T+116: The Outback of Erie

Mile 4162:  PORTLAND, ME

We made it to Portland yesterday, arriving at 2:30 in the afternoon.   Stephen and Esther got us a glorious room in the Regency Hotel.  We have been celebrating and reminiscing, and just a few minutes ago, Wes was crying because the trip was over. 

However, it is not over in many ways.  We still have to get back to Wyoming, where we will gather all the materials and add some reflections, ruminations, and rants to create the book about our trip.  I still need to finish writing the story of the travels from coast to coast.  In the next few days, as we stay in Brooklin, Maine with my brother and his wife, I want to share the stories from the rest of Canada, across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. 

I will keep the T+ counting until we return to Detroit.  It began when we left the city on June 22.  Eleven days later, we were abike in Portland, Oregon.  We cycled 105 days to get to Portland, Maine.  Of those 105 days, there were only 7 days we did not cycle, although to be sure, there were a few very short rides in those 98 days on the bike.   It really was two trips combined into one long trip: the first from Portland to Anacortes, WA, then from Anacortes on the Pacific Coast to Portland on the Atlantic Coast.  The first trip was 420 miles, the second, 3740 miles.  Now comes the re-entry.

But first, the rest of the story……

The eastern side of the North Shore of Lake Erie is quite distinct from the touristy middle range.  The shoreline changes.  No longer sandy beaches, it is either shallow, rocky, little inlets, or swampy coves.  The farms on the plains above the coast stretch out too.  Instead of a wide variety of vegetables, the landscape again begins to be dominated by corn and soybeans.   

 

We are following the Lake Shore route, which is taking us through mile after mile of small cottages.  For reasons we cannot determine, there are a number of bridges being replaced in this section of the lake. It is a bit frustrating because we keep getting turned off our route, returned to the busy main highway for a few miles, then returned to the shore route.  These detours are adding many miles to an already long ride.

There are few tourist services like restaurants and motels.  Nor is this the land of Victorian trophy farms, such as we had seen on Talbot Trail of Chatham-Kent. The wind turbines continue apace; the density of anti-wind turbine lawn signs also increases. 

 

We stop to read an information display about the turbines, and find out that the Ontario provincial government lets bids to private companies to build and run these wind farms.  It seems clear that local residents are not happy with the way Toronto chooses the companies or places the turbines.

We had been riding several hours and were beginning to look for a place to eat some lunch.  We are riding in a little colony of houses clustered in concentric circles around a small point on the lake. We see a sign directing us from the main route to the Peacock Point Store which has Hot Lunches.  It is a small white building across the street from circular park with big oak trees.  A line of small houses rings the park so that all the houses are facing each other. 

There are three people sitting outside the small building, chatting, smoking, and enjoying the bright fall sun.  One is a youngish, heavy-set blonde.  Another is an older male with long, scraggledy hair and wispy beard sitting in a non-motorized wheelchair.  Both his legs have been amputated.  A small sixty year old woman with dyed brown hair completes the trio.   A chalk board sign announces “Mary’s Last Day!  Thanks for a Great Season!”

They seem surprised when we stop our bikes. When we ask if they are still serving lunch, the older woman jumps up, and motions me to follow her inside.  Wes stays outside with the other two.  The store with its little grill at one end, bank of coolers at the other, and line of shelves in between is nearly empty of products.   Mary explains that when she leaves today at 3pm, the store will close for the season.  She apologizes for the state of the store, bustling about, wiping shelves, swatting flies, and explaining what few items can still be prepared.  She says she is behind on the closing because she had family in all last week.  Her son and family had come all the way from Nunevet, where they live way above the Arctic Circle and he works as a geologist for an oil exploration company.  After the store closes, she will travel to Dallas to see her daughter, who works there in the medical field.  After that, she didn’t know what she will do, perhaps go get an apartment in Hamilton and see if she can find work until she can come back to Peacock Point the following spring.

When I return outside with Wes’ egg salad sandwich and my Italian sausage sandwich, Wes and the man in the wheelchair are in heavy discussion about the wind turbines.  “I hate ‘em!” the local declares.  “All they do is kill birds and they don’t even provide much energy.  All of these damn turbines and they only provide 8 percent---8 percent—of Canada’s energy.  Look around at all these towers.  (We could easily see 30.)  How come so many are turned off?  I’ll tell you why.  They turn ‘em off during the day because of the protests, but at night, they turn ‘em back on and sell all the energy to the United States!  And who even gets to choose whether to have a turbine or not?  Corrupt Toronto politicians, that’s who.  They come in and tell the farmers they have to lease their land to company for 50 years, no questions asked.  At the end of the term, the farmer is supposed to get turbine, but who’s going to want it when it’s old and broken down?  I tell you, it’s a bad deal from start to finish.  I hate ‘em!”

There is not much anyone can say to this rant, so we change the subject.  In increasing numbers, all along the coast, we have seen many houses with Union Jack flags, along with signs that say “Loyalist Cemetery” and “Loyalist Union Social Club.”  We ask if these British flags stand for anything.  Did it mean anything when one house had the Canadian red maple, and another the stars and bars of England.  No, no.  If anything, the flags just show who the house supports in soccer….or maybe their ethnic origin. The blonde, whose name is Donna, says that she regularly flies a German flag, because she is German and she supports the Frankfort team. 

Eldon, the man in the chair, says, “I should see about finding me a Finnish flag!  But that’s the thing with you Americans.  You’re not even allowed to put up a flag in front of your home.  I think it is just a real crime when you aren’t even allowed to do that.”  I try to correct him, but he is not to be deterred.  “And another thing, look at the mess your government is in right now.  Why is there such a big mess about getting health care?  It’s unbelievable!  What a bunch of corrupt politicians…but, hey! I’m not saying ours aren’t a bunch of crooks, too!”

He goes on.  “Look at Donna and me.  I don’t know what we would do without NHS.  But you Americans are against health care for the people.  It just don’t make any sense to me.”  Wes points out that most Americans are not against the new health care law, and Eldon is just about ready to start another rant, when I ask Donna about her experience with national health.  I tell about our encounter with our contrary host in Port Rowan, who was furious with the difficulties he encountered trying to get treatment for his Parkinson’s.

She says that they was not at all her experience.  Her husband had recently passed away after contracting a particularly aggressive form of Lou Gehrig’s disease.  A year ago, he began falling.  Six months later, the 36 year old man with three children, was dead.  They had taken him to all kinds of specialists in Toronto and London.  Nothing worked, but she never had to pay a bill.  But…she also pointed out…she also hadn’t been able to work and if it hadn’t been for the community here in Turkey Point, she and her family wouldn’t have made it.

“Yep!”  Eldon declares, “It’s not unusual for me to come home and find food, or some groceries just sittin’ on my table, but that’s just the way it is here in Turkey Point.  People take care of each other here, not like some big city where nobody knows nothin’ about you.   I remember a few years back, when I ran out of water after my cistern sprung a leak, people brought me some of their own, even though it meant they were cutting into their own stores.”

We find out that the water supply will be shut off to the whole community after Thanksgiving.  Many people will leave the colony, but fulltime residents like Donna and Eldon will need to depend on water from their individual cisterns.  I ask if people have trouble making it through the winter on the limited water supply.  She laughs, and says, “That’s how we know they are city people.  They don’t know all the tricks to save water---liking using your dishwashing water to flush your toilet---but if you’ve lived here all your life, like my family all the way back to my grandma, it’s no big deal.”   I ask why they don’t keep the water on the winter.  Eldon replies, “The pipes from Lake Erie freeze!”

Our delicious handmade sandwiches are long gone, and our short break has stretched far past its allotted time, when we make our good byes to this vivacious trio.  There was a certain melancholy in the air.  In a few short hours, the store which had provided work for Donna and Mary would close.  Most of the summer people would leave and the water would be cut off.  Not one of the trio had a clear sense of how they would get through the coming winter, but they were all certain they would find a way.  They wished us a good ride and told us to come back and see them sometime.  We cycle off and wonder if we ever would.

 

Posted from Brooklin, Maine

T+109: Pet Cars, Lawn Fetishes, and Muer Fish Dinners

Mile 3883, NORTH CREEK, NY:  We are on the shores of the Hudson River, and hope to pass into Vermont tomorrow.  The round of bad weather has lifted; we have been traveling through the beautiful and nearly empty Adirondacks.  We have been re-building our mountain legs, and will need them as we go through Vermont and New Hampshire over the next few days.  The days are getting shorter, as are the miles we need to cover to get to Portland, Maine.

 

When we leave Imlay City, we travel on a back road to the small town of Capac, where we plan to cross I-69 and enter Southeast Michigan.  As we are cycling along, we begin to be passed by a large number of gleaming cars of all ages.  Not only are there restored Model T’s, there are also coupes from the 1930’s which have been turned into hot rods.  One is painted brilliant orange and decorated with purple flames.  There are woody station wagons from the late 40’s.  There are WWII Willy’s Jeeps, 1967 Impalas, 1965 Mustangs and hot pink Thunderbirds. There are Ramblers, and 57 Chevy sedans and Edsels. There is a 1975 Ford truck just like the one we owned when we moved to Detroit.  There are antique firetrucks and American cars and trucks of every conceivable year and make.  About 75 percent are lovingly and historically restored.  The rest are customized in some fashion.

We cycle through the town and there is an army of men directing traffic and closing streets.  Even though the car show had not yet begun, we saw many hundreds of vehicles parked and moving through town.   The drivers were nearly as diverse as their cars.  Certainly many were middle-aged and older white males, but there were also young men and women, people of color, couples, and families.   The cars were almost exclusively American made.  We did see one brave young hipster driving an early 60’s Mercedes-Benz.  Every single car was gleaming and polished.  Where they were parked, they often had their hoods lifted to show spotless, often chrome enhanced engines.   We are biking through a sea of pet cars, and stick out like sore thumbs.  These are not cars as a tool of transportation, but cars as objects of love and creativity.  These are hobbies and obsessions.  I puzzle about the dedication it takes to bring a 1937 Packard back to life.  Just finding the replacement parts must take hours and hours and tons of resources.  Even as we leave town via a back road, we still pass cars making their way to this event.   I later read that this little town of 2000 hosted 1500 cars at this event.

As we move across the landscape, we see a land use we have seen only rarely in this journey.  All throughout Southeast Michigan, we see houses with gigantic lawns, sometimes of many acres.  It is not unusual to see a house surrounded by a sea of featureless grass.  Very often, there are not even trees or ornamental plantings.  Because we are traveling on a Sunday, we see lots of people out tending these lawns with their riding lawnmowers.   We wonder, “What is the appeal of these very man-made, labor intensive mono-cultures?”   My guess is that these lawns are the anti-farm.  They prove that the owners do not have to depend on the land to provide them a living.  Also, lawn doesn’t just happen: it requires constant intervention and specialized tools.   Lawns are a metaphor for the dominance of the earth…and access to discretionary funds…and social isolation.   Because giant lawns are not productive, they are fetishes, imbued with power and meaning which makes their high costs seem worthy expenses. 

We follow the Belle River down to its meeting with the St. Clair River.  This is a landscape of large weeping willows and cottonwoods, interspersed with marshes.  Many of these marshes are inundated with phragmites, the invasive reed that can grow to 8 feet tall.  Where the water is further from the surface, there are big stands of oaks and hickories.  We cross the Old Gratiot road and feel positively sentimental.  We wind in and out of little towns and are tickled when we enter Macomb County.   We have wandered these environs quite a bit; they are a source of storytelling and reminiscence. (Remember that giant hill at Wahlberg’s Corners where we missed the turn to the Blue Water Bridge?  Remember the time we went walking in Algonac and all the canals were frozen?)

A cycling club from Mount Clemens, mostly on tandems, comes rolling by.  One pair slows down immensely to talk to us.  In mere seconds, the rest of the group is out of sight.  They are young-looking and fit 40-somethings.  They were surprised that we had come all the way across the country, but asked, “How did you find the time?”  Wes hollers, “I’m retired!”  The man says, “I guess we have a long wait ahead of us then.”  They wish us luck, wave good-bye and are gone in an instant.

Not for the first time, Wes and I wonder about the equipment we are riding.  A good road bike, equipped for touring, but not overloaded, can easily manage an average speed of about 12-15 miles an hour.  An excellent road bike without a load zips along at 18 miles an hour.  A tandem is faster yet.  Here we are, plugging along on heavy, slow bikes.  Now that we are pretty fit, we average 10-11 miles an hour.  Throw in challenging terrain, and our average rate goes down to 8 miles an hour.  Throw in our rotten state of fitness when we began and it is easy to see why we are still in Michigan on September 22.

When we talk to other cyclists, riding 70 miles a day is pretty standard.  We manage about 50.  There are some who ride 100 miles a day, though that strikes me as over the top.  Wes’ steel frame mountain bike Raleigh from the 1980’s is a relic.  My late 90’s mixte Trek is somewhat better.  I run the math in my head: how much further along would we be if we could average just 2 miles more an hour.  We are on the bikes a minimum of six hours daily, sometimes more.  Two more miles an hour would means that we could be 800 miles further along.   I tell Wes I am going to buy a fast road bike when I get off this trip.  He says, “Me too.”   About 30 minutes later, we ride past the bike club again.  They are in the parking lot to the St. Clair High School, off their bikes and getting ready to disperse.  We wave as we go by, and hope they notice that we may be slow, but we get there just the same.

We are excited to go into Canada and have looked for a motel near the Marine City ferry.  The closest bed and breakfast refers us up the road to the Blue Water Inn, which has an address in St. Clair, but is actually four miles up the river.  We are cranky when we get there, but our irritation soon turns to joy.  The room are newly renovated.  Unlike the kitsch filled bed and breakfasts or the generic plastic motels that have been our standard fare, these rooms are modern and urban and elegant.  We are the very end of the hotel and have a fantastic view of the river, though constant noise from the fans from the restaurant below. 

We have a delicious fish dinner at a River Crab, a Chuck Muer restaurant, watching the big ships move up and down the shipping channels of the St. Clair river.  We had hoped some friends could join us at this “pretty close to Detroit” moment, but we couldn’t give enough advance notice, so dined alone.   However, we have discovered a wonderful getaway just 50 miles from home which we will love to share with loved ones upon our return.

The next morning, we are ebullient as we make our way down the river path (another wonderful Michigan trail) to Marine City.  We have time to stop for lattes before we are one of two customers on the 10 minute ride across the river to Canada.   It has been fun and funny to be tourists in our own backyard, but we are anxious to see what other surprises await us as we enter that not-so-far, but still quite foreign, north shore of Lake Erie.

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Posted from North Creek, NY

T+84: The Ghost at Sauk Centre

Mile 2842: Ludington, MI

The Muddle through Minnesota continues:


Wes on the Lake and Marshes Trail



The next day we return to the Lake and Marshes trail, which is a 100 miles rails-to-trails conversion.  I realize that complaining about such a wonderful thing as a paved and marked bicycle trail is sheer ingratitude, but we find the mile after mile of flat grades next to cornfields rather boring.  We tell stories and play games to pass the time.  One such game: which letter of the alphabet begins the name of the most states?  It takes us quite a while to figure out that N and M are the dominant letters, each with 8 states.  (N: Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, North Dakota, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, New Hampshire,  M: Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland,  Missouri, Mississippi.  It gets worse.  The next tier is A’s, I’s, and W’s.) In our boredom, we have become characters in a Samuel Beckett novel, playing mind and number games to occupy the time.

Another thing that occupies our minds is trying to figure out where we will stay.  As the trip has transisted into more of an inn-to-inn ride, we spend our breaks peering at motel websites, trying to figure out where to stay.   Sometimes there is no choice (as in the only motel within miles), but often we do have a choice.  Often, we choose horribly.  In general, we choose the individual and local over a chain.  That, too, introduces a level of chance which sometimes works in our favor, sometimes not.

When we read the website for the Palmer House hotel, I was intrigued because it was a restored historic hotel.  As I dug through the website, it became clear that it was selling two other attractions.  The town of Sauk Centre is the hometown of Sinclair Lewis, and his Main Street is very much based on his experiences there.   The second is that the hotel is often featured as an active haunting site and was recently the focus of a television program.  Guests can pay extra money to conduct paranormal research in the hotel.   Every bit of that sounds more intriguing than a chain motel on the freeway, and it is just off our bike path, so that is where we will stay.

We stop by the house where Sinclair Lewis was raised.  It is a big two story Victorian, with a large wooden sign out front.  It says that Lewis was a sickly child that everybody teased and who was not as popular as his doctor father and adored elder brother.  It acknowledges that he received the Nobel Prize for literature.  It says that after his success with Main Street and Babbett,  his talent declined and he ended his life impoverished and alone in Italy.  I guess when you diss your hometown in Nobel prize winning literature, they don’t feel any obligation to respect you as they simultaneously promote you.

The hotel is a big brick edifice in a downtown struggling to stay viable.  The proprietor who effusively greets us looks like a barely reformed hippie, and she tells us we can store our bikes and gear in the alcove of the dining room, which is closed for the night.  They will be serving dinner in the bar.  There are about 20 rooms available, all the second floor.  We choose a slightly bigger one, then climb the steep stairs, walk down the expansive and antique-filled hall, and enter our oddly designed room.  While all the furnishings are nice, often antique, the layout is peculiar.  There are essentially three rooms: an L-shaped foyer and bathroom in front, and a small bedroom in back.

We go into the nearly empty bar.  It is well appointed, with wooden tables and big comfy couches.  The solid oak bar stretches thirty feet and is backed by an enormous mirror and elaborate set of cabinets.   It is dark and relaxing-- exactly inviting for the travelling salesmen for whom this establishment was designed. 

We are chatting with the bartender, when a slightly sketchy looking man comes and sits next to Wes.  He is burly, with long, formerly black hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.  The conversation begins with the usual pleasantries, as strangers find out about each other.  e isHe

 He is originally from Michigan, but left long ago to join the army, and has been living in Sauk Centre for many years.  We ask about his army service.  He tells us he first did heavy artillery maintenance during Desert Shield in the 1990’s.  I ask if he retired from the army, and he launches into the following story. 

After serving in Kuwait, he was sent back to Fort LaJeune, where he became a sergeant grade 7 in the heavy equipment maintenance division.  When he was in Kuwait, he only served with men who served or serviced the front line, but stateside, he had to serve with a platoon of females.  (He peers intently at Wes while saying this, looking for a specific response which does not come.)   He tells how he got hauled up in front of the commander for talking about their asses.  “All I said was that they needed to get up off their asses and get to work!”  The commander sympathized and told him he needed to better communicate with and understand the people he was supervising.  He decided they needed to practice a bivouac, so gets the group of about 20 women to go set up a full camp on a football field about 3 miles from their barracks.  After a full week of work, they were supposed to camp for the weekend on the field. (He didn't mention what they were doing for bathrooms and showers.) 

Apparently the bivouac goes badly.  One of the women, Shaniqua, he emphasizes while again peering oddly at Wes, has tampon problems and leaves the bivouac to go back to her place for a shower.  This apparently starts a trend.  Soon, the whole group of women leave and return to barracks.  He says, “If it had been men, we’d a gone out in the woods, and they never would a left.” 

I try to point out that camping on a football field in town would seem ridiculous to many women.  That is not the response he wants.  He repeats, again, how Shaniqua caused the big problem.  He leans into Wes, looking for sympathy, looking for agreement.  Wes doesn’t play.  He stares at us with big eyes, pushes his unfinished drink away, and stalks out the door. 

When he leaves, the bartender says.  “He’s really a nice guy…and one of the best cooks in town. He comes in here most every night.” 

We return to our room shortly thereafterward and have a nice sleep.  The next morning, after sheepishly retrieving our bikes from the now open dining room, we set off.  We may not have seen a ghost at the Palmer Hotel, but we surely encountered a spirit from the past.

……………..

Posted from Midland, MI

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.

T-27: When the Universe is Ready

The Gate is open....step through

Ok, Universe, thank you for saying yes to our big plans for this trip. I can see the gate has opened.   In the few days several important energies have shifted.  All have given me such a big sense of relief.

Step 1.  We have found our house/animal sitter.  After numerous interviews and conversations, we have found a young woman who will happily deal with our odd dog, Louie.

Step 2.  The Dreaming at Daybreak fundraiser was more successful than I dared imagine.  The 1 year cash total exceeded our challenge, and most movingly, promised donations into the future.  I am stunned, humbled, and thankful.

Step 3. A grant renewal had slipped my mind and was not included in my cash projections, but will make a significant payment this summer.  It will move Matrix out of the cash flow blues.  The new leadership will not be faced with that particular form of hell.   This was the final step in making it really, truly comfortable to make this big change.

Two years ago, I wrote the first blogpost in this series: T-720: The Commitment is Made; Let the Wrangling Begin.   I wrote in that post, “We will do this to mark a transition in our life and to harken back to our first years together.  It will mark the end of the years of Massive Work, where both of us regularly worked 60 hour weeks and did little else, giving ourselves wholly (and destructively) to our jobs.  It harkens back to the first years of our marriage and youth, where some of the happiest days of our life were spent on long distance bike travel.”

Reading this post of nearly two years ago is especially poignant today: May 26, 2013.   34 years ago, we were married.  Today, as we were driving out to our regular breakfast spot, I read out loud to Wes the timeline of a 45 year marriage.  At the end of the article, the wife said that she couldn’t believe that she still enjoyed his company so much.  They had their ups and downs and their near misses, but here after all these years, they still loved their time together.  Both Wes and I were crying at that.  Because after all these years, with plenty of ups and downs, and some years of doubts and confusion, we still really enjoy each other’s company.  We truly are each other’s best friends. 

35 years ago, both our souls leapt at each other and said, “There you are again.”  It only took one date (really truly, one date) and then we bonded and have been nearly inseparable since.  (Although Wes says he never spent so much time being alone until we began living together—see note about giving ourselves over to our work).  Even now, when I crawl into bed hours after Wes (he’s a morning person; I’m a night person), I still want to “plug in.”  I snuggle my hips into his and I feel as though a circuit is complete.   

We drive each other crazy, but make each other laugh.  We know each other’s stories inside out, but can spend hours making up stories and elaborating the ridiculous adventures of our alter-egos Googie and Bonkie.   Wes will never be done telling me to close the door, or quit leaving my shoes and socks everywhere.  I will always be frustrated with him because his idea of planning is starting. 

When we go on this long ride: 4500 miles, we will prepare our bodies and our minds for the third third of our life.  We will let go of the structures that have shaped our every day.  And we will invest in that which we have neglected: our health, our relationships, and our writing.  We face this new world a-coming with joy…and a few tears… Here it comes.

T-713: A Journey is a Story

I don't know if other bikers do this, but telling a long, ridiculous story in multiple installments, is always a feature of our travels.  During the Nova Scotia trip, when we were moving from  Quebec to Vermont, we spent the whole day going towards a single peak called Mont St. Gregoire.  All day long we travelled towards it, never getting closer, always on our left, then suddenly it was on our right, though we had no awareness of passing the mountain.



These are not the original Alice and Herbert,
but they remind me of them.



The name of the story  became "The Legend of Mont St. Gregoire", a mysterious mountain where what you seek stays just beyond your reach.  Because I was carrying an old boy scout bag proudly marked with the name Monte Boyle as my handlebar bag, Monte became our major character.  Monte was a classic innocent abroad.  He was travelling with his faithful companion, the Electric Dog.  The Electric Dog came into the story when one night after stowing our bikes at camp and walking into town for a local festival, with Chazz excited and quivering on the leash.  As we walked by a family, the little girl suddenly stopped and pointed at the glowing silver dog and asked, "Daddy, is that an electric dog?" 

Monte was the adopted son of two hapless farmers, Herbert and Alice, named after two turkeys (yes, real turkeys) we met while travelling in Northern California.  They loved to be petted, but got so excited that they hyperventilated and passed out.  Monte came to be their son through the machinations of that not so famous but oh so glamourous torch singer, Googie Nordrocks.



The benign face of the government at work.

 In the course of travels through Nova Scotia, stopping at all manner of community events, fairs, and festivals, we came across the Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor.  Apparently this was his job in the summer--make the rounds of community events, cut ribbons, shake hands, and be the silent, benign face of the government. We were tickled that they pronounced his position as "leftenant govnor". 

It wasn't long before it became clear that Monte Boyle was the love child of Googie Nordrocks and the Leftenant Govnor.  They had met during one of Googie's ill fated tours of Nova Scotian festivals.   Googie could not be burdened with a child---after all stardom was surely just around the corner--so she tricked Herbert into thinking it was his child.

We told this story through multiple installations, through the miles and many ridiculous adventures.  We tell it to this day.  Googie, particularly, has become a favorite character.  She was, after all, the inventor of the Big Finish.  Her influence is seen all over popular music.  When you hear a singer craning and swooping up to an over the top finish of a song, you have heard the mark of Googie.  She is insulted to this day that she could not figure out a way to copyright this signature element.   With her greatest fan and manager, Bonky Hugoment, the two live on and on in our imaginations and storytelling.

It is not only these fictional inventions that endure.  How many times have we told the chestnuts of our bicycle travels.  We still laugh until we cry telling the story of poor Chazz bungied to the back of Wes' bike like a dead deer and flying down the mountain on the back of that bike with nary a complaint or howl.  Cars pulled to side of the road to see this sight. 

These stories provide the architecture of our life and identity.  We know who we are by the stories we tell.  Our stories place us in the world and give the world back to us.  When we remember Herbert and Alice, we remember the hitchhiking trip we took that led us to meet those turkeys, all the permutations of the story they inspired, the travels where they became Wes and I's alternative identity.  (Yes, it's sad but true, our alter egos are hyperventilating turkeys.) 

A new journey not only brings new miles, it brings new stories.  And with new stories, a new sense of self.  The writing begins again in just 713 days.