While I’m loading my clothes up at the laundromat, in the town of Christmas Valley, a woman and her six-year-old son come in to do laundry. The kid gazes in awe at my bicycle, which is resting on its kickstand by the door.
He turns to me and exclaims, “You’re a world traveler!”
I look up, from sprinkling soap into the open lid of a washing machine. “A little bit of one, sure,” I say.
“Are you going to go all the way around the world?”
“I’d like to! It would be really cool to bike around Europe. But it would be hard to get there.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’d have to go all the way across the country, to the East Coast, and then I’d have to put my bike onto a boat, and sail across the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Oooh. … That’s a long way.”
“Yup. But you don’t have to go that far to have a good time riding. There’s lots of cool places to ride around here.”
“Like Summer Lake?”
(Summer Lake is a body of water about 40 miles south, next to a marsh and an RV park.) “Well, yeah, but I mean… Places in this country. For example, I’ve been thinking about riding my bike up to Alaska.”
“Cool!!” He turns to his Mom, who is roughly organizing a mound of laundry on a sorting table. “Mom! He’s going to ride his bike to Alaska!!”
The Mom glances over at him. “Wow, really?” she says, in a placating voice.
“Yeah! Vreeeooowwwm, vrooooom…” He runs out of the laundromat, pretending he’s a bicycle zooming along.
The Mom grins at me. “Just let me know if he’s bothering you,” she says.
Today is a long biking day. I pass through valleys and flatlands, up steep hills, across bridges, and over a wide variety of roads. Sometimes the vehicles are rushing by, a few feet away. Sometimes I see them coming from a mile off, and they move into the opposite lane to give me plenty of room. One constant, though, is the enthusiasm of the drivers.
Throughout Oregon, almost every driver that passes me on an uncrowded road has waved at me. Mostly they just raise a hand off the steering wheel in acknowledgement – the truckers like to do that – but other times they wave. I’ve received dozens of “thumbs-up” gestures. One woman in the passenger seat gave me a very enthusiastic double-thumbs-up as I was climbing a hill. A car full of teenagers all made “hang-loose” gestures at me out the windows – a gesture I haven’t seen back in California for ten years or more. A carload of girls went “Whoohoo!” at me.
I receive waves and smiles from construction workers, “Yeaaaah!”s and “Whoooo!”s from cars, and casual nods and under-bar waves and thumbs-ups from motorcyclists. The tough guys on their Harleys seem the most enthusiastic. I think they like to acknowledge a fellow “free spirit”. Or perhaps a fellow badass.
Because badass I am! On this day I will pedal 75 pounds of bicycle and gear over two mountain passes, and countless hills, for one hundred and nine miles. I can’t even capture the whole ride as GPS data because the batteries in the GPS crap out at 10 hours, and I keep riding while it recharges off my battery box.
Around mile 60, still in the middle of the National Forest, I start to get very very angry at the hills. No one’s around, so I’m free to tell them exactly how I feel.
“&%$#*@ YOU, HILLS! YEAH YOU HEARD ME! YOU SUCK! YOU &%$#*@ING SUCK!”
[ pant pant ]
“I’D &%$#*@ING SPIT ON YOU BUT I’M TOO THIRSTY! WHY DIDN’T YOU SHOW UP ON THE &%$#*@ MAP WHEN I WAS PLANNING THE ROUTE? WHY ARE YOU HERE?”
[ pant pant ]
“I KNOW, IT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE &%$#*@ING ASSHOLES!! HILLS ARE ASSHOLES! YOU ALL JUST CROWDED IN HERE YESTERDAY WHEN I WASN’T LOOKING!! GET OFF MY ROUTE! &%$#*@&% YOU!”
[ pant pant ]
“Oh – maybe that was the last one – let’s see what’s around the corner ANOTHER HILL, %$#*@&%ING SURPRISE, %$#*@&% %$#*-@&% HILL!!!!”
On the gigantic hill leading into Christmas Valley, a large rabbit hops into the road, about 30 yards ahead of me in the fringe of my headlight. Since there’s no one around, I scream, “LOOKOUT, RABBIT! I’M GONNA GETCHA!! O-M-G-LOOKOUT MR. RABBIT!” The rabbit hops about twenty yards further down the road, then stops. I keep screaming “warnings”, and the rabbit keeps hopping forward, for another hundred yards or so. Finally I give up with the warnings, having exhausted my supply of cute nicknames for rabbits (Mr Bun-face, Captain Hoppers, et cetera), and the rabbit hops over the ditch and into the weeds. It must have sensed that the evening’s entertainment was over.
On my way back towards the Organic Market and Campground in Fort Klamath, I pass through the floor of the valley again, with its huge squares of flat ranch land. This time I zig instead of zagging, so I can see some different stuff along the way. Ahead of me almost half a mile, I see a large truck lumbering down the road.
About a quarter mile distant, the truck stops, and a rancher gets out. He walks across the road and begins to open a gate, except I can see he’s doing it awkwardly because he’s got one hand pressed to his head. He’s talking on a cellphone.
By the time I roll past, he’s got the gate open and has turned around. To my great amusement, I observe that his phone is a second-generation black iPhone, same as mine. I wonder what apps he’s got on it.
I’m in a campsite at the Rocky Point Resort. I’ve left my laptop charging on the seat of the bike, while the bike is chained to the RV electricity post, concealed under a thin tarp. I observe that my downloads have finished, and consider taking the laptop into my tent so I can reconfigure the playlists on my iPhone. “Hmm, I don’t know,” I think. “That would mean taking it off mains power, and draining the battery. I should conserve battery power for when I’m on my trip.”
“Oh wait. I’m on my trip right now. … I forgot.” Now that’s what I call a brainfart.
I take the laptop into my tent and begin moving tracks around. Outside I hear a mother walking by with her daughter. “Look at that tent, Mom!”
“Yeah. I bet it stays cool!” says the Mom.
“It has a neat design,” says the daughter.
“Uh huh. Must be European.”
I was unaware that good design implied European origin. Perhaps so for camping gear?
I’m out in the middle of a marsh, seated in a Kayak, chewing on some snackies. I photograph the occasion, then get out my phone, which has several bars of signal even out here, and send some texts to The La:
I’m heading down out of the campground, away from Crater Lake. The GPS on my handlebars claims I am going 35 mph. Whoo! Just for the sheer hell of it, I launch the AIM client on my phone, and send people short text messages as I glide around the curves. Mom admonishes me to be careful. Kashy sends me happy little geometric squigglies.
I stop at a turnout to adjust my seat, and take a photo of some interesting cliff erosions. Of course, now that I’m miles from the last official bathroom, my body has decided it’s time to poop. I dig some folded toilet paper out of a plastic bag and tromp out into the woods.
This marks the first of six times on the trip that I will poop outside. The official count is:
1 time in the woods down a hillside.
3 times in the woods at the foot of a tree.
1 time in the woods in a dry creek bed.
1 time in the desert, in the late evening, on flat ground between scrub bushes.
All six times, the result has actually been LESS messier than using a real toilet, because instead of being in a horizontal sitting position, I can actually squat all the way down. There has been almost nothing on the paper, every time. This makes me wonder if Americans will ever be convinced to adopt the Japanese squat toilet. (Or heck, even the bidet would be better.)
A couple minutes after I’ve done my business and walked back to the turnout, four identical Harleys come farting up, and park at the opposite end. A family dismounts and begins chatting and taking pictures. It appears to be an old married couple, their son, and their daughter-in-law. They look hip and cool in their shiny black leather. Two of the Harleys – the ones ridden by the married couple – appear brand-new.
The young woman gawks at my bicycle. The men cast furtive glances at it. As I seat myself and then pedal away, it occurs to me that the whole family could have gone on their trip in one small car for much less money. Then they could have sat and talked to each other the whole time instead of only at rest stops and campgrounds, or over headsets. But no … that wouldn’t be nearly as hip and cool as getting four fartmobiles and leather duds.
At the edge of the flatlands, I stop my bike to check the rear brake and the charging box, and take a picture of some sheepies for The La. (I can hear her voice now: “Eeeeeeeeee!! Sheepies!!!”) While I’m on the ground underneath the front wheel, lifting it up and spinning it to check if the charger is working, a dog begins to bark. I ignore it, and continue my checking.
When I stand up, I see a big old furry white dog come marching out from around the side of the nearby house, into the driveway. He barks a throaty bark at me, then walks a little more, then barks again. “Hey there, dawg!” I say, as I dig out my camera.
I take some sheep pictures, and the barking continues. I put the camera back in my bag, and glance up. The dog has meandered out into the road now, about forty yards away, and is sitting on his haunches barking at me.
“What’s your deal, Mister Barks-a-lot?” I say. “Huh?”
I hear a rushing noise behind me, and turn to see a big-rig moving up the road. I wave at the driver, who waves back. Then he slows down, because the dog is still in the road, barking at both of us now. The dog gets to his feet and marches self-importantly across the opposite lane, and down into the ditch. The truck begins moving again, and as it continues down the road, I squat and inspect my rear brake calipers, which I suspect are rubbing against the rim of my tire. I stretch the cable, but I don’t have the screwdriver to make the proper adjustment, so I shrug and stand up, wiping my hands on my sweatpants.
The dog has now wiggled his way under the fence beyond the ditch, and is sitting in the field there, still barking, but apparently at the world in general.
“Whatever, dawg. You just keep doin’ your thing,” I tell him.
I sit back down on the bike, and start pedaling. I expect the barking to fade into the distance, but it doesn’t. I look over my right shoulder and observe the dog, running awkwardly along behind the fence, keeping pace with me. “Watch it! You’re gonna run out of field!” I shout.
I pass out onto a low bridge, over a creek. The dog pulls up short and narrowly avoids tumbling into a bush. He is so startled he actually forgets to bark for a moment. But as I reach the end of the bridge and meet the road again, accelerating, the barking resumes.
Silly old dog. It’s funny, even among dogs that bark, you can tell the difference between the well-treated ones and the unhappy, neglected ones. This fellow is a family dog … Not afraid or angry, just outside doin’ his job.
