T+151: We Don’t Know, We Just Go…

Mile 4084: Meredith, NH

Using my handy-dandy mapping tool, I find a way to take us out of West Lebanon that will allow us to get past the congestion and freeways before returning to US Highway 4.  We are curving around a back road when we spot a tell-tale trail marker just off the road.  The trail does not show up on the program, but this looks quite promising.  We’ll take it. 

Not too far along, we see what appears like college students out for a jog. We hope we haven’t made a bad choice. The conditions begin a little dodgy, but get better as we go along.  The trail is lovely as it crosses back and forth over the Mascoma River.  We don’t know where we are, but we are paralleling Highway 4, so we keep going. 

A few miles in, we are greeted by a handsome 60-something woman and her gregarious Jack Russell dog.  She tells us we are on the Northern Rail trail, and that it goes 30 miles or so all the way up to Grafton.  She also tells us about some the sights up ahead, including Mascoma Lake, with the Shaker village of Enfield across the way.  She asks about our trip and is very surprised to find out that we started in Portland, Oregon.  She tells of a recent trip she and her husband took to the Netherlands.  There, they would ride their bikes during the day, then get on a canal barge at night for their dinner and lodging.   She tells us they enjoyed it so much, she has developed a taste for more bike travel.  We offer “tips of the trade” and we all laugh about the various strategies we have employed to deal with saddle pain.

The ride is spectacular as it passes Mascoma Lake.  Two distinct features tickle our fancy.  In celebration of Halloween, various scarecrows depicting sports deaths are placed on the park land between the trail and the lake.  The bike-wreck scarecrow seemed to be plowing into a giant rock on a small moto-cross bike, with the stuffed rider about to fly right over the handlebars.   The hockey scarecrow had a black eye and broken teeth, and a hockey stick out of his head.  The six or seven of these creations were quite funny and creative---and must have been a big community effort to design, costume, and place these images.
This is also the first place we spot what we soon come to call “New Hampshire add-on houses.”  A house might begin with a small single gabled cottage.  Another generation would add a wing at a right angle, then another might add another gabled cottage addition, which might then have a connected corridor or two with eventually joined the barn. Over the years, simple structures become quite complicated.  I tell Wes that is what we are going to do with our cabin.  He just rolls his eyes.

We follow the rails to trails all the way to Grafton, even though the track is becoming more and more marginal.  There are places where it is hardly more than a sandy two-track.   Sometimes the trail is just a few feet from Highway 4.  We look longingly at the smooth surface, but don’t leave the track, choosing no competition with vehicles over an easy ride.   The trail takes us through a variety of huge culvert tunnels, which strikes us as a good solution for contested intersections.  

We are getting discouraged at our slow progress.  We are working pretty hard and not going very fast.  It is nearly noon and we have only gone about 12 miles.  We enter a rock cut where the train track was cut through 12 foot tall granite walls, and see a small brass marker.  We have just passed the Orange Summit, the highest point on the trail, and the highest point the railroad reached between the coast and its terminus at White River Junction at the Connecticut River.  Although we had been seeing  Mount Cardigan before and beside us, we didn’t realize we had been climbing all morning. 

We stop for a break at Danbury, where we will turn off to take a road to the little town of Meredith on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.  By the time we get there, we are tired, crabby, and worried.  I know we have to go a total of 60 miles to get to our bed and breakfast.  It has taken us until after 1pm to go 20 miles.  How on earth will we ever make it the rest of the way before we lose the light?    We have an uncomfortable break at the small country store.  Both of us are picking at each other.  My phone doesn’t work and there is no wi-fi, so we can’t scout the road ahead.   A young man and several senior ladies out for a bike ride try to allay our fears about the route ahead, but I, for one, am not having it.  One lady says, “It’s not bad.  There are ups and downs, but it’s just like life, isn’t it?” 

We are still sniping at each other when we head out on Highway 104.  It is pretty easy and quite beautiful, but we are both convinced these good times will end momentarily, leaving us to slog up the mountain to the Lake.  The miles start to slip by.  We’re cruising along.  Wait!  Where’s the climb into the White Mountains?  This part of the ride has been no problem whatsoever. 

As we ride along, we see lots of the “Add-on Houses.”   However, very few of these look like working farms.  There are no animals, no tractors, no work-trucks.  The fields lie fallow even as the houses are well-maintained.  We pass the grounds of the private Hampton School, and realize that this is probably the third private residential school we have seen since entering New Hampshire.   Although the road is fairly populated, there are very few commercial establishments.  I ask Wes, “How are people making their livings here?”   He answers, “Maybe they aren’t.”   This is obviously not a place where people are trying to make a living and can’t, as we have seen in New York and Washington.  This is a place where the living is coming from elsewhere.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and the ride to get much harder, as we zip along to Bristol and the crossing with Interstate 93.   There is a little outbreak of plastic land close to the freeway.   We have about 15 miles to go when the climb in the foothills of the White Mountains begins.  We spend the rest of the afternoon climbing, climbing, climbing.  We have just cleared one good sized hill when we see a long-haired hippie-ish looking fellow standing next to his station wagon.  He has pulled his car into the little verge between our road and a right turn.  He has been watching us hump up the hill and as we go by, he calls to us, “Do you have a place to stay for the night?”  We answer that we have a bed and breakfast waiting for us.  “Too bad.” He says, “I was gonna offer you a room at my house.  Where you headed?”  We tell him, and he sighs, “Man, you got a big hill ahead of you.  Good luck.”

He wasn’t kidding.  The country we are entering reminds me a lot of the glacial highlands of the Rockies.  There are deep, cold lakes surrounded by granite shelves.  In the distance we can see foothills with the occasional glance at the rocky highlands beyond.  We are about 5 miles from the town of Meredith and we look up to see what should be called a cliff climb.   We’re beat, but too bad.  Up we go until we can’t.  Then it is off our bikes and time for pushing. 

At the top of this steep hill, our road joins the Daniel Webster Highway and the traffic increases.  Now we are tired, it is close to dusk, and we are still not there.  It is spectacularly beautiful alongside the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, but hard to appreciate it because of the dangerous road conditions.  We feel a surge of energy, however, when we get to the town of Meredith.  It is a lovely tourist town, dominated by large, white 19^th century hotels which overlook the lake.  The town is a warren of 18^th and 19^th century buildings sitting cheek to jowl on the hills just above the lake.  Like all tourist towns, it is full of restaurants, bars, and cute little shops. 

We need to make our way to the Tuckernuck Bed and Breakfast.  When I had made the reservation, the innkeeper was thrilled to hear that we were cross country bicyclists. Her husband, she told me, was an Ironman, and had participated in many super long distance triathlons.  I told her we were far from Ironmen and that a 60 mile day was a pretty long day for us.   It had been a long day, and we were feeling every bit of those 60 miles, when we found the street on which the inn was located, and saw that it was another big climb.  We were pushing our bikes up the hill, on our last legs, when a young police officer, in a Meredith Police Department sedan, pulled alongside us.  “Don’t you know you are supposed to be riding up this hill?”  It took us a moment to realize he was joking before we had the presence of mind to assure him that this was just our “cool-down.”

Our brains are fogged by exhaustion as we get to the house on the top of the hill: our inn.  We drag our bikes around to the side and meet a young couple who say, “You must be the bicyclists!  Kim has told us all about your trip!  We can hardly wait to hear your stories!”   They take us to meet the landlady, an effusive, petite blonde with a somewhat raspy voice, who welcomes us mightily and tells us how excited she is to have us staying there.   We don’t feel special, just tired, sweaty, and hungry.  She gives us a great deal on a beautiful suite at the top of the house.   It is all we can do not to fall asleep right then and there.

After a shower, we feel slightly less exhausted and want to get some dinner.  Our landlady gives us a bunch of menus and guidance.  She also tells us that the other guests in the house are the young couple we had earlier met; they were newlyweds on their honeymoon.  There is also a threesome from England, fellow innkeepers enjoying a holiday in various beauty spots of eastern and western United States.  She assured us that they were all very interested to meet us and hear our stories tomorrow at breakfast.  Apparently, there would be no sitting back and listening to other’s stories for us in the morning.
Oh, how we wished we had been better able to follow our landlady’s advice about eating establishments.  We had seen a little brewpub on the way in to town.  We thought it would be a good place to eat and listen to the Tigers/Red Sox baseball game that night.  It was a fail on both counts.  The place was packed with sports fans, all right, football fans cheering loudly, then not so loudly, as the New England Patriots barely beat the New Orleans Saints.

After a disappointing corporate plastic goo-fest for dinner, we walk around the town, follow the lakeshore and explore the historic inns.  In one, we were sitting by the blazing fire, when a distraught man came in, trailed by a manager.  His wife had lost her phone.   Could we please move so they could check the overstuffed sofas where we were seated.  We do, but no phone is found.  Off they go, the man almost wailing, “What are we going to do?  Where can it be?”

We find the town charming, but we’re too tired to do much, so we go back to our inn.  We turn on the game, but fall asleep with the Tigers comfortably ahead 5-1 in the 7^th inning.  The next morning, as we make our way to breakfast, our landlady asks us, “Did you hear what happened in the game last night?”  Her husband, who had driven the 2 hours to attend the game in Boston, called her around midnight to tell her that game was now tied and there was still one more inning to go.  He was going to be very late getting back. She woke up to find out that Red Sox had won, in one of the most stunning comebacks in baseball history. 

At breakfast, all eyes are on us.  We start by telling them about how much economic distress we have seen as we travelled across the country.  Not very romantic, to be sure, but it does get the newlyweds going.  They are from Rochester, New York and in their mid-twenties.  He has a degree in civil engineering; she in marketing.   Together, they have sent more than 500 letters of inquiry.  They have gotten a few bites, but they see people with lots more experience getting the jobs.  They wonder how they will ever get a start, but they were still hoping a job would materialize for them.   The Brits are shocked at this.  They didn’t know the economy was that bad in the US.

We tell stories of our bicycle trip through England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland and make the Brits laugh with those “innocents abroad” adventures.  We all end up telling stories of our favorite places to visit.  I don’t think we ended up talking much about our ride across the country, but it was good fun anyway.

When we make our departure, our landlady, who had generously volunteered to find our next lodging, tells us how much difficulty she had making arrangements in the little town of Cornish, Maine.  After numerous attempts, she was able to find a place for us not too far from the town.  We thank her and commiserate with her.   Who would have thought securing lodging would have become such an on-going hassle?  She tells us of one set of bicyclists who had stayed with her.  They had arranged their entire lodging six months in advance.  Only once did they miss their reservation.  It’s clear we are not that rigid or that well-organized.

As we prepare to leave, I stop to stare at a topographic map on the wall.  Just to the northwest of Lake Winnipesaukee lies a circular range of mountains called the Ossipees.  Surely, this must have been an ancient volcano.  I show Wes and he agrees with me.  We ask Kim.  No, no volcanos around here.  Wondering what else could make such a distinctive outline, we vow to look more closely as we ride by.  Our route out of New Hampshire will take us half way round this strange feature.  By the end of this day, we will be in Maine.  Almost there.  Somehow or another.

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

Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

T+103: A Lucky Break

Mile 3690: Fulton, NY

After a difficult and frustrating day, we find ourselves in a town as least as beat up as Detroit.   Having lost Nestle, Birds Eye, and Miller factories, this small town in upstate New York is full of poverty, degenerating businesses, and people trying to make a way out of no way.  We recognize the signs and will tell this story soon.  In the meantime, our trip across Michigan begins….

After we said good-bye to our friends in Ludington, we began following the Adventure Cycling map through the Manistee National Forest.  It exemplifies everything we both love and hate about these routes.  First of all, it is a beautiful ride, but it is far from efficient.  We ride 50 miles through all sort of back country forest and lakes.  It is a lovely ride.  But at the end of the day, we have only gone 25 miles towards the east.

Throughout the day, we have been on a quest to get a good paper map of Michigan.  This is apparently a rarity, now that many (most?) people use GPS on their phones or in their cars.   In the little town of Wolf Point, after visiting with the resident young Jack Russell and ancient Shepherd/Corgie dogs, we ask the proprietor if she sells maps.  For the fourth time that day, the answer is no.  A few minutes later, a customer who heard our request and denial returns with a high quality laminated map from his car.  He will sell it to us at cost.  We are happy to accept, even though we squirm a bit to see that it comes from Wal-mart.

After Wolf Point, we make our way to the Red Moose Inn, which is south of Baldwin, Michigan on the Pere Marquette River.  We are struck by the level of abandonment and disarray we see along the way.  This part of Michigan is not looking so good.  At the inn, the proprietor tells us that he is full up with salmon fishers, but that we will be housed in a cabin just down the way.   He shows us the way to the cabin in the woods by driving us over in a 2009 Cadillac with leather seats and just 50,000 miles.  He tells us that it is his son’s vehicle, and that it originally cost $54,000, but that his son purchased it for just $2700.   “Some depreciation, huh?”  he asks.

The cabin is deep in the woods.  Wes and I are at first disappointed, because we hoped to be on the river, but once we got inside, it felt so homey, we settled right in.  After a quick trip to a local grocery store, we played “at home” and truly enjoyed the evening.

The next morning, we jounce over sandy roads and make our way back to the highway.  On the highway, Wes immediately experiences difficulties.  His back wheel is not rolling right.  We try several strategies, including realigning the axle and adjusting the brakes, until it finally dawns on us that the reason the wheel is not rolling is because Wes has 3 broken spokes.  We are now dead in the water.  I make a few calls and find out that the closest bike shops are 57 miles away in Clare, 25 miles back to Ludington, or 30 miles the wrong direction to Cadillac.   I call the Clare bike shop.  They can’t help because they are short staffed and cannot come get us.  Sorry.  Maybe the folks in Ludington can assist.

While I wonder if this is how our trip will end, Wes drags his bike across the road, removes the BOB trailer, and turns the bike upside down.  I pull my bike across and watch while Wes begins to hitchhike.  He signals to the first car by, a new truck pulling a big silver ATV trailer.  Wes gives his best “6 second sell” to the passing vehicle.  When he was younger, Wes travelled many thousand miles by hitchhiking, which he says depended upon making a connection within the six seconds a driver sees you on the side of the road.

Sure enough, the truck turns around and comes back to pick us up.  The driver asks us if we need help.  We tell him about our situation and tell him we need to get to a bike shop, or at least on a main highway.   He jumps out, opens his trailer, where a brand new Polaris 4-wheeler is secured, and tell us to load our bikes in the trailer.  Wes and I pile in the jump seat of the truck and meet our saviors.  They are Karl and Nancy Nelson, owners of the Pronto Pup in Grand Haven, out on a rare day off to try out their new four-wheeler.  They saw the upside down bike, knew we were in distress, and thought, “Something is obviously wrong.  We’ve got room, and time.  Why not?”

Nancy gets to work on her I-phone trying to find a bike shop where we can get the spokes repaired.  She calls the shop in Cadillac and finds out they are open and can do the work.   They decide right then and there to drive us the 30 miles to the north to the bike shop in Cadillac.  While driving there, we have a chance to visit.   They were out that day headed to the ATV trails around Baldwin.  It was lucky for us they chose to drive the back way from Grand Haven.  They just purchased this new ATV and wanted to check it out before taking it up to the Upper Peninsula for its maiden backwoods trip.   They are taking their first break after a long summer selling their high quality hot dogs to the resort community.  Throughout the trip north, Karl takes phone calls and makes deals to provide hot dogs at various events.

It is very clear that Karl and Nancy and Wes and I are not people whose lives would normally intersect, but we are glad to tell each other stories of life and work, bills and choices.  We connect around the challenges of running small businesses and how important good employees are to business success.  This leads to a surprisingly frank discussion about many corporations misplaced emphasis on financial success instead of employee success.   Despite our obvious ideological differences, all four of us agree with the principal that secure employees are the cornerstone of a strong economy.  We also agree that such security is no longer the norm.

In Cadillac, Karl and Nancy drop us off, wish us well, and drive off to enjoy the rest of their day.  We take the bike in, and find out that there are FIVE broken spokes.  While the young men in the shop do the repairs, Wes and I head out to get breakfast and explore the town.  We have great handmade food at the Blue Heron, wander a few shops, and are generally amazed at the comeback in this town.   We had visited a few years ago; it is vibrant and exciting by comparison. 

By noon, we are back on the trail.  The bike shop guys recommend the White Pine Trail to us.  This is a Rails to Trails from Cadillac to Reed City, going through forests and small towns in western Michigan.  The first 17 miles are paved.  It is beautiful, full of big trees, small lakes, and wetlands, and we have a blast.  As we discuss the broken spokes, we realize that Wes probably broke his first spoke way back in Wisconsin on that rotten concrete road.   Sheesh. 

We visit outback towns like Leroy, Michigan and buy handmade baked goods.  The trail turns to dirt and it gets rougher and slower.  It is far less fun.  The next 20 miles are much harder work.  We pull into the little town of Reed City, where the White Pine trail intersects with the Pere Marquette trail.  We wander up and down Upton Avenue, stare at the Yoplait factory, and think to stay here.  At the local pub, the waitress is one of those types that drive us crazy.  They don’t know anything about the town, its amenities, or its services. 

We finally determine that the next motel is in Evart, 15 miles down the trail.  We head out on the smooth and lovely trail as the sun starts to sink in the west.   This is the Michigan not seen by the roads, lush and lovely.  We stop to see the Muskegon River and marvel at its pure beauty.  When we finally land at the Osceola Grand Hotel in Evart, Michigan, it is nearly dark.  We have been on the move since early morning.  We have almost seen the end of the trip, travelled 30 miles north, and ridden more than 60 miles on Michigan rails to trails through wonderful beauty.  Like the day before, we have only travelled about 25 miles to the east, but we are incredibly grateful, first to the Nelsons, then to the creators and sustainers of these beautiful trails.

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.