T+137. Lost and Found and Lost

Centennial, Wyoming: We have just witnessed two days of gale force winds.  Yesterday, the snow was blowing so bad we could not see more than 100 yards.  We sat at the windows and heard the house shake.  We watched for and worried about the Angus yearlings on the next ranch, who were huddled up in the willows.  When we went shopping, we made sure we prepared our car for the worst: (shovel, blanket, kitty litter, emergency kit.)  Here, the earth is in charge and we best not forget it.  Getting lost or stuck out here is no laughing matter.  In central New York, we found out a little something about losing and finding.  It wasn’t funny at the time.

-------------------------------------------- 

Mile 3757: Rome, New York

We leave Fulton early on a Saturday morning.  It is grey and a bit chilly.  We will follow the north shore of Lake Oneida to Rome.  This was not our original intention.  We are going to Rome because it was the only place we could find lodging.  Everything on Lake Ontario was full because of salmon fishing, and everything in Syracuse was full because of the football game.  We were able to get a room in Rome, partially because the local historic attraction, Fort Stanwix, is closed because of the government shutdown.   Because the Fulton motel had no WiFi, I had to use the internet at the gas station across from our motel.   I play “hotel bingo”, book an expensive hotel in Rome, and lose.

We will have to make a long ride to get there, then use Rome as our launching point into the Adirondacks.  We leave Fulton as the sun was coming up, and enter rolling farm and woodlands, scattered with a series of tiny towns.  There is much poverty and abandonment along the way.  In the hamlet of Central Square, the volunteer firefighters are hosting a chicken barbeque to provide support for a member whose child has cancer.  This must be the tenth chicken dinner benefit we have encountered.

The chicken is not yet ready, so we ask at the local gas station about local cafes, and the skinny woman, whose bright smile was missing a few teeth, first tells us what used to be in the village, before telling us we can find a breakfast down by the freeway in a few miles.  The place is busy with lots of football fans and motorcycle riders.  We sit down to order and a family with adult children sitting next to us immediately begins peppering us with questions.  They are from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  They are up to spend a final fall weekend before closing their cottage on Lake Oneida.   They get into a debate with our waitress.   Is cycling across the country brave, stupid, or crazy?  I think they decided that the right answer was all three.   As we go out the door, a young woman just dismounting a motorcycle asks where we are going.  When we tell we are going to Rome, she asks “Today?”  As we cycle off, we hear her say to her compatriots, “I  think I would bike 10 miles…no, make that 5 miles…before I would give up.”

The north shore of Lake Oneida is ringed with cottages and small villages.  There are a number of resort attractions that have long since decayed.  We stop and stare an immense Dutch style barn, at least 200 feet long, with faded lettering announcing dancing, fine food, and drinks.  The tangled web of ivy growing over the building tells us it has been a few decades since this hand-hewn building was a destination.  There are few places to stop, and where there are active business, many have closed for the season.

Thus, Wes and I are relieved when we finally find a place to stop for lunch: a small bar not far from the shore of the lake.  The place is small, dark, and empty.  The female bartender is at first quite perfunctory when we discover that the only food available are cheese puffs and pickled eggs.  We drink a beer on an empty stomach.  Before long, a vivacious couple who knows the bartender quite well enters the bar.  Soon we are in the middle of lively conversation about the economy, jobs, dogs, and what-not.  The man runs out to his truck to get his “darlin’”, a tiny, jittery Chihuahua who runs up and down the counter and jumps into his arms on command.   He says he is “retired,” although it means he has just quit looking for work after his last lay-off.  He says he might work again, if he could find anything.  His wife snorts at the thought.   We order another beer for the two of us, but the bartender gives us each another beer. 

I am wee bit tipsy when we leave, giddily waving to the laughing couple.  We jump on the bike and have a great ride, winding up and down through empty roads and the coloring forest.  We come to a pretty meadow that shows the trees to their advantage.  I suggest we stop and get a picture.  After I get off my bike, I am horrified to see that I have left my pannier, along with my purse, back in the bar.  I know exactly where it is.  We originally sat at table when we entered.  When the chatterboxes came in, we moved to the bar, but my pannier didn’t.

Wes picks up the story:

What to do. . .what to do? I walk across the road, stick out my thumb, and the first car by stops. It was an off-duty county sheriff. I told him our problem, and he said, "We'd better get you there before one of those unemployed people discover it".  He took off like a rocket and we covered the ten miles, in ten minutes. He dropped me off, but couldn't take me back because he was meeting his son to fix his son's broken down car. Luckily, the pannier/purse was still leaning against the wall, but the minute I picked it up, Shaun's phone rings. Everyone in the bar turned and looked.

I smiled and said, "It's for me". 

But I still had to get back to Shaun, so I step out and try to wave someone down. Some kids living in a run-down apartment adjacent to the pub saw me and ran to their mom and told her some wild looking man was trying to stop cars like he'd been in an accident or something. The mom came out and asked if everything was all right.

I explained and told her my wife was on the side of the road waiting. She immediately dropped what she was doing, called her mother to babysit, and said she'd take me. We got into her beat-up old car and took off. She mentioned she hoped she had enough gas. A few minutes later, we pull up to Shaun with the pannier, thanked the lady profusely, and gave her gas money, which we hoped would keep her fueled up for the week.

 Total time since Shaun discovered the missing purse?--25 minutes.

Feeling grateful that my foolishness had not done us in (once again), we are soon back on the bikes.  Truly, God takes care of fools and little children.  It is getting to be late afternoon, and we still have close to 20 miles to go.  As we leave the shores of the lake, we go through a marshy area.  It is horrifying: the road is be-smattered with thousands of frog carcasses.  The gore lasts close to a mile.  We wonder if the cars even see these small guys.  We certainly do, and wonder why there are not viaducts under the road in obvious migration routes like this, especially given frogs’ state of near extinction.

We have travelled 45 miles, 35 miles since breakfast, when we see a store which has been in business since the 19^th century.   The building has been made and re-made, but here at the conjunction of river, lake, canal, and road, it is easy to see why folks have been stopping here for generations.  We grab sandwiches and eat on our bikes.  Time is slipping away.

When we finally make our way to Rome, we are relieved.  We have travelled 60 miles, lost and found my purse, and are ready to get to our hotel and prepare for our push into the Adirondacks tomorrow.  I call the hotel to get directions.   The young desk clerk gives me simple directions, but they don’t make sense where we are.  I tell we have just entered the town on highway 49.  She says, “Good, just take the Griffiss Park exit, you will find us on the right.”   I don’t understand how we can take an exit if we are already in town, and she repeats her instructions again. 

We figure we’ll find it soon enough, so start making our way through the small city of Rome.  This is an old city, built over an old fort, built over a central location for the Six Nations Confederacy of the Iroquois.  At this point in time, there are lot of abandoned warehouses, many rail lines, shuttered factories interspersed between various business and eateries.  It looks alive, but very much in transition.  We ride a long way and see no sign of the hotel.  We stop a mom and daughter combo going into a fancy barbeque place for help.  They both whip out cell-phones, then struggle to tell us how to get there, with the admonition that it is pretty far.  We get some more instructions, which are a bit confusing and keep going.   We have now ridden several more miles since entering the town.

We come to the restored grounds of Fort Stanwix and have to make a decision which way to go: freeway, small street, or main street. The website seems to say “small street”, the ladies said “main street”, the clerk seemed to say “freeway”.  Wes goes into a Laundromat to seek further assistance.  Apparently, he does not hear me say I will wait on the corner before the Laundromat.  I wait and wait, check the website, call the hotel, try to use my phone to figure out what to do.   I walk to the Laundromat.  No Wes.  I look up and down the street.  No Wes.  The sun is going down.  I call his cell phone.  It is off.  Oh, boy, now I am really getting upset.  I don’t know how to get to the hotel; I don’t know where my husband is; I am tired and in a somewhat dodgy location.   I call again.  Still no response.  A while later, starting to get a bit panicked, I call again and to my relief, I am able to leave a “where are you, where are you, where are you?” message.

By time Wes calls me back some minutes later, I am crying. He had come out of Laundromat and not seen me.  Thinking I had gone on, he had hurried up the hill to find me.  After he had gone a long way with no sight of me, he too began to worry, and stopped to turn on the phone. 

 Night and cold are coming on.  We follow the instructions from the girls in the Laundromat, which confirmed the ladies’ instructions.  We ride a couple of miles out the main street, turn on another highway and come to another junction.  I call the hotel again, and tell her we are lost.  When I tell her where we are, she says, “Great, just take the street there and follow it up a ways and you’ll get there.”  I say, not kindly, “There are four streets here, which one do I take?”  She says, “Go straight from the Burger King.”  I am angry now.  “Which way?  East? West? North? South?  Left? Right?”  She says, “I’m don’t know directions.  Just follow the road by the Burger King.”  Wes snatches the phone from my hand because I am about to go ballistic.  He says, “Thanks, anyway, I think we understand.” 

We start following the road and it is clear that we have left the main part of town.  It is quite dark now.  My emotional stability is deteriorating rapidly.  We fumble our way to an unmarked roundabout and can’t tell which way to go.  Wes calls the hotel again and gets the same poor instructions, although it is clear that we are getting closer. 

My tears and panic have returned as we fumble along in the dark, unable to find a big hotel in the ever increasing remoteness of the landscape.  Wes doesn’t know what to do with me.  I don’t know what to do with me.  We finally spot a sign to the Rome Free Academy, which I recognize from the website as adjacent to the hotel.   We make our way there at long last, we are cold, hungry, and upset.  The desk clerk stares at us with big eyes, afraid we are going to yell at her.  Wes has told me to just keep my mouth closed and I know he is right.  I say nothing.  Wes is kind to her, although he tells her that a basic skill for a desk clerk is understanding the layout of the city enough to give directions.  She doesn’t apologize, but she does let us store our bikes in the board room overnight.

The hotel is in a corporate convention center outside of city of Rome.  We have travelled 10 miles from our entry into the city on the northwest side to former air force base, now business park, on the far southeast side.  It wasn’t until we got into our expensive, soul-less room that we understood that.  Our disappointment grows when we discover that there is no restaurant, no bar, no nothing in the facility, nor within walking distance.   They have an expensive cantina, where we get some frozen dinners.   This is not a happy night for the Nethercotts.

 

The next day, we awaken to a pouring rain.  This is not the day to bike into the mountains.  We hang around, watch movies and football.  Late in the afternoon, the rain has relented, and we are a bit stir crazy.  We ask the same desk clerk for a coffee house we can walk to.  She gives us vague instructions to a coffee house in the business park.  We make our way there, walking through a moderately interesting sculpture garden.  Of course, it is closed. 

 Back at our room, we give up and order all sorts of food from a pizza and calzone delivery place.  Our eyes were bigger than our stomach and we have lots of leftovers, which seems like a problem, but proves fortuitous.  While Wes watches football, I mess around with my phone trying to find a route into the Adirondacks.  I discover a program on my Windows phone, which I have never used, that will give me detailed topographic and street maps of my exact location and will identify various businesses.  I shudder to think how many times we have been lost, when all the time I had a solution right on my phone in my purse.  Well, it may be true that God protects fools and little children, but it is also true that fools sometimes have to learn the hard way.

 

T+83: Muddle Through Minnesota

Mile 2715: WAUSAU, WI

Note:  As our sense of urgency has increased, along with our fitness and mileage, it has become more and more difficult to keep up with the blog.  At the end of the day, especially those days with mileage well over 50 miles, it is hard to find the energy to focus my brain and write.  So here I am, in the middle of Wisconsin, Wes snoring a few feet away, telling the tale of our surprisingly unsatisfying trip across Minnesota.

Perhaps it was the let-down after our jubilation on the Red River and seeing so many signs of home.  We also think that our image of Minnesota did not correspond to the reality we traversed.  

We left early on Labor Day, following our out-of-date Adventure Cycling maps on a route taking us east through the Detroit Lakes area.   A few miles out of town, we were joined by a road cyclist in full regalia who rode alongside us for six or seven miles.  Road cyclists generally ignore touring cyclists; many times they don’t even wave or acknowledge our presence on the road.  They are out for speed and exercise; the load and rather plodding pace of a touring cyclist is an anathema. The first time a road cyclist joined us was two days before.  A super-fit middle aged woman turned around, crossed the road, and cycled with us a mile or so as we were heading into Fargo. This cyclist is a man in his mid-sixties, and we talk about our trip, then Wes and he move on to the economy. 

He is the owner of an appliance retail business in Fargo.  His business is just now starting to stabilize after years of difficulty.  He said he didn’t think he would be able to retire for years.  When he found out that we lived in Michigan, he railed at us about “what a rotten town Benton Harbor was.”  He couldn’t understand why Whirlpool let it deteriorate so much.  He was strongly anti-union, and blamed the union for the decline of Maytag.   When I tried to point out that unions don’t make decisions about how companies are run, he pooh-poohed me, and told a story how the union wouldn’t let the company use automation to put instruction packets in the washtub.  I tried to point out that the union’s goal was maintaining a job for a member, but that it was management’s job to deploy the employees wisely.  He wasn’t having it…from me…a stupid female who couldn’t possibly understand how things work in the big bad man’s world.  

Wes notes that a union worker is a professional worker.   Our fellow rider snorts at the idea, then sarcastically said he "respectfully disagreed."   Wes offers that being a member of the teacher’s union has greatly improved our life and his job.  To our great surprise, he says that his wife is a teacher and member of her union at the college where she teaches.  While he was glad she had good benefits and would get a pension, he surely did not think factory or government workers should get pensions.  That was what was hurting the economy right now. 

Just before he takes leave of us, he gives us hugely elaborate instructions about where we should cycle.  “Go down this road, until you pass this site, turn just past x street….” On and on, through five or six turnings.   Our eyes glaze over and we know we will never be able to remember what he is telling us.  He turns off and we breathe a sigh of relief.  We laugh that this is our version of the Labor Day parade.

The ride into the Detroit Lakes area is really pretty.  There are a lot of people out enjoying the beautiful cool and sunny day.  When we stop at a pub for lunch, not one person asks us about our trip.  This is a rarity.   A few miles down the road, I stop my bike and cross the road to take a photo of sailboats on the lake.  A truck pulling a motorboat stops just opposite me.  I start to scurry away, thinking I am creating a hazard.  The driver says, “I see you followed my instructions.  Are you enjoying your ride?”   I say, “Are you the guy who rode with us early this morning?”  He is.  We talk about how pleasant the ride has been.   Noting his boat, I say, “It looks like you are going to have fun this afternoon.”  He says, “Oh, I’m just taking this boat out of the water.  I’ll leave my other boat in for a few more weeks.”   As I return to my bike and we get ready to ride on, he issues another string of route instructions.   As we go down the road and have to negotiate a tricky series of turns, we remember and use his accurate guidance.

We are still feeling good when we make our way to the little town of Pelican Rapids.  About 3 miles outside of town, Wes has a flat.  As we pull out the tack, we note that there are places on his back tire where it is so worn that the green interlining is showing.  He will need a new tire before he has a blow-out.  The next bike shop is in Fergus Falls, which is about 18 miles away.  Should we try to make it there tonight?

This is where we make the first of many mis-steps in Minnesota.  We have already gone more than 45 miles, and the traffic is quite heavy with holiday makers leaving the resort communities of the Detroit Lakes area, so we decide to stay.  We ride down the steep hill to the town center.  Building after building is closed.  There were formerly three restaurants in town; all are now out of business.  The only place to eat is the McDonald’s within a gas station.   We wander up and down the streets, and note that there are only a few businesses beyond the McDonald’s open this Labor Day: a dulceria (candy store) with Spanish language signs, a halal butcher shop, and the Minnesota state liquor store.   The only motel is back up the hill, next to a formidable looking factory.  Back up the hill we go, get a room at the okay Pelican Motel and realize that we will be hearing the roaring of the condensers in the turkey processing factory all night. 

The next morning, anticipating a hot day, we are up before dawn and on the road just as the sun is starting to peak over the horizon.  We are hungry and out of food, but neither of us want McDonald’s for breakfast.  Surely there will be a mom and pop café on this tourist route into Fergus Falls.  We cycle through numerous small towns.  Nothing.  Also, my back brake is sticking and my various tweaks to get it to release are not working.  We finally stop at a little gas station to get something…at this point anything…to eat.  Wes gets a bean burrito, which upsets his stomach. I get a microwave breakfast sandwich which upsets mine.  McDonald’s would have been better. 

I mess around with my brakes while Wes grows more and more impatient.  The more I mess with it, the worse it gets.  Disgusted and tired of Wes’ complaining, I completely release the brake.  I will have it looked at when Wes gets his tire changed.   We cross a series of steep ridges and have to cross under I-94 to get to Fergus Falls.  About 3 miles (again!) outside of town, I look behind me.  No Wes.  I wait a while.  No Wes.  I make my way back up the hill (of course).  He is bent over his bike, taking everything out of his Bob trailer.  The trailer has a flat. 

As the sun starts to beat, we fix the flat and start down the hill.  Bump, bump, bump.  The patch didn’t hold.   Take everything back apart, fix the flat again.  This time we are super attentive to every step: really rough around hole, wait the full two minutes after applying the glue before affixing the patch, press the patch evenly on all sides, ensure the tube is not twisted when being returned to the tire.  This time it works. 

We arrive on the northwest side of town and have a long, somewhat confusing ride to the center of the town.  When we get there, we see it is one of cutest towns we have seen in a very long time.  There are lots of nice looking restaurants.  We are really hungry as we didn’t get dinner the night before and our so-called food from the gas station is long-gone.  I call the one bike shop in town to get instructions how to get there.  We think we should drop the bikes off, then get a bite to eat while Wes’ bike gets its tire and tune up, and I get my brakes adjusted.  

We leave the quaint downtown with its nice shops, charming restaurants, and lovely streetscape and start following the directions to the bike shop.  We are following a very rough road when I hear a SPROING!  I stop the bike and ask Wes “What the hell was that?”  We don’t see anything and keep going.   The route to the bike shop is taking us well out of town.  All along the way, we are passing marshes and the frog and turtle carnage on the side of the road is appalling.  We are nearly out of town and still have not gotten to the turn to the bike shop. 

It is now after 1pm; it is hot; we still have not eaten.   I call the bike shop again.   Keep coming.  You will see a highway, passing through an industrial area, take that road.  When you see a furniture store, we are in the next building.  There is a bike trail instead of the busy highway, so we take that.  About a mile down the road, I spot the furniture store and go up on the highway.  Wes is well ahead of me and disappears around the bend.  When I get to the bike shop in a nondescript industrial building 3 or 4 miles southeast of downtown, Wes is nowhere to be seen.   I try to call him.  No answer.  I have no idea where he went.  A little while later, he calls me.  He has gone back to the junction.  He makes his way back to the bike shop and we make arrangements for the repairs.   We ask about a place to eat and are disappointed to hear that the closest place is a Subway back at the junction, a walk of over a mile.  Any stores nearby?  No.  We have a pop machine and some Lance Armstrong endorsed energy bars. 

The older bike guy starts work on my brakes while we get high on the sugar from pop and energy bars.  We find out that the SPROING was a broken spoke and reason my brakes were rubbing was that my wheel was going out of true.  A little adjustment has become a much bigger repair.  There are problems with Wes’ repairs.   The bike tech is having trouble getting the antique friction shifters to reach all the gears.  Time is slipping by.  Our decision not to walk to the sandwich shop now looks foolish as we wait and wait. 

At about 3 pm, we finally get on the road.   The “little maintenance” job took two hours and costs more than $100.  We have been traveling since 6 am and have made 24 miles.  The only good news is that we are right next to the bike trail we will be riding on for the next few days.   The bike trail is nice.  It is mostly shaded and passes next to a variety of small lakes and ponds.  We are relieved because it is over 90 degrees.   We are going along fine and have travelled about 5 miles when I feel the thump of—yes, you guessed it….a flat tire on my back tire. 

There is a big slit on the tube, so we decide to change the tube, only to discover that the folks back in Medora gave us the wrong size tube. We are not happy campers.   We have to fix the flat.  We put the patch on and resume biking.  It fails.  Wes is thoroughly disgusted by this point and even more unhappy when he sees that I placed the patch incorrectly.   Bicyclists on the path are either giving us wide berth or asking if we need help, brave souls that they are.   We fix the flat again, for the 4^th time that day.

We finally get to eat around 5 pm at a small tavern in a cute little town just off the path.  Once again, no one speaks to us.  It is getting late and we have not travelled very far.   Our Adventure Cycling map doesn’t follow the bike trail, so we have no clue about accommodations or camping.  The next town of Ashby is about 15 miles away and the bike trail sign says that there is lodging there.  We get to town and is getting close to dusk.  We are directed to a bed and breakfast and discover it is closed.  I check my phone and discover there are a variety of resorts listed.  The first one is 10 miles away, well off our path.  The second is just two miles away, just off the path, and yes, they have a room. 

We hurry there just as the sun is going down.  The lakeside resort mostly has cabins, but they are not ready after the Labor Day rush, so we are put in the little old motel that is part of the property.   We stow our bikes and go to watch the beautiful sunset over the lake.   We sit in the swing and try to let go the stress of the day.   It is a beautiful spot and a lovely red sunset.  When it is mostly down, we go to the cruddy little room with a view of the propane tank, and discover the bed is a floppy, wobbly wreck with the cheapest, most plastic sheets and blankets imaginable.  Wes conks out, but I struggle and wrestle with the bed until I finally give up and pull out the camping stuff to sleep, and putting an end to this fairly rotten day on the bikes.

More mudding through Minnesota to come….

Posted from Ludington, Michigan!

T+70: We’ve Come this Far by Grace, Part 2

Mile 2180: MOORHEAD, MN

Note the bag on my handlebars

The amazing story continues….

Out the next day, we are really looking forward to leaving Montana and entering North Dakota.  We stop at the “Welcome to North Dakota Sign” and take pictures.  Leaving Montana feels like a victory.  It is such a big state, it is fully 1/7^th of our trip.  Passing motorcyclists stop, and offer to take pictures of us in front of the sign.  They tell us they are also going to Maine.  When we compare routes and suggest they go by way of Canada, they tell us they can’t go into Canada because they are carrying guns.  They must have seen the shock on our faces because they quickly add, “We are retired law enforcement, we always carry guns.”

We make it to the little town on Beach, ND, just over the border.  We have been riding on the freeway most of the day and make our way to the grain town about a mile and half away.  It has the inevitable grain elevator and railroad tracks, which we note are pretty rough.  We stop at a Mexican restaurant which is closing at 3pm on a Friday, because they can’t find any help. We will be there last customers of the day.

Wes wants to stay at the homegrown motel.  When we get there, there is a note to call a number for service.  The door to the office is wide open.  We call, and are told the manager won’t return until later that evening.  We should go look in Room 1 and if we like it, make ourselves at home.  Well, it is none too fancy, but has a pleasantly Ma and Pa Kettle vibe, so we decide to settle in.  A few hours later, Wes wants to go get a beer.  As I get ready to go, I cannot find my handlebar bag which has my purse, my phone, my little Veer phone, which I have been using as a camera.  We look high and low.  It is not in the room.

I must have left it at the restaurant.  Let’s go to the bar and see if they can help us locate the restaurant owners.  At the bar, they are very helpful.  We call the Cantina owners, who come open the building.  We look everywhere.  No bag.  Where could it be?   I go and get Wes from the Backyard Brewery.   I am really concerned now and want to completely retrace my steps.

On the way out of the bar, in the dark, we see a cyclist coming into town, pulling a BOB.  We note how late it is and how big a load he is carrying. 

Back at the room, we realize the last time we have memory of the bag is back at the Welcome to North Dakota Sign.  Even though it is pitch black, Wes decides he has to go look.  He enlists the aid of a fellow traveler named John, who takes him in his pickup truck up to the sign.  With flashlights, they look all around the sign to no avail.  At this bad news, I try using the search function on my Windows phone.  No luck.  It is time to face the inevitable.  The purse, credit cards, our current bike map, and worst of all, my phones with all contacts, trip journal, passwords, and photos is gone.   

I call to cancel all the cards and cannot sleep.  Wes is upset with me and can’t understand why I can’t sleep. All throughout the night and into the next morning, I am praying like crazy, especially to St. Anthony, the patron saint of all things lost.  (The child’s version of this I remember from my Catholic school days: “St. Anthony, St Anthony, please look around, my bag and phone must be found.  If God’s will and my good it shall be, then in your gratitude I’ll be bound.”

The next morning is mournful.  We retrace our steps one more time, fruitlessly.  I leave a message with the Sheriff, just in case anyone turns in the bag.  This is a big blow.   We push on, but definitely feel as though the air has gone out of the trip.

This becomes an actuality about 4 miles from Medora.  I cannot believe it, but I have another flat.  We pull off into the desert, fix the flat in the blazing sun, and resume our travels.  A mile down the road, the bike is flat again.  What the hell?  We pump it up.  This time, it won’t even take the air.  This is great.  We are 3 miles from Medora, my bike tire won’t even re-fill, I have lost my phone, photos, and wallet.  Are we having fun yet? 

We decide that Wes should cycle into Medora to get help. I should start walking my bike towards town.  I am gamely walking my wounded bike down the freeway.  There is a big section under construction and it is rough going.  I pick my way across shell of a bridge when I am joined by the heavily laden cyclist we saw the night before.  We talk about our travels, and I tell him of our string of bad luck.  He says, out of the blue, “Are you Shaun?  Are you traveling with Wes?  They found your bicycle bag.  It’s at the Backyard Brewery.  I was there last night when someone brought it in.”

This is great news, which I never would have received had not my bike tire flatted again.  His name is Wade and he is traveling from Portland to Portland.  He is carrying an epic load which weighs 200 pounds including his bike.  He has never heard of Adventure Cycling maps and has been making his way as he might.   After he cycles off, I muddle on toward town.  It is not long before Wes arrives, along with the savior Jennifer Morlock, again, to pick me up from the highway.   I tell them that the bag has been found and is at the Backyard Brewery.  Immediately Jennifer gets on the phone to her husband Loren at home, to see if he will go to the tavern and get my bag.  Even though it is out of his way by 20 miles, he readily agrees.  Back at Dakota Cyclery, Jennifer’s pregnant daughter and son-in-law go about restoring my bike while I go about tracking down the tale Wade has just told me.

There are two messages on Wes’ phone: one from Jackie Lindberg, the other from the Golden Valley Sheriff.  The first says she and her boyfriend found the bag, and to please call her.  The other says that the sheriff’s department now has the bag.  I immediately call both. 

Jackie tells me that her son and boyfriend spotted the bag near the railroad tracks as she was shopping in the grocery store in Beach.  Apparently, the bag bounced off my bike as we jounced over the rough tracks.  I still don’t know how I didn’t notice it.  My Windows phone is password protected, but my little Veer phone, is not.  She finds phone numbers and starts making calls.  One of them is to Wes’ cell phone, which he barely turns on. They look at the bike map and start following the route…all the way over to Medora and back!....looking for cyclists on the road.  They spot a bike at the Backyard Brewery and go in.  This is the bike of Wade, the cyclist we see coming into town, just after we have left the tavern.   They tell Wade if he sees us to let us know the bag has been found.  The next morning, they return to the bar and take the bag to the sheriff’s office.

We call the sheriff, but get an answering machine that says no one will be in the office until Monday.  It is Saturday. If we need immediate assistance, please call 911 or the state police network.  

All this is great news, but we have to pull Loren off from going to Beach and we have to find a way to get in touch with the Sheriff’s office.  While I try to round up the Sheriff, Wes goes back to Dakota Cyclery.  Too late.  Loren has already gone to Beach to no avail.  Drat! 

It is clear that this is going to take some time and that I am not leaving Medora without my bag.  We better get a room.  It is late on Saturday afternoon in a busy tourist town.  Most signs says “No Vacancy”.  We finally try the fanciest place in town, the Rough Riders Inn.  It is beautiful.  Our chances are slight.  While we are waiting, two dark haired women engage us.  “Would you like tickets to the Medora Musical and Pitchfork Fondue?....You can have them for free.  We bought six, but one of our group didn’t show up.”

I say, “We have had a string of bad luck, your kindness is a blessing, thank you so much.”  Their names are Terrie Romine and Ricki Woods, and they immediately take us to heart.  They give us hugs and hand us the tickets.  We are stunned by their generosity, but so befuddled at this point, we should have realized that a) we still didn’t have a place to stay b) a steak fondue is not the best choice for people who don’t eat red meat; and c) with all the losses we are facing, we may not be able to afford to buy second tickets.  But we don’t.  We just take the blessing as it comes, and somehow it turns the tide.

At the desk, Wes asks if there are rooms.  The desk clerk starts to tell us no, but is interrupted by a phone call.  She then announces, “I have just had a cancellation.  Do you want it?”  She names a pretty high price, but at this point, what else is the option?  The room is a little restored house, just around the corner.  When Wes and I open the door, we grab each other’s hands and practically leap for joy.  It is beautiful, full of real Mission furniture, actual paintings, hand-woven rugs.  The bathroom is huge and plush.  It is cool; there are real glass coffee cups and wine glasses.  How long has it been since we had such simple luxuries?

While I find a way to contact the Gold Valley Sheriff, Wes goes over to check on my bike repairs.  I call the State Police, who calls the dispatcher, who calls the sheriff, who calls the deputy, who calls me.  Just as Jackie Lindberg told me, I ask if he could deliver the bag to Medora.  Well, no, it is in a different county, but he guesses he could deliver it to the exit to Medora if we could meet him there.  He will call us when he leaves Beach in a little while.

While waiting for the call and Wes to come back, I read about the town and the park.  While it is true that Theodore Roosevelt had his life changed by his time hunting, traveling, and ranching in the Badlands of North Dakota, it is likely those few years would have been forgotten had not the North Dakota entrepreneur Harold Shafer (of Mr. Bubbles and Snowy Bleach fame) not thrown his effort and money into its restoration and promotion.  I compared it to the awful and inauthentic efforts in Winthrop, WA.

I get the call from the deputy, but Wes has not returned.  I wait and wonder what to do because he has the only key to our lodging and I still don’t have a bike.  It will take the deputy about 25 minutes to get from Beach.  At about 15 minutes out, I have to find Wes, whether or not I am locked out.    I go out the door, only to find Wes wheeling my newly restored bike to me.  I tell him of the deputy’s phone call.  He rushes back to get his bike and takes off, lickety-split.  I cannot keep up with him as he powers away on the bike trail.  Close to the highway exit, the bike trail veers away from the road.  I can no longer see Wes, and decide I better go to the highway to get the purse. 

I go up to the top of the exit the wrong way, (always a dodgy proposition).  There is no sign of Wes anywhere.  There is no sign of the deputy.  I wait, dutifully, for fifteen minutes, to no avail, then make my way back to town and hope I find Wes and can get back in the room.  I still don’t know if the bag has been recovered.   I knock on the door and Wes answers it with MY BAG! In hand.   He had zoomed up the bike path, and got to the bottom of the exit at the exact moment the deputy arrived.  The bag was handed over with the bag with the admonition, “Tell your wife she to keep better track of her things.”

I am over the moon.  I call Jackie to let her know the bag is back safe and sound and to thank her again for her kindness.  The little Veer phone, which I almost didn’t bring is now dubbed the “Dear Little Veer” because it saved the day.  We are in a celebratory mood.  We go and offer thanks for the incredible grace shown to us in this entire incident.  After these prayers in the oldest operating Catholic Church in North Dakota, we chance to have dinner with the lovely Hamburger family (a story for another day), then meet Terrie and Ricki at the amphitheatre on the top of the hill for the Medora Musical.

There is one last piece of grace to end this saga.  The theatre is up a high, steep hill with numerous switchbacks.  We ride our bikes part the way, then lock them to a stubbly little cottonwood before beginning the hard walk to the top.  Cars are groaning as they climb.  As we turn one switchback, a SUV stops.  Out pops Teddy Roosevelt, who offers us a ride to the show.  Actually it is Joe Wiegand, in full Teddy character and costume, on his way to promote his afternoon show to the teeming crowds on top.  When he finds out we are theatre people, he gives us his card and tells us where he would like to be booked in Michigan.

The view is incredible, the crowd is big, and show is silly.  But we are so relieved, so loved, so lucky.  A day before, our trip was nearly ruined.  Tonight, through the most improbable series of encounters and kindnesses, we are well fed, well housed, entertained, and restored.   Such grace, such grace.

T+66: We’ve Come this Far by Grace, Part 1

Mile 1914: BISMARCK, SD

Getting to Circle was one of those pleasures that grows tiresome by repetition.  By about the 20^th hill climb and ride down, the thrill was gone.  After our visit with Lynette, the up and down continued and continued.  At about mile 45, we finally got to the end of the pass between the Missouri and Yellowstone Valleys.  All we had to do is turn west and go into the little town of Circle.  Easier said than done.  We faced a ferocious wind, thinking, “Well, at least tomorrow we’ll have a tail wind…”  It takes us almost an hour to go that last five miles.

There is only one motel in this little town and because the weather is still very hot, we don’t want to tent camp in the swelter.  We pull up to the Traveller’s Inn, and our hearts sink.  Not only are there junk cars all around the building, the lounge and café is in a state of complete disarray.  When I pull up to the bedraggled office sign, a passel of pigeons fly out of the long-closed lounge building.  Wes is giving me the fish-eye.  We open the door to the office and our worst fears are confirmed.  It’s a mess.  There is no one at the desk.  It smells of stale cigarettes.  The desk is a pile of papers, with a hand-written journal on top.  We look around at the dusty collection of old advertising signs and wait.

At last the proprietor appears.  He peers at us with goggle eyes, surprised it seems to have guests, although Lynette had called from the post office from Vida, and we told him we were on the way.  Wes says brightly, “Give us your best room!”  Our host says, “Well, I have been doing some renovations, but they aren’t done yet….but I think I can get you a pretty good room.”  He gives us a key and tells us it is around back.  When we cross to the back of this ramshackle motel and see a whole bank of rooms open to the elements, our apprehension only increases.  We are already considering whether we should try to find a place to camp, even if the temperature is over 95 degrees.  The room has a new door, which we open, gingerly…and are pleasantly surprised.  The paint is new, if garish.  The bedspreads and the carpet are new and look clean.  There is a nice little desk, as well as a microwave and fridge.  The bathroom is not very complete and the water faucets are erratic.  It is ok.  We breathe a sigh of relief because this is mediocre trying to be better and not horrible.  

As part of the registration, the proprietor tells us that he also works at the VFW and if we buy the first drink, the motel will buy us the second.  In fact, why doesn’t he give us a ride down there?  We are surprised, but agree after we get cleaned up.  When the time comes, his wife, after hearing the plan and apparently wanting to short circuit her husband’s trip to the bar, takes us to the VFW in a beat up Toyota with only 2 gears.  She barely speaks to us as Wes crams into the tool filled back seat.  At the VFW, we could not have felt more foreign or out of place.  The regulars barely look up and we hover at the end of the bar, drink our canned beer as quickly as possible and leave.

Later, we conk out in our ok room and look forward to a day with a tailwind to push us over the Big Sheep Mountains and into the lovely little river town of Glendive.  We were wrong on every count.  The next morning, we are up early and try to find a café for bite to eat before the ride.  No such luck.  We go out to the highway and sure enough, the wind has turned around and is blowing in our face.  There is a ton of heavy equipment and big trucks on the road.  So we push on.  

 It’s climb, climb, climb all morning over these desert-y sedimentary mountains.  We drop into a little settlement of Raymond where we want to have lunch and it is the first indication that the culture has changed.  At the farm implement/convenience store, the store owner could barely muster a hello to our bright greeting.  When we asked where we could eat our lunch, his “I dunno” was almost surly.  Luckily the postmistress pointed out a little picnic spot across the river in the trees (!) next to a large pond.  The picnic area was bedraggled and the metal shelter moaned in the wind, but it was out of the sun and by some water, so we were satisfied.  At one point, Wes wanders to see the pond and reports, “There’s muskrats here.”  Curious, I go look.  It is not muskrats, but big swirls of fish in low water, heaving and dancing around each other in tight coils of mating, I presume.  I watch from a few feet away.  Normally, fish would see me or my shadow and dart away.  These fish have something else on their mind.

We make our way to Glendive.  About 10 miles outside of town, there begins to be giant lines of empty coal cars just sitting on the tracks, mile after mile.  This is an indication of the change in the energy economy.  Years ago, before the oil and natural gas boom, train after train of coal from Gillette, WY would have come down these tracks.  Now they sit rusting in the scalding wind.

About three miles outside of Glendive, my back tire loses air.  We have been aware of the increasing baldness of my back tire, but there has been no bike shops or stores that carry my size tire for hundreds of miles.  I have a tube and a changing kit, but with a worn out tire, using either would be a lost cause.  We limp into Glendive, and turn into the John Deere supplier and ask if they can direct us to the bike shop in town.  It is gone.  Check K-mart and the hardware stores.  Nothing at the K-mart.  I call the stores in town. (For the first time in weeks, because I-94 passes through Glendive, I have phone service!)  No luck.  Now what?  No tire, no move.

I move into Major Problem Solving Mode; Wes moves into Major Distress Mode.  I offer a bunch of different solutions; Wes tells me why they are All Wrong.  This is typical.  I find out the closest bike shop is 60 miles away, in the little tourist town of Medora, ND, adjacent to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park and on the Maah-Daah-Hey Mountain Bike route.   A call to the Dakota Cyclery confirms that they have one tire that will work.  Now how to get it from there to us? 

This is where one of the most amazing moments of the entire trip begins.

While Wes and I think about UPS or renting a car, Jennifer Morlock,  a founder, along with the husband Loren, of Dakota Cyclery, says, “Let me make a few calls to see if anyone is driving over to Glendive and can bring you the tire.”   We decide we better get a place from which to solve this problem.  I call 5 or six motels in town.  All are booked.  The last one, the lowest rated, I finally call.  It has a room.  It will have to do.

We walk my bike from the industrial outskirts, over the Yellowstone River, to the discombobulating and dusty downtown.  Far from the green oasis we had envisioned, this is a town cut into sections by the freeway, the river, and the railroad.    It feels beat-up and hard-used.  On the way to the motel, we get a call from Jennifer.  She has found someone who will deliver the tire to us:  Andrew Gilchrist, a Briton who now lives in Red Lodge, MT and is driving through Glendive on his way home after participating in a mountain bike race.  He would be able to bring it to us the next afternoon.

The Glendive Inn used to be nice, but is now probably a few weeks from closing.  There is just one young man on staff and he is reception, and housekeeping, and everything.  There are a few customers, but there are dirty towels in the hallway and doors open to unmade rooms.  The flustered young man explains that the day shift of housekeepers didn’t come in today, but if we can wait a few moments, he will make a room up for us.  He disappears, leaving the front desk without staff, much to the chagrin of a customer who is angry about his remote.  When I ask the desk clerk what’s happening, he tells me that the sprinkling system failed a while ago, and did hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage.  The owners can’t operate without a sprinkler system and have been told by the health department they have 90 days to repair.  The owner can’t get a loan to refurbish this older facility downtown (even though two new big motels are being built on the outskirts.)  The inn is limping by until….probable closing and even more damage to fabric of downtown.

We walk out to the café on the freeway where we will meet Andrew.  It is full of oil field workers and construction workers.   Even though Glendive is more than 100 miles from Williston and Sidney, it is full of young and old men, often in clumps of crews, hurriedly eating and not talking to anyone else.  I came of age in a boomtown and recognize the vibe.

We have a nice visit with Andrew Gilchrist, originally of Manchester, England, now of Marietta, Georgia and Red Lodge, MT.  He runs an eco-tourism business in Central and South America and is an avid cyclist.  We are agog to hear his story of organizing a yearly ride from Red Lodge to Jackson, WY—in ONE DAY.  This is a ride over the Bear Tooth and Sylvan Passes, through Yellowstone—a distance of 250 miles.  It takes them about 18 hours.  I ask if he is a masochist.  He just laughs.

We thank him hardily for the delivery of the tire and make our way back to our sad motel.  With a certain amount of trouble we get the tire on, then use the remaining time in Glendive to re-supply.  (Wes gets new underwear and socks.  Woot! I get new support knee socks.  Yay!)

The kindness of Jennifer and Andrew are just the beginning of this amazing tale….. To Be Continued…

 

posted from Moorhead, MN

T-17: OMG

The to-do list we’re working on is completely unmanageable. I move from obligation to obligation.  What has to be done right now?  What can be delayed a few minutes, a few days?  What is essential, what is not?  As I try to make sense of this, I feel as though I am in a haze.

Here’s a quick overview of the many strands of action I am managing:

Preparing the house for house sitting: getting rid of all the excess that needs to go the Salvation Army, beginning to store all our personal items so the house sitters can have space for their goods; purchasing dog and cat food ahead, making sure all the repairs are done; making sure the animals are up to date with their shots; preparing the “care and feeding of house and animals”  document; getting a debit card to pay for animal expenses; clean, clean, clean… repair whatever needs repairing.

Preparing the yard for our absence: get all the beds in order, weeded, mulched, and organized; prune the overgrown shrubs; replace the rotten garden timbers with brick; make sure the tools, mower, hoses, etc. are in good order.

You may think this sounds over the top. It is to a degree, but it is also defensive.  In the years we have been using house sitters, we have discovered that sitters will do and allow things that owners never would.  A case in point: one year, we left the seldom used basement toilet with a wonky fitting.  We told the sitter to make sure the valve re-seated if the toilet was used.  When we came home, we heard water running.  Sure enough, the basement toilet was running and apparently had been for weeks, given the size of our water bill.   Another example: rare oh rare is the sitter who will maintain the garden.  For renters and sitters, watering and mowing the grass alone is pretty challenging.  If we don’t weed, mulch, and prune, we come home to a jungle with aggressive plant likes grape vines and coltsfoot, circling and killing our perennials.

Getting ready for the trip itself: getting the bikes overhauled and prepared for long-term travel; making sure we have all the maps for the trip.  (We just received maps for our routes from Portland to north of Seattle where we join the Northern Tier route we will follow across the country.  We also received the maps from Portland, Maine to Boston at the end of our trip.  www.adventurecycling.org). We have joined www.warmshowers.com, which is a website that connects touring bicyclists to people who are willing to let you camp or stay at their house. 

We still need make arrangements to ship our bikes and BOBs from Detroit and Laramie.  We think through the pack again and again: do we have the right clothes?  Do we need better rain gear?  What safety and health preparations are prudent and which are extra weight?  We have a flight from Denver to Portland, but how will we get to Denver from our mountain cabin?

Driving across the country:  We will drive across the country to our cabin in Wyoming before leaving.  We have a whole variety of furniture, dishes, and other materials that need to be packed to take to Centennial.  We think we will camp across the country, but because we will need to travel fast, we better make sure we have reservations. 

Wes’ 60 birthday/retirement/bon voyage party: We are hosting a party before we go, so there are invitations to be sent, food to be prepared.  We will spend the weekend getting the backyard ready for the party.  (See above)

Getting our bodies ready:  We both have had extensive dental work and mine is still not done.  I am still trying to get to the gym (although I am supposed to be there right now as I write these words) to continue my strength training.  We have also been trying to get as many bike rides as possible before we go.  I should go to the optometrist, but it is looking like that will wait.

Making sure the retirement and financial changes are complete: There is a mountain of paperwork, new insurances, changes of accounts and more that have to be managed.  Wes has been nagging me for more than 3 weeks to get my IRA transferred.  I say, “soon, soon” and keep it on my to-do list.  We need to make sure we can pay all our bills online, something we have never done to date.  So far that is a “soon, soon.”  But time is running out and I regret we did not do this change last January.

Of course, these are ONLY the preparations on the personal side.  The to-do list for the company and for Wes to close out 30 years of teaching are twice as big and twice as complicated. 

Right now, we are like buffalo facing a vicious snowstorm blowing in from the east.  There is nothing to do but put our heads down, accept that pleasure is not going part of the picture for a while, and keep on plodding to our goal.

So, while we can see that our escape is coming, we are deeply experiencing the tangling bondages we have so tightly wound around our life.  The irony is nearly overwhelming.  We want the weaving to stay intact while we carefully extract ourselves from the weave.  So many threads to unravel, so many threads to re-weave.

---