Into The Hills

I felt like Bilbo Baggins at the beginning of The Lord Of The Rings. Bilbo walks over to his open door, hefts his gear, and says: “Yes; it is time.”

Of course Gandalf stops him because the One Ring is still in his pocket, and Bilbo has not-so-mysteriously forgotten it’s there.

I headed for the shoreline, and the bike path I’d seen the previous night. There were some tourists and a few determined joggers out. A kid walking with his mother raised his little arm – wrapped in a puffy jacket that made it look like a sausage – and pointed at my bike as I turned onto the path. “Whoah lookit the wheely-cycle!” he squeaked. I’m not sure why the bike gets so much excitement from little kids. Some excitement, sure I can understand that, but it’s always so over-the-top. On the other hand, is there any other way kids react to things?

I thought idly as I pedaled east: “Bilbo had his One Ring, and he left it behind at the start of his journey. That was the defining moment for him. It was even more important than the journey itself. Do I have an equivalent of the One Ring that I left behind when I flew out of San Francisco? Or maybe something I’m leaving behind here, in the last real city before I start camping in the hinterland?”

The bike path curved inland for a while, then took me across a tiny bicycle bridge built directly underneath a regular one. I stopped for a few snacks and a quick wee in the bushes. A few cyclists went by me in the other direction, decked out in lycra and bent over their handlebars like cats ready to spring. Were they racing each other? In an uncharacteristic show of friendliness for racing-style bikers, one of them raised a hand in greeting as he shot past.

“It would have to be something metaphorical of course,” I thought. “There isn’t anything material I’ve left behind. And it would also be something that I almost took with me, against my better judgement. A huge burden that I was so used to carrying that I forgot I could put it down.”

At the top of a hill I found a small park with a bunch of abstract sculptures scattered around it, and a kiosk full of information about local birds. Definitely time for a snack break.

As I sat on a bench and ate, I realized there was only one thing that fit the comparison with Bilbo’s ring for me. It was my last romantic relationship. My ex might have come with me on this trip, if we’d been able to work some other things out. And also if I hadn’t been so stubborn about wanting to ride a bicycle. I’d tried to introduce her to bike touring years ago but it was too much of an uncontrolled experiment, and the bicycles were way more of a burden than an asset, and the experiment failed. I fully understood why she wouldn’t want to try it again. But I pushed for a bike trip anyway, because it felt like something I really needed.

It also felt like one of the few things I wanted to plan into my future that gave me a sense of excitement about life. Ultimately I think it excited me more than the idea of staying in the relationship. And that says everything about the relationship, really. The choice for me was to leave Bag End and step onto the road alone, or shut the door and sit back down in front of the fire – no longer able to feel the warmth – and stare at the ring on the mantelpiece, and continue the battle of wills against it, until I either dispelled the curse it had laid on my household, or the effort of trying drove me completely insane.

There was no way I could take it with me and live. At best I might have marched in a little circle and ended up back in my living room, with no idea what happened.

“Yeah, that’s got to be it,” I thought. The comparison was strong but I made it quite casually, as though it didn’t really matter. “Now I’m here, and the road is going ever on. Bilbo never set foot in Bag End again. I wonder where I’ll be in a few months?”

I remounted the bike and coasted down a hill, then alongside a very pretty golf course for a while. It was nice, knowing that the only decision I needed to make about my future was where I would camp for the night.

I zig-zagged across Highway 1 and onto Highway 36. The bike path was set nicely apart from the road, and the hills had not yet grown steep. The air was fresh. It was very pleasant riding so I took my time.

After an hour or so I passed a large field, and got my first look at an Icelandic horse. It eyed my bicycle curiously and stepped a little closer. This was the first of what would surely be many roadside animal encounters.

I waved at the horse and then jabbered at it excitedly. “Hey horse! Hey! You sure are outstanding in your field! You’re the MANE ATTRACTION!! Har har. Hey, what’s up? Why the long face? Sorry I don’t have any snacks for you. Do I have any snacks? Naaaaayyyy! Hahahahahaaa, you don’t get that because your brain is too small! I bet you don’t even know what day it is! Guess what? I don’t either!” And so on, for way too long.

To amuse myself – and because there was no one else around who wasn’t sealed inside a car – I pulled out my little battery-powered speakers and snapped them onto my handlebars, then cued up a bunch of They Might Be Giants songs and belted out the lyrics to them as I rode. I had to pedal slowly to keep from losing my breath.

“THEY CAAAALLL MEEEE DOOOC TOOOORR … WOOOOOOORRRRRRRM!” I screamed at the horses in the next field.

Acting nuts on a bike; it’s what I do.

After a while the hills got steep and I couldn’t keep my breath up. Then it started to rain a little bit. The speakers weren’t waterproof so I packed them away again, and my karaoke session was over.

I climbed a few steep hills and passed a charming lake. The terrain was starting to get a bit Icelandic now. I passed a pair of hitchhikers and made what would become my standard hitchhiker joke for this trip: “Hello there! I would offer you a ride but you wouldn’t fit on the bike! Ha haaa! Good luck!”

Several hours and snacks later, I reached the top of the day’s climb, at the intersection of Highway 36 and Highway 48. Here I would turn north and sail down to my camping spot for the day. But first I paused to take a bunch of photos.

While I was poking around, a pair of bicycle tourists rolled up nearby and took out a map, and started a discussion over it. I snapped a few photos of them and then handed them one of my little business cards.

I opened a bag of chips and inhaled half of it, then stuffed the bag inside my coat so I could reach inside for more as I was riding. A huge wall of mist came gliding out over the hills to the east, stopping just short of the road, and spit fresh rain at me. I zipped the jacket up a little more.

The whole environment felt just like the Pacific Northwest. I remembered driving up the twisting Alaska-Canada highway and seeing the same misty landscape for hour after hour, before I reached the Yukon and the mountains began erupting out of the ground and crushing the hills into little stripes along the valleys and wearing the mist like party hats. Perhaps I would see some of that here in the higher elevations.

Thousands of miles away from the Yukon, but the latitude was dictating the same terms to the plants and weather. Geography is cool.

I plunged down Highway 48, sneaking chips out of my jacket as I rode. On a whim I started playing the soundtrack to The Black Cauldron on my headphones and it fit the landscape quite well. It was all downhill until the road forked and I turned left onto Highway 461, which turned out to have a couple of kilometers of gravel just after the fork. I slowed way down, and began to worry a little bit about checking in at the campsite. What would I do if the manager went home before I got there?

I was worried, but not too worried to stop and take some photos of this adorable family of geese in a lake by the road.

I got to the campsite and looked around for a manager. One of the other campers said I could check in at a restaurant a little farther down the road. I cycled down there – muttering to myself the whole time because I hate covering the same ground twice – and spoke to the manager of the restaurant. She reassured me that her son would be back at the campsite in an hour and I could check in after that. So I sat down and ordered a hamburger and fries, which I devoured so quickly I that I confused myself: Had I eaten them already, or had they not arrived yet?

I cycled back up the hill to the campsite slowly, burdened as I was with a very full stomach. The manager was friendly and gave me a quick tour, and I was pleased to discover the site had a couple of showers and a lounge where I could charge my gadgets. I haven’t really left civilization at all. Hah!

I set up camp next to some other cycle tourists, going for safety in numbers. They had a tandem bike which they kept upright next to the tent by running guylines over it and staking them down. The wind passed right through the frame instead of blowing it over. Pretty smart! I liked the security of my tarp though. Plus I could leave all of my bags on the bike, and they would stay dry and out of sight.

As I snuggled up inside the tent, bundled in my sleeping bag and poking at my phone, I felt surprised that this was only the second time I had actually deployed the thing in the wild. It worked well and seemed familiar already. That was a good sign.

Tomorrow would be another camping day, probably. Let’s see how it works with two days in a row.