Rutland is a busy market town, nestled in the midst of steep hills.  It has a historic downtown, which we glanced at from afar, and lots of big houses built into very steep lots.  I was fascinated by one Victorian house that first appeared to have three stories, but actually had two additional levels opening onto the steep downhill.   The town is a-bustle with preparations for a big art fair to begin the next day. 

We climb up to the big park where the art fair is setting up.  Traffic is horrific, and we are glad to step away from the crush for a minute to read a historic marker about John Deere.  Little did we know that he was born in Rutland in 1804, and left his family there while he went to Illinois, invent the steel plow, and found the company that is still going strong nearly 200 years later.  We look longingly at the art coming into the park, but know we still have to make the pass, so off we go.

Getting out of Rutland is a hard climb with heavy traffic and no shoulder.  We have to stop often to catch our breath.  At one raggedy, rough spot, we get off and push our bikes over grass and broken pavement.  We pass Norman Rockwell’s studio on the way, but again, we don’t stop.  The road gets rougher and steeper.  We are getting worried; we are still not to the pass.  Finally, we clear the outskirts of the town and pass the gates that mark the beginning of the pass.  The road widens.  There is a big shoulder.  To our astonishment, the grade eases and we find ourselves plugging right up.  After all our anxiety about this pass, it is eminently rideable.  It is easier than anything we ridden that day.
 


Wes celebrates our final pass!

Still, we are tickled when we get to the sign announcing our arrival in Killington.  We stop for pictures and feel proud that we have cleared the last mountain pass of our trip.  We ride along the top of the mountain.  There are lots of resorts surrounding the Killington and Pico ski areas.  When we finally spot the Inn at Long Trail, we are surprised at how small it is. 

We step inside and greeted by Karl, the desk clerk.  The inn has low ceilings and tree trunk beams.  We are immediately struck by the feeling of hominess and permanence.  There are couches and chairs nestled around a big fireplace.  There is a stand up grand piano in the corner.  There are all sorts of conversation nooks, a game room, maps and pictures on the wall.  Its unspoken message is, “Come in and visit a while.”  Behind Karl’s shoulder, we can see the Irish Pub, with its dark wood, benches, booths, and tables.  It, too, looks inviting.

Karl takes us outside and tells us to stow our bikes in the boiler room in the basement.  He tells us that the inn is named after its proximity to the Long Trail, a Vermont branch of the Appalachian Trail.  They get a lot of through hikers, some of whom stay in the trail campground across the highway, some who welcome a soft bed and warm water on this part of their sojourn.  Karl looks like an unreconstructed hippie.  He has long gray hair, kind blue eyes, and a mother hen energy.  He has worked at the inn for many years, loves his job, and is good at it.  How few desk clerks have actually been welcoming!  They could take a lesson or two from Karl.

As he shows us to our room, he takes us by the dining room.  It is built around a massive granite boulder the size of a small cabin.  Just outside the dining room windows, we can see that the inn is built into the living rock of the Green Mountains.  As Karl tells Wes that this is the oldest ski lodge in the United States, I have to go touch the cool, rough strength of the boulder.  At first he tells it as a joke, in reference to 1.3 billion year old boulder which has survived three ice ages, around which the inn is built.  But it is also factually true. The inn was opened in 1938, just as the ski industry in the United States was being born.  Most US ski resorts, (including the one my father opened in Centennial) were founded after WWII by members of the famous 10^th Mountain Division, who skied and fought through the Italian Alps. 

Our room is tiny but nice, with real wood furniture and nice linens.  It is clear we are supposed to spend our time in the lodge, not in our room.  That seems like a good idea to us.  It is not long before we are down in the pub, where we meet the owner, who introduces us to the staff and other patrons.   His family, the McGraths, have owned the inn since 1977, and spent the first years undoing modernizations and returning the inn to its original state. 

At the bar, we meet an older couple who have just driven up from the college town of Castleton to celebrate their anniversary.  We celebrating too, and it is not long before we are having a really fun conversation.  Both are former teachers: he taught high school math and she retired from teaching at the college in Castleton.   We had a great time telling “Administrator from Hell” stories.  We laugh a lot; they congratulate us on our trip.  We congratulate them on their 40^th anniversary.  It was sweet as it could be.

The dinner that night is good.  While we are doing our laundry, Karl catches us and says, “There are some through hikers I’d like you to meet.”  He coordinates a meeting between two young hikers and us for the next morning. We go the pub that evening, which is packed with families and people of all ages, there to listen to some Irish music and socialize.  The musicians are really talented, as can be seen in their intricate and beautiful instrumentals, but their vocal music choices are drawn from the Irish cornpone/bar music bin.  The schtick wears after a while; we wished they would explore their lyrical side.  But the crowd was happy, the mood was good…who are we to complain? 

Wes is ready for bed, but I am still restless.  I take my computer to the game room on the pretext of working on the blog.  There, instead of working, I watch three young children, two boys and a girl, encounter non-electronic games.  They play Chinese checkers, make contraptions out of the Tinker Toys, play “Shoot the Moon” and more.  The dad, who looks like an impossibly young executive, comes to get the kids for bed.  The boys go willingly, but the daughter, who is a bit older at about 11 years of age, is completely fascinated by the Lincoln Logs.  She tells her dad, “In a minute!” and he says ok and disappears.  She is making house after house, all square or rectangular.  As I get ready to leave, I crouch on the floor with her and show her how she can make rooms, bays, and extensions with the logs.  She is building an elaborate log mansion when I leave.

The next morning we meet the young hikers, who have the energy of junior high boys called before the principal.  Why were they being made to talk to these old, weird bikers?  Karl does the set up and introductions.  These young men are on the final stages of their Appalachian Trail hike.  We are on the final miles of a cross country bicycle journey.   One young man, exceedingly fit, and wearing the athletic gear to emphasize his physique, does most of the talking, while his compatriot stares into his tea cup.   They are both from Virginia, where they work in software. 

They are avid cyclists and hikers.  They have been taking the Appalachian Trail in 4-500 mile chunks.  They are going hut to hut.  They are going fast, carrying no tent, very little gear and food.  They hike 15-20 miles a day, which is a lot in the tough and rocky terrain of these mountains.  I ask if they wear hiking boots, and the answer is no.  They wear walking shoes.  I ask if they don’t need ankle protection.  He replies, with just the edge of a sneer, “We don’t.  Other people might, but not us.”   I ask if they have ever had a problem not carrying a tent, like getting stuck in the rain, or finding the hut already full of hikers.  He again makes a sneering answer about making sure they get there before anyone else…and oh, by the way, never listening to the advice of “civilians” about the trail or conditions.  “Civilians” in their book, are day hikers or weekend jaunters.  Only through hikers, like them, could be trusted to convey knowledge.  We don’t point out that they actually aren’t through hikers, like the couple we met in Idaho.  Karen and Mike hiked the 2200 miles from Maine to Georgia in one trip. 

After hearing all about their trip, Wes tried to steer the conversation towards our trip.  No doing.  Not interested.  The talkative one did tell us that he had seen us making our way up the hill from Rutland.  He said, “I thought you looked like an old couple on their way from grocery store.”  I wanted to pat him on his cheek and say, “Ah, youth!  Someday you will learn that appearances can be deceiving.”   Just because we don’t wear bike regalia doesn’t mean we are not serious bicyclists.  We wish them well on their journey, and go to breakfast.  They don’t have the presence of mind or heart to return the good wishes.

At breakfast, a 30-something woman in a hand-knit stocking cap is sitting right behind us.  She asks if we are the cross country bicyclists staying at the inn.  We say we are.  She asks how we found the ride up.  We say, “Not bad.”  She launches into a loud, funny discussion, for the benefit of the whole dining room, about her hike to the top of Pico.  She is enthusiastic about her experience: “Man, it was just great.  I was walking up there, just breathing so hard, then I go to the top and it just took my breath away.  I mean, I could see for miles.  It was awesome!  The trees were big, the boulders were huge.  I just loved it!”

She is from Pittsburgh, on a business trip to Boston, who thought, “If I’m this close, I might as well go see the mountains.”  She does this sort of short term adventuring as a regular feature of her business travel.  When she finds out we are from Detroit, she announces to the whole room, “I LOVE Detroit!  I have the best time there.  I love your art museum, and man, what great music!  I have never had a bad time in that city.  Don’t you just hate the way people talk about it?  It is so unfair.  I think it is a great city!”

In Pittsburgh, she is active in the anti-fracking movement.  It is not long before she is talking to everyone in the room about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing oil drilling.  Not everyone wanted to have a heavy duty political discussion with their homemade pancakes with real maple syrup, but we loved her energy and the fact that she got people going.  We had to get a move on, but were glad to see the conversation continued as we were leaving.

We are dragging our feet, delaying our departure, as we loaded our bikes. Karl comes out and thanks us for coming to the inn. We tell him we love the inn and that we will be back.  We can easily envision a family ski outing here.  But now, on this chilly October morning, we need to get down the mountain and onto the rest of our adventure.  There are not many places on this journey that so tickled our fancy, but this is one.  We will be back.

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posted from Centennial, WY

T+125: Fellow Travelers, Pt. 2

Des Moines, Iowa: On June 23, Wes and I stayed at this same Candlewood Suites, en route to Wyoming, where we would pick up Wes’ bike and make our way to Portland, Oregon.  It is now October 25, and we are making our way back to Wyoming, to drop off the bike and finish writing the story of our travels from Portland to Portland.  In many ways, the trip began on that night in June, when we watched the movie, The Journey, with Martin Sheen.  That movie resonated throughout our trip….the times of just going, the moments of grief or of jubilation, the tender and touching connections with people who walked…or in this case, cycled…into our lives, and left such a big impression.

 

We had just got on the Erie/Niagara Trail and were making our way along the eastern coast.  Our goal was Niagara Falls, but it was far and we were tired.  We couldn’t find one nice thing to say to each other.  All the petty grievances of constant companionship were at the front of our minds and quick off our lips that day.  Why can’t Wes eat one meal without spilling food on himself?  Why does Shaun always dawdle and delay and mess around when we need to be going? 

About five miles in, a youngish man, full beard, chestnut colored hair, riding a bike with full panniers, rides up alongside us.  One of his panniers is a rectangular plastic box. Normally, one buys kitty litter or soap in these containers.  Here it was bolted to his bike rack.   Seeing that he was a fellow traveler, I launched into the regular litany of questions.  Where are you coming from?  Portland, where he lives.  Where are you going to?  Rhode Island, to meet his girlfriend, although his original destination was Portland, Maine.   He and a group of 4 other bicyclists set out the third week of July and have been pretty much following the Northern Tier.  However, the group has been splitting apart.   Two split off in Montana, including the girlfriend he was rushing to meet in Rhode Island on October 8.  The other two he left in Minnesota.  He has been traveling alone for a while now.  After experiencing what Wes describes as “Existential Angst” (Why am I here?  What am I doing?)  during a particularly difficult crossing of Michigan, he has chat stored up and is anxious to talk.

And talk we do.  His name is Bruce.  He is originally from New York, but has been living in Portland for some years.  He is an emergency room nurse by trade, but a mountain climber/adventurer by avocation.  This is the first time he has taken a major bike trip.  He has been camping and eating rough most of the way.   A light day for him is 70 miles.  It is clear that he has slowed down to ride with us; Wes and I are pumping as fast as we can to keep up with this slender, strong man and his light, modern bike. 

We talk of our trips and compare notes.  Bruce is a mountain climber and backpacker.  He has been on many trips, but even he found the ride over the Cascades a challenge.  He was eaten alive by mosquitoes in Saco, MT.  They stayed on the freeway all the way across North Dakota, never venturing into the back ways and farm routes we explored.  He left his friends in Minnesota so that he could make time across the mid-section.  By the time he got to Wisconsin and was going to take the ferry at Manitowoc, it had broken down.  It was not at all clear who or how or what was going to be able to fix that 100 year old coal fired ship.  (I wonder what has happened to family associated with Two Guys taxi; ferry traffic was the mainstay of their business).  He took the hovercraft over the lake, landing at Muskegon.  He wandered through busy roads and surly people in our home state and was glad to be out of there.

He was bee-lining across Canada and anxious to get to Niagara.  Despite having been raised in New York City, and having travelled extensively throughout the state, he had never seen the falls.  After that, he was off to the Finger Lakes, Ithaca and Cornell, then lickety-split across the Catskills to Rhode Island.  He had a ride of about 700 miles to do in 8 days.   Of course, this makes Wes and I feel like a couple of pikers.

After we wore out the topic of our trips, we soon turned our attention to politics, the economy, our personal history…and more.  The conversation continued apace as we rode the fifty miles to Niagara Falls.  It continued as we explored the town and ate dinner together that night.  It didn’t stop until we said our good byes the next morning from the hostel in Niagara Falls.

Like us, Bruce was using the bike trip to sort out a life change.  He had been an emergency room nurse for some years and had been satisfied with it.  He had recently purchased a house in Portland, and now at the age of 40 (he looked barely 30), his life of work interspersed with adventure was no longer working for him. He had become frustrated and disaffected with the branch of medicine in which he was working.  When he was younger, he had liked the adrenalin rush and lack of relationship at the core of that type of nursing.  It wore on him now.

I told him that my sister was a nurse and that she has found a great deal of satisfaction, after years of bouncing around the profession, working as a hospice care nurse.  She really enjoys that it is patient and family-centered.  Bruce says he has thought about it and is going to think some more about it.  This conversation occurs as we are on the most eastern reach of Erie, as we are cruising past giant houses on the Niagara Recreation Trail, 40 miles into our common ride.

Bruce is a generation younger than us.  His view of his prospects and future within the American economy is sobering.  He has an enormous student debt that he believes he will never be able to pay off.   He feels good about the house he recently purchased, but allows that he is the only one of his friends to make that commitment.  He has no pension plan, no retirement savings, nor any expectation to ever receive Social Security.  He feels his best strategy is to make the most of each day, no promises given nor expected.  He doesn’t perceive a social contract beyond his circle of friends and family.

We are surprised by this.  He allows that it would be a good thing to feel as though one were getting and giving in a web of mutual support.  It’s just that he has never seen or felt such a thing.  He is not a member of a union, and doesn’t think he knows anyone who is. 

It would be tempting to say that Bruce is alienated, but he is not.  He is a free agent, and ok with that.  He benefits from white privilege and knows it.  We all know that we move more freely than any person of color.  A case in point: the night before Bruce camped (illegally) in the closed Peacock Point Provincial Park.  Local law enforcement saw him there and shined a light on him, then moved on without saying a word.  Would that have happened to someone who was not a white male on a nice bike?   It is not hard to think of scenario where the answer would be “No.”

He is an alert, educated, compassionate guy.  He lives simply and tries to pay attention to his choices.  Part of the reason he has the plastic box pannier is a commitment to living without waste.  What surprises us, over and over, is the lack of collective conscience or experience.  He was self-centered, but not at all narcissistic.  Being for himself and himself alone was not driven by ego; it was the way he was trained to be.  It was how society asked him to perform.

He was truly surprised when I told him about our life in Detroit and that I know at least 100 people by name in my immediate neighborhood.  Detroit is incredibly rich in social capital, I tell him.  The kind of art-making, storytelling, urban agriculture, mutual protection, and social activism that makes up our daily life in Detroit sounds appealing, but utterly foreign, to Bruce.  I do understand that social capital is required and present when financial capital is absent, (otherwise known as “making a way out of no way”). In addition, it is easy to disengage from the social contract when one has financial means.  What bothers me, truly saddens me, is understanding that there are a large number of young people who don’t see themselves connected to any larger whole. 

As we get closer to the falls, all three of us get more and more excited.  This is a momentous point in our trip.  Already we are seeing all sorts of signs of this area’s pre-American Revolution past.  When we cross the border tomorrow, we will enter one of the original colonies.  We are amazed at how little we know of War of 1812, which is remembered and celebrated all throughout this region.  I say to Wes, “Just think! When we cross the border, we will actually be in the Atlantic United States.”  (I will soon discover the folly of that statement.)  We stop to take pictures of the corner of Lake Erie with Buffalo, New York in the distance.

We bike along the edge of the Niagara River.  The river is big and powerful, with enormous rocks which generate ferocious rapids.  It is easy to see why this river created such a barrier.   When we get to the town of Niagara Falls, we find ourselves in a huge sea of humanity, even though this is mid-September. It is impossible to cycle in this throng, so we dismount and pick our way through the crush.  

The range of people here is astonishing.  There are women in gorgeous saris, groups speaking in the clicking tones of very South Africa, many, many Asians, some speaking Japanese, some Tagalog, maybe some Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese as well.  There urban folks and country folks, the tight pant set right next to the baggy pants brigade.  There are busloads of seniors, mamas attempting to corral little ones while pushing strollers.   Young lovers kiss in front of the falls while someone takes their pictures.  There are folks in wheelchairs; people conversing in sign.  I saw one family pushing what looked like a gurney with a person tightly wrapped in a handmade quilt toward the guardrail.  A woman, whom I took to be the grandma, held the wrapped one’s hand and issued a running commentary on the sights and sounds.  Every complexion, every size, every age is represented: what a global mosaic.

Everyone takes turn pushing up to the guardrail to take a look at the awesome horseshoe falls.  There is a full 180 rainbow over the falls and a light mist falling over this human sea.  The city stretches behind us with high-rise hotels; helicopters circle endlessly and dip in and out of the water’s mist.   Boat with names like the Maiden of the Mist chug towards the cataract at the base of the falls.   On the edge, at least 300 feet above, we can hear the faint squeal of the crowd on the boat as they move into the fall’s spray.  The whole experience is giddy, surreal, slightly euphoric. 

I need to find the ladies room, so make my way through a cavernous hall, jam-packed with people.  It is tricky and takes quite a while.  While I am gone, a young man with a bike pulling an overloaded BOB trailer introduces himself to Wes.  He is Japanese, quite young, riding a single gear bicycle.  He has just begun his trip and is headed west, on the opposite path we have just traveled.  Wes and Bruce try to get this young man to join us at the hostel for the evening.  However, the wind has shifted and the light mist has become the equivalent of a heavy drizzle.   Just as I return, the young man bows deeply to Wes and Bruce and disappears into the crowd.

It is getting late; we need to get to the hostel and get our dinner. As we ride, we worry about this rider.  How will he ever make it over the Rockies and Cascades with a single gear?  And it is much too late in the year to be staying so far north.  He told Wes he was carrying 35 kilos on his bike…80 pounds and no gears as fall is coming on… with limited English.  Ay, ay, ay….

After we check into the run-down hostel with just a single staff on duty, a jocular, sandy-haired native of Ireland named Eric.  The hostel has all sorts of signs of events and tours it is offering on Fridays.  This Friday, there are none.  Wes and I have (over) paid for a private room; Bruce sleeps in the men’s dorms.  We walk down to Queen Street for dinner.  This area used to be the hipster/bistro/quaint shop district of this tourist town.  Now, most of the shops are closed and our steps echo as we walk.  We go into a brewpub, eat pretty average bar food, and listen to a group of Canadian physicists talk about US and Canadian politics.  Bruce is happy to be sleeping inside and eating at a restaurant.  Both have been rare events on his journey.   We take our leave.  Bruce wants to go listen to some incredibly loud rock music (we heard it three blocks away) and sample the local beer. 

Wes and I are very much aware of our age as we say good night. The 70 mile ride with Bruce has pushed us pretty hard; we’re beat.  Wes is complaining of a scratchy throat and watery eyes.  He thinks he might have picked up a germ while we traversing the crowd.   We wonder at Bruce’s endurance, although we do remember our last bike journey from Montreal to Halifax and back to Quebec.  We camped and cooked our own food the whole way.  Such are the strengths and fleeting ways of youth.

The next morning, we are off on our bikes before Bruce, although we are sure he will overtake us and leave us behind.  We stop and ogle the whirlpool vista, where the river makes sharp turn.  At another vista stop, we mis-communicate and run into each other, wrecking both of us and causing a group of seniors who just exited a bus to come running over to see if we are all right.  We are a bit battered, but more embarrassed than anything.  The bruise on my knee and gash on Wes’ finger will take the rest of the trip to heal.

Crossing the border is hectic. We are the only bicyclists in a swarm of motor vehicles.  We wait behind a group of motor cyclists from New Jersey, who have been out on a 1000 mile weekend jaunt.  They will ride 350 miles back home today.  One of them is long-haired, good looking, perhaps Tongan, and he is fascinated by our trip, but wants to know why we haven’t used it to raise money for a good cause.  He didn’t like our answer that we were using it to make a change in ourselves.  As he rode off, he said, “Next time you do this, make sure you benefit someone else!”

With that, we enter the last phase of this trip.  We are tired, but think we are almost done.  We are wrong.  There are many more challenges, some of them as hard as any we’ve faced, in the last days of this journey from sea to sea.

 

Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

T+92: We Like Wisconsin

Mile 3243: Ridgetown, ONT

The next morning we make our way back through the town of Bloomer, whose 19^th century downtown is fairly intact.   We feel time pressing on us, so we don’t stop.  I experience this as a contradiction in terms.  Our “job” is to explore America, but we won’t make it across America before cold weather, if we don’t get a move on. 

It is not long before we are in the heartland of Wisconsin.  This is the landscape of small family farms.  Gone are the giant threshers we encountered in North Dakota, where the blades of a single mower were wider than both lanes of the highway.  (The thresher moved as far to the left as possible, and we left the road, and the huge arm of rotating blades still just missed us.)  The acreages for these Wisconsin farms are probably in the hundreds rather than the North Dakota thousands.  The ground is hilly and in the bottoms, it is marshy.  It is easy to see why this is dairy country.   While there are stands of corn, it does not dominate the landscape the way it does in central Minnesota.  In fact, it is more likely to be sweet corn or ethanol corn than miles and miles of feed corn.

The ride is really fun and the weather is just right.  The hills can be charged, so we are moving pretty rapidly.  This is a testament both to our increasing fitness and the relative gentleness of the landscape.  Wes and I debate the best way to charge a hill and have mini-competitions to see who develops enough speed and thrust in the downhills to glide up the uphills without having to resort to the lowest gears.  Wes has fun making up silly sayings about this, “I’m playing this hill like a….lyre…like lycra…like a lute…like a bassoon….like a baboon.”

There starts to be more and more trees as the day progresses.  Our destination is the town of Medford, which sits just outside the Chequamegon National Forest.  In between the farms there are stands of Northern Forest, which is a rich mix of pines, firs, and larches, along with ashes, oaks, and birch.  At the little town of Prairie View, we first see a curious machine in a city park next to the Chippewa River.  We find out this large diagonal machine, whose top was 60 feet in the air, was the sole example of a counter-weight operated log stacker.  This a testament to the huge logging industry which is almost gone in Wisconsin, and to the ingenuity of 19^th century engineering.   At its base, a long rails-to-trails bike path winds its way down the river to Eau Claire.  It looks lovely. 

We make our way to a little café that specializes in homemade ice cream.  There are two older women in there, along with the proprietor.   All three women immediately start asking us all sorts of questions.  Wes starts teasing and flirting with the women in their 70’s, making them laugh and telling them to get ready for their bike trips.   The smaller, rounder woman, with assiduously dyed black hair, holds up her cane and waves it at Wes, “When I was younger, I rode my bike everywhere, but my biking days are OVER!”  The two debate who Wes looks like: certainly like their friend Rory, but doesn’t he also look like Burt Lancaster?  This makes us laugh because it is so outlandish.  We eat our lunch, visiting across the dining room.  Finally, they leave and wish us well. 

Hours later, we make our way into the little town of Gilman.  We are thirsty and hot, and after our delicious root beer float of the day before, have a hankering for another.  We step into a tiny café, and ask the big blousy waitress for a float, which is not on their menu.  She says, “Let me ask…”  A youngish cook steps out, sees that we are cyclists, and says, “I think we can do that.”   As he makes up root beer and ice cream concoction in the blender (decidedly not a float), he tells of his bicycle adventure at the age of 19, during which he and a group of friends cycled from Vancouver to San Diego.  “Man, I remember eating whatever we wanted: steaks, fries, cake.  Boy, those days are over!”  The waitress jokes, “I am a perfect size 10, I just wear this size 22 over it to hide it!” 

About that time, we hear the sound of small scooter pull up.  As a stocky, older gentlemen comes through the door, the waitress and cook holler, “Hey Pauly!”  He responds, “You got any of that lemon merengue pie left?”  Then, without waiting for answer, looks at us, “You ridin’ them bikes out there?  You need to get a scooter like mine.  Be a lot easier!”  They tell him the pie is all gone.  He says, “You had some this morning.” “Well you should have ordered it then!”  Back and forth like this, the signs of a long and easy acquaintance.   Pauly finally allows that he will just have a bowl of chili.  The waitress sets down the bowl.  As Pauly starts to struggle with the crackers, she steps over, removes the package from his bent and rigid hands, and deftly pours the crushed crackers into his bowl.  The gentleness and familiarity of the gesture touches me. 

The conversation and joking is really rolling and we don’t want to leave, so we decide to split a tuna fish sandwich.  The cooks starts making it as we talk about farming and trees and the economy.  They all say that the economy is barely scraping along.   The waitress says, “We lost alotta businesses in this little town, let me tell you.”  When they find out that this is Wes’ retirement trip, Pauly says,  “You know how you can tell when a dairy farmer has retired?  He starts to raise beef!” 

We truly finally have to leave.  Our fifteen minute break for a cool drink has stretched in 45 minutes.  We ask about the route ahead.  They tell us a back way into to Medford that will save us some miles and some hills.  Pauly takes his leave as we do.  Wes says, “I’ll leave with a joke.  You know there are only two kinds of gamblers.  The first one goes to the casinos, the second runs a farm.”  The cook laughs and says,  “Well, Pauly is both!”  Outside, Pauly zooms his tiny, maybe 50 cc scooter around us as we get ready to ride again.  He wishes us well, then putt-putts away.

We are aglow with fun of the visit when I step in the local pharmacy to see if they carry Anbesol, which I use to dull the pain of constant abrasion on my tender parts.  The pharmacist is a real grump, proving that not all Wisconsinites are ebullient and outgoing.  Just down the street, at a garage littered with all sort of golf carts, four wheelers, lawnmowers and all manner of small motorized equipment, Wes hollers out to the youngish men,  “Can we get a squirt of air from you.”  Sure thing.  This leads to another long conversation.  One of the men has a cast on his leg.  I ask what happened to his leg.  Pointing with his thumb at this partner, “He ran me over with that golf cart!”

By the time we get out of this town, it is getting late and the sky is starting to darken with heavy rain clouds.  We still have 20 miles to reach our destination of Medford.   About 6 miles from Medford, we take the short cut and the sky lets loose.  We soldier on in the pouring rain.   When we get to the truck entrance to the town, we take it, and make our way through a warren of window manufacturers.  Just as we pull into the park alongside the Black River, the rain lifts.  We climb the steep hill to the main street and call our motel for further instructions.   The desk clerk seems totally befuddled and has a hard time describing how to get to the motel that does not involve major highways.  I am unhappy to hear that we have another 4 miles to go after we had just come more than 60.  A young, Goth woman in black with heavy tattoos steps out of a bar.  Her sweet face and gentle voice do not match her harsh clothes and loud tattoos.  She gives us good instructions to get to the motel, which is on the outskirts of town, by the Wallmart.  Now we understand why the downtown, once a prosperous and lovely mill town with elaborate limestone storefronts, looks so forlorn.  Another victim of “spawlmartization.” 

We wind our way to the perfectly average, but perfectly acceptable motel and realize that if we hadn’t taken the “short-cut”, we would have driven right by it.  On our way, we meet an older couple from Milwaukee.  They too want to hear all about our trip.  They, too, are funny and friendly.   During our nightly ritual of showering together at the end of our biking day, we talk about the open culture here in Wisconsin.  Certainly people have been friendly and helpful all the way across the country.  But nowhere else have we seen people so free of self-consciousness, so open to experience, so funny and friendly.  We decide: We like Wisconsin.

 

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posted from Port Stanley, ONT

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T+71: Dash across North Dakota, Part 1

Mile 2180: MOORHEAD, MN

After the difficulties, delays, and delights at the borderlands between Montana and North Dakota, both Wes and I are worried about time slipping by.   We plan to leave our lovely room in Medora around 6 am.  We climb out of the bottom of the badlands and travel about 12 miles to the incredible view at the Painted Desert viewpoint, when we hear a beep.beep.beeping of a car.  We turn to look and it is Terrie and Ricki, our original benefactors, coming to say goodbye and wish us well.  We exchange numbers and emails and hugs.  They drive off and we press on.

The route has us riding Interstate 94, which is both fast and kind of hateful.  The shoulder is very wide, but there is lots of debris. It is amazing what we see along the sides of the road.  More cans and bottles that you can imagine.  All manner of dead animals, especially deer, raccoons, and countless birds.  I have been keeping count of the number of single shoes I see: 38 thus far.  As we pass the fields of corn, soybeans, and wheat, we are also crossing fields of grasshoppers.  Some seem suicidal, jumping into our rolling wheels.  We note that grasshoppers are cannibals and can be seen eating the carcasses of their brethren.  There are clothes, and bags, and innumerable cell phone bits.

At Dickinson, ND, a rapidly growing boomtown with a giant plastic land on its outskirts, we hang out in various fast food joints while we wait for the temperature to drop below 90 degrees.  We agonize whether to stay on the interstate or take the route through the farmland.   At around 5pm, with temperature still over 90 degrees, we come to a crossroads.  Do we stay on the somewhat hateful but fast interstate, or do take the scenic backroads which are more beautiful and interesting, but much more difficult.   As the founders of a theatre dedicated to the creation of new work, which do you think we take?  The unofficial motto of Matrix Theatre Company, as we jokingly say, is  “We do it the hard way.”  You know we took the scenic route, though we were tempted by the fast and ugly route.

We head out, over hill and dale.  It is Sunday, and we did not pick up any food in Dickinson, assuming we can stop in the little town of Taylor when we get there.  By the time we are ten miles out of Taylor, we are out of energy.  We count the miles to the little town. When we get the town itself, everything is closed.  It is still another 15 miles to the next stop, where we plan to stay.  Running on empty is a damn good way to lose weight.   As we approach the little town of Richardton, we see for miles a beautiful double spired granite church building.  It is a Benedictine Abbey, tall and elegant against the evening sky.  It seems out of place in this land of corn and sunflowers.  We find out later, much later, that the Abbey takes guests.  (We are jealous when we hear this.) We get to Richardton on a wing and prayer and pull into the only thing open in town: the local tavern.  The only food is frozen pizza, which tastes damn fine at this point in the game.

When we pull up to our motel, we are happy to note that it is next door to the Hamburger Butcher Shop.  It is not what you think.  The name of the family is Hamburger.  We were lucky enough to have dinner with them in a crowded restaurant back in Medora.  This was three generations of a family who described themselves as German Russians.  The wife’s family name was Gaab and they come from land now considered part of the Ukraine.  Apparently, this part of North Dakota attracted many people from that part of the world.  There are four people in this group, mother, daughter and husband, and their son, Truman Hamburger.  Truman is all of 9 years old, bright and verbal well beyond his years.  He tells us of his entomology classes and his day being a bat boy for the Minnesota Twins.  He is fascinated by our trip and asks more questions than his parents and grandmother would like. 

Right after we make our payment, we open the door and there is Truman. He saw us ride by and came running out to greet us.  He runs back to tell his parents, who stop by and who treat us to coffee the next morning.  As luck would have it, both times the Hamburgers come to visit, I am in the processing of changing clothes.  Wes has to do all the relationship building.  We exchange emails and promise to be Truman’s pen pal. 

After Richardton, we cycle through ups and downs, mostly facing a pretty stiff wind.  We see an outcropping of phragmites near a railroad crossing, the first view of this invasive species we have seen since leaving Michigan.  At the next restaurant, we warn the locals about this bane of a giant reed, but they don’t have the slightest idea what we are talking about.  I still feel I should write the North Dakota Department of Environment.

When we cross the freeway, both Wes and I decide we have had it, and that expeditious and easy has its purposes.  The ride on interstate 94 is tedious and noisy.  However, the long hills are moderated and evened out for truck traffic.  North Dakota is an ocean frozen in time.  The waves rise to the west in north/south undulations.  We pull up a big hill, scoot down the other side, over and over. 

It starts to rain.  Interstate bicycle riding is even less pleasant when being splashed by giant eighteen wheelers.  We are very happy to stop at New Salem, where the most remarkable feature is a 30 foot tall plastic dairy cow on a bluff.  The room is great; we have a nice visit with touring motorcyclists.

The next day is an epic run through deep valleys in sharper and sharper undulations as we enter the Missouri River valley.   The river is massive at this point.   The bike route takes us through a series of parks, golf courses, and wetlands.  We are so happy to be in shade, real shade from real trees, the first in many, many miles. 

 We have ridden 40 miles before breakfast (truly lunch by that point), so we decide to stay, despite the relatively short distance covered. We need to do some re-supplying.  We visit the local mall (a complete shock); I get new shoes.  We get a room at one of Bismarck’s landmark motels, The Ramkota.   This is a big fancy motel, circa 1968.  We enjoyed our stay immensely and wondered if it was being outcompeted by the plastic-land motels and suites that have grown up around it.

The next day is one of the most difficult of the bicycle trip.  It is HOT.   We leave Bismarck early and have fun for the first few hours.  The landscape is challenging and there are few services.  There will not be a place to get anything until the little town of Hazelton, some 45 miles from Bismarck.  When we turn on to highway 89, also known as the Lawrence Welk highway, the sun is blazing, we have drunk most of our water and we still have 12 miles to go. We going south, facing directly into the sun and hot wind. I can barely go and Wes is getting further and further ahead of me.  At one point, he looks back and cannot even see me.  He circles back to see me struggling along the highway, plugging away, but moving slowly.  It is tough going, but what is the choice?  All we can do is plug away. 

We have dreams of a sandwich and cold drink dancing in our heads.  We make it to town completely beat and find out Little’s Joe restaurant is closed.  At the grocery store, we drink several juices and eat ice cream and are thrilled to find out they make smoothies. (They make the best orange crème smoothies in the world.)  All sorts of people come over and check on us.  They ask about our trip, but really, I think they are worried about the two red-faced and sweaty bicyclists in their midst.

I am done in.  I feel dizzy and need to lay down. I go outside to rest on a bench.  A paunchy fellow with shorts pulled up well over his capacious belly comes and sits by me.  He is a retired earth science teacher.  He tells us that North Dakota is quite anomalous, both geographically and hydrologically.  For one thing, much of this state’s water drains, not to the Mississippi, but to Hudson Bay.  When we leave the high perch that is Hazelton, we leave the Missouri River drainage.  We will come across an ever increasing number of ponds, pools, and small lakes, many of which are not fed by surface water.  In fact, Devil’s Lake, in north central North Dakota, is completely fed by underground waters and even so, has risen several feet in the past few years.  The town is now below the surface of the lake, which is held back by dykes.   North Dakota, by rainfall alone, should be a desert, unable to grow wheat, much less corn and soybeans.  However, it sits on a layer of clay which holds the water and which is fed by underground waters.  This is what makes the miles and miles of cropland possible…and why North Dakota is so much more lush and green than South Dakota.

He tells us that the Bakken Field, the source of the huge boom on the west side of the state, has enough oil for 75 years and when that is done, they have discovered another pool of oil beneath that one.  He has no patience for wind or solar energy.   When we point out that this would be prime territory for both, he laughs and asks, “And what good would that do me in the middle of winter, eh?  Without batteries, the whole thing won’t work.”  About that time, an elderly neighbor interrupts our conversation and requests his assistance to back up her car.  Even though we have learned a lot, we are relieved when he goes to help her.

To Be Continued…

 

Posted from Milaca, MN

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: Some Birthday

 Wes  celebrated his 60^th birthday on Tuesday and it was memorable---mostly for the wrong reasons.  On the positive-- if emotionally charged-- side, he taught the last class of his career on that day.  On the other side of the coin was the hot mess on our back porch.

Like all good maniacs, we are trying to address a big list of deferred maintenance issues before we leave.  One such issue is our back porch.  The plain truth is that the back porch needs to be pulled completely down and re-built.  Not only is it precariously balanced on a weak brick support on its southeast side, it is built so that it effectively blocks the light into the dining room.

We have wondered for years how to fix it because it has a critical, structural door to the basement that has to be accommodated into any rebuild.  The current porch is obviously not original to the 1908 house, and while it has some nice features, like an air-lock mud room, it is and has been a problem for at least 10 years. 

In typical poor Nethercott decision making, we chose not to paint the back porch when we had the house re-painted a few years ago.  We reasoned, “Why throw good money after bad, when we are just going to tear the whole thing off anyway?” 

So the porch has been sitting there, raggedy and unpainted, for years and years.  We finally figured out a solution, but of course, it will cost tens of thousands of dollars, so it’s not happening any time soon.  We decided to hire a local fellow Wes is friendly with to do the scraping and painting.  This neighbor is chronically un- and under-employed and was really struggling, so Wes thought this could help us and help him at the same time.

Unfortunately, hiring him didn’t involve checking out his painting skills. 

When I came home late from work on Wes’ birthday, it was obvious that the hire didn’t know beans from baloney about painting.  He had done a competent job scraping, and when it was done, just started painting, in the most higgledy-piggedly fashion, without cleaning first.  He commandeered one of my landscape tables, which was now covered in paint, spilled the paint bucket so that there was now a big splash of paint on the bricks, which he made no attempt to clean off, even though I had given him Goof Off for just such purposes.  He was painting over metal, wood, windows—unbelievably bad. The paint brushes are left to dry with paint on them.  There were five paint brushes like that.  Once a brush were fouled from the dirty wall, he just went on to the next brush.

So here I was bringing in bags of mulch and landscape stones, and a tres leches cake in a plastic container for Wes’ birthday.  It was already after 7pm.  It is all I can do to not go ballistic. 

Wes and I have some heated words about this mess on our porch.  Wes stands over the kitchen sink and eats his birthday cake while we figure out what to do.    We spend the next hour trying to salvage the paint brushes, remove the paint from the bricks and steps.  Wes ends the evening, painting the handrail, banister, and rail, while I strain and groan hauling 50 pound bags of mulch and placing rocks. 

We work until it is dark.  When we are done, the landscaping is finally done in the yard, the most visible part of the priming on the back porch is done, and Wes’ 60^th birthday has come and gone.

Wes keeps telling me, “Go listen to the answering machine, it will make you feel better.”   I dutifully go listen, sweaty and filthy, and it does make me feel better.  It's our exchange daughter, Louise, along with her mother and father, calling from Germany, singing “Happy Birthday” in English to Wes, before dissolving in laughter.  It makes us laugh, and reminds us not to take it all so damn seriously. 

We take turns taking baths in our deep, wonderful, claw foot tub and laugh at ourselves—our epically poor decision-making, our constant efforts to do the right thing, (which often ends up as the wrong thing),  and our need to remember--- that in the end, our relationships buoy us and keeping us moving forward.   Such are the lessons of 60 years…I think they fortell some more lesson-learning coming up.