Mas Folderol

Begin at the beginning

2009-01-13T17:31:00.003-05:00

Blogs tend to move chronologically. If you'd prefer to move in the direction of time, best begin here at Day Zero: Getting to Virginia on the Cheap.

If you're the sort who prefers pictures (aren't we all?), maybe this is will be more fun.

My Final Thoughts on The Trip

2008-09-28T03:05:00.004-04:00

This is a country that surprises you. Below, some surprises in reverse chronological order with some tangents on topics like America’s best glass of milk, places to avoid, food policy, scenic sights, and more!

California

She was last in my memory and the state I have the least new thoughts about. Warm, sunny, gold colored, optimistic, chock full of beautiful women, just chock full of beauty, responsible for much of the good thought that will keep the country from killing itself, a bit hilly for my taste, too brief. If I could live anywhere along my route, it would be there. I did leave a bit of my heart there along with my electrolyte pills, rice, wrench, two t-shirts, and a pair of worn socks.

Nevada

It has been brought to my attention that I was unduly harsh to Nevada. At the time, I was suffering from mechanical failure and long days and this might have pickled me some. Now that I have collected my emotion in the tranquility of my kitchen, I must concede that Nevada is probably pleasant by car, and even more so by airplane.

The state seems like an accidental libertarian utopia and, as such, perhaps the clearest living example of the failures of strict Republicanism. Because libertarianism is so stubbornly indefensible and effectively doubles the amount of people you can dislike, I can see how being a card-carryer is a wonderful thing for a comedian, an old man, or the particularly-set-in-their-ways. Those who are still growing — children, teens, the living and curious of all ages — require a little more from their communities and government and are not so naive to think that this is free. Schools are needed. Parks and places to socialize that are not gas stations or casinos floors are needed. Even churches are needed and that’s rare in this country.

There are some common stereotypes about Nevada that I wish to correct. Some think it is a dry place for easy marriage, easier divorce, legalized brothels, gambling, and mining. I wish to add that it is big and uneven. I do not believe Nevada is a case of the egg pulling the chicken, but it is possible to see how the gambling, mining, easy marriage, easy divorce, and sex industries might want to foster the kind of hopelessness that leads pruned men and women to pay for It out of their thin wallets. I happen to think that’s the wrong conclusion. This isn’t a conspiracy. The largest employers in that state just aren’t required to think about their employees outside of their oxygen saturated workplaces, and why would they be?

The change I hope for would require a tax hike — which we all hate — but let’s consider expensive New York for a moment. People pay a premium to live in The City for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is they stand to make a premium. We pay through our noses with the cost of everything and with the hours we spend at work. We give our money and time to landlords, restauranteurs, cinema chains, Trader Joes, the MTA, nightclubs, car services, and tremendously pretentious baristas on a recurring basis. We also give our government a bit, but they give it back slowly and in the nicest way, with trees, parks, bike lanes, free concerts, swimming pools, sponsoring artists, raising the level of education, keeping us safe, and approving fun things like marathons, waterfalls in our rivers, closing streets for bikes, ice skating rinks. We don’t get to keep too much of these things, but I think keeping is overrated when sharing is what we stand to gain.

In my dream Nevada, the government wouldn’t need to take anywhere near as much as Gracie and Albany. Heck, a 0.1% personal income tax or corporate income tax would be an incalculable raise of the current rate. Just plop a couple of trees in the ground, add a community center or two, a new school to combat overcrowding and we’re off. Keep everything that makes Nevada Nevada — I’m all about choice — but add something too. Perhaps, in time, some good thought will arise and what happens in Vegas will spread elsewhere.

-------

Well what of poetry and the lonely desert. The idea of tracing a sparse and lonely line across the state and the broad thoughts that would crop up when freed of all distraction was terribly appealing to me. Consider this a recantation. Firstly, thinking about thinking and how you could think better in different (worse!) circumstances is a waste of thought. You couldda thunk your next meal in that time. Secondly, and much more to the point, this idea and its romance will only keep you going for five miles. I survived the rest of the State because I had come so far and it was in my way. My mind was all warm anger. I did not come up with anything too profound. If anything, the tinny rattling of my bike, the blow out, the mid-level loneliness, and the repetitive scenery left me at my least charitable and pleasant. The broad spaces made me narrow-minded.

But here’s a gambler’s hope. You can grow things in the desert. Salt Lake CIty is a great testament to that. Say what you will about Mormon faith and history, anything that can bloom without water is durable in the least. The Mormons seem so fulfilled and happy I would be inclined to believe that frowning was a mortal sin in their Book. Nevada can bloom too. Pete and Barbara were stunning examples of transplants intent on building community and leading by example. They were frustrated (and they were expert travelers) but I know they were too good to leave it unchanged and move on.

I remember this: while Pete talked to me, Barbara quietly packed away his mayoral campaign signs. He said he wanted to go to some place that wasn’t so opposed to change. The timing might be off, but I believe his ideas —liberalism and neighborliness — will survive because there is real virtue in them and because Pete looked like he was spry and the old cowboy man can only block the doorway for so long.

Utah

I believe Brigham Young was a very polite man. You'd have to be to survive a hundred wives. He also cared about his own. If you and your friends were being chased by thousands of wives, and billions of children across a salt desert, it would be good form to lie and move the Pacific Ocean a little closer.

Utah is probably not the most hospitable site to bed down in, especially in the summer, but I found it the most beautiful and surprising state. The bicycle does not move fast enough to beat the standardizations that a mindless Farm Bill and the appeal of franchising can bring upon a landscape; in Utah, however, canyons can shift in color and shape at a great rate. One minute your world is red and sharply vertical, the next it is wide and medium grey. It’s lovely.

Everyone is curious about the Mormon church, and I’ll include myself. I made my thoughts relatively clear on Day 40, but I have seen things and read two documents that have added nuance to them. The morning after my writing, I stumbled across a particularly orthodox string of Mormons in a WallMart. They were buying milk as if stocking up for the Flood with a sick cow. As with all orthodoxies that have proclaimed the arrival of a new messiah and/or The End only to be disappointingly left alive, they marked this sadness by refusing to update their wardrobe. Fine. Western wear in the forties is much more comfortable than the gabardines popular in Ukraine in the 18th century. What bothers me is they have refused to update their ideas on race, women, the purpose of a child (answer: none), and, occasionally, how many mommies make up a family. Polygamy is actually not that interesting and, I think, a punishment in and of itself. The twelve-year-old bride to be, however, is a reprehensible idea and the freedom of the child is certainly greater than that of religion, tangible (too tangible) that she is.

Now, condemning Mormonism based on a few outliers is something for the stupid and bigoted. The main strain is somewhat modern, quick to ‘revelations’ correcting its worst ideas, and not too different from other forms of Christianity in practice (dogma is different, but dogma shouldn’t be interesting because the average person isn’t interested in it). I’m inclined to agree with Mark Twain that the elders were unreasonable, anti-American (how could they be pro?), and fully responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which nobody remembers in any case. I am also inclined to agree with myself that the Mormons I met were really, really nice people who were lucky enough to find a purpose in life and slighlty-annoyingly eager to share it. And I am inclined to agree with both Twain and myself that, upon reading, the Book of Mormon is unreadable and, surviving that, the least believable religious text I have ever read. So what.

Religion

How does one judge a religion and should one judge a religion? (I worry that I will repeat myself here). I don’t believe in faith for faith’s sake or, better put, faith in faith. I do think it says something about a person that he or she could believe something unbelievable, but I find it all unbelievable. For me, it only varies in degrees.

And yet, for me, I am completely uninterested in my lack of belief when thinking about religion at large. That I am on the outside does not make me hostile to it — curious actually. I am most interested in what belief gives to others, or what I cannot see. In the one example of the LDS, I saw people getting together in the middle of the week and chatting about how best to meet targets on how many people they’ve saved. I think there’s something a bit unromantic there, but I can think of a thousand lesser things for a person to do in his limited time and I’ve done them all.

I like almost everything about religion, especially the food and the singing. About the only thing I didn’t like on the trip was biblical literalism; I hate, hate biblical literalism and I urge you to avoid it. The Mormons are blessed here because their book is so ridiculous I think they throw away the bad parts and keep the new. I think. I remember a man in Utah trying to impress me by reciting a verse from the Book of Mormon and unknowingly butchering it to make Joseph Smith’s words read better. Now, the Baptists and evangelicals I met — any church that chose to mark itself with that flag of hellfire and a cross — really took things too literally. The teenager who had just converted to Islam (and was still excited by belief) really, really took things too literally. People who read the Bible and believe in its every word are either going to be disappointed with its contradictions or, more likely, they are going to pick and choose which parts to take more truthfully — or have someone pick for them.

Being thoughtlessly religious does scare me because, even in the Protestant tradition, the blind believer will be led around by those who want to lead, and those who want to lead are often unpleasant. How do you get someone’s attention? Can you scare someone into listening? How do you drive traffic? How do you keep yourself between God and the believer? Can you simplify America into primary colors, coasts, quick thoughts on complex issues (abortion, marriage)? How do you keep power? The answers aren’t great here.

Do be concerned about these things because even the lovely, kind, and generous preachers I met — and every one was lovely, kind, and generous — were quick to bring Jesus to their defense when talking about social change. You can’t argue around Jesus. He’s omnipotent and it’s really rude. Heaven and earth are best kept separate unless each cheapens the other.

The Atheist

Phil was a nice man who often asserted his atheism because it set him apart from people (not so bad in parts of the country, but I might note that spandex also does the trick). It also made him seem pretty smart. He did this with me and he did this at the church he stayed at the day before we met. An imagined dialogue:

“You’ve got a lovely house. I like what you’ve done with your refrigerator. I should mention that I’m a vegetarian and an atheist, so I’ll have none of your meat and none of your God. Actually — could you pass the ranch dressing, cool cucumber — I’m probably the first atheist you’ve ever met, we’re a tremendously new sort of educated type, and I’d love to convince you how shambolic your life is and how vile the mechanism which put food on my plate here really is, but that’s going to have to wait as I’m shitting on your carpet now.”

I didn’t see too much comfort in his absolute belief in non-belief. I guess it all depends on where you think the burden of proof lies. Ok. A lot of religious people refuse to see the other side of things and so I guess Phil and they are even. If you really want to be an enlightened man of reason and inquiry, you’d do well not to jump onto something you can only reasonably be 50 percent on. Additionally, and this is just a matter of good argument, I wouldn’t underestimate your opponent’s intelligence as they have just as many books and sources to cite from that you’ll never get to reading.

How about this: you both think about the Hereafter and the invisible (a lot), you’ve come to completely opposite conclusions, but neither of you can say with the kind of surety you’d bet your child on that there is or is not a God. I think the smart man keeps both ideas in his mind but goes with the warmer world. At the very least, he can believe this one thing:

You will never convince someone to change a fundamental belief over a two-course meal.

Colorado

What a lovely place. The perfect midway point, a true peak, with readily available beauty, healthy food, kindnesses, places to stay, and enough diversity to go from rodeo country to a new kind of American city (Pueblo) to small mountain towns to dry canyons without boring of the spaces between. I remember having drivers slow down to cheer me on, honking to give me the thumbs up, waving me up and up the salmon colored rock of Monarch Pass. It was a good water year and everything was green. I slept in a teepee. I remember being rained and hailed upon, but I have forgotten how cold it was.

Water

It’s probably best to think of this slippery stuff here because Colorado was the only place I was forbidden to fill up in a gas station toilet on account of all the water drying up.

Water was tremendously important to me on the trip. I would do anything for it. If you wish to understand your body better, spend one day outside in an arid basin and you will quickly see just how it cools you and how much water you need to pump into it to keep things working. If you want to remind yourself of the simplest pleasures in life in light of larger crises, stick yourself under a shower-head for a minute. Many times, I felt like crying under a hard earned shower; I might have let slip once. I have tasted water from a variety of rotting (lead? mercury lined?) pipes, drank straight from the surface of a lake, and know where the country’s best water is — Utah, cold spring water from a surprising forest. I paid for water once in the entire trip and I just wanted the bottle. I expect to remember this most as I age because I can’t imagine the age of free water will be a permanent one.

In Ordway, Colorado, we spent a night in all that was left behind by a fire. The plain was at the end of a 10-year drought when some cretin decided to burn his trash away with a liter of gasoline. Not much survived, although, sadly, he did. The area used to be a lot less dry but the fast growing city of Aurora bought the water rights above it and has slowly turned off the tap to feed its swelling suburbs.

The town (motel really) of Baker, Nevada was engaged in a fight with Nevada’s government over its plans to redirect their puny amount of water to Las Vegas. I don’t really know the specifics of their fight, or much about water rights really. Here is my loose understanding: states that share a river decide amongst each other just who can remove x percent of water from it to drink, water crops, run water parks, etc. Within those states, counties and cities agree to smaller contracts for smaller amounts of water. These can be bought and sold. If you sign a contract it is legally binding and you, citizens of y town, are stuck living out its clauses. That’s not as fair as free water for all, but it is the prevailing system this country has been used for a good amount of time. Who is ignored in this system? The animals, the small farmer, the late comers: its greatest shortcoming is that it is geared towards those who are most able to buy water, not those most in need. I am sure there are better places to read about this and that we will all become experts in good time.

What I can speak to is how Americans use water. We water our lawns at noon in the summer so that it’ll turn to gas before it hits the dirt. We can’t pronounce the word xeriscaping. We wash our trucks constantly when people in some cities have to resort to spray on mud to give their SUVs authenticity. We shower olympic. We — fine, I — am completely unaware of the amount of water it takes to grow a hamburger. We pay money for tap water in bottles when we decide groceries are too expensive. We don’t know where it comes from. We don’t know where it goes to when it’s grey and used. We don’t have a great relationship with it.

I do have some questions. Why is Tuscon? Why is Phoenix? Why is Los Angeles? What is the purpose of living in a place incapable of providing the thing we need the most to live? Surely there is a more compelling answer than simply being a hub on a wagon trail that ended up with a low tax rate and some very canny real estate agents.

Kansas

I loved reporting on Kansas because I didn’t feel I was letting anyone down. It is flat. People are salt of the earth. It was awfully windy. And some combination of these three will probably always be the true of the place. I do remember some rolling hills or moments without wind, and I am willing to listen to someone say there are mean people from the plains (I won’t believe him), but those are tremendous exceptions.

The buildings in Kansas fascinated me. They were made from stone and quite permanent. Like the rings of a tree, the architecture in towns like Larned show you how it aged and what it was fed all those years ago: the well-off general’s stately manor, now an inn; his less well-off friends’ homes, all with space between them; the upstart homes built in the cracks of what were once the lawns of those friends; the rare home built in the Depression, smaller; the house the GI bill provided; the house the veteran bought for his favorite daughter; the trailer she may have moved into; the trailer she may have avoided.

I want to speak to the generosity of the towns. I’ve tried to thank individuals for housing me when possible, but in Kansas I was housed by entire towns. A gazebo might seem inferior to a living room, but a roof is a roof and all that I needed. I was invited to a fourteen year old’s birthday, something of a celebrity at the pool, given food, water, and a Diet Dr. Pepper along the way, and just generally treated as one might be in heaven. I fully understand why Dorothy kept going on and on about not being at home, because even the Emerald City lacks luster next to serious friendliness.

The population was aged in Kansas. I blame Butz. “Get Big or Get Out” actually got a lot of people out. We now have a system where we grow one crop (or face bankruptcy, or having to learn something new) and all the tough labor is done by machine and by a traveling crew. Nixon and Ford’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was a mean piece of work, an utterly myopic racist and complete tit who changed the world’s diet to stave off political defeat. In his dotage, he was found guilty of tax evasion which, when you think about it, is a particularly stupid thing for a politician to be guilty of — after all, he was basically paying himself.

Food

When in the breadbasket, talk about bread.

After people, food was my great joy. Occasionally, I combined the two at meals (does that read like I ate people? best clarify). Nothing could lift my spirits so easily. I needed it like gasoline, but gasoline that went down smooth and comforting.

A Quick List of My Favorite Foods

Fresh strawberries near Napa. My 10lb burrito and champagne in San Francisco. Pastor John’s biscuits and homemade preserves. Everything on the menu at Cooky’s cafe in Golden City, Missouri, especially their blueberry pie. Kitao’s ramen on the train ride home. The doublebaconcheeseburger in Middlegate, Nevada, population 17. In-N-Out’s vanilla milkshake. Buford’s Dairy Bar in Buckhorn, Kentucky. Barbara’s quinoa and cheese stuffed bell pepper in Carson City. BBQ pork and baked pasta at Fat Alley in Telluride. Chocolate milk at any drug store. Chocwalla Odwalla bars and the Double Chocolate Cliff Bar. Strong drip coffee with half-and-half at the small commune and organic farm west of Hanksville, Utah. Sonic’s breakfast burrito with bacon. The nitrate free salami I got from Trader Joes and stretched as long as it would last. The sourdough bagels of Kansas.

Back to Food

If any part of this blog has made you want to travel but you are a very busy bee, condescend to buying yourself a Happy Meal. That's Kansas in your Coke. A little bit of Kentucky in your margarine. A dash of salt from the thumb of Michigan to enhance flavor. And a slim hunk of Colorado right between your patties. The toy is from China. I know McDonalds makes a concerted effort to have everything taste the same, but I promise you can spot things if you squint.

I am not a big Grace sayer at the dinner table. I think I made the mistake of assuming that thanks saying was religious. One needn't thank the baby Jesus; it is enough to be impressed with the wealth of food we have before us, fit for a king just twenty years ago, and to pause and thank a whole variety of invisible forces -- the creator, market economics, the farmer -- before settling down to thank yourself, the demanding consumer, with a nice meal and a glass of cold milk.

Not all the invisible forces are good and not all our food is good. If you asked a European on a bad day to draw a picture of a Yank, he might end up asking for an extra sheet of A4 so fat we loom in the mind of the onlooker. Sadly, he'd be right some of the time.

I saw a lot of fatties. I saw more skinnies. (Skinnies get very little press). In large part (hey!), this is simply an aesthetic issue. It is just as easy to be trim and brimming with evil cholesterol as it is to be larger and healthier. And yet, in larger part, science is against the big.

I don't think this can be explained away with three causes, but that won't stop me from trying.

[NOTE: SKIP THIS SECTION FOR ACTION. HEREIN LIE DEEP THOUGHTS AND ABSTRACTS]

Food and the Country’s Health

1. We don't eat anywhere near enough fresh food. Many people I met do their big grocery shop at gas stations where most of the food is built to withstand a nuclear holocaust. You don't want that in your colon.

Solution: Mine is a two-pronged attack from WallMart and the Co-Op. Both cases require us to relearn how to cook, but that should be a joy (we want the purposeful life, right). They also require us to sacrifice the idea that we can have strawberries in winter, not out of any hippie nonsense about living with nature's cycles, but out of an understanding that the winter strawberry has to be adulterated into living longer and that that hurts us in the pocketbook and heart (mine overlap greatly).

The small co-op should bring the farmer into town and onto the shelf without refining his product, trying to preserve it, or adding any unnecessary cost because the Co-Op is also the consumer and let's not fuck ourselves just yet. WallMart should use their superior size and logistics software to map out just how many almonds they sell a day, give that metrical information back to their sellers, who can respond in turn by forgoing the added debit of preservatives and pesticides for the gained credit of selling their product as organic.

2. We do eat some strange things. Before the trip, were I about to be executed and given free reign on my last meal, I would have chosen the hamburger. There is no more complete food. After a couple of states, the relentless onslaught of Sysco patty, fructose-bread, and 'special sauce' (spoler alert: it's ketchup and mayo) left me feeling pretty awful. I wouldn't settle for a restaurant that only served spinach, say, and yet it was flat and round beef all the way across the country. I once had to order a 'cheeseburger, hold the beef' to get a grilled cheese! It broke a proud man.

I don't quite understand the horrible force that took the largest mixture of people and foods in history and boiled that down into a national cuisine that can honestly be described as the dollar menu with some regional exceptions, but that is what we have done to ourselves.

I remember reading the recipe book at the Lutheran church outside Walnut, Kansas. It was wonderful. It was a diverse mix of Swedish, German, and Norwegian cooking, a hundred pages thick, well used but less so recently. Almost everything called for Crisco or Jell-O, but the bones of good cooking were there and alive. These were meals and they required forks. There were recipes for a hundred people, double all measurements for two. That seems sensible.

3. We have a funny business of food.

Initially I had a lot of ideas about this, but I am in the park and watching a man and woman make out. The man is bald and the woman keeps running her hand over the top of his head as if checking for possible growth (or lice). They'll be here for a while so, agribusiness.

Wow. It really, really looks like he's kissing her nose. Stop!

The American food business is not evil. They aren't willingly poisoning the world. They have no will. They are (sort of) trying to feed the world and (definitely) get paid for it. All they have to do is convince the farmer and the bulk food purchaser that they can do a better job than nature and keep things cheap. To do this, they have to convince themselves that they are helping and here we enter a strange area in scientific testing wherein one can find whatever one wants to if he interprets the data willy-nilly.

There are many different kinds of food business. The farmer -- almost always now a massive affair, not the kind of individual John Mellencamp cries for in his sleep -- has got to make nature predictable. Luckily, he has numerous Farm Bills on his side that basically reduce the kinds of crops he needs to focus on to corn, soy, wheat, and a couple of others.

The farmer will spend a lot of time on his laptop now. There are tickers in small towns with a steady trickle of commodities prices. A farmer will commit to deliver a large amount of distorted corn at a distorted and subsidized price. Lucky him. To have his corn grow predictably, the farmer could resort to buying his seeds from a company like Monsanto (the new big baddy) or, if he is wise enough to read data, he would discover that harvesting his own seeds is more profitable (and often more bountiful) than getting stuck in a subscription model. When corn harvest is upon him, he'll hire a travelling crew of combine harvesters to do the heavy work and keep his overhead low. He plants soy where the corn was and rotates everything annually.

This is all hard work, but it keeps his wife in a new SUV every other year and gets her front row seats at Wicked when she visits New York with her galpals.

Monsanto and other companies like it are in the business of improving upon nature. This is a tough job and they make little friends amongst college students and Europeans. Their most appealing product is a genetically modified seed that grows a plant that can survive all the poisons of their market leading pesticide, RoundUp. They also make a hormone that keeps cows lactating at a fast rate. I didn't meet too many farmers with kind words for them: the dairy farmer knows that the hormone kills the cow and makes mucusy, inferior milk (the FDA would disagree); the soy farmer harvests his own seeds and is concerned that, if the wind takes his neighbor's GM seeds, he'll be found liable of copyright infringement.

(God must be cringing here at the lost opportunity. "Think of the revenue lost," He says, "what I could have done to heaven -- a plasma here, a second garage...")

Obviously, the people I met are in the minority. Monsanto is doing very well. All the more reason for people to dislike them (I wouldn’t go that far; I just think they’re crass). They have caused numerous public health crises and aren't terribly contrite. Think about how unsatisfactory "I was just doing my job" sounds to the mother of an entire family of cancer patients. Settlement money is meaningless. Companies can be rebranded or change their focus, fine, but we should not forget how unaccountable they believe they are.

Well, two things to mention before we get too angry. One is that we need to remember that the US makes food for the whole world and that the starving aren’t too fussy about how organic their pap is. And two is that, in the good old days before gene-splicing, we modified the genetics of our harvests with selective breeding. If you want to eat a plant that has remained unmolested, I recommend the Amazon.

Niceties out of the way, I’ll harp on the seed manufacturer because I believe they are the weak link what could be a devastating chain.

A Tangent: The Coming Cropocalypse and the Plot for the Next Twelve Tom Clancy Novels

The United States is the Saudi Arabia of food. It is our most essential business. We could lose our financial industry to London, our films to Toronto, our eccentrics to Alaska: the food is in our land.

The Farm Bill severly limits the diversity of crops we can grow for a profit. You could try to grow sugar, but nobody's going to buy it for their sodas if corn syrup is kept cheaper. GMO seed producers further limit the diversity of those crops to one, one individual stalk of corn, made in a lab, sewn into infinity, that we can call Chet. GMO producers aren't entirely to blame. Companies like Archer Daniels Midland do a great job of lobbying Congress with bundled contributions in the hopes of keeping their massive grain refining and processing businesses up. And We, happily, keep buying corn.

Now we have entire states of Chets. People outside the country rely upon Chets because it doesn't make economic sense for them to learn how to grow their own corn and we exert economic pressure on them to remain hungry and ignorant. These are the people go starve when we decide to use corn to power our tanks. We make corn tanks against all economic sense because politicians have to be elected, because farmers are overrepresented in government (important to our national character that they are), and because no politician has stood up to them since the Civil War.

This is what we should be concerned with above all because it affects our security, health, and wallets. What happens when a bug takes to Chet and he dies? What happens when that well-fed bug kills all our Chets with ease because they are all weak in the same spot? What happens when countries that have purchased our Chets come to collect? Then, in my wonderful hypothetical future, regardless of whether you eat Chet or not, you will find the cost of your dinner skyrocket. You might even find the cost of You skyrocket for your employer who can only afford to buy small sheets of pink paper. At that moment, how unsatisfactory would "I was just doing my job" sound?

Nobody’s being wicked here, just short-sighted. Traditional farmers measured the health of their crops and soil in centuries. Modern farmers are measured with each harvest. The hardworking businessman gets his bonus annually. If the poor guy has the choice between pushing an idea that will yield a quick gain at the expense of the unimaginable future or one that will take time to develop, he knows which choice will keep him jet skiing. The politician could be honest about ethanol and the farm bill, but he isn’t measured in total votes and he can’t get anywhere if he doesn’t win the farm states. This last one is a shame, because if our politician stopped to measure the cost of massaging the unhealthily obese, diabetic, hypertense, and artery clogged as a result of the food we eat, he might stand a chance of balancing the budget.

Reward

How do we reward ourselves in the country? The recent economic crises is, in part, a direct result of a deal culture that is rewarded with an annual bonus and the expense of the health of the system. The over-stretched farmer is rewarded annually at the expense of the health of his land. The Hungryman is rewarded with burritos at the expense of his belly and health. What are better rewards?

[Ok. Come back now.]

Missouri

Missouri smells great. It’s all nice red trees. I took a tremendous nap on the day that I crossed the Ozarks. I ended up meeting Connor and having the fun of riding with another person. It was nowhere near as steep as everyone made it out to be. I lumbered across it, the slim gateway between dense green woods and Kansas’ fields of grass. I can’t really remember much.

Forgetting

The whole point of documentary is to stave off forgetting and, I think, to brighten the spots that fade quickly. It's not journalism, nor is it history. It's different and special. It's a machine to remember the daily, the small moments, and the thoughts and emotions that slip through the facts. It keeps life on paper or screen.

I can't pretend I did a great job documenting the trip. There's far too much Me in it for starters. There were not enough stories, odd scraps of paper (I wish I had a scanner), facts, history, photographs to accompany text (why not), cartoons that I had drawn. Consistency was an issue, as was length, but here I would blame America and the odd trickle of stuff She threw at me. Yes, yes, yes I made mistakes, but I think B+ for a kind of improvement.

I think I found more interesting things more interesting. A series of events drove me from thinking about the geology and mileage and into people, modern American, and some of the things mentioned here. I obviously have some opinions about abstracts like religion and food policy, but people, people, people are what kept me interested and going West. It is how I rediscovered the world even when it seemed like corn ad infinitum.

I hope I did a good job of freezing some nice moments. My photos of Telluride all have corresponding sound files of the Bridal Falls as I got closer and closer. I used writing to fill in conversations and emotions, although you probably missed the most electric conversations as I was too busy participating.

Note this moment as there won't be any like it: a bike messenger to the left of me is contemplating leaving New York for Europe. The people running his trust got wise to the fact that he was using it all on drugs. The man he's talking to is Turkish and has a world band radio. We are listening to Turkey now. In front of me are three people singing America The Beautiful as they dance in an Indonesian style. One of them has kept everything in his life green -- green clothes, green bike, green stereo. The three Ukrainian septegenarians next to me are talking. The woman has small feet, a head scarf, a mousy voice. It is 68 degrees in the shade. A holy oak of the Hare Krishnas is 5 feet away. In the distance the sound, always, of construction and sirens. A child floats by on a scooter.

Remembering Missouri

I remember now. I remember the Horse Creek Inn. One owner was a Native American horse whisperer and restauranteur; the other, his wife, was from Philadelphia. They flew Amarosa rolls in and yellow cheese to recreate a Philadelphia cheese steak in Missouri. I loved that. My pasta dish, less so.

Illinois

I was only in Illinois for two nights. One was spent in a men's room after the storm of my life flooded everything. The other was spent in Chester.

Chester is the home of Popeye. It was also just brimming with nice people. It's on the top of a hill with a lovely view of the Mississippi, modest friendly homes, and a tremendous park and swimming pool. Twain skims over it in Life on the Mississippi and I can't blame him. It's tough to be witty about a place so pleasant.

I hate Popeye. I got excited about him because it seemed like a neat bit of American kitsch, concrete statues and whatnot. No! I’ve got to remember what a destructive force he was on the whole rhythm of Saturday morning cartoons.

Saturday morning cartoons built like symphonies. They’d always start slow with something simple and educational for the very young. These washed over you. Then over the course of the next four and half hours it built in a tottering crescendo up to the Thudercats, then The Hulk, Voltron, then this neat French anime, and then the X-Men. And somewhere, right in the middle of this trance-inducing build, Popeye and his tawdry little show cropped up, destroying any rhythm and really testing the patience of a child who’d already spent too much time indoors.

Still, Chester was lovely.

Kentucky

A timezone splits Kentucky apart. A lot splits Kentucky apart. Everything west of Berea is rolling, broad-skied, light green and friendly; everything east is coal, thick green, humid grease, smoky, and so jungly you can’t see the sky. I liked both versions, although biking in the west was much easier.

The Hindman Historical Society was lovely. It was my first bit of comfort since leaving New York (actually, leaving was kinda stressful). People should always greet you with a beverage. It’s great manners.

I also really enjoyed talking with David. He’d gone to great lengths to trace his roots backwards to the beginning of time as he saw it, on the Mayflower (best keep mum on the Arabella). Imagining how his roots would spread forwards was something we avoided. We talked about how discovering coal in his backyard has caused irreparable harm to his part of the world. And he talked about parity and the need for a second Carnegie Hall, deep in Appalachia, where he could stage reviews. I can’t imagine Yitzak Perelman killing down there, but I’m always wrong about these things.

People often talk about the adverse affects of colonialism, the gift of roads in exchange for natural resources. It might be useful to apply that same rubric here.

Milk

I put down Gatorade and picked up milk here in the sheepfields of Kentucky.

I keep on about milk because it comforts me to think that we were onto something thousands of years ago and that Gatorade, colorful that it is, is a misguided blip in the long history of sports nutrition.

Hercules kept his energy levels up throughout the day with a strenuous diet of milk, honey, boar, and the occasional glass of ambrosia. Ambrosia sounds a bit sweet for my liking, but it is a relief to find you share something in common with a great man. Other greats: Aristotle, Boethius, Shakespeare (a complete milk lush), Washington, Hamilton (when dreaming fiscal policy), Jefferson (often), Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, 92 Nobel Prize winners, and Groucho Marx. Samuel Johnson had this to say: “A cow is of bovine ilk, one end moo, the other milk.”

Notably abstemious: Nero, the chief architects of the Spanish Inquisition, Andrew Johnson (bastard), Lenin, Stalin, the guy who butchered The Magnificent Ambersons, Moby.

Remembering and Understanding

Part of my motive for my travel was to understand the hardships that faced my family as they Go-ed Westward to seek their fortunes. I think I missed their exact route and went a bit further than they did. I also made it farther than I did on the Oregon Trail 2, but that is neither here nor there.

I do have a greater sense of how the country unfolds. I can point to the exact spot where the timber fields of Missouri stopped and lowered into the plains. I have photographic proof of the spot where the canyons in Utah open up. I have a less-vague understanding of the challenges involved in crossing a mountain pass. I am still in awe at the strength it took to cross the Atlantic and keep on going. I know what it’s like to fundamentally want to stop.

Virginia

I started here because the country started here. The maps began with Yorktown because that’s where Cornwallis signed the surrender and that’s as fine a case you could make the for the start of the country as any on the Atlantic. The first twenty miles or so were on gold brick and I liked to imagine all the people who passed me in the other direction and the great victory marches they’d have leading up to the sea.

On my first day, I encountered an elder gentleman who biked me over to Jamestown. He was the first person to ride with me and was a little bit incredulous about the whole thing. To be fair, I didn’t really have many answers for him. Still, I liked the way he wished me good luck with an even mixture of doubt and certainty, in my story and in my complete failure. If I knew then what I know now I would tell him this: It’s not that hard. Patience can be learned, the body can go numb, people help you out, like yourself, and it’s getting increasingly hard to off yourself in modern America.

Getting Hit By Cars

Not once on the road. I was, however, plowed over by a taxi here in New York on my second day back. No real harm came of my person, or of my Rocinante, and I managed to take down his side-view mirror as collateral. I’m glad to have gotten that out of the way.

Favorite towns

Some stick out, but of course this is severely biased in favor of states that had towns. San Francisco. Telluride. Salida. Chester. Berea. Lexington. Charlottesville.

Favorite Spots

The Golden Gate Bridge. Napa. The American River. Bryce. Hite at night. Lizard Head Pass. Bridal Veil Falls. The Flint Hills. On Top of the Blue Mountains, looking down at the Shemnandoah Valley.

Prettiest moment

A tie. Sunrise out of Hite. Napa in the Late Afternoon.

Small towns

Small town life is pretty important to America’s national identity. I just wasted my Friday night watching the debate (if you’re undecided by now, how?) and was struck by the repeated trope of ‘Main Street’ versus ‘Wall Street’ despite neither candidate spending too much time on either. Clearly, it’s important.

I loved the small towns I went through. They’re fading. A few had second winds as antiques meccas, some would have one popular store or restaurant, but for the most part they were hollowed out and emptied. Meth took over some in Kentucky and Missouri (three pharmacies in one town is a good sign of something seriously wrong), but the cause for the decay was rarely that dramatic. We just don’t live that way anymore.

I can understand Sarah Palin’s popularity as a figment of a candidate. She makes a good show of all small town life should signify. It warms my heart to know that some towns band together to watch their home team, even as it bothers me to know that somewhere, someone is shooting at moose from a helicopter. (I could stress here the difference between a pageant/popularity contest and electing a leader, but I won’t). I just got done watching Disney’s Lady and the Tramp and it made me feel great, in spite of its odd subtext, because I identified and wanted to be a lapdog in a lovely tree-lined town. If you pluck a WWII film from the video library shelf you’ll probably find a monologue buried in there about how lovely Springfield is and how all they wanna do is get back there when this mess is done. We dream it.

Let’s discuss early Chevy Chase. I promise I won’t go off and tell you how he is one of America’s greatest comedic talents (he is, or he was), but he did make some great films in the late 80’s and early 90’s that are often overlooked. One of them is Funny Farm. Ok, fuck it: when he was functioning, he had the ability to insult you to your face and have everyone in the room pick up on it except you and that was pretty special at a time when Dorf was popular.

In Funny Farm, a city slicker heads to the country to write in the silence and serenity of small town life. These people have values, they are colorful and charming, and they conspire to drive Chevy nuts because he’s an outsider and mildly-irritating in that way only Chevy Chase can be. It’s a pretty good movie. In the end, the whole town bands together to create a Norman Rockwell-esque pastiche of good life so that the Chases can sell off their house and move back to the city; predictably, they learn an important lesson in the process, stay, and Mrs. Chase makes an honest living writing about mice named Mousey like E.B. White before her.

In 90% of the small towns I passed through, you wouldn’t have enough extras to make your farce come alive. In the real version, the paper boy would be played by an 80 year old man, the school teacher convincing at 70, her pupils less so at 60. They’re aging, they’re far from the new centers of population (the mid-sized city), and they have no need for people so they can’t draw people. Most jobs are done by machine. You could move there as a writer, blogger, internet professional, or someone not bound to a specific speck of the globe, but you’d have to bring your wife, espresso machine, and forget things like 24 hour pizza, sushi, or locking your door. Everything would be more expensive, but I don’t think much is lost in transition. I hate sushi. It’s just a way to feel superior about eating something of questionable edibility in the face of those who don’t get it (morons!). Pizza, there is a real sacrifice.

It all seems a little hard. I don’t think I could do it. I don’t place a premium on space. I’m content to live cramped in New York and pretend to know my neighbors. I like seeing a hundred people a day even if, in my small town alternate universe, the ten I’d see would all stop and talk with me. Certainly, New Yorkers often pretend to be unfriendlier than they are in the hopes of seeming sophisticated and urbane; small towners wouldn’t dream of messing around with something as great as that and that’s probably why John Mellencamp has such a hardon for these people. It’s our dream of how people should live with one another. It is how people should live with one another, and there is no reason why we can’t bring that to wherever we happen to be.

Final Thoughts

This was a gift. Very few people get to do what I did. I was blessed with time and not much going on elsewhere. I hope writing about it was one way of expressing my gratitude and the best way I could think of sharing the trip with you.

A lot of people do this, but that didn’t cheapen it for me. Flaubert and a friend travelled Egypt in the late 1800s. Flaub, as he was undoubtably never know, paid a local Egyptian a small amount of money to run up to the top of a pyramid with a business card bearing his name. When his friend made it to the top of the old spikey thing, he found the card as Flaub hoped. The friend left Egypt that very day in anger and disappointment. The moral is: avoid writers as they have terrible senses of humor.

If anything, it was those people who insist on doing something ‘new’ that come across a little poorly. If you ride across America backwards, which someone did, you will miss much of it. If you do it on a zany contraption your trip will be, in large part, about your zany contraption. I say, keep it accessible, know full well that it’s about intangibles like friendliness and the perfect glass of milk, and people will at least find something to latch onto.

I hope I latched some of you. Writing to You was what made my trip different and gave it value. It was a million trees falling in a million forests and, bless modern telecommunications, we were all there to hear them crash. I was also convinced that some of you would notify the police should I stop writing for some time.

Thank you.

How to Do Big Things

2008-09-25T04:41:00.003-04:00

This is the most important lesson I learned and the one I forgot first. Well, here’s to remembering.

You will fall off. I fell off the bike twice on the trip. I never fell off at high speeds or when I was alone and high flying. I reserved my crashes for blundered starts at intersections with small audiences. Now, of course I’m being metaphorical here. The trip itself was metaphorical. There is no point in riding across country if the struggle and achievement can’t apply to other aspects of life (slow biking not being the most lucrative profession).

I fell off when I finished. I returned tired from wretched veggie burgers on the train, tired from the train itself, from sitting, from the awkward celebrations upon arrival, from repeating my story over and in brief until I came to hate it, from having to paint over the penises (penii?) that I am quite certain were not drawn on my bedroom walls before I left for Virginia, thank you chums. I was tired and I wanted to rest and I did just that until I lost all the dizzying traces of forward motion and my bones only remembered resting. I wrote my last thoughts on the trip but put them aside until I forgot about them. I forgot about the whole thing.

You get back on. This is obvious and yet there is a logistical paradox to work out. Getting on is much easier to do when you are halfway across a desert — it’s basically necessary. It is harder to get up when you are wrapped snug in the comforts of Home and the City — of sleep or reading the newspaper or good TV or just about anything you can trick yourself into believing is enriching or healthy or helping you move forward. The brain and body fidget when they are fallen and looking for excuses and they don’t look too far.

So you start. You must start to finish. To start and to restart and to start again when you stop and to stop only for sleep and only where restarting is easiest is to get closer to finishing. You need to move forwards every day and you need to go far enough away from home that retreating isn’t much of an option or at least a terrible inconvenience.

Start at the beginning. Do the middle next. Hit the end at the end. This helps with continuity and with (a false) understanding that there is no turning back. If a blank page is what you fear, begin with “It was a dark and stormy night” and leave a note to go back later and destroy the first couple of pages.

Don’t stop. Don’t stop in the middle of a hill, yes, but also don’t stop when you reach the Pacific. An oeuvre is bigger than a novel, isn’t it? Work on the next one when you’re done as chances are America is not ready for your script about killer hummingbirds.

Figure it out along the way. You have, you always will. If your big thing is a book that doesn’t have to be written out in longhand, you can go back and edit out all your earliest naivetys. If it’s raising a child, there make the second one better.

It is my experience that most hardships were really the result of poor planning and honest, personal stupidity. Bearing this — and knowing who is to blame — one can move forwards with confidence.

You remind yourself that you are particularly brilliant and that letting yourself down would be a loss to mankind and yourself as an exemplary member of the species. If you have to lie to yourself here, do so convincingly. I don’t.

You can’t worry about sleep. You can’t worry about where you’re going to sleep. If the thing isn’t five minutes down the road and nuclear, then there is no point in getting chuffed about it. You know you can solve any problem or dial-a-friend because you’re swell.

You finish. This is extremely important. I could easily have taken the ferry to Vallejo and floated into San Francisco; I can look back on my trip without regret because I decided to take an extra day and a humiliating meal at PF Chang’s so that I could end it as I had dreamed.

The rotten man could dismiss much of this as cliché or common sense. He’s probably right, although it was my hope that the yuks would keep this from discovery. Either which way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s true (so far as I know). Remember it deeply as you begin your next adventure.

The Second Train. Nearing The City. Gary, Indiana. People in Quantity. Ok. Back in The City.

2008-08-26T19:16:00.001-04:00

Time has passed between this happening and this writing. I do hate to give away the ending, but I am back in New York, sitting on a park bench, the poor victim of being whisked from one social event to another without much pause for You, reader.

I was lucky on Amtrak. My train was so late they let me catch an earlier direct connection to New York. Traveling with the understanding that you are magically arriving five hours earlier -- even as you chug through timezones -- pleasants things.

My neighbor on our full train was a nurse practitioner who was in Chicago to move her daughter into nurse practitioner school. She was busy reading a pamphlet that digested next week's soap operas for her. I left her for the snack car and she left me for Cleveland. Still, I remember this: early in the morning she offered me her blanket and we huddled away all the cold Ohio and Amtrak could throw at us. A nurse even in sleep, she left at dawn.

I ordered my 25th Gardenburger in the snack car and celebrated with a 26th. I sat down with a family of mom plus two happy little girls, and a young woman moving herself to Vermont. We talked bears and the environment and stayed up way later than everyone's bedtime.

I had a new neighbor when I woke up after Cleveland. Kitao is a New Yorker like me, or I should say better than me. The guy is just cool. He studied upstate with the photographer Joel Sternfeld (whose book on failed American utopias is perfect, as is American Pastoral (?)) and is interested in bike touring. We talked some, I put my contacts in, talked some more, probably slept, and then Kitao invited me to half of the ramen he was going to cook.

I love ramen and here's how to make it right.

Kitao's Ramen Recipe:

Ingredients:
Soy sauce
Cooking sake
Bonito dashi powdery stuffy
Scallions
Veggies
Boiling water
Fresh ramen noodles

To do:
Simple enough, cut anything that needs to be, mix all the soy, sake, and bonito according to taste, boil water and add noodles. When they're soft, strain and add to sauce.

We were joined by Bob from a Bay Area pharma shop who was retiring whether he liked it or not it. We talked body mechanics, overnight parties on islands in Argentina, the world's worst museums, about the trapeze institute Kitao studies at in NY, great American documentary filmmakers, monastery life, and how a human being twists when he dives or trampolines.

Here's the trick. Everyone can do a half twist with their feet. While the body moves around, the hands and head are already gone and into the next turn.

My hands and head were still very much in my last turn, my turn west. The train ride back was not a very concrete bookend to my trip. It was more movement.

Fortunately, an awful woman got on in Albany and reminded me of all things bad on the east coast. She spoke loud enough for the entire train to hear, although I still can't figure out to whom. She was impossibly pregnant. I use this adjective doubly. She was impossibly large and it was impossible that someone willingly made her so.

Here are my notes on her:

Awful woman getting a tattoo of her babies footprints on her breasts. She laughed like thunder. Believes her child is a 'schizophranay' because she is moody. 'All my babies have different scents, scents; see, I'm Victoria Secret, but she [her 8 month old] is different, Poison or Clinique, I don't know. Repeated this nine times on her cellphone: "Going to see me at Auntie Asia house! Going to..." before she moved on to complaining about something else like how long the train ride was, the air temperature, or the Chinese ticket taker ("A Chinese...") she didn't like ("...gonna get dropped."). To be fair, Chinese man did ask her if she was 2 people. Couple with matching t-shirts scared of her. Everyone is. She has the ability to loudly embarrass anyone who asks her to be quiet. Convinced she thinks I'm a racist. Only hope is for a sudden diabetic coma to wash over her. Look at those arms...

We lived. We pulled into Penn Station. I walked off. My friends were there waiting for me. It was late. I ate a lamb burger. I went home. I lingered in the living room to see how long I could stretch their excitement before going into my room, feigning surprise, and then finally sleeping in my room, surrounded by my new pink walls and the tasteful array of penises they printed on them. I'm actually quite impressed by the level of detail in the prank, if not the new level of immaturity. And I am glad to have my dear, dear brother painting.

It is odd being back, my room included. There is so much sound. I spent an entire day walking around and listening to people whinge about small matters (not getting into clubs, not getting weekend off, not getting...). I heard a new jingle on the ice cream truck -- The Entertainer. I went to an unpopular bar and heard great song after great song. I heard powerlines getting fixed directly outside my window at midnight. I heard some kind of music at the art museum I went to. There was an Olafur Eliason piece that reminded me of the mist at the base of Bridal Veil Falls in Telluride. I bought and heard Baby, Let Me Follow You Down a thousand times until it stopped reminding me of that morning in Kansas. And I heard myself putting off this post (and the next and final one) until I got sick of listening, biked around town, and settled here in Tompkins with the same Blackberry I wrote everything on.

So, that brings us to now and east. I have yet to have my movie day or my last hamburger. I kind of don't want either. All I have done, when not with friends, is sit down and write. And wasn't that what I wanted more than anything? Time to write, a room of my own, a stiller mind, space to make things for the people I care about.

My final (written) thoughts on the trip are fast coming. I'm going to see the waterfall they've added to the east river and to venture to my first ever yoga session. I figure it's cheaper than a massage.

2 Slideshows of Repeated Occurrences

2008-08-25T15:29:00.005-04:00

Once upon a time, the slideshow was this awful thing you had to slog through when your best acquaintances returned from adventuring in some place exotic like Europe or Mexico. Not any more. With clever clicking, the modern man can breeze by two months sojourn in six seconds.

Still, let's pretend we're back in simpler times. Poetry still rhymes and I'm wearing polyester. My wife, Flan, has kindly prepared deviled eggs as a canape, and since cholesterol has yet to be invented, I'm six in the hole. After some shots of me in dangerously short shorts and Flan's near fatal sunburn, we come to my experimental phase which I have kindly streamlined for you. So, lean back, have a seven and seven, and keep your grain elevated.

A. Farm Equipment of Kansas.

B. Cars of Bazine.

A Slideshow for the Lazy

2008-08-25T15:27:00.002-04:00

I ended up getting this to work. Still, I must stress that America was 10-12 times bigger than this.

Photos from Across the Country

2008-08-25T15:06:00.010-04:00

I give up trying to get you a slideshow here on the website. You'll end up having to click through to this larger, lovelier slideshow of some of the nicer moments on the trip. Can I recommend full screen? No? Well then I insist you turn Info On (top middle of the screen)

Note, one tends to not to pause and photograph when things are going badly, when hail is coming down in frosted clusters, when one is hailing down a mountain, or when one is surrounded by trees. Kentucky and Missouri could seem non-existent to those incapable of reading boring, boring text. Let me do them quick justice here.

Kentucky was hard to photograph because the smoke and trees wrapped around me and never really left any open vistas to shoot from. That said, one of my fondest memories was coming out of that into wide open western Kentucky, east of Berea, and having an early afternoon ride past sharp brown cliffs covered in thick green trees.

Missouri was a challenge because my camera was in the bottom of one of my bags and I'd honestly thought I'd lost it. It's a fine looking state -- much more so than Nevada -- and so I apologize. It was also the first subtle break in continuity from oaky green forest to red piney trees that burned holes in your nose with saw dust.

Day? Goodness Knows what day. The long train ride home. A new adventure. Now with people!

2008-08-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

I am midway through the great unraveling of my trip Westward. I am in Omaha, talking with a woman from Pougkiepsie [sp. impossible] about her youthful dalliances with Frank Sinatra and that time he had his friends beat up Shecky Green at the Copa. "Frank," she needs to point out, "could be mean sometimes."

Frank from the snackbar is on the intercom saving us from illegal card games and reminding us of the federal regulations requiring shoes. Safe now, here is what I'm up to.

I am in the Lounge Car. I have become a small fixture here (a lamp?). I am one of the original 40 and can quietly trace my ancestry to the Emeryville station outside of San Francisco. We know all the other originals, we dine together on trout and vegetarian lasagna (twice), and we politely smile when new passengers complain about how slow we're going.

My great bike story is quite famous now -- I have given many variations ranging from humble to whatever the opposite of humble is -- and I click around in my cycling boots. Another guy my age is returning from a cross-country trip that was longer and harder than mine. I will deal with this. I am louder. I also have plans to throw him from the train if we ever go fast enough for it to do some harm.

Things move in and out here, just as passengers hop on and off. I move in and out of naps, in and out of cars, and when I am not in the bathroom and trying my best to shower under the sink, I am in and out of conversation. The train is a very social environment and, as a nice young man, I am often called to talk and be a fourth at meals.

We have two 12-year-olds coming back to their mother after a summer working on their father's carnival. I traded them pistachios for carny secrets, that I share with you gratis.

"Ok, so, the thing is, the hoop is an oval, it's not round, so you can't really get the ball in good. My cousin's really good at that game. Balloon pop? I'm the best at balloon pop. Once, my cousin and I made it so we played until we popped them all. It was long"

At this her brother chimed in: "My peanut." This is, apparently, hilarious because it is repeated over and over again. His sister shuts him up by wiping ice-cream across his face.

We have Robin and Sue and Sue's charming mother, Joyce, from Australia. We ate dinner together on my first night (vegetarian lasagna). Robin was once a cyclist but a particularly unpleasant hill ruined Sue's introduction to the sport and any hope of a couple's activity. I side with Sue here. Joyce is lovely; she has the voice of a bird. They are amazed that I haven't got a trace of an accent (accentless?) and I am amazed that people keep mistaking their accents for Chicagoan. Robin told me about the Auz gold rush of 51 and it turns out that some Americans, after reaching the Pacific, kept going in search of shiny rock. I am happy to be going east.

We have Connie, who talks, and her husband, who doesn't, but must have at one point because he is a retired judge. They are both from Columbus, OH, although they live in Iowa and recently had some farm equipment stolen by meth heads. We all talk meth, bike rides across Iowa, and her trip to Australia.

I talked pretty about Brett Farve with a family from the Bay, Utah with an elderly couple from Utah, Joan Crawford with a gay man from San Francisco, Cyprus and recent history with a Canado-Brit, poetry with a poet from Ithaca, train hopping and hitch hiking with some smelly (but visibly priviledged) kids from Oakland, and I muttered nice things to myself as I deliberately squashed the foot of a man with a New England Patriots jersey.

One of the train hoppers, a young man my age, was reading a Lebanese poet in large print. "Khalil is the man," he said, and there was no debating this. He swapped books with the girl I was talking to and cried out loud in the part where Woody Guthrie's sister died.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just had to pick the part when she died, you know?"

This worked somewhat, and while I was sad to stop seeing the girl, I did at least stop seeing him.

Everyone lumbers up the rocking hallways. I saw a woman barrel up it like Charlie Mund in Barton Fink. I saw a man fall into another man's lap like a child. Standing is taking your life into your own shaking hands. The most sensible woman I saw was on the lower deck of the third car. She was wearing an oxygen mask, spread herself widely across the ground, wore no underwear, and armed herself with a bucket of fried chicken large enough to sustain even with Amtrak's constant delays.

Here are some thing I did not see on the bike: telephone wires can be made to dance if you pass them quickly; stationary clouds can be moved; there are water parks; parking lots where spots had been converted into small farm plots; alkaloid fields; mountains cleared by pine beetles; Nebraska; yourself in everything, reflected in the glass.

The nicest thing I saw was this: an elderly man and his daughter drinking coffee together. They were perpendicular to me, she held his hand, and when they laughed hard and rocked you could see the features that his face had lent hers.

We pass time in different ways. Young people watch movies on laptops and portable DVD players. Very young people play videogames. Very, very young people run around screaming until they are told not to. People my age play solitaire on their computers. Older people play solitaire by hand. These same people would rather exercise their minds with sudoku than stare at the scenery. Everyone reads.

This kills me:

A, B are old ladies. C is B's sister, hitting on a woman, downcar.
A: Five letters. 'Waiting for _____.'
B: Godot.
A: How'd you know that?
A: It was in People's crossword last week.

The woman C was hitting on seemed charming. Later, she would chat in my ear while I struggled with a particularly dense passage in Blood Meridian. As I could not beat her, I joined her. She was convinced that Richard Farina was on smack at the end of Been Down So Long because she was on smack in the 60s too. She had the entire train waiting to see a dinosaur in a cage near Glenwood; this was a big disappointment. Shortly thereafter, she put sandals on her tanned feet and walked off the train.

Mr. Minx and his sister conductor Mr. Livingston are trying to make up time into Chicago. Undoubtedly, I have missed my train. Perhaps I'll have to see the town.

Day 51, the bridge

2008-08-18T02:58:00.001-04:00

Well there you have it.

Day 51, done

2008-08-18T02:57:00.001-04:00

And it's over. I am in San Francisco, 68/58F. Like with a good book, I want to turn back towards the other cover because I'm not so distracted in wanting to find out how it ends. I miss the middle. I miss the second to last page. Did you know the Napa grape is so loved and polished that it sparkles like sugary tinsel? Did you know that Kansas had the prettiest sky, but that once in Illinois it scared me so much I cried?

I am in a flop off of Van Ness. The dollar has given us Europe's tired and weak and it seems all they want to do is bicycle tour, buy iPods, or mouth breathe on me in dim internet cafes. They have jacked up the price of every place to stay. Good I say. San Francisco is America's most romantic city and your faithful narrator hopes they remember that to their friends. Farming, fishing, gold, shipping, insurance will ebb and flow into a town with the times; it is casual accidents of geography, architecture, cold fog, and the movies that give a city such impossible romance. New York looks up at your hills with envy she'd never confess to; for she is the City of nay-sayers, while you Californians say yes for no reason at all.

I passed through Petaluma yesterday; I mention this because I forgot to yesterday. Petaluma could be the most amazing synthesis of all cities West of the Mississippi. There is a large grain elevator for chickenfeed, a small river for transport and loft living, an historic downtown based around being an historic downtown, and a series of homes built when American architecture was at its most homegrown and tasteful. Before we imported ugliness into our academies and built rows of Mies Van der Roes, we had Queen Anne homes. Queen Anne was a style of assemblage, pieces ticked off my owners from catalogues and then shipped West -- always West -- in boxcars. The owner built the house according to his or her own rumblings, and the good people of Petaluma had good rumblings, as did the hippies who came north and saved these homes from flood and neglect.

I woke up with the idea of the sunrise and a light case of TB. I was in a dugout in a baseball field in a low hanging cloud. I biked south with the AAA map Pete gave me. As I made it further and further west I tore off the ground I'd already covered. The piece I held in my hand was the size of a coupon.

I passed by more vineyards with brunch tastings and some blah golf courses. On one green I saw twelve men in khakis sizing up twelve different putts like they were assayers. This is how we spend our precious free time and our (obviously) unprecious money. Can't we be more creative with our fun than put the ball in the hole? Does a walk need a purpose to be ruined by impatience and a reminder of our minimal athleticism?

I began to see cyclists, then I began to see lots of cyclists. People wake up early here in the Bay and they spend their Godless Sundays in nature and on their calves. I managed to catch up with a cyclist my age, Jordan, and we rode together for ten miles while he shepherded me safely and scenically to Sausalito and the top of the Golden Gate.

And then I stopped. I left something for Brenda overlooking the harbor, somewhat per John's wishes, called my brother, and then patted Rocinante on the side as we rode down to the red bridge. Red is the color of American rock and you probably want that in a bridge.

There were a lot of tourists on self-guided bike tours of the North Bay. This isn't what I'd expected. I'd expected a solitary ride down to the water. Did this cheapen the experience? Not one bit. I love cycling too much not to want to share it with farmers in Kentucky and Latvians in bleach-sprayed jeans and gelled hair.

And it was over. I biked down to the water and dipped my feet and wheels in the Pacific. I ate my last hamburger. I had to find lodging. I biked to the library and when that was closed I went to the Apple Store. When that was swamped I went to an internet cafe, and when that was a failure I went to the hotel I'd stayed at during a failed job interview out here. I showered. I bought coffee. I bought books. I bought train tickets. I bought long pants. I bought shirts with sleves. I bought a 150 dollar bottle of champagne, a 5 lb burrito, some chocolate, and other bric-a-brac only to have the cashier wave me through, gratis.

I ate my food, called friends, read, drank a small glass of champagne, poured the rest in the shower like an F1 racer, and I did a victory lap of the city. I went up-didly-up-up, and I went down-didly-down down the hills with ease and no bags. I tried to talk with everyone, but we are in a city remember and that is just not done.

And it's not over. I have to reread what I've written for errors and themes. I have a longer piece on what I've seen and experienced outside of myself that I want to give more thought. I have a short story to finish. I have a long story to start. I have a job to find. I have a connecting ride from DC to NYC to arrange. I have contact solution to buy. I have dinner with friends tomorrow. I have lodging to arrange tomorrow. I have so much more to do than get from point A to point B. Much of what I have to do has no point. I have to get an espresso machine. I have people to thank.

Stay tuned to this space for my list of top tens, likes, favorites, desert island states, and hidden gems.

Well I suppose I can get some thanks out of the way. Thank You. I wanted You to come along, I tried to give you some sense of the country and adventure, and having You with me made the experience richer because it was shared. Metaphysical question: if I fly up and over a mountain in hail and lightning and no one is there to hear me chatter, did I chatter? You'd better believe I chattered and, if this is a tautology, I chattered in large part because You made me. So thanks.

-- G.

Day 50, above the bay

2008-08-17T00:46:00.002-04:00

I am in Rancho Nicaso, the bar where Huey Lewis cut his chops, and where tonight's entertainment is some peppy, uptempo jazz. As I can't go any further, I've resigned myself to eating in rhythm. And bless uptempo jazz, especially standards, because it can warm you when you're cold and in a cloud.

We have a responsibility to our dreams: they are our burden. I had three hours today to decide whether I was going to carve my dream of crossing into San Fran over the golden bridge or just follow the maps and ride the ferry. I knew getting to the bridge would be longer, but I didn't know it would be one of the hardest days of the trip. Good. Nothing is hard when you are almost done and you have no place to be but slightly closer to the end.

And nothing is prettier than Northern Californian farmland. Napa county is stunning. Sonoma is stunninger. And Napa city has an In-N-Out burger which got me through an awful ride on a highway without a shoulder and all of Saturday's tired wine tasters. The wind pushed me off the road a couple times. Once it pushed me into a particularly paltry golf course. The man at the caddyshack had this to say to me:

"The wind, she's a bearcat."

The women's marathon is on TV. People are drinking odd drinks in the jazz section: sambuca rocks, plain kir, vermouth with a splash of vermouth, gin with two mothballs.

I'm dead tired here, but I should mention this: I plan on illegally camping in the dugout of the little league field opposite the Rancho. I hope no gray hairs head out to the park to get saucy. Speaking of gray hairs, this trip has started (or coincided with) the graying of my hair. Add to that the cracking of my knuckles, the pain in my back and knees, the fact that I'm up at 6 on a Saturday, and that I take leftovers of everything and I think we'll find that for all the weight I've lost I've gained some age.

Some bigger thoughts will come, but I'll wait on them. Tonight I'll rest. In the morning I'll head down to the top of the bridge and pause.

Day 49

2008-08-16T01:19:00.001-04:00

Do you remember how I said I wanted to end my trip with comfort and dignity? Well, here I am alone at PF Chang's family style low-wattage hotspot waiting on my almond chicken. I am in Sacramento. I think I must have insulted the 'concierge' at the hostel because this was his recommendation when I asked for an unassuming place nearby where I could eat by myself.

The hostel is surreal. It's in a 19th century flour magnate's mansion. The downstairs is kept immaculate and in period dress. The concierge sits behind an oak dress and blasts thin Britney Spears through his computer speakers. Two separate sets of young couples, bankrupt, are eating noodles in testy silence. Upstairs, dance halls and dining rooms have been converted into barracks. I am in room 2, bed 10. A Spanish guy was sleeping off what looked to be a bad case of ebola.

I'd rather describe Sacramento. This is the state capitol. It seems to be on the up and up. There is a summer concert that has gotten everyone from the surrounding area into the city center. Half of them biked in on these chopper-style beach bikes that are quite neat. Everyone is good looking and poorly dressed. I saw a couple of drug deals on my ride down 12th. I saw many more families, some of which were headed to what sounded like a Beach Boys cover band in a downtown cathedral.

I started today in minor redwoods. In hours I was down in the valley. I rode along fields of strip malls. In one mall, I saw an ad for a smoothie bar/tanning salon which actually seemed popular. How? Perhaps for miners to keep up with everyone else. Everyone is tan here. Everything is tan: the grass is bronze, the paint is faded, the road is faded. And everything looks hot.

I rode on a fairly long bike trail today down the American River. There were wild turkeys and deer. There were powerlines. There were riders in all kinds of leotards. It was like the procession before the Palio.

I'm back at the hostel. There's a nice painting of the Matterhorn in front of me. As I am braindead, I'll leave you with the Mark Twain quote hanging from the entrance:

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts."

Sounds nice.

Day 48, part two

2008-08-15T11:45:00.002-04:00

I am very, very tired. I'm sure there are numerous possible why's, but I can't put my finger on it. Was Carson Pass steeper than I thought? Did I stay awake too late yesterday talking about American food policy and what will happen when an entire generation doesn't know where its French fries come from? Has the desert caught up with me? The heat certainly has.

No matter. No matter at all because, give or take a few bumps in the road, it is all downhill to San Francisco. Fundamentally, not constantly, but still fundamentally downhill. That gist pleases me to no end.

I am also really happy to be in California and her mid-high Sierras. I'm sitting surrounded by redwoods, which will always remind me of the movie Vertigo (and La Jetee). Looking upwards at them does make you a little dizzy; thinking about how old they are is dizzying still. To think: some of these trees could have been at Woodstock.

To celebrate, I made what I hope is my last Pasta alla Mansfredo.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat mini-macaronis
Excellent olive oil (I found mine in a vitamin shop in Dolores)
Freshly ground sea salt

1 Bring water to table.
2 Put pasta in water. Warm with gas stove.
3 Take off before boiling to save fuel. Drain water.
4 Add oil as if you were filling up a pickup.
5 Add salt as if applying fake snow.
6 Enjoy.

I just realized that the salt shaker I took from our kitchen in my mad dash to the Chinatown bus must weigh a good 5 pounds.

Sitting in an RV park really makes you wonder about dysgenics. I know this is a very ugly topic -- justly so -- but let me tell you what I'm staring at.

Man stands astride fire. White truck is next to man. Woman sits in awe of man, US Weekly. Man and woman's eight children incapable of sitting, too in awe of fire and Gameboy. Woman asks man how he plans to start fire in California's dry north. Simple he say. He holds up red jug of gasoline. Altitude slows burning down so man throws gas on fire to beat altitude. Man also throws gas over fire and into surrounding area. Man misses family. Fire miraculously dies, man doesn't.

Meanwhile in Metropolis, a college professor and his corporate lawyer wife decide the world is too cruel to raise children in and get both their tubes tied. They invest the savings in a pretty impressive wine collection and a fierce organic food habit.

So I don't know how far from the end I am or when I'll get there. Sacramento is in a 107 degree heat wave and that might slow me down. On the plus side, I'll be biking along a river and I could always jump in.

I leave you with the end of an inscription on a shaft of granite at Carson Pass.

"...dedicated by the noble E Clampus Vitus...the Transierra Roisterous Alliance of Senior Humbugs"

*Addendum: The Times has an interactive piece on the noble Clampuses.

Day 48

2008-08-14T17:44:00.001-04:00

I am 7000 feet up in California. I have 9 more miles to go and then I will have no more mountains to cross. From 8573 feet up I can look down into the valley, pick a point in the distance and hit it as I undo a nation's worth of climbing.

I am taking my sweet time. I will make this the slowest 9 miles of my trip. I have stopped in every diner along the east side of the mountain. I will probably stop in more. I won't stop when I roll over the top.

Day 47, one more thing

2008-08-14T01:37:00.001-04:00

There are many ways to have a great finish. One is to end comfortably and with a feeling that you've gotten better at this thing. Another is to limp across the line like you've got nothing left because you've given it all away.

I've dreamed of both for this trip, and I think my bike and I will have both. We rode across the desert and collapsed at help; when we ride across the bridge, we will wear proud faces.

Day 47, redemption

2008-08-14T01:29:00.001-04:00

I am repaired, safe and sound, and well-fed beyond belief at Pete and Barbara's in Carson City. I am proud to say that the bike, my fair Rocinante, is back in good health too after 200 odd miles of bad limping. Let's backtrack.

I burst my tire on the smallest, darkest follicle of a truck tire while riding through a meteor shower. The hole was the size of a letter a -- a as you see it now. Duct tape did the trip. I headed to the next bike shop 60 miles away only to discover the shop no longer existed. The hole was the size of a bullet wound. I went to the next town with a bike shop. This was Fallon and it was 110 miles away. I was beginning to dislike Nevada through no fault but mechanical.

The tube inside my tire pressed its way through the bullet hole -- at first like a zit, then like a tumor -- until at last the lump popped. Tube 1 dead. Fixed on the side of the road in 100 degree heat. No one slowed down. That's a lie: one woman slowed down to laugh.

I made it to 4 miles outside of Fallon and had a liter of soda at the 1st gas station. When I got back on my bike my tire was flat. Too weak to fix it. So I inflated it, rode a mile, inflated it, rode a mile, inflated it, rode on the rims for a mile. I lost 6 spokes in the process. I stayed at the first motel I saw, which was lovely. The Indian manager and I talked about his priest and the guy's many real estate holdings. I cooked everything I owned and ate it.

Of course, there was no bike shop in Fallon. All there is to Fallon is the Naval Air Base. The inland desert is an odd place for a naval base. I didn't see any soldiers. All I saw were the sad kids of soldiers, moping around in parking lot after parking lot because all kids have in Fallon are parking lots. The adults have casinos.

Sprinted to Carson City on a WalMart tire and fumes. Rode across a bit of the desert where you had to turn on your headlights because you'd be nothing but a shifting black object without them. The heat was real.

I passed a town that was just cathouses or kitten ranches or whatever you call those places where you walk in and pick a woman to screw like you would a happy meal -- number 5, please. Personally, I find nothing less unmanning than walking into a double-wide trailer and acting like you own the place.

Like the best gambler, I just knew my luck would change on my next roll. Pete spotted me from across the street and offered me a place to stay. The bike shop stayed open late, fixed my tire, and told me that we were all settled when I offered to pay. I biked through a neighborhood where the streets were all unfashionable women's names -- Ann, Ida, Marion.

Pete took 5 years off, sold his company and house, and set to traveling the world by bike. He took time off, time off to teach agriculture in the Ecuadorian rainforest or to work in an orphanage. His wife Barbara walked the length of Nepal. Nepal is the opposite of the United States, she feels; they are rich with spirituality and poor in stuff. I haven't been to Nepal, but, yes, we are very rich in stuff.

They raise chickens in their back yard.

Pete just lost a primary run for mayor on the central premise that we need more places for community than casinos. Some old boy won, but not for long. Nevada won't remain a tax free haven of ignorance forever, I think. It's too close to California for one.

And so a change has come. I feel a little guilty about breezing past Nevada because these two generous people are from Nevada, frustrated but here and living by example. More generous people are moving to Nevada. And tomorrow, I will leave it.

Day 47, a bad start

2008-08-13T15:49:00.001-04:00

Of course there wasn't a bike shop in Fallon. Fallon is a Naval Air Base service station, and I don't see our boys in blue spandexing around the desert too much. High Desert Cyclery is a chop shop that recycles steel, thank you maps.

WalMart to the sort of rescue. I still have 6 broken spokes, but I have a new tire and tubes and should make it to Carson City. A very large part of me wanted to screw today -- it's already 100 out -- and stay in with a Lego Star Wars set I saw on sale. As a compromise and much needed morale booster, I bought a cheap lightsabre.

Day 46

2008-08-13T01:46:00.001-04:00

Complete disaster in the desert. I'm too tired to do it justice (does it deserve justice?), but a teaser follows.

When I was a child, the Guinness Book of Records was the most fought over book in library class. There was one photo of the record setting hottest place on earth (Death Valley I believe) and I remember worrying to myself later that this would be the worst place to have your car break down.

Our worst fears tend to repeat themselves, over and over and over, but it is the lucky few who get to live them out like a masque; luckier and fewer are those who get to do this twice.

Today, I was the luckiest man on the loneliest street in America. But I am safe now. I have used a revitalizing motel shampoo and it works. I'm cooking as much food weight off as I can using the Mr Coffee, an iron, and a microwave in small concert.

My duct-taped tired held up, then broke, then held up, then broke, then held until 4 miles out of Fallon at which point I decided to ride on the metal rims because I could not hold my head up any longer. The head is the first to go. Good night.

Day 45, my longest day

2008-08-12T11:20:00.002-04:00

I think I left you in Eureka. My plan was to take a nap and then head out at night. I vividly remember saying to David, the cyclist I bumped into, that I was disappointed that there would be no more challenges and surprises left on the road. I might as well pointed a gun at the sun and fired.

I went to the park. Two guys were building something to the sound of the sappiest country music I've ever heard (something about it's so hard being poor or it's so hard being rich because you aren't poor any more). To make up for their wet music, the men took to swearing and using a power saw. I took to finishing The Road. It moved me, I loved it, and You will too. If you hurry, you can find a copy on the L park bench where I left it.

I drank my coffee in a can and pushed off into the sunset. The sun was orange and in my eye line; then it dipped behind a mountain and turned the sky colors; once the sky looked like the box to Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout; then, imperceptibly, it became something different; and then it disappeared. The stars start turning on one by one. Some of them shoot. Some of them do twinkle. And they all distracted me long enough to blow out.

I ran over a shred of tire and the steel braid ripped a hole in my tire and took a spoke off. I think. So, in the shoulder of the Loneliest Road, I worked by dark. Duct tape now holds my tire together where kevlar once was.

This was all my fault. See this was my first flat. I got it into my head that I was going to go the entire country without a flat. To avoid jinxing, I did not rotate my tires midway through, nor did I ever really look at the things as they peeled thinner and thinner. Now, I've got 110 miles to go before I can swap it out. Everything is ginger.

Still, the night ride had its moments. The moon lit the road once so it looked like a white river; occasionally, the white light made the desert look like the moon itself; and I saw a meteor shower or shooting star fest. The stars fall fast and explode like blue magnesium.

I'm tired. I slept for four hours. The Early Show is on and they're trying to convince me that men are going to start wearing makeup. A small price to pay for nice pancakes.

Day 45, more

2008-08-11T20:09:00.001-04:00

I would like to add that Eureka Nevada is a lovely town, completely justified in calling itself The Friendliest Town on the Loneliest Road in America. They've offered me their library, pool, and town park. People come up and talk to you and are lovely. I just wish there were more Eureka across the state, one every twenty miles, like spiritual rest stops. Oh well.

Day 44

2008-08-11T19:58:00.002-04:00

Eureka, Nevada.

"He would have made it if he'd lasted just one more jump. But that was a mean horse. Well, I'm pretty proud of that boy."

The old timer talked out of the side of a smile, holding a picture of his grandson at the rodeo riding a wild horse to a gallery of open mouths. The boy came fourth, but he did have his photograph land on a bottle of local wine.

I forced myself to sleep late. The purple light from the neon signs kept me awake later than usual, but the sun woke me up regular. I left up into the hills and can't say I really remember anything. There was a DOT truck or two, some dumb cows who insisted on eating right on the side of the road, mild heat, then a small dust kickup on a bit of unbrushed road. At the base of the last hill, another cyclist, conversation, running out of breath from talking, thirsty, then downhill into Eureka, a fish hamburger, chocolate milk, my book.

I will nap. I'll wake myself up at 9-ish and bike by night to Austin or beyond. I don't get physically tired anymore. I just get bored.

There is a reason we bomb ourselves here. Nevada is not our prettiest place. It's our gallbladder. I wouldn't really mind if the basins did fill up with water. I think an archipelago in the mid-West would do wonders for the look of the country, provide a nice visual contrast for Maine and Florida's pointy points.

Las Vegas might serve a social function. Every country should have a space for luck-seekers, cheap-hope, and second-rate theater. It should be bright. We should go there on intervals, eat violently, have fun or else, and then leave safe in the knowledge that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

But Las Vegas is a bright dot. It's actually a very thirsty dot and it wants water from everywhere across the State, water for those who do get stuck and live and who require green lawns, swimming pools, water spectacles, and other things reasonable from a city in the unreasonable desert. We can always move Vegas south or east or west or north because it has no real business being where it is. The rest is stuck here.

You don't mind Nevada. It's not really that bad. It's just not that anything. Nevada is in its name: say it fast. Nev-ada, N-vada, Nada. There's nothing here.

There shouldn't be a place of nothing in America. It's un-American. There should be a city to house next year's Hannah Montana memorabilia, a city made of corn, a massive waterpark, military bases, I don't know. Just fill it up. Every inch of New York is filled up so you can hardly rest your eyes without seeing an ad for something you need. Move that here.

I'm on US Highway 50. They call it the Loneliest Road in America. It's not. Road's don't get lonely; that's pathetic fallacy. It goes from coast to coast. It has all the good gossip from California and it's plugged into the Washington scene. Lots of other roads intersect with it and it probably knows what kind of terrible drivers they have in Chile. The Road is far from lonely. The people on it aren't lonely either. They're waiting.

Day 43, ice cream in the desert and my Coke moment

2008-08-10T22:58:00.001-04:00

I am horizontal in Ely. I'm reading The Road and I've got women's synchronized diving on mute in the background. The feed is from Salt Lake. In between dives, we have commercials for one stop missionary clothes shops and for stool softener.

Ely is an old western town of the type that might warm Wim Wenders' heart. I'm staying in the Hotel Nevada, once the State's tallest buildings, and as I look down at the drag I see cowboys, bikers, the downtrodden, and the odd tour group. The wind kicks up and a tumbleweed or Starbucks cup floats down an alley.

I had a great bit of coffee cake and an espresso for breakfast in Baker.
The guy there brought me cream with my coffee and I tried it out. Espresso and cream is fantastic!

I had another long stretch between water and people. So I got to singing. Home on the Range is a really annoying song. For starters, I can't see any deer or antelope -- standing anyways. Secondly, a discouraging word is seldom heard because nothing is heard. It's just you, thinking to yourself, often discouragingly.

In the middle of the dryness, a bar. I had a real Coke moment here. I open the fly screen, I'm covered in sweat, and I plunk some change on the counter.

"Make it a Coca Cola."

I gulp it down, plunk the empty can on the bar, and realize that I don't really like Coke. My commercial was ruined. And if Coke is America in a can, what does this say about me?

The lady who ran the bar was lovely. She gave me a Snickers, filled my water bottles up with wonderful tasting water, and she gave me a chocolate ice-cream cone. I'm much more of a chocolate ice-cream fan.

I've spent much of the day reading. Still, I did read outside and chat with a man who owns the vitamin shop down the street.

"Man what you're doing is crazy. But you gotta have your hobbies. You gotta have that. What's my hobby? Tattoos. See?"

This is actually not so unreasonable.

"A hobby's got to have meaning. Every one of these tattoos has meaning. I did some of these on my forearms. I designed the rest."

I don't quite know what the meaning of a snake and a wolf fighting under the full moon is (avoid the full moon?), but I nodded as this all made sense to him and as I expect people to nod when I talk about biking.

Two sad gamblers, a man and a woman not in love, sat in the booth once removed from mine at the casino's 24 hour restaurant. We were in section 1, Dana's section, although judging from the artwork it belonged entirely to Dale Ernhardt. I ordered the bbq pork and shrimp. When the treff was gone, I sat listening to the gamblers talk. Faintly, in the background, the sound of country and fruit machines clanking. Dana left me the jug of coffee.

"She had my system beat."
"I know what was that?"
"Pour me some coffee. Every move I made, every card I played, she knew it. It's not my week."
"No it's not. And you're driving us back."
"Christ."
"We've got Reno or Vegas it's your pick."
"Vegas is closer, but you know."
"Yeah."

I spent the afternoon reading. I did approach a girl my age who was staring intensely at a wooden replica of a cowboy.

I begin:

"You know that's 16th century."
"Is it now?"
"Don't touch. It's priceless."
"Oh I won't. What's your name?"
"I'm Richard. Richard Nixon. And you are?"
"Charles Bronson."
"Charles? That's a funny name for a --"
"Lady."
"Well I'll be the judge of that."

Charlie and I get to talking, and then her party headed over.

"Well, if you're out and about, I'll be over at the low roller's table by that woman with the gray hair."

And I might be. Currently, I'm smuggly wrapped in my blanket and in slight awe at this fact: I have one week to go.

Day 42

2008-08-09T22:06:00.001-04:00

Goodbye Utah or, if you prefer to be maudlin about things, hello Nevada. Or, if you wish to remain neutral but imply progress, I'm in the Pacific timezone.

I slept in Millford's pavillion yesterday. I stayed for storytime at the library and the nice lady gave me string cheese and two apples. The story was about dragons.

I went to bed early. I woke up in a little while to the sound of four teenagers either eating junk food or doing drugs. It's amazing how, if you take away the visual element, you would not be able to tell the difference. Consider:

[Bubbling sound or sound of slurpy slurped]

Ow my brain.
I know dude.
Man Mike got busted fighting. He beat his best friend up.

[Snorting sound or sound of really enjoying a smoothie]

I can't touch that stuff. It makes me shake.
Dude let's go. Some homeless guy's in the corner.
Ok. Who wants to watch the new Batman?

[I do!]

Much of my night was jake brakes and gravel screaming, but that gave way to the sound of wild dogs picking at the trash. I screwed waking up early.

Today's ride was 84 miles between water and people. 10 cars passed me. I skipped up along the Nevada-Utah border and it was interesting riding. Since this is what I have to look forwards to for the next week, here's a brief description.

Imagine riding from island to island in a small Caribbean paradise, except that a thousand year drought has dried the trees and seabed to hard rock. You start up at the top of an island, quickly dip down to the old waterline, and then crest along the dried harborfloor for 10 miles before resurfacing and climbing the next island. Repeat until any beauty is lost in a hail of cursewords and boredom.

I'm at Silver Jack's in Baker. Baker is Silver Jack's. There's a public shower, a cheap laundry, very little shade, and a senior center. Terry of Silver Jack's has kindly allowed me to sleep for free provided I eat at his establishment. As it is all filling veg food, I see no short end to this stick.. This is an even stick.

I made one mistake today. I picked up a copy of Cormac McCarthy's The Road that someone left in the laundrette. It's sad, moving, incredibly readable (if you don't stop to wonder what an 'autistic night' is), and might weigh me down heading into Ely. I think I'll try and go to sleep just so I can wake up, beat the heat, and spend my casino day reading at the buffet. I might combine stargazing with riding and head out at 4.

Day 41, goodnight Utah

2008-08-08T17:42:00.002-04:00

This is my last night in Utah and all I want to do is watch the Olympic Games. As this was a completely nondescript day of cycling, save a much-needed trip to WalMart, I'll take the time to answer some reader mail.

Cletus, 42, from Vatican City, Vatican City (the city so nice they named it twice) wants to know, "How do you go to the bathroom when camping?"

This is a fair and valid question. In fact, I hope this opens up an entirely new avenue of scholarship. There are the metaphysical aspects we can skip by -- does the Pope shit in the woods? -- and let's focus on ugly facts. You dig a hole as deep as your forearm, toss it in, and then use any of smooth objects nature can provide to finish your toilet (this is hard to do in the desert). Then you close the hole and bury your secret in the ground.

Mary Kate, 13, from New York says, "What animals have you seen? What was your favorite?"

Wild animals are notoriously fast and tough to see. Luckily, intrepid naturalists and truckers pin them to the road so that cyclists can better see and smell them. I have seen an entire Looney Tunes stable of roadkill: Speedy Gonzales, Bugs Bunny, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe le Phew, Andy the Armadillo, Tweety, Wil E. Coyote, and Sylvester. Today I saw a heart and lungs with no animal attached, although my suspicions are egret.

I happen to love birds of prey. Today I biked with a condor floating beside me for a small while. I also saw an eagle dive down and pick up a mouse from the middle of the road out of the goodness of its heart. I also like deer. They are graceful, fast, playful, and run alongside of you if there are no cars. Fields of sheep are nice things to pass by, especially the one I saw in Western Colorado where every bell was tuned to a different, lovely note.

I do hate bats. I wish more truckers rode at night. Desert ants scare me, but there is something beautiful about them when they swarm into their giant anthills. It's a bit like a broken beer bottle coming together and reassembling itself underground.

Sleve Pillow, 64, from Detroit is curious: "Are you doing this for a cause? What's the point?"

I hate this question, Sleve. The purpose, I assume, is self-evident. If not, read the blog and you might find some areas that are evident-evident. If it still isn't evident, might I ask you to pause and consider what the purpose of anything is. If, after you decide that there is none and that curiosity is not its own reward, can I then recommend any of the thousands of cliffs I have crossed as a perfect space for further contemplation.

Here is my issue with "are you doing this for a cause?" This is fun. Honest. You can't have your friends and family sponsor a charity for you to have the time of your life crossing the country. That doesn't scan.

I like this subtext. You think you can cross the country but you know there are times when you'll wish you were elsewhere; then, use the fact that you have the Clean Air fund relying upon you to carry you up that hill. Fine. I've done this but I've done this differently (I've brought You along; I told too many people so failure would be too embarrassing). There are some pursuits in life that are inherently solitary, but the pursuit of those pursuits needn't be. We can get by with a little help from...

I hate this subtext. Running a marathon is hard. Chronic fatigue is hard. Do these sufferings equal each other? No. First off: running a marathon is the only time a regular adult can have a crowd of 200,000 people cheer them on. It is beyond fun. Second off: it's not that hard.

So why does "I'm doing this for myself" sound so selfish? It is, isn't it? Is that wrong?

That may be why I'm doing it, but that's not what I tell people. I know when people might find an answer of some value, so I say this: "I'm not doing this for anything specifically, but I hope the people I talk to will want to see more of their State or the Country, or maybe ride a bike somewhere new, or maybe just get to say "You'll never guess what I saw today!""

Cheese McMillan, 28, of the former Luxembourg, offers his two cents: "I wish could ride a bike across country, but you make it seem so hard and awful. Is it? I'm a former Olympic medalist who is training for the Ironman. Do you think I have what it takes?"

Probably not.

Jaime-Lynne Banderas, 74, writes: "What have you found indispensable on this trip?"

The backside of hills. Milk. Sleep. The joy of showering. Coppertone Oil Free SPF 30 Broad Spectrum UVA UVB Odorless Sunblock. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. The ACA maps. The big gears on the front part of the bike and the little ones on the wheel. Oh. Water. The kindness of strangers. The Blackberry. EMS' 35 degree sleeping bag the folds down to the size of a credit card. The bike. Lots and lots of hair product, especially in this dry heat.

Darby O'Russell of Tel Aviv wants to know "where the prettiest sky was."

Pretty skies usually come with or before rain. I liked the sky in Kansas a whole lot just before that really long day. It was broad and very rich in orange, probably as a result of all the methane. I liked the sky in Colorado when you were up at cloud height, but oftentimes that was accompanied by hail and lightning. And Utah, colorful Utah, has had the most variety in it's evening sky: one end of the horizon could be pink and pale blue, while the other side is bright red and starry. I do, however, hold out for Nevada on all things stargazing and skywatching.

John Tesh, 18, gets the last word: "So you've got eight easy days left. Give us a sneak peak and let us in on one thing you want to do when you reach the end?"

That's a good question. I want to find a bar with a good jukebox and give that Bob Dylan song we heard at Elaine's in Bazine, KS another listen.

........................

My cellphone reception will be spotty from here on across Nevada. I'll try and keep current, but I can't be certain of anything.

Day 40

2008-08-07T23:18:00.001-04:00

Today was the last day of canyons and the tip of the desert. I was cold.

I left the motel late. I loaded my bike up in front of an old hot dog roller that had been modified to heat taquitos. This disgusted me, but later, in Cedar City, I would have a man deep fry my Chipotle-style burrito and I would thank him crazy for it.

I rode 36 miles up(steep)hill to the top of Cedar Breaks and barely glanced down at the canyons. More storms were on me and I wanted out. I went over the break and down the seventeen miles to Cedar City in forty minutes ... look, this is beginning to get repetitive.

I haven't much time left, yes, but I do have this tremendous desert between me and the Pacific that can't be beaten quickly. I'm am tiring. I really do want to go home. I don't want to see the Neil Simon festival in town, or the Shakespeare for that matter.

This is not the most productive attitude, and so I will have to do away with it. The real source of my recent discontent is my consumption. You see, they get me when I'm weak and tired. It's then, when you're cold, that you'll take anything to feel otherwise. I have been taking pie and double hamburgers and deep-fried lardwiches. My body, too smart for its master, has said enough. It's empty and it's expensive.

Change starts small. I began with a shower and shave. Waugh shaved throughout the war; so did the foolish man in the white suit from Heart of Darkness; you may remember him as Robert Duvall. I don't think it's a gesture of civilization amongst the savageries of the RV park; I think of it as a small change.

My face looks different now. It is cleaner and younger, pale where sideburns once hung. I'm outside and it feels good against the light wind. When you shave, you are forced to look at areas of the face only the most studious painters pay attention to: that ridge-valley-ridge below the nose; the hair that sticks closest to your nostrils; the dark side of your neck; etc.

So now I am optimistic about the desert. It will dry me out some, but that could be good. Plus, I'll have two chances to play cards. Am I supposed to double down on 7, 11, and 6? What is splitting the deck? And how do I win in slots?

As I have little to report today, best tell you about my Mormon church experience.

I went to the church here in Cedar City for an architectural tour that was light on architecture and heavy on literature. On this trip I have collected three kinds of pamphlets: religious whatnot, national park maps, RV park maps. My hosts showed me a well produced video about the building, took me to the church to look at the red cedar pews, and then we headed downstairs to the font and a corridor decorated with paintings that conveniently explained how Joseph Smith was the 13th apostle and what Mormonism is about.

Most of the American Christian sects are really Christ heavy. Often, they will pray to Jesus. So far as I'm concerned, the guy doesn't even show up until the sequel: God is the star. Some evangelicals believe that the Mormons don't believe in Christ. Here's what I got: they believe in SuperChrist.

After Christ dies, he teleports over to the New World to teach the Native Americans. One really strong Native American who looked a lot like Magneto became a prophet. He buried his extra books of the bible in upstate New York and, as time passed, young con artist Joseph Smith stumbled onto them. The rest you know from South Park.

Now, if somebody wants to argue that that sounds ridiculous and all Christ did was turn water into wine, make fish out of thin air, and resurrect himself after three days, fine. Cast the first stone. My argument would always be belief requires thinking the fantastic is real, although we probably shouldn't reward those who think the most nonsensical things are true if we want to keep society moving orderly towards the future (Rapture, yes!).

Actually, I hate to delay you some Mormon facts, but a quick thought on the Rapture. This, like Jihad, is Christianty's poisonous idea and is completely misinterpreted by scaremongers and other bad people. How about this for a great idea: we're on this Earth, we'll be stewards of it for a long, long while, it's not going to blow up any time soon, and if it were, that would be a sad day for everyone and Kirk Cameron. Bearing this, recycle that Pepsi Blast in the name of Jesus.

Some promised oddities: Mormon communion is taken with water and bread (and this is the world's fastest growing religion?); every church has at least a half-court basketball court in the rec room; when you marry, you don't marry till death due you part, you marry into your afterlife on the Celestial plain; good people who don't believe in Christ (me?) get to go to the Terrestial plain; crappy people go somewhere else.

What interests me about the LDS folks is how American they are. An angel descended from the heavens and picked New York of all places. All their religious iconography is either apostles dressed like Thomas Jefferson standing about, or it's strong jawed men in grey flannel suits and white buttondowns with other men in flannel suits. They have basketball courts in church! Their missionaries dress like office boys from the 50s. We'll wear nametags in heaven. Their church is structured like an American corporation or social lodge, with Presidents and Aldermen. And they're so, so nice.

Tomorrow I'll be answering some reader mail and, hopefully, staying at a Lion's Club. We'll see.

Day 39, Bryce

2008-08-06T23:23:00.001-04:00

Is it possible to go a day without cell signal in the US? I guess so. Apologies if today's and yesterday's posts come lumped together. If they're unreadably long, tough. You'll be quizzed on both days next Monday.

This was a really special day for me class. I saw Bryce Canyon. Yes, I was almost killed by lightning, I broke another spoke on my rear wheel, and I got caught in freezing rain (in Utah? how?) -- no matter. I cannot complain because I have seen it.

I woke up and had a very European breakfast of espresso, nutella bagel, nutella Cliff Bar, and nutella nutella. A small German child was fascinated to learn that you can eat an entire jar in 5 minutes. His mother covered his eyes.

Nothing too eventful until Bryce, except that I saw some trees. I remember trees. In my tradition, we kill them for Christmas.

Trees came and went. So did the rather optimistically-named town of Tropic. I ate three donuts and that made me feel guilty. If a food product can make a man who eats like me and who uses up 10,000 calories a day feel some guilt, then perhaps that food product is dangerous. I would have done anything to get that bear claw from around my heart.

The hill up to Bryce started steep enough and, as is often the case, it became the target for some heavy rain and lightning. Rain and lightning was horrible in Colorado; it is inexcusable as you rise up-and-up a mountain almost incapable of keeping trees.

I sprinted to the top only to find that the top was a large treeless plateau. I put on my helmet because lightning hates polystyrene. And I kept on sprinting.

Bryce was 4 miles off route, and then it was a 19 mile loop of some kind. As I neared my target I saw a sign for a free shuttle bus. I raised my hands in joy and then quickly, cautiously lowered them. A wonderful woman in a kiosk agreed to watch my bike as I waited out the lightning with a coffee.

Seated to the left of me were two French eight-year-olds drinking espressos and talking about an affair the smaller one was having with some bourgeois girl over in the ball pit. I stuck to my maps and Twain, and away from the windows. An awful man was yapping away on his cellphone, which really irked me because mine ceased to work.

Lightning be damned, I'm seeing Bryce. I went back to the lovely woman in the kiosk, got my tickets, took the bus, ran up to the highest viewpoint and stood as far away from the tallest Dutch tourist I could.

It won't photograph, but I took pictures. I could try to describe it, but it won't come across (it looks like a thousand thousand-foot sandcastles made by dripping wet pink sand). It really has to be seen in 3D.

Actually, I remember there being a computer program called Bryce with the sole purpose of rendering canyons and spires. This was the mid-90s, and is probably responsible for the wealth of 3D canyons on New Age albums of the period.

I have a lot of respect for the 3D artist and the man who makes that artist's tools. Pixar have been on my mind because I really believe their pastel color tests for Cars are the most accurate representation of the Utah sky I have ever seen. Again, a camera cannot reconcile the canyon and the sky in their separate but equal brightness: there should be no contrast.

Another part of the Pixar business is making Renderman, a painting (with time!) program a gazillion times more complex than Bryce. A gazillion times more complex are the canyons themselves.

I saw them from two Points (Sunset and Independence(?)) and tried to triangulate what I saw so I could walk it in my dreams. Every spire changes color subtly; every surface is smooth, then jagged, then crumbled and lost; every spire casts a shadow on the next and changes it; every cloud works like a spotlight that darkens; people wind in and out of it like an Esher drawing; it just gets complicated.

I am in a motel in Panguitch now. It's almost as cheap as a campsite. This is the first time I've been indoors and alone in a long while. And good. The building has been struck by lightning twice.

Out back are six Geos that have been painted bright colors and then wrecked in the derby. The guy who cooked me dinner races occasionally. The other guy who cooked me dinner caught a 20 inch tiger trout in Panguitch Lake with a marshmallow.

I will hit my last bike shop before Sacramento tomorrow. After that, it's pushing each other across the deserts of Nevada. 800 something miles to go.

Day 38, your thanks has already been included

2008-08-06T22:27:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you about bad sleep. I finished at the rollerpizza and went down about 500 ft closer to Capitol Reef. I opened a cattleguard, pushed the bike up to the top of a small cliff, took my tent, went down to what was on the other side of said cliff and set it on the only flat spot -- three dead cacti and hard rock. I set my leftover pizza on a rock and went to bed.

At about 12:50 I hear James Brown telling me to Stand Right Up from directly behind me. The stereo at the restaurant has turned itself on and it's loud. Loud like let's spook the guy in the tent down there and then kill him to start Tuesday off right. Then, much closer, the sound of fast running or galloping coming down the cliff. They've killed my bike, pushed it off, and I'm next.

"Who's there?"

I run out of my tent in my underwear, cycling shoes, and the acrylic shirt that guy gave me at the free box.

"Huh? Who's there?"

Nothing. Just Hot Fun in the Summertime from up the canyon. I run up to my bike. I haven't got any contacts, so I what I actually did was run up to my blur. It was still there. So was my lovely pizza, which I had only given a 50 percent chance of finishing the night anyways. They must be starting out slow.

I put my contacts in and sit and wait in my tent. I can't run to safety. I'll sit here and play it by ear. Grab something hard. Think rationally. What's their motive? I asked for Fanta and then got water when they didn't have it? No. They just don't like me? It's possible. No. It must have been a deer and some late night rollerskating. Then it began to rain, I put on my rainfly, and my night vigil went on until...

I ate anchovy pizza for breakfast. I lived through it -- both the night and the pizza -- although the only evidence I have of sleep was that I remember waking up. They weren't murderous centaurs. Here's my final guess: last night's lovely hostess loved a boy she met at her grandmother's roller-rink in Salt Lake. At night, sometimes, she skates to remember him.

I stopped at a Ranger station 10 miles out of Torrey and was met by a nice older couple who volunteer for the Park. One perk: they have a wood-burning stove. They gave me a fresh bran muffin and it was so good it tasted store bought. Outside, two families from Montpelier (France) sat fascinated with the hummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder; as, indeed, they should have been, because the things move around like Tinkerbells and they have never hurt a fly.

I wish to make a small sartorial digression on the dress of the European tourist in the canyonlands. The families from Montpelier were exceptionally well dressed; here are the rest.

I took my morning coffee at the Best Western up the valley from Capitol Reef. It's very popular with the French, Belge, and German tourist. Coming in and out I saw: a man in hi-cut 80s sports shorts, no lining (ew), tight red shirt and the kind of sandals Jesus would have worn if he were more athletic; his wife had shock red hair and a ludicrous pair of spectacles. Heading inside were two stern looking men with long necks and stubble for hair; they had two different, ludicrous pairs of glasses, both neon. A visibly-German man had a fanny pack (honest), khaki shorts, and matching pink socks (pulled high) and shirt (tucked in). A Belgian man made it easy: he wore a shirt with the word 'Belgium' on it. In almost all cases, teeth point in all sorts of directions.

I have lost my quiet canyon voice as I have left the canyons. You notice things like this in absence. The voice in my head was whispering all throughout the canyonlands. When the winds were up I could barely hear myself talk to myself. Now I'm back to normal (shouting in my odd accent) and I miss that stillness. Thankfully, I'm so exhausted that my mind's voice is a bit out of breath. Am I alone in finding fatigue -- earned fatigue versus, say, jetlag -- a pleasure of sorts? Like nice quiet?

So I went up to the mountain, rolled back down the other side, and ended up back with canyons of Escalante State Park.

A bit of a bad thing happened at lunch today. I pulled into Boulder and wanted the hippie-cooked meal somebody promised me down the line. Locally sourced beef? Sounds promising, only the second I sat down and the beef planted its cruel worm in my brain I am told that they're all out of the local stuff but that, never fear, Sysco has a solution. Fine. Sign me up for the ruben-on-top-of-my-burger burger. A glass of homemade ice-T sir? Yes, I'll reward local industry, sure. Very well, we pour the hot water over these here Lipton's bags ourselves. Then we add ice. We don't add sugar because that would be like cooking. One tea, coming right up.

Everything is satisfactory. I have a piece of pie only to remind myself how special Cooky's was. Cooky's was. Then the bill comes. Wow, but it's ok because I've heard her telling other people that tip already in there. Is tip in there? No. I only do that to the Europeans.

This is the last straw! I hate this! This really bothers me! And you call yourself a hippie. These people have crossed an ocean to see your bit of dirt, fueled only by their curiosity and a weak dollar, and we reward them with this? Am I wrong in being of the opinion that we should roll out our finest china for the guests, especially the French, to whom we owe a great debt, who don't think too highly of us, and who are, let's face it, unfairly caricatured as skinny bohemians in ludicrous glasses.

Let's discuss two things: is tipping culturally American and, if so, so what? And, is short distance transportation of food worth 20 percent of said food?

Tipping 15 and now 20 percent for service might have began as a sincere gesture of gratitude, but it has become status quo probably out of every American's fear of social failure and penury, worked its way into the pay structure of the restaurant industry, and taken some nice myths along with it (struggling actor, artist, mother, etc). Now, if we want to pay everyone fairly (and we should), we simply have to see it as a hidden tax in a largely cash business with curious accounting. For if we're really truly being generous, then surely 40 is the number -- 20 for cost, 20 for thanks. That seems American and extortionate.

For argument's sake, let's say it's a particularly American peccadillo that we do out of our wonderful magnitude. If that were the case then we can't demand it of others. It should be its own reward, and when we go to Belgium and leave two dollars by a plate of fries, the loud cries of 'merci merci' should further convince us of our big generosity.

Of course that is not the case. More often than not we are held prisoner in Europe, because the service is so much slower (as a meal should be), that when you're finally confronted with the bill you want to say I was not impressed and end up leaving 18 percent. This means nothing to the waiter. This is just extra money.

Now to the question of whether or not the lifting of food is worth 20 percent of it. I've laid up a bit of a straw man here. It's not just the carrying; it's the smile. My waitress is putting a human face on beef. She is the last thing I see before I shove it down my throat. My mind thinks, 'She made this out of thin air in 5 minutes.' This is what I value and I value it 20.

She didn't do it though. This beef passed through a lot of hands, some of which I've shook on this trip. The feed, the cow, the fattening, the Mack truck, the slaughter, the Mack truck, the Mexican who unboxes things for the restaurant, the mind of the chef, the cook, the waitress, me. Of all these people and machines is it hardest to say no to a smiling woman? Versus the tough truck driver squeezed by rising fuel costs? The trucker should be so lucky as to be thought of before their work is eaten. This seems American and naive.

I want to reward thought and talent. If chefs were capable of smiling (they're not, cf. Bourdain, Ramsey, D. Chang, et al) they'd get in on the action --

"You're eating that wrong. You want to grind the veal down into the plate with your forehead and then -- ONLY THEN -- pick it up with your wallet and chew it twice."

-- That's where the skill lies. Instead, we've got a system where when people are genuinely nice to you (hey, free bran muffin) you're left reaching for your pocket and mental tip calculator.

I don't think we're rewarding talent here. We're rewarding friendliness. We're talking about quantifying and commodifying the simplest and greatest gift we have got going as humans -- that which holds us together -- and we're capping it at 20 percent?

Question: Is there not a difference in interaction between someone who smiles at you, gives you great advice, makes you feel happy and interested, and the same experience with a small tip jar in your peripheral vision? I've begun noticing these everywhere. They're US Parks standard issue. When the Ranger came and offered me that muffin my initial response was of complete thanks; but then I slowly felt ill at ease and wondered whether I should walk back into the shop and 'donate' something small.

I've been very fortunate to have people offer me their homes, churches, and food with no expectation of compensation other than in the giving; when I give back to them out of a desire to feel that same feeling of giving, that is a rich experience. Perhaps that is why I have fallen into this digression (kudos on making it this far). I also wish to tie this together with more thoughts on food in my final trip summary as, often, the dinner plate is where America can come to you.

I rode out of there and along the backbone of Escalante's most spectacular canyon-dunes at 35 miles an hour. I forgot the silly business from above and made it to Escalante (town), to pizza, to the tremendously nice Britons (who'd had service added to their bills!), to my first shower in 4 days, to running water, to 2 hours on the Blackberry and work. Now, here in my last sentence, I must appologize for the length.

Day 38, for the record

2008-08-06T11:32:00.001-04:00

I did end up tipping her the full 20. I was very far away from the front door and these people have cars here. I wouldn't have gotten very far.

Day 37, still awake

2008-08-04T21:09:00.001-04:00

Utah is canyons and people. The canyons are constant; the people are spread out, just seeing one is amazing, and meeting them is a delicacy.

I left Hite at 3 in the morning. It actually wasn't much colder, but it was its coldest. I couldn't see anything. It took a while for my eyes to make out the stars. Then the canyons: at first they were silhouettes, all shoulders jutting out high above me on both sides. The brightening sky sketched some features onto them, and then some pale colors. When the sun neared the horizon, the canyons took over coloring themselves. We began with grey Moon canyons, red Clint Eastwood canyons, red Mars canyons, orange I-Don't-Know-What-canyons, and finally Tatooine canyons into Hanksville, my latte, and my morning post.

I was driving down a particularly grey canyon when I stumbled across an organic coffee shop/farm. This is quite a stumble. If the Bible were written in reverse, the would be the shock of coming from dirt, plague, pestilence (and knowledge) into the rich Garden of Eden. Plus, God's got some coffee on.

Inside are four kids my age. Cool kids. Dave is tremendously bearded, organizes music festivals, and plays new folk music. The couple seem similarly artistic, and they know every swimming hole and cold spring in a wide radius. The girl (try and remember names) Ingridchen is rolling dough, making me two cinabuns, cutting melons, and chatting with me about music, food, kombucha, and whatever else my sleep deprived mind bounced into play. She was quite pretty and she had armpit hair (don't stare). The coffee was the best drip I've ever had (stop, stop). And we listened to some throat singing (she sees you!).

I left with tons of recommendations and tremendous good feeling. People like me, here. There were clouds in the sky: somebody up there loves me.

Canyon riding is biking at the bottom of a lost ocean. That's why so many of the rocks look like petrified Canard Cruiseliners. If I could get up to the top I'm sure I could see the caveman shufflepuck board and the caveman climbing wall hanging over the bough.

Blah blah blah beautiful, uphill, humid, swimming in a waterfall with French tourists and grown men who can't bring themselves to swear, blessed nap, unblessed pain in my knees, final slog up a hill and 1500 ft to Torrey.

I'm at the Patio, a pizza joint and one of America's best restaurants. In the background is a tremendous iron canyon. The sun is on it. Our hostess is 55, glittery blue nail polish, three Bic pens in her hair, on rollerskates. Our music is Patsy Cline, Devo (!), Hank Williams, Beatles, and unheard Peter Gabriel. It's perfect. A dog is licking my legs clean of salt. I'm going to camp somewhere in that red mess over there. Two women have inspired my next trip: juke joints in the Mississippi Delta. The lovely Brits took an easy day and have found this place too. A man here plays harmonica with David from the farm. Perhaps pizza on rollerskates is how people find each other in the desert.

Early day 37, some old stories

2008-08-04T10:44:00.001-04:00

I took a bath in Lake Powell by sunset, ate my last meal (soup!), tried to sleep on the hot concrete, woke up at 3, rode by dark, then stars, then sunrise, into Hanksville, and right up to this latte, which I plan on snorting.

Now might be a good time to give you three stories that have slipped through the cracks.

I found another Shake Shack. This one is in Monticello, Utah. I can't say it was as great as my Shake Shack, but if gristle is any indicator, they do use real meat in their burgers.

The hostesses were two scarily Aryan sixteen-year-olds who were either sisters or the girls from Brazil. At the counter was Jed, picking up an order for Jred. It's rude to presume someone a methamphetamine addict, so let's just say that the lack of any fat in his temples did not bode well for his brain.

All of this did not put me in a turning around mood. Keep your eyes on your milkshake. Plus, I was in a booth. Behind me was a man and a woman and I swear they didn't have any children with them. Still, their conversation went --

M: Well anyhow it was great seeing you and Dan, and what are we dooey wooing...
W: Oh I know, bwabuwabuwaba, we've got to do it again.
M: Yes we do, yes we do.

It went on like this for twenty minutes before I ran out.

There are three lovely young Britons riding on the same route as I. They're being sagged by two very nice, older Britons named Paul. Occasionally, the Pauls will find me on the side of the road and offer me water and kind words from their red minivan.

This story was told to me by the dreadlocked girl at the laundrette in Salida. In the interest of narrative simplicity and making it seem like I'm good with names, I'll draw three from a hat for our Brits.

"I saw Harry and Hermione at the base of the hill; Ron was at the top and getting his face shouted at by a trucker who'd stopped in the middle of the road. I hate that that would happen in Colorado [Ed: so do I]. If you see them again, please apologize to them from me on behalf all Colorado."

I bumped into Ron again (smiling, Ron) and confirmed the story.

"Were you there? [I explained] Yeah, this van drove up beside me and he hit me with his mirror. I said something impolite to him and he stopped his van, got out, and then he hit me in the face."

This is the part that kills me.

"I thought he was terribly rude."

Trucker gets back into truck, Wendy's gets their hamburgers, Ron has been hit in the face on the side of the road, and this is the level of his consternation. Were it I who was hit -- and I wish it was -- I'd be Blackberrying you snide comments from a wood paneled circuit court in Denver. I'd probably be in a neckbrace.

Ron is a better man than I, and he has the right attitude. Whereas I would have spent the next thousand miles dreaming of fun and dangerous ways to kill that guy, I honestly believe the whole gang had forgotten about it until I brought it up.

"Yes I remember something about that guy hitting me with his car and punching me in the face, but, you know, water under the bridge..."

Three fishermen called their wives from the payphone in my bedroom yesterday night.

The first one called his wife 'snookums'. Honestly.

The second one called his wife 'babe', repeatedly. "Babe, the stripers were biting, babe. Babe? Babe! I thought I'd lost you..."

The third one called his wife Wendy. She seemed to have no idea he was off fishing. He had no idea she was away at a family reunion. He agreed that he should turn the water on for her when he got back.

Day 36

2008-08-03T19:44:00.002-04:00

It's hot.

I'll get back to how hot, but first, an addend. I did not sleep outdoors yesterday. As I was about to close enter Slumberland, a big bat flew across my face and I crashed out of bed. I should never have eaten that Welsh rarebit. My tent was up in seconds.

So it's hot. The only surprise here is that it was such a complete surprise to me. I biked to Natural Bridges to fill up on water and that was fine. I bumped into two guys riding east and they seemed fine. They were in a band and were carrying their instruments with them. They actually seemed great.

Here's how it hit me. Natural Bridges is at about 7000 ft in altitude. I am in Glen Canyon, up above Lake Powell, and at about 3000 ft in altitude. For every 1000 ft I went down the temperature jumped about 7 degrees until here, Hite, where it is 120 something with hot wind.

The greatest part of losing altitude is going downhill. I never felt that. According the the Salt Lake Tribune, today's wind is blowing in whatever direction I am not going. This makes sense: I was riding down the exhaust pipe of a particularly hot oven.

I was compensated otherwise for I am in canyon country. Hot wind can't keep your eyes from this beautiful land (although it can make you tear up uncontrollably). There are canyons that look like rainbow trout with flat heads; canyons like oceanliners; canyons like cobras; canyons like Buicks. There are buttes: Cheese Box Butte, and another one I call 5-Finger Butte. I am surrounded by them now. They keep me warm.

I was going to explore some of these caves but it was when I stopped moving that I became fast aware of the temperature.

I stink. I haven't showered in days. There's a fine layer of red dust in every crack and crevice my skin has. My shirt is starched thick with sweat. I look forwards to a dip later in the lake.

I am going to have to beat Utah in the mornings. I'll be up at 3 tomorrow to ride, dip, and ride up all that elevation I lost and towards the mountains.

Day 35

2008-08-02T22:35:00.001-04:00

I don't quite know how we went from day 33 to 44 to 35; perhaps time is getting a little unstuck as I move in a straight line; perhaps I'm going so quickly that, like with Superman, I am rotating the earth backwards.

I am looking up at the desert sky. I am pretty sure that's not a Sting song, but it very well could be. It could also be a fragrance. I must have a fragrance of my own because the desert fly loves me. I must smell dead.

I pulled up short of Natural Bridges National Monument, but I am much further than I thought I was going to go. I was too tired. I just stopped my bike, walked off the side of the road, and went into the desert (of Desert Sky fame).

The reason I can walk into the desert is I am carrying 8 liters of water. This could also be the reason I couldn't make it up the hill.

I am in Utah. The first 8/10ths of the day was a bit lackluster. I left the reservoir, biked down a canal, noticed how the canal kept everything wet while I dried out. I was in Utah before I knew it. Their state sign is an impossibly ugly piece of Photoshop. The landscape was a bit like eastern Colorado. I went to a town called Monticello, which is solid evidence that America is repeating itself.

After a shake, I went to Blanding, and decided to keep moving. Here's where it gets beautiful. Bicentennial highway runs along a canyon valley until it turns up into a narrow slit in the canyon, winds through that and opens on a lush valley lined with red canyons on both sides. Despite being the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and being mostly downhill, I stopped and took photographs for You because -- wow -- it was amazing. A thin shaft of light came through the clouds and lit the distant canyon wall LionKing-ish.

About five miles after that, I lost the will to pedal. I boiled rice with a packet of mac n cheese mix and lay down to write this.

The woman in the Blanding info center said this is the darkest sky in the nation. I suppose that's another way of saying, there ain't nothing there. I look forwards to some stargazing, light sleep outdoors, and then getting on the road so I can skip Lake Powell and its cursed jet skis and maybe make another park.

Day 44, More Than This

2008-08-01T18:21:00.001-04:00

As often, I am drinking a malt. This time I'm in Dolores and it's chocolate. A terrible cover of Bryan Ferry's More Than This is on the radio. The original is brilliant: "You know there's nothing more than this." Of what comfort is that?

I woke up this morning to a tent that smelled of cold pork. The human body sweats a liter of water in sleep, and mine had a high ratio of Fat Albert's pulled pork. It was kind of the bears to spare me.

After packing, I bumped into John with whom I've been friendly since getting into Telluride. He has dreads, sweatpants, and is in his mid-30s. I saw him smiling at the free concert, smiling his way down main street, and smiling his way to the gondola with a bike. He's just a nice guy.

John has a weird favor to ask me. I tell him anything, which, by the way, is bad policy. John worked at Golden Gate State Park. I will end my trip there. He worked there with a woman who used to guide kids from Oakland on confidence building rafting trips. She drowned on one of those trips. John and some friends buried her -- actually buried her, with their own shovels.

There is a plaque in her honor hidden between Sausalito and a town that begins with an M. He asked me to leave something there for her, from him. He said it could be a pine cone.

I will be looking for the perfect pine cone, or a really round rock, and I will leave it with her because I said I would.

I went back to Maggie's Bakery for breakfast. Today I was joined by Dan Pearlman. Dan is the inventor of the halogen lamp. He made it for the movies. It was supposed to be a miniature sun; a black body that glows with color when heated to 3700 K. He sold the patent, but he won an Academy Award for it.

We have breakfast for 2 hours. Dan is in town before he's due in front of the Supreme Court to argue his latest case that, under the Constitution, the government does not exist.

Dan sought me out actually. He'd wanted to eat breakfast with me yesterday, but I was with the cycling geophysicist and family. Dan is also a cyclist. He rode a bike around for 3 years, living off patents and money he made as a film producer, and then road magic and the kindness of strangers. There were days when he'd find 20, 40, 100 bucks stuck in his bags.

He recommended the desert. Once, when riding practically-abandoned highway 50 in the desert, he came upon a large guy carrying an even larger cross. The cross had a little wheel in back. He asks the guy if he's religious.

"Not particularly," the man says. He just liked the idea of the cross. Isn't it a bit weird to be walking around with a cross in the desert?

"Isn't it a bit weird to be riding around with a bicycle?"

Further up 50, he spots a large, er, spot on the horizon. Clean the glasses, put them back on, the spot grows bigger. Soon the spot is passing over him at 1000 miles an hour. It was a supersonic jet. It knocked him clean on his fanny.

Further further up 50 he sees an antique store. He heads in. Everything in there is smashed into pieces.

A: I'm so glad you're here. This is a good day.
D: Excuse me?
A: I was just about to go bankrupt.

It seems that every year or so, this woman goes out and buys a bunch of glass antiques. She puts them right on the edge of her high shelves. Then she waits for some flyboy to line up on the highway and have the Air Force buy her a new set of china ... and then some.

Dan has run for President. His name was on the ballot. He has also run for governor of New Mexico. You see, there's lot of competition at the lower levels of government, but only a few candidates at the higher level. No harm, no foul is a motto.

His case before the Supreme Court is also a longshot, but it is being heard. He's gonna go on Bill Moyers beforehand and then head out into the desert to think on it. He holds it as self-evident (axiomatic) that 2/3rds of the population need to vote yay or nay to elect an official. Obama got a little more than half of a lot less than half of the population, ergo he's illegitimate. Ditto McCain. Ditto GWB. Ditto everyone. Ergo, the thing is undemocratic.

In its place, he hopes to put a voting machine that allows every American to call in or go online and vote for their preferred candidate (Sanjaya?). Even though this trip has shown me how intelligent and generous many Americans can be, I can't believe that we wouldn't just vote in our best interests and put the future off.

The farmer sees the future. The bro in Telluride does not. Experiential living is liberating until your (occasionally philosophical) unwillingness to live for tomorrow closes off some doors. Again, a good question to ask is, where are the children?

He wished me good luck in my life and we parted.

I left Telluride late but an easy ride got me into Dolores early. I'm in a restaurant that wants me to pay for my water and that has made me really angry. I'm off to the massive reservoir down the road to go swimming.

Day 33

2008-07-31T20:16:00.002-04:00

I am in the library. I have been reading up on Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain, minerals, Iceland spar, solenoids, the temperature in Nevada at night, an environmental consultancy I'm interested in working for, and home rule municipalities. I made to leave but turned around when I realized I could listen to an album that I must be the crowning musical achievement of the young 21st century. Ys, by Joanna Newsom. As she weaves her harp arpeggious and baroque, something quite American shines through: the rare (too rare) three-part female harmony, the banjos, the cowboy's harp, her hi-Appalachian twang. And the great orchestral swells in and out again. And it all blends together beautifully. And it sounds so old, like it's a miracle recording equipment existed that could catch this thing and put this it to (magnetic) tape.

It is the perfect soundtrack to Telluride because the place blends together beautifully too. As I listened, I stared out at a mountain that stitched red rock into evergreens and grass without any visible seams. Waterfalls pass through houses here. The sun seems to take some physical shape when it is long and passes down the box canyon onto Bear Pass. Earlier, I hiked up to the Bridal Falls and stared up at the house with the generator in it. This is the house of a mad American King. There is a rusty gondola to carry everyone up to court. There is a small widow's walk (or is it a window?) for the Queen to lie and wait for her millionaire miner to return from getting her gold and other heavy metals. All their power is AC from the waterfall. They are rich with gravity. Birds fly down the valley and bring them news and berries. The king heads down to the village for his weekly meeting at the Masonic lodge and to look up into the bordello windows. He walks the mile up past the power plant and its green ponds and then up to his wife with wildflowers by way of apology.

I woke up at 6:30 so I could be at Maggie's bakery by 7. A tremendously youthful German geophysicist was there with his son and grandson. The boy called him Opa. They lived in Boulder, which is where he taught. They kindly invited me to eat with them. The grandfather biked across country and got his family hooked. They liked to rotate riding in Europe and the States every summer. They were heading south. He talked about traveling Mexico by car and feeling that it seemed empty at speeds, but would reveal itself on the bike. We could all agree that the bike keeps you riding at the speed of older journeys. When you slowly travel Europe, the languages, food, architecture, and geography can change in a steep afternoon's climb.

I should like to be this man when I'm his age, intelligent, smiling, wildly curious at 7 in the morning.

I went to a coffee shop for a latte and was reminded of why I hate these places. Every barista (I prefer cashier) thinks he or she has the greatest, most diverse taste in music which shuffles around -- too early -- why? -- perhaps to win over the pale girl in Telluride -- the one in the corner -- perhaps to suggest that he is more than a barista (I prefer cashier) -- he was once in a band -- he's working on an album on afternoons off from mountainbiking -- ugh. I stayed there for 2 hours. The coffee was great. I have mapped out most of the rest of my trip.

I will be in San Francisco in two weeks and three days at the latest. I'll be riding short days in the desert because a lot of my options are either 68 miles or 148. I think we can all agree I've made the right choice. I hope to camp out on some vineyards in the Sierras and to put 20 on black in Carson City. If I win that, I'll put 20 on my birthday. If I win that, I'll invest the money in a really hi-quality Elvis costume.

I've yet to figure out how to get from the East Bay over to the North Bay and into San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. I can hit Sonoma and Napa, but I can't seem to avoid San Quentin. Is San Quentin nice this time of year, or should I wait for the foliage?

Before all that, I plan on reading my Twain up the valley and by the river.

But that's all the future-flexible. We did a little bit of the past-todayish. Now let's do the present-now. I'm still in the library, but, don't worry, I'll be in Fat Albert's soon enough. A Mexican man seated to the left of me is updating his Match.com profile and furiously clicking on some girls who, from their photographs, have no need for online dating. Ys has run out. The mountains are still here.

I can imagine Tesla living on the top of the mountain, a mad-American King, thinking magnetism and inventing electricity. There is a bit of that here. The rocks on the way to the Bridal Falls were shiny and metallic. The box canyon seems to trap some energy in it -- no, not holistic energy, man -- but perhaps solar. Perhaps this could be rigged up like a large solenoid. Perhaps we could use this large solenoid to pull comets towards earth and bring back Mark Twain for a brief lecture tour and to collect some hard earned royalties from Hal Holbrook. Perhaps, sadly, it is time to leave Telluride. Tomorrow, I will be back on the road. I will be rested and I will be fed.

Day 32, I have arrived

2008-07-30T21:52:00.001-04:00

I am in Telluride. Nothing -- not the sun, not the full day climb, not making the awful mistake of taking 5 electrolyte pills and swelling shut -- could keep me from her. I'm sipping a latte. I'm under an aspen tree and a banner of multi-colored Tibetan prayer napkins. They're made in China.

I'm reading the local paper, The Telluride Watch. Some guy named Art Goodtimes is kvetching about which burial service is best. The man hates paragraphs. The rest of the paper is all green building, green shopping, the Dalai Lama, some local bartender/dj getting stabbed in the neck, and real estate listings. Garrison Keillor is syndicated. He's in New York. The balls on this man. First, he claims that the whole place smells of pizza and fresh coffee (it doesn't). Then he compares getting on a train in Penn Station to getting the last one out of Warsaw in 37 (overstating it a bit). Then he goes on about beautiful New York women and terrorism (?). This is travel writing at its worst: unfocused, false, and unfocused.

Telluride is lovely and a little bit frightening. My campsite is infested with flies. Doug Silver behind me is shouting in my ear about an amazing piece of property he's trying to sell ("I'd just hate to see it go to waste"). A gaggle of five teenage girls teleported in from the Upper West Side to talk about calling Doug and seeing if he was interested in Ani (Doug Silver?). A man in his mid-forties with an impressive amount of hair is chatting up our barista and is all "cool" this and "awesome" that. He is going to go mountain biking with his kids. It's 3 on a weekday. When I grow up I want to be so busy I can't see my kids until at least 7 on weekdays and that's if they make an appointment. And I vow that they'll never see me in shorts.

I'm off to the Free Box. Apparently I can just drop off stuff I don't want (the scissors I cut my hair with) for stuff I do (a red union suit for my desert nights). We'll see.

I'm back from the Free Box with a free flannel. A gentleman with sunbleached hair and teeth chipped from mountain biking gifted it to me.

X: Keep the free box free!
G: Keep the free box free!?

He also recommended some mountain biking trails to me and the historical museum.

X: There's stuff in there that you'd never see anywhere. Mining gear. Photos of John Denver.

After he let go of my hand, I walked down Main Street. This is a national landmark. Where hokey art galleries, western wear stores, and lovely cafes are, there were once bordellos and banks. One bank was robbed by a young Butch Cassidy. An older Nikola Tesla built the world's first AC- generating hydroelectric damn here; it is now a house that I'll try to check out.

I can't find my union suit here. I did find a free gondola, which I rode to a free concert. Nobody knew who was playing. Scuttlebutt had it she was the daughter of an old folkie. The turnout was massive. You are allowed open containers here in Telluride and its sister village. Everyone was friendly and jolly on the sunny side of the mountain.

You are keeping me from my pulled pork sandwich. Here's something you should never say to the chef at a restaurant called Fat Albert's.

G: So are you Albert?

Day 31

2008-07-29T21:00:00.001-04:00

I just made a horrible mistake. I'm sitting in the corner at a Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet. I am that guy. I am determined to get my 6 dollars worth.

There is a strategy to overeating. I was discussing this with my waitress at the burrito joint I nearly snuffed it in. Do bread last. Avoid carbs. Avoid chewing. Don't taste anything. Don't get distracted. I might add to that list, never confuse Pizza Hut's strawberry and icing pizza with pepperoni. The shock would fell a less conditioned man.

Same old stuff today. Colorado gets prettier, rode with my wheel unscrewed for 36 miles, wobbled into Gunnison and had a man fix my bike in 7 seconds, ate eggs, went down to canyon country, ran along Blue Mesa Lake (which isn't really blue, but the mountains around it are), skirted Black Canyon of the Gunnison (one of the eight wonders of my world), stopped by the Black River to give myself a crap haircut and a rinse, got to Cimarron, waved to a statue I thought was alive, really, really wanted to quit for the day, carried on 5 miles straight up and 15 straight down into Montrose where they have Pizza Hut and a mini-golf course that doubles as a campsite. With luck, I'll get site 18.

So there you have it. I am a day's away from Telluride. I need it. My knees won't go anymore. I have been dreaming about this for a long, long time. I want to see Nikola Tesla's generator house. I want latte. I want mountain girl. I want long underwear. I want ride gondola. I want healthfood store to sell me pills that make my legs feel great, like when I was working in copyediting and they never touched the floor.

I think it's important to believe in something. I believe I'll have some more pizza.

Day 30, a quick correction

2008-07-29T12:16:00.001-04:00

Salida is pronounced Sal-EYE-Duh.

I also forgot to note that I got three thumbs up from drivers on the way up, and a hi-five when I got to the top.

Day 30, part 2

2008-07-28T22:27:00.001-04:00

If you are a fan of the posts where I go through extensive suffering -- versus talking about how nice everyone is -- please enjoy my afternoon.

I am in Sargents sitting in an genuine teepee, just like the Indians before me. There are traditional Indian paintings, there is the standard, miniature flap door, and there is the traditional propane-fueled fire ring. I couldn't have celebrated my anniversary any better.

Well. After I washed my clothes I got to talking to a beautiful and charming Salidan girl with dreadlocks (note: Sal-EE-Dan). She started telling me about all the neat things in town, was polite enough to laugh at my jokes (and not my unfortunate outfit) and wondered if I mightn't rest in Salida and hit up the hotsprings. The next lines of dialogue would have been the smart thing to say --

G: I wouldn't know where to find it.
X: I could show you.
G: I haven't got a bathing costume.
X: That won't be necessary.
G: I love you.

What I ended up saying was that I'd always have Monarch pass scaring me subconciously and that it would ruin the bathing experience. I made to pedal off, she wished me luck with my trip, I wished her luck finishing her laundry.

I then went to one of those combination maternity wear/gun shops, went into a darkened alley, and proceeded to strangle myself with a 7-month dress. Cheating death, I went into a coffee shop and had the first latte of the trip. Note this conversation starter:

G: Good morning.
Y: Good morning.

From here the whole places makes like I've returned home from war a hero. Everyone's talking, everybody knows your name. If you have the option to work from home, move to Salida.

I biked up towards Monarch pass (elev. 1,312 feet). With my height at 6 feet flat, that makes the highest I'll climb this trip. Things are going swimmingly until it starts to rain.

I have forgotten rain as I have forgotten hills. The last time I was rained on I spent the night in a men's room. This time, I spent it riding up a winding road into thunder-and-you-know, around landslides, and then high enough for rain to become glorious hail.

I believe the bike helmet is nearly useless. You'd have to be pretty naïve to think a plastic hat would save you from a jackknifing manure spitter. If you've ever seen a smushed armadillo then you know how worthless a hard exoskeleton can be against a harder Mack truck.

That said, my helmet came in handy twice today. A bird made a nest in it yesterday night, and it made for a great hail shield. Hail is hard. Getting caught in it is like being stoned to death by Lilliputians. Death will happen, just be patient.

I climb, I freeze, I near the top, I near the lightning, trucks spray me half to death, I use what little ESP I have to do the same to them. I make it to the top. Bless Colorado, there's a gift shop.

I order a large hot cocoa and 10 dollars worth of fudge. I couldn't stop shivering. I had my arms wrapped around my chest and slowly tried to raise my body temperature. I wrote some texts. I stared blankly and talked to some (motor)bikers from Missouri ("God the water managed to get through my rain pants." Eat shit. I'm dying here. And I'm in shorts). The proprietor says another front's coming. Now is my chance.

I make for the bike, fumble with my gloves, put on my golf-inspired windbreaker, bite down on my teeth to stop them chattering, and point us downhill. Two massive trucks with massive fans are lumbering down the hill. I pass one to get down faster. The storm is on me. I'm blowing downhill at 40 miles an hour, everything is freezing, my eyes can't squint any smaller and still hail hits my precious eyeballs, and I can't move my hands. Sections of the road have become rivers. The whole thing was terrifying, zero fun (well...), and even when the air got warmer I refused to. I could not move my legs. Things began to flatten out and then the truck I passed took his sweet revenge by passing me with a millimeter to spare. I loudly wished him well.

I saw a small cafe. I couldn't move my knees so I rolled up to the wooden front and keeled over. I clicked out from the ground. I swung the saloon doors open and made straight for the hot coffee. I had four cups. I spilled half of the first one on the floor I was shaking so hard. The waitress took pity on me and brought me some chili. Another woman gave me a towel she'd warmed up. Some (motor)bikers told me to go into the gift shop, try on a fleece for an hour, and then return it. I passed on the latter.

I was in the Pacific half of the country. I had crossed the Continental Divide in a month. I was also, unknowingly, in the campground I planned on staying at.

G: I called earlier about pitching a tent.
Z: Oh you're the guy. That'll be blah blah blah.
G: Where is the lot?
Z: Over there by the teepees.
G: Teepees?
Z: Yes.
G: Sign me up for that chief.

I showered. For an hour. I got ready. I went back for more food. I met a nice man from Kansas City (Go Broncos!) who was there dirt bike riding. Last year, he rode his (motor)bike to the see the ocean for the very first time. Riding south on 1 on the California coast, if you look down you see the ocean. He was pleased. He dreamed of a trip to Alaska, but the guy he was planning it with hurt his shoulder skydiving. I do hope he makes it work somehow.

Minor annoyance. Bill O'Reilly was on the TV. Dan, the man from the paragraph above (Go Broncos!), likes him. He says it like it is apparently. I don't want to debate that here or ever. (Sometimes, SF, there isn't enough vomit in the world.) I did have the privilege of meeting Bill O'Reilly at an amazing concert and can say this empirically: he's boring. And sometimes that's worse than being wrong.

This fire is amazing.

Day 30, part 1, how to celebrate a month

2008-07-28T13:06:00.001-04:00

I am in Salida, unrested from sleeping on a bench by the highway. But the sun, the sun woke me up by turning every red rock on at 530 in the morning. I made Salida by 8, finally picked up the maps, ate a cream cheese pumpkin muffin, a chocolate croissant, and a scramby eggs on a fresh ciabatta. I rode up the Arkansas and couldn't see the thing -- it was one long, blinding gold mirror.

I am washing my clothes with some hip 60-year-olds and listening to the radio. The first 15 seconds of Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass" are nearly perfect. Seeing an old cowboy tap his boots to it is completely perfect.

I got the next series of maps from Boris, who you may remember from my first hard day in Kentucky. Back then, as I remember it, this blog was a daily log of human and geographical failure. I barely wrote about people, so let's do Boris some justice as he is greatly responsible for the shift to the better.

The first day in Kentucky was the hardest day of riding. It also had the most pleasant surprise at the end of it. David, proprietor of the Historical Society, was waiting for me with a perfectly cool glass of sweet tea that helped me forget the cruelly steep hills I'd had to pass since the breaks. Boris had gotten there at noon and found it so nice he just stayed.

Boris was the first other cyclist I'd gotten a chance to sit and talk with. He was all advice: who to stop and say hello to; where to eat the best pie; where to camp with swimming pools and waterslides; and, most importantly, how to take your time and make this a trip about the country and people.

You can track cyclists traveling in the opposite direction by the many bike books in restaurants, inns, bathrooms, gas stations, and RV parks across the country. And so I could see Boris (San Fran --> Yorktown) at many of the spots I hit: "Tremendous pie, I'm waiting for one more slice"; "Thank you so much B---- and V----- for taking me into your home and your kindness..."; etc, etc, etc. He played frisbee golf with cacti in the desert. He took a day off to watch little league in Kansas.

I emailed him after he finished his goodwill tour in Yorktown. The mapmakers (who I am not tremendously fond of) ran out maps. I would have been stuck in Pueblo. Boris spent part of his first day back home express mailing me the maps and then emailing me the directions to Salida. Then he wrote a massive email listing more great things to see (abandoned motels in the desert), and where to get fresh water.

So, unsuccinctly, thank you. He lives in San Francisco and should pop up in this narrative when I get to the sweet, sweet Pacific.

---------

Now, it's been a month. My clothes are in the dryer. I have 6 minutes to decide if I celebrate this anniversary by crossing the highest pass on my trip or by getting as close to the top as I can and taking it easy. I do need a shower quite badly. I guess we'll see.

Day 29, a day of changes

2008-07-28T10:48:00.001-04:00

Many eventful days begin with slow mornings. Today was one of those. We set no alarms. We planned on sleeping in. We were up at half past seven.

You have not known pain if you have not shaved off a months face bristle with hotel soap and a single blade razor.

We went and ate breakfast at the diner across the parking lot. I looked twelve. There were a lot of Sunday regulars. Our waitress and a large man were huddled around the TV watching a local boy compete in the Tour de France. So did I. I even ordered 8 slices of French toast in honor of the last day of the tournament.

These men are small monsters. It takes a particular kind of strength to compete in any athletic event that lasts a month, and so my hat's off to the hopped up jockeys in leotards. Now, if they really wanted to impress me, have them carry all their gear and keep the bikes in one speed -- like in the Tour's early days.

The Tour did nothing for motivation. We waddled back to the room and put off everything. Today was the last day Connor and I would be riding together, and so there was a bit of sadness on top of altitude sickness and fatigue that made leaving Pueblo a challenge.

The massive storm drains along the Arkansas are covered with large colorful portraits. Downtown Pueblo has some striking buildings and I felt some regret that I did not do a bit more exploration. We rode through the park and onto the winner of best street name on the trip so far -- Goodnight Boulevard.

The Pueblo lake area looks like a miniature grand canyon. Actually, I can't do any of today's sights -- my most beautiful day -- justice. You'll have to wait for my photos or someone else's. These might be lacking also.

Eventually, we hit the town of Wetmore. This is where I go straight west and Connor goes north. We looked for water, found none, and settled for shade. Connor was a tremendous person to ride with: I met a thousand more people because of his easy affability; we were equal in speed, films watched, books read, our understandings of what the value and purpose of slow travel is; he always ate a full 3-course meal and convinced you to do the same; he hated bike talk; he fundamentally understood this isn't an athletic event and convinced me of the same; he was just great company. I owe him a malted mikshake (it turns out one cannot eat 3 pieces of bread in a minute). I hope he comes to New York to collect.

One last note on the subject and then on to the afternoon. If you're traveling across country, you want a Sal Paradise not a Dr. Gonzo by your side: somebody good and somebody interested in everything and somebody who rarely sleeps.

So west led me straight over my first pass. I climbed 4000 ft. I sweated, I got nauseous, I was lightheaded, and I loved. Colorado has had a tremendous amount of snow and everything is green and rocky. The hills are not as steep as the Appalachians and there are no trees looming over you. When you get up top of the pass, you are free to look around you at cloud height, down to the light green cattlefields at the base of the real Rockies, and straight up at the jagged mountains you've yet to hit.

I met a cyclist who'd just come across the desert. He'd invented a kind of mask made out of cloth with hundreds of little American flags printed on it. He drank water right through the thing. He showed me right there on the side of the road. He recommended the opera in Telluride.

I got to Westcliffe and stopped dead. I went to a Mexican restaurant, chatted with the chef, had three flautas, and chatted with two young Britons I'd met earlier on at the Colorado border. I could not move. I went to the dingiest motel, asked what the dingiest room might cost, told them to go stuff themselves, and asked the directions to Cotopaxi. It was 26 miles away.

26 miles yes, but 26 miles down a rolling hill, into the sunset, narrowly beating storm clouds, past a beautiful pasture, into a ravine, down it at 40 miles an hour as the green makes way for orange and red rock, and right to the Cotopaxi store.

I am sleeping at the store. The man with the mask told me it was OK. I'll be up by 6, but I might just stick around for breakfast. I'm only a few miles from Salida, where my maps await, and then only a few miles from where I plan on stopping. I will wait at the base of Monarch pass. American Flag Man alleged that Monarch is the tallest in the nation. If so, I'll want a days rest and clean clothes.

Day 29, a small landmark

2008-07-27T03:02:00.001-04:00

I watched my first movie since starting this trip. It was the new Batman. It was brilliant. I find movies to be one of the most moving, total entertainments. And this particular time I found it much more satisfying for numerous reasons, chiefly: I haven't seen images fly that quickly past my eyes; I haven't felt speed and kinetics like in the batmobile chases since my descent down Vesuvius; and come on, it's Batman.

I woke up with all my blood in my groin. I was sleeping like a banana on an imitation leather couch. It was donated. About three month's back, Gillian's home and ranch burned down in a fire that devastated much of Southeastern Colorado. The winds pushed the blaze at 60 miles an hour. It took Gillian a week to put out the fires in horse manure and on the railroad ties.

Gillian lost everything. She was stoic about the deal -- in the way you'd fully expect a Kiwi prison warden to be -- but she was upset about losing her photos. She also lost 10 years worth of logs and diaries she kept when sailing the world. So, miles from home, miles from the sea, in a donated house in a drought ridden town, wearing a donated highschool basketball jersey, Gillian helped us to goose eggs. Alicia, the fragile young girl helping around the property, mended a gosling's wing.

We rode out at 730 and made it to Pueblo by noon, despite stopping to chat with a nice bunch of cyclists from Portland with an ambitious travelplan. We had to make the post office before closing. We missed Crowley County Days, but we did see a fifty-odd classic cars drive past us on the way to the parade. Every single one waved.

The road to Pueblo was flat and uneventful. Well, I did run over a rattlesnake. Oh, and far away, blue with distance, the Rockies pricked up in the sky until they surrounded us. I am leaving flatness behind.

Pueblo is nice enough. A lot of cyclists found it a little dicey and unfriendly, but bear this in mind: any city of size is going to look bad next to the small mountain town; any city is going to seem spooky if you have to ride through the whole thing; and come on, they have a movie theater.

They also have good Mexican. We went to a nice restaurant next to a bike shop. I tried to eat a 9 pound burrito in a competition with the chef. It was called El Burrito Loco. Once I was served, I was not allowed to leave my seat until I cleaned my plate or quit. I left a loser. I don't care to see the man who can eat a 9 pound burrito.

A nap was in good order. I've been feeling lousy from the fast cycling, the long days, and the altitude. I'm feeling a bit of burnout, but I should make it to Telluride before I crash. The 5 pounds of burrito I ate did not help one iota.

I slept until 6 and then it was off to the health food store on my way to the cinema. The walls were lined with vitamins, granola bars, gluten-free shoes, head massagers, and kombucha. The women who worked there were beautiful, smiling sextagenarians who darted back and forth to help me get one of everything and anything that would make me feel better. They all had long, flowing hair that was lined with grey. They were healthy colored. It was like being helped by Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, and Joni Mitchell if they all happened to be your mother and were wildly concerned with your health. Note: Not a bad idea for a tremendously unpopular sitcom.

I'm in my motel room. As I click, I am fighting the burrito with wonderful health food. I am sleeping in. I am navigating without maps until Salida, but I'm not worried. I'll just point my bike towards those big green mountains.

Day 28, Welcome to Colorful Colorado, please enjoy the rodeo

2008-07-26T00:49:00.004-04:00

Here is a slight disclaimer: I already love Colorado. I have loved it since I was a boy. I love the Rockies. I love the people and their athletic friendliness. I love the air. I love the Broncos. I love the milk. I love everything you can do here. I love that I have already met someone who has made the long flight to my hometown. I even loved John Denver when he guested on The Muppet Show.

I love it and I've looked forward to it and I got into it at about 8 this morning.

Our last night in Kansas was quite eventful. I had two bean burritos and mushrooms at a restaurant that also sold videos and bric-a-brac. Get Disney's First Kid starring Sinbad and a Hommel figurine for 5 bucks with a free side of curly fries. We ate with efficient joy, set up tent, and brushed teeth so that we could pass out by 8. We did this because we planned on waking up at 3 and making the long trip to Ordway without wind or sun.

Five minutes into sleep and a blinding light shines right into my face. I'm convinced it's either a group of people come to kill me or the sheriff come to write me a ticket for failing to yield fully at the 4-way. It is neither. It is the lights to the tennis court and, while I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, I did manage to make out that it was a very important match between two teenage girls who were both terrified of the ball. I have never heard such screaming.

I woke up again to my tent slowly suffocating me. The wind had picked up so fiercely that the side wall had wrapped itself around my face and blown up my nostrils. This was followed by a loud crash. Connor's bike had been blown into the air and onto the ground. He rushed to right it while I held his tent down.

My alarm went off just as I got to sleep. I had stayed up praying we wouldn't be struck by lightning. The storm worsened. The heat lightning had gone, but the wind picked up and was blowing against us. Connor's tent was completely smushed in on him. If we were to head out, we'd have to bike as hard as we could just to be blown backwards into Missouri. We made a tough executive decision: we went back to sleep.

We were back up at 530 and got ready to go. The wind might be up, but the storm had put hundreds of wonderful clouds in the air. I was even a little bit cold. We pushed on.

Then the best thing happened. We couldn't feel the wind. It was behind us and it stayed behind us as it pushed us across the rest of Kansas and 100 miles into Colorado. As I said in the first paragraph, I just love Colorado.

We ate lunch in Eads and were joined by a couple of Dubliners. These two got together over a couple of beers and drew up a map of places they wanted to see in the states using Google maps. Then they bought a road atlas and set about biking -- up to Yellowstone from San Francisco, back down to Vegas, over to the Rockies via Arizona, the desert at its hottest, and an Indian reservation.

They rode until they were tired and then they slept on the shoulder. They ate with real hunger at lunch. They survived the desert and coming upon town after town that existed on the maps but had either burned down or been abandoned. They had managed to see most of what they'd wanted to and they were only halfways.

I was very impressed. They weren't even sunburnt.

We arrived in Ordway at 6, had a decent meal, I lost a challenge to see if I could eat 3 pieces of bread in a minute (impossible), and we had a strange conversation with a curved-over man in camouflage about rattlesnakes. We went to Gillian's house and then the county rodeo.

Gillian is a woman from New Zealand who is kind enough to let cyclists into her home despite her being at work all day in the penitentiary. She has a hurt baby goose in her bathtub. She also has Alicia, who is working around the place in the mornings so she can live in sleepy, lovely Ordway. I have yet to meet Gillian, but I have spoken to her on the telephone.

The rodeo was tremendous. We walked from the dirt field in back of Gillian's to the floodlights and the music. We got there in time for the pairs cow lasso thingy, which was giving every rider trouble, and we stayed as the sun and lightning disappeared and the bull riding began.

One bull (KO) was not having it. He kicked and kicked in the stocks. Oddly, he was riden the longest. Heat -- what you could describe as a stretch-bull -- seemed friendly enough until he bucked his rider into the ground and stood on the boy's ribs. The boy, who had prayed to Jesus just moments before, was not that phased by being trampled. He was much more upset at going out so early. He had a nice pink shirt, sequined chaps, a new haircut (his neck tan gave him away), and he walked with all the unearned confidence young men often pretend to. He kept himself twice as busy after his loss, which helped keep his eyes down and away from the crowd.

Day 27, a small fragment

2008-07-24T22:02:00.001-04:00

I ended up getting the necessary courage and heatstroke to get in the pool.

Lying face down on the poolside was a plump blond woman with skin the color of beef jerky. She had a special harness for her face so that she could tan her broad shoulders without crushing her nose. She had a tremendous laugh.

In the deep-end were two elderly ladies doing aquarobics and me. They had polystyrene harnesses and weights and they managed to keep their permanented hair dry. One of the two women had a terrible bruise across her face.

I eavesdropped while resting on the pool's gutter.

"It's interesting that you say that because when we did it he took our hands like so [folded over each other] and then pronounced us."

"See we had our hands by our sides and only when we were husband and wife could we grab each others palms."

"But the prayer was the same."

"Oh yes. The prayer was."

Day 27, we're almost not in Kansas anymore Toto

2008-07-24T19:10:00.001-04:00

Forgive me the obvious subtitle, but I think I've either earned it or Kansas and the heat have melted any archness from my brain.

It's 105 degrees here. I'm at the pool in Tribune. I'm sweating in the shade. I'm in Mountain Time. I was reading my Twain book.

Woke up early today so that we could wake up early tomorrow. We rode for about 50 miles today (perhaps my shortest day yet) in anticipation of 120 miles tomorrow (perhaps my longest). We got into town early and had an early lunch at the Chatterbox Cafe.

Sometimes places live up to their names. Everyone was talking at the Cafe. People were shouting to us from across the room. "Where you from?" "Hot enough for you?" "Where you heading?"

A gentleman with a respirator wished us well. His wife offered us the local newspaper, The Hutchinson Post. A sweet, round couple who wore their pants very high told me about their daughter's trip to my hometown. She worked as a nanny for the man who built our soccer stadium. She flew in first. Apparently, she drinks scotch as a habit; on the flight, she had two 20 year old glasses of Chivas.

"That's not even a single malt," he said.

I told him I've never understood why those are so expensive.

"Because somebody's willing to pay for it!"

Quite wise. I went to the library, sat in a BarcaLounger, cracked open a copy of Adventure Kansas, rested it across my face and went to sleep. I woke up at closing, we to City Hall, looked at some neat old photos and a barbed wire collection, and then I hit the pool.

That brings us to now with one big omission. I no longer eat beef. There are hundreds of reasons to avoid eating another animal. I have three of the least noble: I'm sick of looking at them, or them looking at me; I hate the machines they use to move them around; and I have driven by a feedlot.

Now I think it is completely fine to remain willfully naive about some things. You can't feel bad about every decision. If you love the taste of a good hamburger -- as I do -- ignore my last paragraph and head to Shake Shack.

When the prairie cow turns 3 he is fattened up before death (humans follow this arc somewhat). What does a 3-year-old grass fed cow eat? Cow! Not, perhaps, what you and I might recognize as cow unless you are particularly fond of hoof, horn, bone, anus, and intestine. This swollen cow is then killed, subdivided, and sometimes sold to you as grass-fed wondercow.

I just don't think this sounds healthy. And the bloody trucks they use.

Day 26

2008-07-24T00:26:00.002-04:00

Kansas is subtly different today. Imagine her from yesterday, but less rain and flatter land has made her paler and short. I'll be honest, some of her beauty might be fading away too.

The grass is shorter in this part of the High Plains. Well I'll take it. The grass keeps everything down. Remember, this was once the Dustbowl. Best not to rip up the topsoil to grow potatoes here.

I had a minor depression today. The wind just would not get off my case. When it wasn't directly in my face, it decided to blow hard into the left side of my bike and body. To keep from riding into the shoulder (and up to Nebraska), I had to lean my entire body's weight on the right side on my handlebars. Fine. Then, settled, a Mack truck filled with cattle would come flying down the opposite lane and send a horrible gust of wind into your chest. It was like leaning into a punch or being sprayed by shrapnel made of cowshit.

This began to wear thin. I should never have drank a gallon of soy milk at breakfast. Elaine made the best granola and, after giving me a CD ROM of some kind of rapture inspired videogame, Dan played us one last song. "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" is the perfect song for a Kansas sunrise and sweet goodbyes.

We walked outside and briefly met the 80-year-old man who farmed last night's sweet corn. As a teenager, he and his Sunday school class built a large sign outside of town that is visible from an airplane. It says: Jesus Pilot Me. Is it asking or saying in broken English? The man is a spry 80, and he says this is because he never drank or smoke or did anything but love the Lord. We took photos of him holding a rock with the sign carved into it. He sells them for 30 bucks.

But back to me being in a bad mood. Good feelings wear with the wind, and after three hours of cowshit shrapnel punches, I was about ready to stop my bike, run into a cornfield, grab an ear and shout a violent obscenity in one of the few parts of the country where that might still matter. It made me mad.

Compounding this all, the electric motor I've been using to power my bike died. It's Korean. It uses 37 hearing aid batteries every 70 miles. I hate buying new batteries because some teenagers slip them behind their eyelids to get high. You should see the dirty looks I get at the pharmacy. I broke a sweat just worrying about it.

Scott City couldn't have come fast enough. Towns pop up from about 10 miles out here. You can see a town's grain elevator take over the sky like the Emerald City itself. We made our battered way to a Mexican restaurant, ate modestly, and then hit the Athleticlub.

The Athleticlub let's cyclists sleep on the floor, use the showers, and, most importantly, use their jacuzzi. They also have a diving board. The room I am lying in now has little girl's gymnastics lockers, a series of trophies, a large fan, and a couple of framed photographs of George Bush and Regan on a white horse. Oddly (or not), this is the exact same trope used on my rapture CD-ROM.

And that is a full day. We have an easy one tomorrow to Tribune (named for the New York Tribune) and we're going to try and wake up at 5 and bang it out. I'll be in bed soon, but I want to leave the day with breakfast because what we were talking about (and that we were talking about it) was all quite interesting.

We talked about organic food, mad cow's disease, other wasting diseases, agribusinesses that don't allow you to keep last year's seeds, and agricultural talk radio. Dan is a sometimes phone in caller. One farmer called in and wanted to know why hormone free organic milk lasts longer. The host had no answer.

An angry farmer called in to say that all this organic talk is rubbish and we should just go back to doing it like we used to, like our grandparents did. He meant using pesticides and hormones like our grandparents did. Even if his family were prodigious breeders, I should have liked to have had the chance to correct him. Dan was in his harvester at the time, but he wanted to give the man hell.

Day 25, late evening

2008-07-23T00:13:00.001-04:00

Elaine's was a treat.

While her Easy Veronica with meatballs cooked, Elaine took us to Mitch's to see his miniature artwork.

Mitch makes small scenes and people out of sculpey and in eggs, gourds, or plain old dioramas. Some of his scenes included a saloon, an artist at work in his studio ("If you look you'll see the plugs all plug in," noted Elaine), a lighthouse off of Cape Cod, Eskimos on ice, and a Scotland scene. The last one was going to go inside an emu's egg.

"I was looking at the egg and it wasn't quite right. Then it tipped over onto its side and I thought [*snap*] sideways!"

Mitch paints some and he also makes statuettes. He's got a Valkyrie, a gypsy girl, a barbarian with sword, and a female preacher with Tibetan lambswool for hair.

His house smells of old cigarette smoke. Everything was low down so he could reach it from his wheelchair. Once, when he was at a fair, a heavy wind started to blow his tarp away. He grabbed his tarp to stop it from going, it kited up and started to roll him down the street. He stopped it in time, but he couldn't feel his feet drag a harbor scene gourd crashing to the ground. He was alone at the time.

Each scene takes him about 10 months to make. I mentioned that I loved the dioramas at the Museum of Natural History in New York and he told me that that's where he wanted to get his stuff. He asked me to flag down the curator if I ever see him, and, if I ever do, I will. Perhaps for someone in Bazine (pop. 435), meeting one person in New York (pop. 9 million?) might seem easy.

Dinner was fantastic. Elaine told us that if we're short of water we can cool off by jumping into cowbaths at the base of windmills. Dan, her husband, told me a little bit about his many jobs rolling hay or alfalfa, raising cattle for feed, raising feed for cattle, his positive thoughts on organic produce, his negative thoughts on Barack Obama (it was my fault for bringing it up, and my fault for lingering on it). His ears really pricked up when we talked music.

In 1964, Dan and his family were on vacation in Colorado. He and his brother were listening to the AM when they heard that there were tickets still available for the Beatles concert at Red Rocks Natural Amphitheater. With luck and $6.60, Dan saw the Beatles at their loudest.

Dan has seen all kinds of bands over the years. My ears pricked up when he said he broke through the ropes to see The Band play at Harvard. When I told him that I'd been recreating The Band by The Band all throughout Virginia and Kentucky, Dan returned with a copy of that LP and Music from the Big Pink.

We put it on the machine, I sat back and listened to the first scrap of music I've actively listened to in months. Dan apologized profusely for the fact that only one speaker worked and then he took the dogs out for a run alongside his pickup.

One speaker is fine and plenty. A parting lyric from Rocking Chair that I remember misremembering in the Appalachians:

"Oh to be home again,
Down in old Virginie,
With my very best friend,
They call him Ragtime Willy...
This hill's too steep to climb,
And the days that remain ain't worth a dime..."

I am halfway across the country.

Day 25

2008-07-22T17:06:00.002-04:00

I have everything I need, here, in Bazine, Kansas.

I have my feet elevated in a hammock. I have my book and my notepad. I have a sharpened pencil. I have some almonds within reach. I have showered. I have no more riding to do.

It's 100 out, but I am in the shade. We woke up early, checked for dead ducks (there were none; or do duck eat duck?), grabbed a quick chocolate milk, and were heading west by 8. After a little while we made a right turn and headed north for 19 miles.

What's this? I can hear? I'm not bleeding out of my eardrums? Pedaling is easy again? I'm riding uphill at 20 miles an hour?

Finally, after a long four days journey into wind, a little bit of it at our backs. I apologize if the ratio of chat about how hard cycling is vs how joyful it can be is 87 to 13. In the interest of fixing my numbers, imagine this: you're spinning your feet through air while America at her most dramatic (yet) passes you by. The prairie is green in parts, golden in parts; the sky is whiteblue near the horizon and thick blue right above you. Most farm equipment is primary colored -- red, yellow, blue. The sun washes everything so that it blends nicely. The road remains black and yellow. There are a couple of clouds to keep things interesting.

I guess everything was so pleasant because I knew I'd be at Elaine's Bicycle Oasis by 1. This is where I am now.

Elaine is a lovely, softspoken woman whose idea of tourism is traveling to El Salvador for church volunteer work and getting guns pulled on her. She and her husband raise cattle but she has clearly driven miles out of her way to find soy milk for vegan cyclists. She likes us, despite whispers in the small town, because we are the kind of people who spend our holidays fighting our way across the country, people in transition, from college to retirement. Most of all, we are an appreciative lot. I thanked her three times for letting me use her shower.

We are driving in her truck to her friend Mich's house. Mick is disabled and paints miniatures and then glues them inside egg shells.

Day 24

2008-07-22T00:45:00.001-04:00

I left the bike store at 3. The gentleman who fixed my spokes offered to sell me a wheel that -- his words -- was just as bad as mine. I told him I'd have to pass. Two spokes and a wheel true came to 22 dollars (2 little ducks -- quack quack). The gentleman threw in bending my fender for free. Baruch Spinoza managed to remain composed in the hardest of situations. Must remain Spinozalike.

I flew up northwards. The wind was at my back and I was at Nickerson in short time. Good. I was in a hurry. I wanted to get off the road before the sun was at face level and the Larned public pool closed. At the expense of much suspense, I will tell you flat out that this did not happen.

Between Nickerson and Larend is 58 miles of prairie, my first sunflower field, a waterfowl preserve, and no drinkable water. Naturally, I stocked up.

About 10 miles down the road I managed to pour the contents of one of my precious waterbottles on my legs (it did feel good) and I discovered that the gentleman at the bike shop had kindly emptied my other one for me. I would have to breathe through my nose.

In the distance, large rolling sprinklers sprayed gallons of water on the grassfields. I closed my eyes. Spinoza's philosophy is quite interesting (and awfully boring to read) because it makes philosophical arguments as geological proofs.

Allow me to attempt a geographical argument using geometry. Kansas' flatland cannot stop the wind from moving across it. The wind cools. Ergo, the people have to remain warm to each other. Otherwise, they would just blow away.

Breakfast at Joey's Diner was a lovely experience. Old men is various plaids and ladies in two pieces all approached us and asked us where we were going. They demanded we have a bigger table for all the food we were eating. They wished us well.

Larned has the only hill in the area. While writing to you from my tent, a group of teenagers stoned a duck to death in the pond next to my campsite. 20 minutes on and the ducks are still crying.

Larned reminds me a bit of the town in The Magnificent Ambersons. At the top of the hill is a mansion that predates the rest of the homes. It is a bit Georgian and seems to have been built with the idea that the hill around it would remain sparsely populated. This was not to be. You can see other large homes from the following decades -- none as nice -- and as times grew tougher, lots were divided and divided and flimsier homes were jammed in the cracks.

At the end of the estate is a nice Mexican restaurant. I had a Jarritos mandarin, ice-cream and churros, a quesadilla, a burrito, chimmichangas, chips and salsa. I had everything at the same time. In the background, a waitress tried to explain to a farmer why Mexican Coke is better than American Coke.

"Well, for starters, they don't use corn."

Day 24, a quick correction

2008-07-21T13:33:00.001-04:00

They actually have shark in Kansas! This used to be a vast ocean and in Oakley you can see fossils of horrifyingly large shark. Fortunately, I'm past it.

Day 24, Stuck in Hutch

2008-07-21T13:22:00.001-04:00

I am in Hutchinson. My faithful bicycle is being repaired and I will have to wait. So I went to the space museum.

The Hutchinson Cosmosphere was voted one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas. I wonder why anyone would pay money to see a simulacra of the sky when any Kansan can get the real deal for free (good and clear and with a thick orange harvest moon). I didn't feel like paying for it either, so I stuck to the gift shop, bought some astronaut ice-cream to see if it was as disgusting as I remembered it (it was) and defaced some currency. For 51 cents, I smushed a spaceshuttle clean across Abraham Lincoln's proud, copper face.

And now I'm in the library. Hutchinson has a museum of Hollywood kitsch 650 feet underground in an abandoned mine, but sadly it's too far away to walk to. I will make do with the Wichita Business Journal, the tourist bureau's 'Kansas: as big as you think', and 'The Philosophy of Spinoza' by Spinoza.

I have 75 miles to go today and it looks like I'll be starting at 3. With luck, I'll be done at 11PM. I very well might have to ride by the stars.

Day 23, 100 degrees in the wind

2008-07-21T00:03:00.001-04:00

Today was another slog through the winds of Kansas. It was horribly hot. But, for a good five hours, the corn gave way to grass.

West of Eureka are the flinthills of Kansas -- the largest natural grassland in the world. It stretches up to the tippy top of Nebraska and down as far as Oklahoma. Much of it, I'm told, is open range. Cattle (It's what's for dinner) get to wonder the wide strip until cowboys on ATVs round 'em up. Cows aside, they also farm oil and wind. The flinthills are hilly by Kansan standards and -- of this I am dead certain -- the winds always bluster westsouthwest.

We got an early start to try and beat the wind. Sadly, the wind got up even earlier. Consider the syllogism: the earl bird catches the worm; the early worm gets eaten and then vomited up and re-eaten; earliness is not all that jazz.

So we pushed on. We pushed on as Kansas went to church and then stayed home. We pushed on through ghost towns, down long straightaways, and right into Jim Davis. Jim had pulled his pickup onto the side of the road because he saw us and wanted to offer us a soda. We talked bikes, ranching, and all sorts of things because the longer we talked the longer we didn't have to bike, and because the longer he talked he didn't have to fix his sister's porch. It was lovely.

It was Kansas. The people are few and far between, but when you see them they're lovely. The ladies at Braum's ice cream were wonderful ("she has boys about your age you know; bless you; good luck"); the boy who turned 14 today and entourage were all sweet as could be when he invited us over for lemonade ("well, you know I'll be driving soon, so cyclists watch out").

I love it here. The sky is so clear it's like a planetarium. There are no sharks. Overcrowding isn't an issue. I've begun putting myself in a trance state so I can sleep through much of the riding. I keep my eyes open just thin enough to keep the yellow dashing by on my left and the gutter on my right. I think about how little time 6 hours ride is, say, to a prairie. I think about how I would have improved The Munsters (improvement number 23: add a living hand).

Oh: I called Pastor John to thank him for everything and to subtly apologize for calling him by the wrong name. He told me,

"Don't worry about it Jack. I've been called worse things."

Jack!

Day 22, yet more Kansas

2008-07-19T19:52:00.001-04:00

This was a day of ups and downs on flat land. I had a wonderful breakfast with Pastor John, who I called Bob through the entire meal, after he gave me his card (all I saw was a 16 letter surname), and when we said goodbye. I would hate myself for this for hours, but Johnbob did say that Christ was put here to save us from our sins and to remind us that we were fallible. I'll tell you what is infallible: Johnbob's fresh and strong coffee and his tremendous homemade biscuits with pumpkin jam. Plus, real butter in margarine country.

I left and biked west into the wind. I almost never stopped biking west. The wind almost never stopped blowing at me.

The land here drives you mad. A good working definition of infinity: think of the largest number you can and add 1 to it. And so it goes with Kansas. Think of all the corn you can and add ten miles to that. Ditto hay, yellow dashes in the middle of roads, telephone poles, and grass. There is no stillness in this. You move down a straight road with the worst feeling that you're going in circles.

But, with nothing in between, I made it to Eureka. I paused for milkbreaks and to tape down another popped spoke. I could have gone on for another 100 miles, but the bike shop in Hutchinson is closed on Sundays so I will have to wait them out and only go 77 miles tomorrow.

I am at the new pool. I went swimming earlier. My new friends and I -- Cody, Earl, and Cody's sister, all 11 -- had a couple of handstand contests, underwater races, and biggest splash conversation.

"So you're a biker huh?"
"That's right."
"I have a bike. It's one of those bikes from Wisconsin --"
"I farted, haHa."
"I ride it a lot now. But I crashed once. Schwin, it's a Schwin, but my Uncle Eric has another kind and he's a real biker."
"Canopener!"
"I can make my stomach fat."
"That's nothing," I said, "I saw a woman in Kentucky who couldn't fit in this entire pool."

Closing time at the swimming pool is one of young life's great sadnesses. It can't be explained. The other is dropped ice-cream cones.

I am cooking for myself for the first time in a small while. It's rice fro WalMart. The instructions ask for margarine. I'll try and find some when I hit up the bowling alley.

Cheerio.

Pool closing

Day 21, my third week begins

2008-07-18T23:06:00.001-04:00

Tonight I sleep like a king on the floor of Lutheran Pastor Bob's office. Bob welcomed us with fresh vegetables from his garden. After hellos, we walked back into it to grab some fresh sweet cream corn. We ate it, made a puttanesca with the veggies, and ate chocolate cake in a Sunday School classroom. We are in Kansas.

The United States is the Saudi Arabia of food and here are our oilfields. The plains unfold in four directions like an awful perspective drawing of corn, highway, sky, corn, hay, corn, and telephone poles. What you can't quite capture on the canvas is the wind.

I do not believe having enemies is petty. Multiculturalism does not exist if you are so polite as to allow everything to happen (the cannibal's right to dinner does not eclipse my belief in the rights of all mankind). Of course it is a sad day when one makes a new enemy: so welcome headwinds, meet totalitarianism, anti-individualism, fluorescent lights, U2.

The ex-marine I spoke to a while back told me this bit of pseudoshakespeare: every state takes its pound of flesh. I left Missouri five pounds heavier (I had pie for breakfast), potbellied, and in tremendous spirits. Five miles of biking against a 10 mile an hour wind left me miserable in Kansas. My poor bike registered its dissatisfaction by blowing a spoke a little ways down highway 7 our of Pittsburg, KS.

Pittsburg is a neat little town. There is one block of turn-of-the-last-century American vertical architecture and then it quickly descends into two story houses, ranch homes, trailers, plains. The post office is spectacular. I went into a pawn shop and found myself torn between a poster of Buzz Aldrin, a handgun, or a Dolly Parton album. I left with nothing.

A while up the street I stopped a man to ask directions. He knew nothing. He was probably my age but his cheeks were hollowed out and he wore his t-shirt around his shoulders like it was designed to improve his posture. His empty, sunbleached blue eyes could have been ripped from a Walker Evans photo or, as Connor correctly noted, Larry Clark.

And that brings us to now. Or then. Since starting this post I have taken a shower and I have helped Pastor Bob trap a small cat in a cobwebby basement. He returned to his crime procedural and I to you, but not without walking through a field of 100,000 fireflies.

Tomorrow, I am having breakfast with Bob and then hitting the flat road. I hope to ask Bob what, exactly, is Garrison Keillor's role in the Lutheran Church. I have 200 miles to the next bike shop. With luck, Rocinante should hold up until we can get him seen to.

Some parting advice: drink milk.

Day 20, entering the plains

2008-07-18T00:04:00.001-04:00

I've injured myself eating. Forgive me if this post is short, but I can't get into my favorite writing position (sun salutation) on account of a distended tummy.

No matter how professionally or hard you exercise*, you cannot eat a beef brisket sandwich, a country ham, a chocolate milk, fried chicken livers, and three pieces of blueberry pie a la mode. You will feel bad in the best possible way. Now, complaints out of the way, I have found America's best restaurant.

Cooky's in Golden City, Missouri has everything. It's a family business. I had a granddaughter serve me her grandfather's cow. There is a warmth and friendliness to everyone and communal conversation that you would never find at a Per Se, per se. You can stay as long as you need or nap in the back. They allow kids. They have sundaes. And nearly every scrap of food is grown on the farm out back. A water sommelier will not stab you with a fork until you relent Pellegrino; you, normal eater, will spend 10 dollars.

The kicker: they actually want you to get full here. There are restaurants in New York City where, say, a lima bean salad is made from just a lima bean. At Cooky's, everything is plural.

A man cycling across country stopped into the restaurant and had a slice of pie. He stayed for 4 days and ate there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until he had eaten every single freshly made pie. I only had Dutch blueberry because I struck gold the first time. And because I knew I was going there for breakfast.

Earlier, a man woke me from my 35th failed attempt at a nap and told me he was the warm showers man. That's a bit fresh! Warm showers, it turns out, is a collection of people who board cyclists out of no greater utility but pure selflessness and a love of conversation. As we talked, it turns out he was stationed in my home town, worked at the hospital my brother was delivered at, and bought custom made NoSqueak shoes at the military mall I used to buy my comics at.

He met us at the Golden City Idol competition in the park. We just missed a young -- really young -- country singer whose parents farm and take highschool photographs. Do you know how much a Missouran spends on a senior portrait? 1500 dollars for the full treatment, blemishes photoshopped and a gaussian halo added to your pickup.

Like I said, we missed her act but were given a CD. The dad took the photos and made the album art. On the verso, a listing of songs including Stand By Your Man. Her father made her up, stuck her in a windblown canyon and photographed her from a distance. On the front, he stuck his daughter in some black chamber and blurred her hair into infinity. I don't feel good having this thing so I have given it to Connor (who probably doesn't feel good having it either).

Interesting fact of the day: country music was invented the very year the urban population overtook the rural.

*This depends on whether you believe competitive eating is a sport.

Day 19, a feast and the promise of seconds

2008-07-16T23:12:00.001-04:00

Diane, remind me to buy a drop tarp from a hardware store so that I don't have to lie on wet nylon without due cause.

Refreshed from my first night's sleep in a real bed, I was not. I stayed awake till something-past-midnight and then made the mistake of thinking 6 was 7 when I set my alarm. Fortunately, I was riding with Connor and we had both agreed the night before that the ride was going to be easy.

Connor is an artist out of Baltimore. He is traveling across the country for research (in part). He takes photographs of dense, dense woods and then painstakingly draws every knobling of bark with a very fine brush. The result is really quite impressive, both technically (think Durer etchings if that helps you) and in the harder, vaguer area of being neat to look at. His book asks you to 'Read Slowly', and I did. Perhaps I am starved for faces, but I saw people in the woods.

The panels (24?) move chronologically through a woods and so do we. The tall, thick trees of Virginia make way for the shorter, denser eastern redwoods of Kentucky, which in turn give way to broad farmland, fertile Mississippi flatlands, rolling, reddish Ozarks, and now the trees of Central Missouri, which have green leaves, trunks, and roots. As a matter of fact, I have a root wedged in my spine as I write these very words.

These trees are plugged right into the ground here, which, blessedly, is nearly flat. Connor and I trudged it today, a cool 80 miles with time for a library break, a failed nap on the skinniest bench I have ever seen, my best biscuit sandwich yet, yet more chocolate milk, and 5 of those magical cups of coffee that leave you more tired than you were before you committed to caffeine. I have little else to report except for that I think I had the best bagel of my life in Fair Grove, Missouri (hint: sourdough).

Can I tell you what I'm excited about? We are headed to Golden City tomorrow to a restaurant called Cookie's that just might give us 6 pies. If nothing else, inching one step nearer to pie has made the day a definite victory. Expect a long rant about the many pleasures of eating across this country.

Day 18

2008-07-16T16:14:00.001-04:00

Please, let me gloat just this once. I beat the mighty Ozarks in a day, which, biblical scholars that you are, is about how long He took to put them up.

It wasn't particularly pleasant, and there were far too many logging trucks for my liking, but I had time for a nap at Alley Springs, I found myself a sarsaparilla in Summersville when I needed it most, and I had the large carrot of free soda and a hot tub dangling right in front of me. Tomorrow, I've been promised a brief trip to Dog's Bluff and a cliff jump into a creek (I'm told) to set my day off right.

This is going to get boring for you. I haven't had anything horrible happen to me for a little while. Missouri is pleasant enough. It's nice. So the week's challenge just might be narrative.

I walked into a greasy spoon to get change for my laundry. I noticed the woman running it because she was wearing lipstick just under her mustache. Everyone was smoking and staring at me.

"How do you all do?"
All together now: "Muh."

To the left of the boss was a strange taxidermied animal. It had the head of a rabbit, horns, a pheasant's body, and a fish's tail.

"Say, what do you call one of those?"
"Jackalope."
"I've yet to see one of those on my trip."
"You can't see them you Mo-ron. It's made up."

While I will sleep easier knowing there aren't flying, swimming rabbits, I am a bit concerned that a man decided to glue the ass of one animal to another -- and that another man or woman paid him for it.

Earlier that morning, at a hardware store in Ellington:

The nicest, nicest man charges up to me, all smiles at seven AM. He's in his fifties and has a bluetooth headset. I'm there for tape, but we get to talking.

"Well now where are you from?"
"XX."
"Why gang, get a load of this. This nice young man biked all the way over the ocean from XX."
"I..."
"I'm just joshing you. Hey, speak of it, here's Josh!"
"Oh hiyo. Everyone's always saying you're joshing me -- but I'm just Josh."
"There you go now."

I used all the tape I could, kept some, but returned the bulky roll. They could use it for something.

"Well I can't take this. Let me give you back some money. No? Well you have just made my day."

Well ditto.

Day 17, a musical addend

2008-07-14T22:53:00.001-04:00

Cows masticate for no reason. They can have empty mouths and just keep on moving their teeth clockwise against each other.

My mind masticates bovine. I want to share one thing it's been doing lately.

It's making a megamix. It is horrible. It begins with a church hymn, then British military songs, then English vaudeville as I misremember them. Listen:

...power, power, wondermaking power of the lord...

...In th Quartermaster's store -- behind the door -- My eyes are dim I can not see, I have not brought my specs with me, I have no brought my specs with me...me...MEeeeee'll...

...Drink a drink a drink, to Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink, the savior of the human ra-hay-ace, for she invented, a medicinal compound and now we're learning how to fly...

My, that's precocious, even though the sound of it is something quite...

Ixbyalydocious, supercalifragilisticixbyalidocious!

Thank you.

Day 17, the kind of perfect day that will go unremembered

2008-07-14T20:02:00.003-04:00

I am in Centerville at the local malt shop/diner. It is opposite the Sheriff's office and the town hall. I will sleep between these two buildings as the people of Centerville have kindly invited me to. Now, how to shower using the Sheriff's sink. I am trying to get as much of my naked body into the shallow bowl. It's not working.

I am in Missouri, the show-me-state.

Missouri completes my brief spell with Mississippi flat land. Fun fact: Mark Twain was born in Hannibal, Missouri. Fun fact: the human head weighs eight pounds.

This was originally a French colony. There are historic French colonial homes and a couple of wineries that probably have very little to do with the early French traders.

I left Chester, hung a right by the statue of Olive Oil, breezed past Bluto or whatever his name was, and took a left past the Popeye statue to get over the river. Once in Missouri I noticed the birds were happier and that everyone drives Mack trucks. It's just the thing to do.

Less than fun event: a young Missouran deliberately veered from his lane to see if he could get as close as possible to me. What the French! I hope his date was impressed and that he gets the handjob of his short life in that little car, before a vehicle larger than his decides to run him over so that its driver can impress its date.

A bit of statistics here. I have seen close to a hundred thousand cars pass my by. Not even factoring in waves, smiles, and warm nods, a hundred-thousand-to-one are strong odds to suggest that we are good to each other here in America. That this event -- because it was an event or anomaly -- is more memorable does not mean it is equal. I believe you can learn more from an individual case any day and, yes, 90% of figures can be made to say whatever you want; but I want to stress the numbers just this once. After all, they say what I want them to.

I have a hard day ahead of me and then it's nearly flat tills the Rockies. As a reward, I have the Horse Creek Inn. I have already been given two wooden pogs redeemable for free beer; sadly, I'm not drinking, but I am buying!

Some words to live by from FBI agent Dale Cooper:

"Every day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, just let it happen. It could be tickets to a game [?] or two hot cups of coffee."

Day 16

2008-07-13T22:54:00.001-04:00

Here's something to add to the old resume: capable of conversing while complete stranger enters bedroom and defecates in corner.

I actually spent a lovely night in the men's room. I used a 3 foot bench and a shower stall to hang myself on like a suspension bridge. My legs were elevated and pressed against the wall and this could be why I felt so great.

After a couple of conversations with cowboys about the rain and cycling and whether the horses got spooked, I packed up and hit the mess hall. Martha runs the place, makes tremendous biscuits and coffee, and did a great job decorating. They've got IQ tests on the table and I scored 110. I talked with the cowboys, listened to good, classic country, and talked across the room to a woman who was itching to ride the River to River trail, but couldn't tell if it was going to be too muddy. I complemented Martha on her restroom and then moseyed on out.

I moseyed into Scoth. I was glad to see him as I was convinced he'd drowned. Obviously he hadn't, but he was really tired. We rode to Goreville together, I got him an introduction to a cute vegetarian waitress --

G: He's a great guy, but he's a vegetarian. Isn't that weird?
A: Why would that be weird. I'm a vegetarian.
G: You'll love him. I'll go find him

-- and then I biked out. I biked to my heart's content, met up with an elder gentleman from Cali on his way East, and then made it to the Wal-Mart Supercenter.

I will allow you your opinions on anything, but you are wrong if say you don't like Wal-Mart. You're not comparing it to the right thing. Think of how much choice and value it offers the country resident whose other alternatives are General Dollar or the canned foods at the gas station. I bought 25 Cliff Bars, organic rice-a-roni, Gatorade powder, too much junk, and a two foot long turkey sandwich for 4 bucks. Think of the time and carbon saved in being able to buy a Hannah Montana lunchbox, worms, your medicine, and watermelons at the same place.

I weighed twice as much heading out to Chester. I couldn't sit upright because the foot long would poke me in the adam's apple. I got lost in the Mississippi levee and saw nothing but one aeroplane for miles

A note on terror. Hitchcock was onto something in North by Northwest. Terror isn't shadows and darkened alleys. You can hide in those. Terror is blinding sunlight in a field so big you can't orient yourself. Now add the whirring sound of a vicious river.

The old Miss is brown and smells brown. It moves at a million miles an hour and would drag you under and eat you without thinking twice. Sometimes it floods.

Not today, which is why I am in friendly Chester -- Home of Popeye. More on that to come tomorrow I'm sure.

Day 15

2008-07-13T00:17:00.001-04:00

Charming update. I am sleeping on the floor of the men's room.

Day 15

2008-07-13T00:08:00.001-04:00

I know where they've hid the children. VBS -- Vacation Bible School.

Whether you believe the words 'Vacation' and 'School' should be part of the same compound or not, I have discovered why things seem oddly Pied Pipery.

I'm not going to linger on religion, so here's one last bit of strict reportage taken from the whiteboard in the classroom I slept in:

VBS -- Vacation Bible School July 12th-18
[3 feet over]
Characteristics You Want
Kindness
Trustworthy
Loving
Confident
Faithful
Honest
Giving person

Moving on, no wait, one more thing: You should see the size of their coffee machine. They buy coffee in crates, boil one thousand cups in a minute, and everyone must have a cup in hand.

Now, moving on. Lunch left me a little full and swollen. I ended up ordering a stack of 3 pancakes, screwing the florspar museum, drinking 6-or-so cups of sweat tea and getting into jittery conversations with the unfortunate people in my radius.

The fact that people talk to me is a testament to Mid-Western niceness. Here's a description of my appearance at the halfway mark. My face has Frenched up around the middle and I have the kind of suntan that looks more dirt than bronze. I am hopelessly unshaven. My hair is lightly-salted, blown dry, and made by the same person who does Pacino's wigs. My body ate my chest for lunch one day, but to compensate for this I've developed very wide shoulders and a tight face. My little upper body sits on ox legs that don't really work. Topping things off, I smell like Chinatown after an August trash collector's strike.

And still they say hello.

I rolled myself to the ferry and even managed to take a nap while I waited. I crossed the mighty Ohio and have ended up in Illinois.

Illinois, that pointy state of ad men with broad shoulders who come in on little cat feet. "Imagineer ad men, a new way to sell travelers on a barely complete gravel road and they will come." I took that 'scenic byway' from Cave In Rock to Elizabethtown and nearly collapsed from shaking. I went to the nearest liquor store and bought myself a gallon jug of water.

Elizabethtown is not the charming backroad Orlando Bloom charmed in the charmless, eponymous film. I saw a man in that store who extinguished a lit cigarette in his eyelid. I went out, sat on the curb, pounded my gallon jug, felt my stomach give way, and then laid prostrate on the dirty cement for a good hour's nap. I blended right in.

I called around to the nearest B&B to see if I could sleep off my waterover. I decided otherwise.

I would regret this decision with every inch of my shaking body when, after climbing 750 feet to my first plateau I got caught in the mother of all storms. I tried to out race it, but it caught up to me fast. I ran into the woods, found the lowest point, and then sat in the lightning position -- like you're sitting on a Chinese toilet with a tremendous headache. I tried to sit it out, but my small gully became a large river.

In a very Rambo move, I sprinted across the road, down a hill, and straight to someone's front door. I was scared. I kept my helmet on in the hopes of looking like less of a serial killer. Cue man and wife staring at wet man, lightening flashing, in bike gear. After the initial fear, we chatted, yada yada, I biked another 9 miles to a horse riding campground in Edenville, got dry, dried clothes, crap, I've got to go the storm has started again. I am safe, spent a long time getting my gear dry, and it might be getting wet all over again.

Day 15, a quick note

2008-07-12T13:12:00.001-04:00

I am eating my first real breakfast of the trip here in Marion, KY (not to be confused with Marion, Il). To come: three pieces of French toast with pecans, two sunny eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon, and some sweet tea to wash it all down.

I am making such great time that I might go check out the Clement Mineral Museum. "It's so good it should be in Chicago," says our hostess. A gentleman has informed me that Marion was once the florspar capital of the world. In the 50s there were 3 car dealerships in town and they had everything imaginable. Now, it is small but still pleasant.

Anyhow, here's why I've called this meeting. It's to talk about bike talk. I mentioned that I was sick of hearing about it yesterday, but it has occurred to me that I haven't done a good deal of describing it. To aid me in this end, let's use the power of cowboy metaphor.

"That is an amazing horse."

"Thank you. It's a brown one with handprints. Yours is equally amazing too."

"Thank you. Mine's a black beauty that was once wild, but I've tamed her and added some things like lights."

"Clever. I am in love with your horse."

"I love your horse's ass."

"See I prefer your horses ass. Hey now, your horse has a penis."

"You noticed. I find it convenient."

"You weren't concerned with weight? I had my horse's penis removed at a horse shop earlier. We were dragging along."

"What a novel idea. Maybe I'll get mine fixed in Carbondale..."

And on and on. Yes, we are all on bikes; but can we please talk about something else. Sports? Did you ever see the ass on Lance Armstrong? Me, I prefer Tara Lipinski...

Day 14, Have I miscounted?

2008-07-11T23:11:00.001-04:00

Today a new tack: a kvetch-less post. Well, somewhat.

I woke up bright and early to the sound of someone waking me up. It would seem that I overslept the first day of the rest of my life, and so I would be riding with Scoth (rhymes with goth). We headed to the much-talked about Baptist church in Seebree. I rewarded myself with coffee.

I don't actually like riding with other people and Scoth is definitely other people. Now, instead of worrying about other cars you have to worry about another bike. Now, instead of replaying Alanis Morisette's Ironic over-and-over again in your brain, you have to talk. Well, we did.

Scoth is actually quite interesting. Quite interesting fact: corn and soy are rotated every year, so the cornfield to my left is next year's soyfield (soyfield? Yes!). Scoth (born Scott I am sure) is a rapid fire drummer from out of Indianapolis. He is vegan -- except for twice a year -- and knows a heck of a lot about golden era punk. Scoth is 37 and so he had to live through Motley Crüe. We can agree that Tommy Lee is a class-A git and a terrible drummer to boot. It is refreshing to talk to somebody from the middle of the country, as some of the types I meet -- yesterday's San Franciscan Free Tibet Atheist being a prime example -- are a bit, erm, coastal.

We made tremendous time as we rolled through the Kentucky bumps. Like the Eskimo before me, I have developed 37 different word for your word hill: dumps, bumps, dulldrumps, rollies, ekg-ers, John Goodman ekg-ers, hilldogs (hills with dogs), coasters, rollers, toupees (hills without concrete on tops), falsies (hills with extra tops), Jayne Mansfields, purples, gummy-dummy-wumdops (try asking an Appalachian thoroughbred about that), moustachios, crumbumplers, and treadhills (hills where the asphalt slowly rolls down against you).

And so dinner at church. I showered, did my laundry, and volunteered to help weed the front lawn. I quickly unvolunteered when I found out that it was nearly 100 out. I had just showered!

So I read the Gospel of John in a hammock with some cats. John is the catchy one that begins, 'In the Beginning there was the word, and, given the letters R S T L N and E, can you guess what that word was for a chance at a set of jetskis and eternal life?'

My favorite line so far goes thusly:

Jesus is at a party and his mom, the virgin, makes this major party foul and blurts that they're out of wine. "4 [son of God] saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come, 5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it."

Not very polite, eh? Verily, verily, verily.

I was saddened to find out I missed the monastery that Thomas Merton stayed at. The atheist told me this. I have never taken a vow of silence, but there are moments on this trip when I remember his words on contemplation and on being Christian to others with some fondness.

I was reminded of that today at dinner. The pastor and his wife and their neighbors took four other cyclists and me into their home and fed us aplenty. Chicken wrapped in bacon in cream (!), ice-cream and cake left over from Florence's 92nd birthday, fresh greens with six different kinds of ranch dressing (!!). Heaven is Cool Cucumber. Whatsoever I could have wanted I had.

We prayed before we ate and I am now convinced prayer aids the digestion. Think about what you're eating, the logistical juggle that gets cucumbers and bacon bits and iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes together in a rude mouthful. Enzymes will flow. Thank every miracle.

We talked bike stuff -- I don't know about you but I am sick to death of bike stuff -- and we talked trains. I tried to get Pastor Bob to bite on a question of theology ("Who are these Old Regular Baptist lot anyways?") but he did not take. He was more interested in people which is probably why his church is such a hit. They have ping pong!

We prayed at the end. We joined hands, Violet wished us safety, that God would be with us, that more Americans would travel their country (amen), and that we would have good winds. Since half of us were going different directions, I will assume she meant my half. When we finished praying, she hugged me. That was the first hug I've had in a while and it was lovely.

Say what you will about the Bible, the people who try to live by it in these parts understand charity, kindness, and warmth. So thank you Kentucky on my last day.

Disregard this side note. I have it in here because I thought it...

Something I really wanted to say at dinner because it would have made me look really, really smart: "So the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all four versions of the same story, huh? That's a bit like Kurosawa's Rashomon."

Something Bob should have said but would be too polite to: "No you pretentious sinner. Rashomon is like the Bible. But goodness you must be really, really smart."

"Well..."

Day 13

2008-07-10T22:34:00.001-04:00

What a lovely day. How effortlessly central Kentucky rolls by. I left My Old Kentucky Home State Park (phew!) and went on an early morning bourbon tour.

Heavenly Hash Bourbon is mashed and then stacked in new barrels in what look to be abandoned army barracks. I biked by the distillery at sunrise. My eyes are bloodshot from staring at the sun.

Flawed thesis: even ignoring sun worshipers, organized religion is sold easiest in areas with broad, beautiful skies. Consider rates of attendance in KY vs. Swansea. Consider horrible watercolors of sunsets (or firemen at sunset (or firemen with American flags at sunset)) popular with the evangelical crowd. Reconsider Frederick Church.

I talked to everyone today. I talked to a 6 year old who swore that his brother once caught 16 fireflies with one hand. I talked to an atheist from San Francisco about whether religion is just a word and about his odd dinner with the pastor's wife I plan on eating with tomorrow. I talked to an old woman about why the roads are the way they are -- they just are (although some flooding accounts for why roads are split across rivers. I talked to two fisherman about many raccoons that they named Roger. I talked to a turtle I saved from crushing because, if you whisper a secret into a turtle's ear you won't have to carry it anymore. Alright, alright I confess -- I ate catfood once.

Have you ever had an Ale-8-One? If not, can I recommend a trip to central Kentucky for the only ginger ale/fruit drink worth traveling for.

I am camped out at the base of a damn. I bumped into two girls going Eastbound and was joined by a man in an Iroc-Z.

"Any you girls wanna git round real fas? I show you dun dere."

His kids were quite embarrassed. Nobody was wearing. I mention this because, in a day when I have been stopped by or stopped 30 people to talk, this was the only cretin and yet this is what I felt like sharing with you. I am not doing these people justice. Central and Western Kentucky people are great people, gentlemen farmers with polite dogs, lovely fruit stand vendors with fresh peaches, kindly sheriffs who will track you down 2 miles down the road with different, better directions.

I gained an hour today. Tomorrow I will spend it on a ride at sunset. Tomorrow will be 2 weeks and a thousand miles. I am excited to spend it at the Baptist Church in Seebree, KY. Scuttlebut has it, these are special people.

Day 12

2008-07-09T22:53:00.001-04:00

Well the straight line worked. It wasn't pretty and it involved hobbling into a repair shop in Danville for the first tuneup my poor bike has gotten in years. It worked.

I woke up early and biked for an hour looking backwards at the rising sun.

Danville is lovely. Small Episcopalian church, small espresso joint, small courthouse where I waited for my bike to be fixed. It would appear that I had been riding with the brake on for the past couple of days, that my chain was past kaput, that my earlier repair was worthless, and that an extra gear ring would have to be added before my knees spring open leaving ligaments and rubberbands all over the asphalt. It was done, reasonably, quickly, friendlily, by a man who has ridden the country on a tandem with son and a musician who plays Appalachian music.

So I feel better. I pedaled into the wind for four more hours, but it was not hard -- just trying on my patience. I am in Bardstown, where Steven Foster wrote My Old Kentucky Home. There's a musical going on. I, for the most part, chatted with two kids touring the Bourbon Belt, and with two fellow Westbound cyclists. Then I showered, got some disease from the tile (I am convinced), and fell asleep.

Day 11

2008-07-08T15:13:00.001-04:00

I am in Berea, KY home of Berea, College.

Berea is kind of a neat school: students have to work for their (free) tuition and they do so either in maintenance or by making arts and crafts. It all looks a bit like Pottery Barn. People come from all around the country to buy their handiwork, but I have faith that some enterprising university in Bangladesh could make a run on this market with low-cost alternatives and a couple of years.

I think I only did 50 miles today. My body is in a minor revolt and I suspect my Bolshy mind is behind this. That and the warm Kentucky sun. My mood will go through manic swings depending on the type of terrain; and, while this was officially the end of the Appalachians, I expect other mountain ranges to take their miserable place. I do not feel particularly great today.

Today was a favorite day for natural beauty, however. The area just east of the city is stunning, a hollow valley surrounded by densely veggified cliffs. The sky was so wide that I could see sunlight and rain -- rain like a cow pissing on a flat rock. In time, that cow was standing squarely above me. (Get your hands on a Frederick Church painting for a near approximation.)

At 5 in the morning it began to pour. The next hour of my sleep was ruined by doubts that my limping tent had sprung a leak. My whole day has been plagued with doubts. Did I take a wrong turn? Why is this hill so steep? How am I getting worse at this?

I have decided to take the afternoon off -- it's 91 degrees F out (F!) -- and to seek shelter in the crafts store, Blondie's icecream parlor, and at the Dinner Bell. It is amazing that, after a promising start, I have to baby myself along. My body just won't go sometimes.

I hope to be asleep by 530 and up earlier tomorrow because tomorrow I cheat.

Tomorrow I will ride in a straight flat line from where I am leaving to where I am going. I am not going to ride up a hill just so I can ride down it; I am not going to see the Shaker museum in Harrodsburg (which I'm a little saddened by); I am going to go the logical route for a change. My trip isn't about a trail, distance or speed, it's about seeing as much as I can and getting to that far coast.

Oh. I would have gotten you all gifts here but nothing weighed less than 10 pounds. You'll have to improvise on paperweights and rattan brooms for a little longer.

Day 10

2008-07-07T22:14:00.001-04:00

I will pass through Berea at 8:30 in the morning tomorrow and, with that, leave the Appalachians.

An aphorism I heard from Steve, a former soldier, metal worker, Oregonian, and a man who genuinely has a list of things he wants to see and do:

"It was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock."

Today, alas, was dry. I will be up early to avoid the sleep. I am sorry for the brevity but I have spent most of my evenings chatting to real-live-people. Please take this as an apology and a promise that, when I am undoubtedly abandoned to myself, I will be full of stories.

Also, I will settle the debate over precisely which valley has the prettiest accent (hint: it's not the valley between Forest Hills, Queens and Flushing.

Day 9, I was lifted up the hills

2008-07-06T23:21:00.001-04:00

Because this was a long day, this will be a short post.

Kentucky is not flat as I misread it.

The Appalachians are not over.

The heat would not go away but come back with humidity.

It was Sunday and a church I passed -- now almost exclusively Baptist of cosmetic difference -- had this sign: "Heaven is a cool place." If heaven is the free of suffering, then that must be so. Central air, all downhill.

But, following a similar trope of forlornness and redemption, I happened upon the Historical & Genealogical Society Bed and Breakfast in Hindman, KY. After having to push my bike up its mossy entrance, I was greeted by David, proprietor, with a glass of sweet tea a southern vegetarian meal, and four deserts to choose from. On top of that, I have finally gotten to sit down and talk with someone heading east -- Boris.

And so, around a bonfire, it seems somewhat obvious that kindness and other people are what gets you across your country wherever that may be. That and being so far into Kentucky that you could never find your way out.

Day 8, the Breaks

2008-07-05T22:23:00.001-04:00

I think I'm hitting my stride. It's easy to feel that way when you are standing at the mouth of the Cumberland Gap. Virginia is to my back and underneath me; downhill is Kentucky.

I biked 80-odd miles today but I don't feel worse for the wear. I've learned to love the long hill because it let's you get into a rhythm and you can always go down its back at top speed. I've learned to love the rain because it really does a good job of cooling you and kicking up the drama (note: rain while hiking is different). And I've even learned to love the constant feeling of swollen my legs are in. It's a bit like the getting out of a jacuzzi feeling.

So, no more whingeing. I am past a physical hump and nearly past a geographical one. With my wet ride up and down the Smokeys and tomorrow's descent, I will say so long to the Appalachians and (soon) hello blue grass and the Knobs of Kentucky. And, sadly, I will say goodbye to Virginia.

Here is the oldest settlement in the country, a founding state, an early frontier, home to many (how many?) Presidents, where a good bulk of the Civil War was fought, and where a great deal of the punishment was dealt. I have never seen so many historical plaques, some of them hidden down roads you'd have to be mad (or from Virginia) to drive down.

The future seems a little less rich. Small town life is hard, and in some of these places it seems doubly so. Further west, many towns were almost completely shuttered. The No Trespassing sign business booms: not much else. The population tends towards the 60s.

Here are some good signs: often, there are five co-operating fraternal organizations in towns of less than a thousand people. Volunteer rescue and fire squads; Freemasons, Rotarians, and Ruritan-dys (though rarely Rosicrucians); historical societies; Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Cub Scouts; and then the church groups. Virginians love to do good, especially if its catered. Perhaps do good by one another? The locally grown cigarettes, the farmer's co-op: I'm not a communist drug pusher, but I see these as two ways around a problem that belies the exact opposite of the clannishness the area is famous for.

Speaking of stereotypes: sometimes I feel people must try to live up to them. The park ranger I spoke to was buck-toothed, unintelligible, and had stickyouty ears. The gentleman with the ATV I met upon entering the forest had a bandanna, no sleeves on a VT t-shirt, and was talking about farting. And then there is this stereotype: everyone I have met has been tremendously friendly. I feel like the Queen my wrist hurts so much from waving hello. Cars honk to say keep going, people say hi from their porches, and the surliest seeming guys all wave with this kind of pointing gesture. I have met many, many more of the latter in my week here.

A final anecdote.

I was dangling my legs over a rock ledge in the Blue Ridge mountains. A lady came over to me and we got to talking. She pointed to the valley below.

"That's the Shenandoah Valley right there."

"Is that so. Well I can't wait to get down there. I've always heard that the way they talk is the most beautiful accent in the country."

"Oh I don't know."

"No it's true. News anchors make an especially big effort to get it right."

"Why well I'm from down there."

"Well you've proved my point right there. You have a beautiful way of speaking."

Her husband and son, who was my age, returned with some blueberries they'd found. I said goodbye and went back uphill. Behind me, I might have made out.

"That young man just said that I have the most beautiful way of talking."

"Well I've always said that."

Day 7, A week and an apology

2008-07-04T21:26:00.001-04:00

I am writing to you from a hostel in Damascus, VA. Today is a day of landmarks: the near-anniversary of the nation's independence, my first week, my first day of rain, my first step into (and quickly out of) Tennessee, and a rare apology.

I believe I was a little unfair to Wytheville yesterday. Today is the 4th and things were probably a little desolate on account of Wytheville's shimmering patriotism. Everyone at the motel was lovely, as was my waitress. It is the center of the Bluegrass Belt.

No, it was probably I who brought that feeling of defeat to the city. Indeed, the worst people at dinner were clearly outsiders, crystal examples of the subpar in moments where they feel the need to talk. An example:

"So I've got this friend with, uh, cancer of something and he died," said the one gentleman from New Jersey.

"Oh I love the way you tell that story," says the wife.

"Not now honey. Any you guys tried a Kobe beef hotdog?"

The 4th of July was a new day. I was rested, up and at 'em at 8ish, and I made a decent bowl of oatmeal in the Mr. Coffee machine. The hills were either straight up or straight down and I loved them all.

When the rains came, as I knew they would, I hid out in an abandoned stretch limo. They cleared up and I cleared out. I was in Damascus by 3.

Damascus is an oasis in the Appalachians. Both my trail and the Appalachian trail meet here and that is why I am sitting here with Blake, a 58-year-old man from Alabama, hiking north and feeling pretty beat up about this whole Virginia/hill thing. I feel deep, deep sympathy. More on Blake later.

My bike and I came into town in some pain. The spindle, the spinning thingybobby that the pedals are attached to, came loose on the bus ride down. It had gotten so wonky that I had to do the breaststroke to get it to cooperate. My right thigh was pretty wonky itself. It has a 2-inch cut along what we can politely call the 'Speedo line'.

So here I am, rolling down the mountain, right foot jiggling the pedals around while left buttock fights with seat to keep right buttock in the air. I see a van pulling what looks like a coat rack. Wait a minute. It's not a coat rack at all. It's a bike rack. Somebody has stolen my idea and is shuttling people to the top of these mountains so they can ride down them.

I stroll into town, litigious. This fades away. What I find is a store that brought health back to both my bicycle and person. Bless you. The hostel I planned on staying at is closed but, no problem, I will bike to Tennessee and stay in a certified United Forest Services campground.

I close my eyes as I cross the state line. Nothing changes. These are the Smokey Mountains and biking through them is like biking through cotton balls.

I pull past Crazy Harry's Fireworks and Manuel's Fireworks (really!) and into the state park. Through the fog I see oil drum fires and RVs being used to broil gibbons, baboons, or some other odd meats. A girl my age walks up to me with a tattoo of what looks like Curly from the Three Stooges.

"Who's that?" I ask.

"That's my child."

I pour myself some water from the tap. It's grey. Curly is throwing fireworks at me, only they're not fireworks and he's not Curly: they're grenades and he's Colonel Kurtz, bald and seven.

Bless my spindle, I bike out of there fast. And back into Damascus, which is even lovelier than I remembered it. I took a room at a hostel and that brings us back to Blake.

We are sitting outside and talking, the sound of rain and a country auction in the background. Somebody just won a mop. Blake is taking a break. He has a hernia. He has been to San Antonio, New Orleans, Wisconsin, everywhere and Marfa, where they filmed Giant.

When he was 13, Blake took a plank down the Alabama river from his home to Mobile; that is, before they put in the flood damns. He had a .22, drank from springs and caught everything he ate. It took him 6 weeks.

Now, significantly older, he wants to trace some of his great-grandfather's journey back South from prison. His great-grandfather was held as a POW in the Brother's War. He was imprisoned on an island in the middle of a river in Maine (?). When the war finished, he had to walk down to Alabama with no gun or map. It's a bit like Cold Mountain, Blake reckons, although I've not seen the film. It took him 6 months.

Blake and I are both of Anglo-French-German ancestry (borders were confusing then; family trees will always be). I am also tracing my ancestors across this country. I told him how a family rumor (since debunked) was that we were descended from Daniel Boone, the frontiersman who paved the trail I crossed earlier this week. He said this makes sense. He guessed my father was his age and that he was victim of the havoc Buddy Ebsen brought to the young boys of '57 in his twin roles as both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. He was right. My father made us watch those shows and made sure we enjoyed them. I remember his disappointment when we told him we didn't like them: It was like we said we hated music.

The sounds of the country auction and fireworks are all that's left.

"And a rambl-amba-dambl-un-dollar-one-dollar-boom firework-one dollar fifty..."

I was honestly ready to pack it in yesterday. I even came up with a creative scheme to go out with dignity, like getting gently hit by a Mack truck. Now, a week in, I am more and more in love with this country and this trip. Every setback yields a pleasant surprise and I inch along the map. I have no more call to complain.

Day 6

2008-07-03T21:01:00.002-04:00

That was a thoroughly demoralizing day.

At 3 in the morning I came to realize that I had violently poisoned myself with greed in the form of a jalapeno olive cheddar pizza ("Really?" said the man at the counter. "Just do it Mack!")

I was also violently ill at 7 in the morning and at 9 on this my day of rest. I was shivering and cold when I got up at 1030. I opened the front door and noticed everyone -- the bikers, the teens I was convinced were going to jump me -- all gone. And so I lumbered, lumbered to the laundry mat [sic] and washed my tiny load of clothes.

By the time I started, the sun was right above me and the wind was in my face. And it never stopped. I got lost and accidentally biked east -- the wind changed directions! When I turned back on route it changed back, like all it wanted to do today was punch me in the face.

I finally made it to Wytheville, half past dead. So was the town. The plan was to camp out on the community gardens opposite the sheriff's office. I made it to the Sheriff and he didn't know nuthin'. I leave the office and the biggest man I've ever seen is being brought in in cuffs by two police. He's frothing from the mouth. Then I look around: two newly released prisoners are waiting about on the lawns. Up the street are two competing advanced drug testing stores, a twice-used furniture store, a gun shop, and a Long John Silver's. And that's just the historic district.

I made my way to the nearest motel. It is also run by a very nice Indian lady. I don't know if it was a look on my face but she made a point of telling me, unsolicited, that there is no crime whatsoever in Wytheville. Maybe so, but I'm inclined to believe that if people insist something is really, really safe -- without your asking -- it's not really, really safe.

There are, by my count, 8 different churches in this town, and every Protestant denomination seems accounted for. Presbyterian -- check. Baptist -- check check. Holy Church of the Power of the God in The Passion of Mel Gibson -- let's be fair. So how could a town with so much in the way of God seem so down in the mouth? Perhaps there's a war going on, between the churches, for souls and the rights to use "God is Love" in all advertising?

So I took myself out to dinner. Food will keep me company, food and maps and the long stares of everyone around me at the historic Log restaurant. I had my first cheeseball and my first real lemonade of the trip.

The table behind me was two couples RVing together, and with little else in common.

"Let me ask you something," says the man from New Jersey. "You like wine? 'Cause I like wine."

"Yeah I like wine. You like beer? Me not so much."

"Me neither." Smiles all around. The women never talked. Later they bonded over their concern for spinal spinulacra, a disease I swear they made up on the spot, that and high speed internet.

The table directly in front of mine was all seniors and two very un-appreciative grandchildren. You've got cheeseballs for Pete's sake! You have your hair! The family was remembering the film The Bucket List as they saw it -- starring Clint Eastwood. Then the paterfamilias went on a tear through the rest of film history as he saw it -- The French Connection, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Shampoo -- all starring Clint Eastwood.

"He is the greatest actor to have walked."

And that is how I will choose to remember today. Falsely and with joy. I woke up early in good health, my clothes were washed by a service, the wind blew me to Wytheville with one gentle pedal, a ticker tape parade was there for my arrival, and two of the area's blondest, chestiest farmgirls spoonfed me cheeseballs on the park lawn where I slept, gratis.

Day 5

2008-07-02T23:53:00.002-04:00

Rosie was showing Martha how to carefully decoupage Snow White onto a uselessly small table. Watching the TV in silence were two local farmers, father and son, flashing me their sizable cracks. To the left of them was the health inspector -- who had a gun -- and the proprietors Jim and Ro (?). Around the wood paneling on the wall were the occasional beer promo and one genuine Vanity Fair print of a foxhunter. Such was the scene at Ollies in Buchanan.

Beauty can not be, dear reader, in the eye of the beholder. First, quickly, what exactly is a beholder? Second, if it is what we think it is, then surely the beholder who works as a podiatrist in a particularly damp and hilly area is not as beholden to beauty as (safe example) Hugh Hefner.

I like to think beauty is 'where' you put your eyes. I thrust my eyes away from Rosie's horrible face and onto my hosts. The madam was gruff, but that could be because a man with a gun was checking her Coke machine against county regulations.

The monsieur, however, was quite interesting to look at. He was 50ish, gray blond, and where his upper lip should have been was his lower. He just folded it right up in there. I know this because when the inspector left he rolled it down and gave us an account of things in his best Ernest P. Whorrel. I think he slapped his thigh. My burger was perfect.

If I wanted to, I could look at the shrub on the side of the road and count empty beer cans or spot roadkill. One dead squirrel looked like a banana with feet. A can of Glory Blend looked, in my sleepy eyes, like a ruby slipper.

I don't look down much. When I look up I see early morning fog clinging to odd trees, whistle plants, late afternoon sun on fields of golden hay, and the cars I need to avoid.

I started out at 630 today and managed to leave camp at 7ish. I beat the two German tourists at the campground, which was a small point of pride for myself and probably shaming for the others.

I made it to Lexington for a farmer's market, bluegrass, and 6 tomatoes for a buck. Lexington is home to Washington and Lee University and it's on my shortlist of places to retire to. Everyone walks about, they were up at 9, I saw a man in a straw hat. They even have a newsie screaming "Extr-e Extr-e!"

I left Lex over the natural bridge, through Buchnan, home to Ollies, and up through more mountains in the valley of Catawba. At one point, I nearly ran out of water and began to look frantically for the next country store.

It turns out that converting old stores into bomb shelters is all the rage. Windows are boarded up, phone lines cut, and the TV is made to work on propane and bean juice. In my dehydration, I began to scan my memory for episodes of Man Versus Wild. Find the nearest dog then track it back to its bowl? Drink from that murky water around where all the cows are congregating? Rub water on your lips or eat chapstick? Squeeze the water from elephant dung? Nonsense.

In the end I breathed through my nose (thank you Dune) and I made it to Ellet where I had my first ever Tyger. For the unitiate, it's a sport beverage designed by Tiger Woods to taste lemonade-y while retaining all the sugar most other lemonades never quite muster. I found it very refreshing and drank 64 oz in less than a minute.

I'm in a budget motel in Christiansburg. After my 106 mile trail of extreme discomfort, I dropped my stuff off and then biked back up the street to a little shack with a long line. It was Custard Corner. I sunk into one custard sundae, one medium chocolate milkshake, and 3 hot dogs. Everything was first rate. I told them this, and I told the people sitting next to me, and the sheriff, and a gentleman with motorcycles on his t-shirt, and anyone else who would listen. On my way home, I ordered a medium pizza with peppers and cheese from Domino's.

So I'm resting. And I'm so spoiled with resting here that I can't actually rest. I keep spreading out and getting up, faffing with the AC, pouring myself water. If you have running water, you're tremendously spoiled too.

Day 4

2008-07-01T19:45:00.002-04:00

Today I am so far away from civilization, even the great AT&T has failed me. I am without service. In the background, the loud punctuation of rifle fire. I'm in the Mallard Duck campground, just down the road from the Blue Ridge Gun Club. I can't tell if the shootist is any good. Do you win points for quantity?

I only traveled 45ish miles as the speedometer flies. Vertically, I climbed 3000 feet then went down some, then back up, and finally back down in a thrilling, winding, 40 mile-an-hour descent that should be turned into a some kind of film starring Bruce Willis.

I started today biking on the narrow shoulder of byway 250 but finally got back on piste and up a tremendous climb that I only survived because I was promised cookies on arrival. The backroad winds left and right and then it opens up to a bridge and Ms. Curry's three houses.

Ms. Curry is, if you believe the maps and her doorbell, the Cookie Lady. She had just lost a tooth. I won't bore you with what we talked about -- suffice it to say, this is the 12th person of golden age who has pulled me aside to complain about the failings of medical care in this country -- but we talked a lot and when she finally gave me the keys to the bike house, I felt the need to sprint through it. In its bones, the bike house is a house of its time. There are lino floors, vinyl countertops, and an excess of rooms. Now, attached to every surface is a bit of bike memorabilia: postcards from Japan, a full sized tandem bicycle, jerseys, photos, more. In the middle, a plate of snacks.

I was feeling peckish and the need to get on the road. I made my mark, returned the keys to Ms. Curry and made my way up the hill.

A note on hills. If I could have one wish on this earth it would be for world peace. If I could have two wishes -- forget my second wish. My third wish would be that no hill ever go up. I don't care how They take care of it. Just. Please.

I rode up a the Blue Ridge, with very little pause, for five straight hours. The small descents stopped doing it for me. Wide vistas of the Shenandoah Valley below -- where I now sit -- stopped doing it for me. The lovely conversation I had with a woman about how I can't wait to hear America's most beautiful accent, the Shenandoah Valley regional accent, sort of took my mind off it. People are lovely here. The hills kept on.

Then, as Newton decreed when he invented gravity, all my up going must went downwards. Fast. I'm swerving from side to side, 60 pounds of trailmix strapped to my sides like dynamite, my ears blown out by the wind and the horrible smell of burnt rubber coming up from my untrustworthy brakes. It was horrifying. And it was over so fast.

Mono no aware is a Japanese aesthetic concept that believes the greatest beauty comes in fleetingness. I find no contentment in that. I want to come in and build a chairlift so that everyone I know can barrel down that pass. Although, perhaps, maybe what made it great was the hard slog beforehand.

Day 3, part 2

2008-06-30T21:15:00.001-04:00

I have burned all the hair off my hand. It smells edible.

That was going to be the beginning of my evening post. Now, a bowl of crispy lentil-rice-tomato-oil and a freshen up later, I have opted for a different tack.

This is going to be a short one. I am sitting at the base of the Blue Ridge mountains, the sun now behind them, and the glow of the Blackberry is cheapening the experience. The fireflies are especially annoyed.

Well, slight mistakes again. I skipped my planned spot in White Hall without noticing. At that stage, all I could see were my kneecaps pumping up and down, just beneath my eyelids. Instead, I am at Misty Mountain campground by a babbling brook that the folks at the Sharper Image would kill to record. Neat note: when I checked in, a 12 year old girl came bursting through the doors screaming. Her Daddy was going to get her a cellphone! Then, as quickly as she came, she pulled out in a golf cart.

The sun is nearly gone from behind the mountains. Tomorrow, I will have to climb unless they get moved in the evening. Still, at the top of one of them lies The Cookie Lady and that, I promise, will be a tale.

Day 3, part 1

2008-06-30T14:17:00.001-04:00

I am sitting at a very civilized lunch in Charlottesville. I was promised burritos but I will have to make do with my sandwich, fries, milkshake, and a side of mashed potatoes and the deafening bickering of two junior faculty members. The woman can't bring herself to swear but she's convinced her coworker is an S-head. The man -- high camp -- is convinced the faculty is too male-centric. I wish them luck in all their endeavors.

I began at 645 today. I was so excited and rested that I might have woken some medics with my thanks. Things were easier today. It was cooler in the morning and I made tour de Frenchish pace until bumping into two eastbound cyclists. They gave me some tips and, using their fancy cycling computer, let me know that Charlottesville was only 30 miles away.

After that idea had poisoned my mind I knew one thing only -- burritos. The burrito is the base of my food pyramid, right under 'fats I find healthy'. And this was to be the rare burrito I've earned. Sadly, market pressures here in Charlottesville (a competing Grateful Dead memorabilia store, a wine bar perhaps) have pushed Atomic Burrito out. I would eat anything with the prefix Atomic.

Burritos got me across Monroe's Ash Lawn farm and up over Jefferson's wretched Montecello hill. I skipped Montecello for burritos and I'll be damned if I'm going to bike back up it. It looked beautiful: the highest hill in the area, subtle clearings and the thick trees they have down here. More on the flora and fauna to come...

Day 2

2008-06-29T19:25:00.002-04:00

I am writing to you from the innards of Mineral's volunteer fire company. I was camping out back of the neighboring Rescue Squad when Charlie, volunteer fireman, told me that there was a small rivalry between the two organizations to see who could be nicer. A warm shower, hot meal, and mild stretch later and I'm ready to cast my vote.

Mineral is a religious town with three churches to its three blocks, and this is Sunday.

There wasn't much traffic when I started out of the RV park. I made my way into the backroads and then made sure I got completely lost. I had the Coast Guard on the line when Benny, a near-messiah in biker's spandex, got my attention and offered to lead the way to Coatsville -- "only we're not using your maps."

Onwards at 16 miles an hour. Over rolling hills and a terrible stretch of up-and-up that the local Methodist church had adopted (I think it is past salvation). He told me about the area and pointed out some interesting bits of local agribusiness. It seems the farmers have banded together in co-ops here too, and good, as everyone wins. I told him "ugh" and "wheeze" and "I swear I'm a good cyclist by New York's standards." Two roads diverged in the middle of the road, and as I took the one that was marked Bikecentennial 76, he pound my fist and told me that he hopes I find what I'm looking for and "fucking do this thing!" Just out of sight, I crumpled to the ground, stuffed a Cliff Bar up my nose, ate a gallon of water and had a nap.

My sleep options were thin today. I could either ride 50 miles or 100. 50 was plenty hard.

Some of the area has been hit hard by the building boom and bust. Huge, ugly, optimistic houses live next to others just like them and wait for equally large families to come in. I contemplated tucking into one and spending the night on the wall-to-wall carpet.

What do you call 4 trucks driving in a row on a Sunday? Church traffic. Sundays do seem to have meaning around these parts. Many streets take the name of the family living on them (Ferguson, Jackson, Applewhite) and houses are either swarmed with cars or left abandoned for other relative's homes, perhaps those with wall-to-wall.

Church traffic made way for jet skis on Lake Anna and jet skis -- which I love despite whatever You say, effete liberal and killjoy inside me, because they are impossibly fun -- well jet skis made way for a game of tag between two 12-year-olds on ATVs and another on a John Deere contraption.

A little ways up the road and I made it here. I grabbed some Gatorade at a local grocer and took notes: often I see crab farms on the front porches; food is as cripplingly expensive as it is in NYC despite being stripped of any nutritive qualities; there are brands of local cigarettes that are, however, quite reasonable. I also saw a man empty out some leftover sardine oil from his pickup window.

I am tired. Tomorrow, go to Trader Joe's, buy one of their salamis and tear off a piece so big you can't open your mouth wide enough to chew it. Then slowly squeeze it down with the roof of your mouth. I'm not going to be so hyperbolic as to say that's all a man needs, but in the moment it felt like it would do.

Day 1, ugh

2008-06-28T23:06:00.001-04:00

100 miles. My first day and my first century. I would blame human error if I weren't the human.

Things began smoothish. I was up and at 'em early at the Crown Inn. I biked down the road a little bit and made my way to Yorktown and dipped my fingers in the water as if it were holy. Wholly unusual was the woman staring at me, bony knees deep in the Atlantic with a walker and a metal detector. Photos of her to come.

I turned on her and to my first hill. I pushed the bike up it. I began on the Colonial Parkway to
Williamsburg.

The parkway is yellow brick and I followed it to the Burg, which is Colonial and confusing. I was lost and in the middle of a battle of some kind. So I delivered on skirmishes.

"How are ye stranger?"
"I’m completely lost. Where can I get some Gatorade?"
"Why whatever do you mean?”
“Oh. I see. I need some water. Where can I find a drinking fountain?”
"You are an odd sort. I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”
“Come on man.”
"I recommend you try the Gift Shoppe o’er yon on the other side of the battlefield, by the carpark."
"Thanks a lot."

I made it past some fake slaves churning butter and found that water was very expensive in colonial times. I said drank it regardless and wouldn't see any for 38 miles.

Before that reunion, I swang by Jamestown and had a lovely convo with a local on a bike on a bike path on which I was. We talked about the trip, how he prefers to ride at 62, and then he shared his charming collection of anecdotes of friends and acquaintances who snuffed it while biking. Then he tore past me.

He was much on my mind when I started looking frantically for anyplace with water. Gas stations, delis, some of the empty beer cans I was counting on the side of the road. When I found Cheryl's Store and Grill, I began to feel blessed.

Backtrack: remember how I wondered which yes my driver understood. It was the wrong yes. It was 'yes you have a map'. I arrived in Norfolk, over the longest bridge in the world -- although I could have sworn Schwarzenegger blew it up in True Lies -- without, ugh, the faintest clue of how to get back over the bay.

Bless DJ and his extortionately priced taxi. Overheard:

"Norfolk is the site of the largest Naval base in the world."

"It's where the ironclads fought and its the site if Ft. Mason."

"I believe that boy Jimmy's got the bipolar 'cause he's not got no call to be so dermned angre."

The motelier was angry when I woke him. Thankfully we were separated by bullet proof glass and we left things simmering.

Back to the past present: I could have kissed Cheryl. Wimbledon was on too.

Miles down the road I discovered that I can't read maps. My campsite at Vedeecker's store (?) wasn't 48 miles away-- it was 138 miles away. I tried all my bedding options: pastors didn't pick up, there were no hotels; people in Virginia seem serious about their property, so no camping on the sly. I even contemplated getting arrested for a petty crime.

I am at my final option. It is 30+ miles away from where I wanted to sleep. It is prom night in Mechanicsville. It is an RV camp near Ashland. It is a small patch of heaven on earth. Everyone is so friendly. The camp hostess kept the pool open late so I could use it. I didn't. I did shower and I might just shower again. Showers are the wonderful marriage between God's gift of water and plumbing.

I made dinner. Magic: whole wheat pasta with summer sausage, a cup of salt, lovely olive oil in a Fiji bottle, sundried tomatoes, and a handful of pine needles I couldn't quite get off the pasta after dropping it. A man I got to talking with swung by again with two CDs of his music. I don't know when I'll see a CD player next, but thank you Bridson.

I have had the worst Mighty Swallow song stuck in my head. Perhaps you can take it off me for a while.

Bang bang Lulu
Lulu ran away
Lulu had to go bang bang
That's why she ran away.

Lulu had a boyfriend,
Name was Tommy Tucker.
He took her round to his house
To see if he could --

Bang bang Lulu...

You get the picture. And with that, goodnight.

Day 0, Part 2

2008-06-27T23:05:00.001-04:00

I'd like to drawn some comparison between my ride down here on the Chinatown bus and my ride across the country on my faithful bike. After stopping off at Won Ton Buffet I asked our driver if we could stop earlier than Norfolk.

"Yes," he said.
"Yes," I said.

Now I am not so sure we said yes to the same things. Mine was supposed to be a sign of mutual understanding. His, I fear, was perhaps 'yes you are talking', 'yes you look crazy', or just 'yes'.

When I travel, I hope to be less frantic about seeing my destination. The Pacific is harder to miss.

Things I have seen: the large Confederate Flag that greets you when crossing the Virginia State line; a hotel that advertised having Pepsi as its top selling point; a chain of highway restaurants aimed at the Harley Davidson crowd. Sadly, I fear I am the wrong kind of biker...

Day 0

2008-06-27T18:25:00.001-04:00

I am heading south on a terrifying bus at a terrifying speed.

To the left of me is a man with red feet who cries in his sleep. Further left, from what I can tell, are the wheels of the bus, going round and round on the divider. In back -- I can't look in back. For the first couple of miles I heard a baby screaming. Just seconds ago, when I turned around to stare it down, I noticed it was not a baby but a grown man of considerable size.

I have just made my hotel reservation at Yorktown's Crown Inn Motel. I'm in under Goff Manesfiele. The girl I spoke to had a beautiful Southern accent, but when she went to ask her mother what the damage was, I heard a violent fight in Hindi. The damage was 40 bucks.

For those of you new to my experiment, I am riding my bike across America. I am starting in Virginia.

My bike, or what's left of him, is grinding to pieces in the cargo hold beneath someone's zebra-skinned bag. My bagman, Sanjay, is probably crushed between the two. He’s a city bike, thirty years old (ninety in bike years), rusty in important spots, and completely unused to hauling anything more than groceries. I have much more confidence in Sanjay’s surviving our grand tour. I might put money on this.

We start in Yorktown. Sanjay is making his way down there with our belongings. The things we'll carry: a case of rioja, manchego cheese, my easel, some canvases, a bust of Voltaire, a hibachi, a hammock for afternoons, an aero bed, a table for entertaining, spare parts, and if Sanj has done his job, one of those huge chess sets you find at Club Meds. This grand tour will be grand.

Things I will miss on the road: the giving internet, Artichoke pizza, ice and the civilization built around it, Wall-E, people in excess, SpellCheck.

Things I look forwards to: Blackberry thumb, stars, the Pacific, numbness in my extremities, earned showers, perhaps a game or two of chess.

Yorktown is where Cornwallis signed the surrender and it has been the site of some significant skirmishes over the years. Sadly, I can't promise a skirmish; I can, however, assuage your fears of surrender. I can't stand symmetry and if I do plan on quitting I'll save it for Williamsburg which has comparatively little history of the stuff.

We are nearing the Shenandoah Valley. This is where Ted Koppel found his accent. It is also -- grab tissues -- where I hope to find something enduring. The climbs are greater here than in the Rockies, my pack is at its heaviest, and red foot is chewing as he snores. Jimminy.

Yours,

Goff

Testing, un dos tres

2008-06-26T13:25:00.000-04:00

This is a test to see if I can write updates with this thumbcrippling Blackberry I got. Also, on the topic of Blackberries, would anyone know how to change a background? Somebody kindly changed mine to a glamor shot of Ben Affleck in a suit...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Men With Mustaches

2008-04-20T22:20:00.003-04:00

Here's a drawing I made of the diminished career opportunities for men with mustaches.

An iPhone Application I Cannot Make

2008-04-17T14:12:00.010-04:00

I'm actually trying to finish a program for the iPhone. I've always wanted to make a toy or gadget, and since I have zero engineering expertise, I'm happy to let Apple provide that end and leave me to the software.

VCRs duly excepted, I'm new to programming. There is a bit of a learning curve. As with most things, all you need to know is what you can or can not do. I blew this. Apple has made some things easy (you can drag and drop menus, windows, whole interfaces, anything that looks standard on the Mac or iPhone) and they've made one thing very, very hard: every program has to shut down when the phone rings. This completely shattered my dream of building the perfect alarm clock. I've moved on, shattered, and am trying to finish something new that I'll show you in June. Until then, perhaps you can do me a favor and make this application.

Wouldn't it be amazing to use the iPhone's camera as a makeshift barcode scanner (see Delicious Library pull this off)? Consider using this in a supermarket. Suddenly a whole world of information would be available beyond what packaging chooses to reveal:

Can you get this thing cheaper online?
Scan two products and compare them on cost, nutritional value, or other criterion that matter to you.
Vote with your money: is your brand of tuna sustainable or depleting the ocean? is your "All-natural" chicken everything you hope it is (All-natural being a label that has little in the way of regulation and meaning -- I mean, aren't all chickens natural)? Are you being pandered to, is this product 'green-washed', or is there something interesting going on here? Is this company trying to change? Would the cheaper standard bulb save me money or the more expensive CFL lightbulb? Over a year?
How much carbon did it take to get your sea bass from Chile to New York?
Exactly how many hamburgers did I buy last month? Yikes!

I know that having more information leads to better purchases. It also leads to greater sustainability. Supply chains will wizen up and food will arrive at your market without the need for preservatives as the exact number of buyers is known in advance. Something is to gained here. For starters, preservative free food can be sold for more. More relevant to those of us not in the food business, food will get cheaper and healthier. People just won't stand for bad food as they'll be given the choice of two products identical in price and they'll take the food less doctored. And that will make all the difference.

The dB's

2008-04-16T23:37:00.004-04:00

I just managed to get my hands on a CD (!) that I once owned but was stolen -- accidentally, it must be added. The dB's are such a perfect band and this double-album -- Stands for Decibels/Repurcussion -- is such a perfect album that its inspired the audio-evangelist in me. I've begun to find music reviews insufficient, unless they're tearing something apart (and that's a different, easier joy), and so I'll spare you. Ok, permit me an incomplete sentence: bridging the gap between Big Star and Southern power pop -- and modern bands like the Shins -- casually genius, big in England, polite in person, criminally overlooked and not because they're actually bad, good.

Video might do them justice

See them play my favorite song live. Also, as of my last excursion, you can't buy their album on iTunes. One could take that as a perfect excuse to visit a brick-and-mortar record store. That could be fun in and of itself.

The Birth of Blue

2008-04-13T15:44:00.003-04:00

I've already linked to Adam Werbach's speech at page left, but I need to draw more attention to it because it needs as much attention as possible. This is something I've been thinking about lately expressed with more authority and art than I could hope to. It's a call to a Blue movement, a push to sustainability, a greater awareness about what one is washing up with, lighting their houses with, moving their cars with, wearing, and eating that works because it does not aim to do away with the corporation and because it's as good as You are. If you can appeal to people's consciences and their desire for purpose -- without forcing them to compromise too much on the consumerables that make them and their families feel good -- then you have something everyone can get on board with. And sustainability will get cheaper.

It's a long speech and I don't want to keep you from it. Please do think about it.

Places I've Been

2008-04-08T23:18:00.005-04:00

I'm reformatting my resume and stunned (again) by how little that piece of paper says about me. In an effort to rethink the medium and try and get more of me across, I struggled to make a map of the places I've been. Then I stumbled upon this wonderful web application. Ignoring for the moment that it is very easy to travel from McDonald's to McDonald's -- the smile is the same -- I'm of the opinion that the places I've been have taught me a lot. But I'm biased. And I've got a ways to go: I've travelled to over 30 countries, but look at my dismal record in African and Latin America.

Dream Baby Dream

2008-03-17T22:19:00.002-04:00

This Suicide video is a brief addendum to my larger post on New York's Blank Generation. I love the camerawork early in the video and, as far as performance videos go, this is amazingly poetic. This is the band.

Don't Eat Anything that Doesn't Rot

2008-03-09T14:20:00.005-04:00

I like Michael Pollan. I wish more people, especially those in the public eye, were as reasonable as he. On top of this, his vetted and sound nutritional advice always seems to come out in favor of my favorite foods. See him talking to Amy Goodman here. If you want it precis-ed:

Don't eat anything incapable of rotting -- it won't preserve you.
His koan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly leafy greens."
Nutritionalism is an ideology, and like all ideologies, it trudges forwards blindly using the little we do know to swath over the great areas of our unknowledge.
The reason we turned to white bread in the first place was the rats refused to eat it.
As all (limitless) commodities fall in prices, food companies have to jazz up the basic foodstuffs by processing them into new brands, as Cherios is to wheat, and then processing the old brands when imitators arrive on the scene.
Food subsidies cheapen certain foods (soy, corn) that are fine in small quantities but damaging at the volume we eat them. Consider the McDonald's meal. Your meat is corn-stuffed, your soda is corn-syruped, your fries are corn-oil soaked, your bun is corned up too.
Don't turn eating into medicine.
Don't turn away from foods because some scientific study with a small sampling decided that one of the hundreds of proteins in red meat is bad from you. What of all the essential proteins?

Corn cartoon from Natalie Dee. Check out others at her site.

Fresh

2008-03-03T18:11:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry for the absence. I had a light case of the plague that lasted all last week. I should be back to normal soon. In the meantime, stay fresh with Graffiti Rock.

Prayer Antenna

2008-02-24T22:24:00.005-05:00

I've always been fascinated with the tefillin. For the uninitiate, the tefillin are scroll-filled leather boxes (and accompanying straps) that some Jewish men use during prayer. They're really used for remembrance; I mistakenly believed they were, like the monk's crown, for amplification.

I loved that mistaken idea and now it's resurrected by Paul Davies. An omnipotent God, it could be argued, should be able to hear you wherever you are. But what if you're in a lead-lined room? What if you want your prayers heard over your neighbors? Perhaps then a device to get at the blimping Godear. Perhaps a prayer antenna.

It also reminds me of a Matthew Vescovo painting I saw where all the prayers of the world's children, the world's businessmen, the world's presidents', and the worlds' religious figures' are blocked out by baseball players thanking God for homeruns. It's brilliant and, like much good stuff, not online. You'll have to imagine it.

Hey Education

2008-02-20T20:43:00.003-05:00

Earlier in the year Harvard extended its financial aid to cover the middle class. Now Princeton has announced plans to send 10% of its 2009 freshman class to a year of (supported) service before they attend the university. I am smitten with the idea of America's leading schools using their endowments to make education more inclusive (or less burdensome to the already included) and to broaden the scope of their 'teaching'. I hope these ideas trickle down to other schools with less-impressive endowments and that these schools can somehow make things work, moneywise.

Taking a year off is clever in general. The difference in a man between a 19 and an 18 is much more than a year and, who knows, if enough students get a taste of helping others before going Pre-dental, we might just get somewhere [Note: at the expense of oral hygiene].

Green Houses

2008-02-19T13:00:00.009-05:00

One of the Times' blogs has a post on green architecture that covers some of the quite quantifiable advantages to building with both sustainability and community in mind. While I disagree with making any standards mandatory (government being useless at imposing them at any meaningful level, and people being clever enough to get around them), I do believe that we are beginning to see how environmental friendliness and efficiency is cheaper in the long-term and long-term is is how we should think about homes. Sadly, but thankfully, self-interest might prevail, especially if tax breaks for too-large homes come under scrutiny.

Also, consider this National Geographic article on how Disney and Orlando came together to form a new kind of exurban landscape. There is an interesting connection, but the article makes not one mention of Celebration, FL, another Disney project, that was designed with community, technology, and environmentalism from the outset.

Update: This post by Alex Steffen at World Changing sums up everything I said above, and so much more that I wish I had, neater and in-depther. It looks at the suburbs through automobile use, but the conclusions are the same: It takes a lot of space and CO2 to end up less happy than citied folks.

An Arcade in Your Basement

2008-02-18T10:32:00.003-05:00

Yes this is painfully dorky, but life would be worse if you restrained yourself to coolness (I, try as I may, can't). I love this clip. Here you have a man build an entire world in his basement, make his childhood dreams real and then invite people over because it's not a real arcade without others. What if Jay Gatz had fallen in love with videogames? Would Robert Redford fight to play our Peter below?

I love it when filmmakers let their subjects speak for themselves.

Make Your Own Mind Up on Modern Architecture

2008-02-17T16:50:00.010-05:00

A perfect definition for nonsense in art: A friend of mine had a (post)modernist composer come to perform for his class and take questions. The artist mic'd a piano, distorted this sound with a computer, and then further distorted the sound by pounding the keys willy nilly, plucking the strings, and behaving avant-gardely. He had a goatee. When the Q&A session came, perhaps not soon enough, my friend remembers a particularly clever question up at the front: "If this is good music, according to your tastes, what then is bad?"

Earlier in the month I wrote a small piece hopefully queering the pitch of nonsense modern architecture. I've not changed my mind, but I do need to remind myself that this blog should be used for positive ideas and not just criticism. To make amends, I've created a list of some spectacular and interesting buildings built in the last hundred years. I've attached the smallest amount of information to the pictures and there's no order. Please make your own minds up. Sample Q's for the Q&A session: What would it be like to live here? Would this be beautiful if it weren't in the country? If this is good, what then is bad?

Toyo Ito's Tod's Building. Perhaps a new kind of eco-architecture. It could also probably stand without the Tod's logo. Is that a logo?

This is Brazil, Salvador I believe.
Gaudi here in Barcelona. One of many great Gaudi buildings, who was one of many great Catalan architects (Puig y Cadafalch being another).
Brazil. More tropical architecture and a great example of buildings using wood in novel ways.

Bart Prince's Gradow residence in Aspen.
The River House in New York. The FDR has since cut off the private docks (boat to elevator to apartment in minutes), but the building still stands majestic. Bottomly, Wagner, and White were the architects, outgranding Candela.

Arcosanti: an experimental town built around ecology, community, and a blatant disregard for getting the thing built.
India. The civic building is a unique opportunity.
Plans by Paolo Soleri, Arcosanti's planner/inventor/architect.
Gaudi.
Japan. I'm not 100% certain but I think this is Shigeru Ban.
Japan.
The International Library of Children's books by Tadao Ando. What a wonderful thing to build.
Tbilisi, Georgia. Soviet Constructivist center for marriage events, a 'Palace of the Marriage'. If you destroy the religious institution you have to repurpose its ceremonies and buildings. Does this look religious?
Shigeru Ban's Pompidou Metz. I love the use of wood.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. There are vents in the house that allow the habitants to cool their home with the wind over the stream.

Shigeru Ban's Pompidou Metz.
Zaha Hadid designed this platform for ski jumping.
Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein tower. Walk through it here. What would it be like to live here? Would it change your life?

Brooks On Education

2008-02-15T12:25:00.005-05:00

I can think of no greater waste of a blog than reprinting NY Times OpEds (especially Friedman and his flat planet). That out of the way, allow me to waste my blog on David Brooks' tempered judgment and his wise advice on American education. Quick question: What about Brooks is specifically conservative? His glasses? (Yes). I think this is quite forward looking and, if his ideas were put into practice, would probably create the kind of large government organization Republicans, ye of Homeland Security, were supposed to hate. Quick bone to pick: There is nothing wrong with "being France" and the sooner people and countries learn to live together in comfort without madly competing for resources and smartness, the sooner we can band together and create a starship to fly us around the galaxy in search of spices.

The Inflated Cost of the Obese

2008-02-15T10:20:00.003-05:00

Consider Daniel Engber's well-argued argument that the heavy are not the drain on society and the workplace that past scientists and present politicians claim them to be. If you want to be cold about the thing, remember that the obese do die younger (from chronic illness) and thus are less of a drain on healthcare than their skinny peers. If you want to get angry about the thing, consider that if we start staring down the obese, like we do our remaining smokers, we will increase unhealthiness at large as weight becomes an even greater thing to be unhappy about.

Tin Pan Alley: Now and Now

2008-02-14T18:51:00.003-05:00

More music and New York (but what better city for music). Lost City has a post on Tin Pan Alley up. Tin Pan Alley was a street in midtown Manhattan where, in the bleak days before recorded music, sheet music was written and sold by the million. You used to walk down the street and have people in every window to plug you with a reason to buy their hit song. Now, in the bleak 00s where ringtones are sometimes more popular than albums, it's a Nextel store away from erasing every trace of its past. If you have any interest in remembering the place where Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America' and 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' first hit, click here.

New York in the 80s and Crackpot Ideas in Urban Homesteading

2008-02-14T12:45:00.008-05:00

Ah bless the St. Marks Bookstore where I recently stumbled on a picture book called New York Noise. I'd heard two New York Noise albums and reading without words is a pleasant way to waste time on my way home from work. By way of background: NYN, the albums, are a collection of New Wave/No Wave/whatever you call it tunes from the last American music of note to have a time (76-85), place (downtown New York), and feeling that extended to all the surrounding arts. Disagree? Name me three bands from Seattle? Name me one play inspired by the backwards-looking NY garage-bands of the early-2000s? Find me a garage in NYC!

New York Noise, the book, sketches an interesting line between the scene's different players in brilliant black-and-white photos. Did these people know they would be famous? Was there this feeling that everything they did was important? How did they all play in each others' bands? Why are these pictures so professional? Some of the NYN players, without order:

The Talking Heads, then band
Steve Buscemi, now actor
Eric Bogosian, playwright, monologist, actor
Paul Zaloom, then puppeteerish monologist, now Beakman
Madonna, singer not the religious figure, perhaps also a figure of another kind, only tangentially related.
John Cage, musician we've previously mentioned
Keith Harring, artist
Micheal Stipe, lead singer of REM
Liquid Liquid
Willem Dafoe, performing with Richard Foreman's Wooster Group. See Foreman's new play.
David Byrne, always brilliant, see him here with Richard Thompson
Robert Longo, artist and filmmaker, forgive him Johnny Mneumonic, his prints and art is much more interesting
Kim Gordon
Richard Prince, artist, remember his advertising photos
Laurie Anderson
Jim Jarmusch, a truly talented filmmaker, one with faith in his audience's attention
John Lurie, musician/actor/now exhibited painter, once star of Fishing with John
Cindy Sherman, photographer
Richard Hell, proto-punk, poet(?)
and on...

It's a lot of names. It's also not that many people. Reading the book, I was under the impression that everybody in the East Village, the Lower East Side, and the crummier parts of SoHo was actually making something so infectious is the idea. It's really just 30 odd people (both meanings) yet it feels like a world.

This world is precisely why I, and I presume many others, came to New York. What is it like when the stars align and music, art, writing, theater, living all overlap in a specific time and place? I don't know. New York (2008) is not that place. Perhaps, they say, it's because living is too expensive to 'work' for money one day a week and work for yourself the rest. Perhaps, I've also heard, it's because even the service industry has gotten so professionalized that you need a degree to work tables. I disagree completely.

There are scenes of 30 that are making waves, just not with the same overall cultural impact. Why? Maybe there are too many scenes of 30; maybe they're not spread across as many disciplines as No Wave was; maybe, as with the abundance of channels, there is an abundance of scenes all fighting for your attention (I saw a concert the other week that was very Lifetime...I'll spare you); maybe we'll hear about them in 20 years time and misremember ourselves being there; maybe we were...

I think the real issue is simple: we are so easily and constantly entertained that we don't and forget how to make our own entertainment. Or, when we do, the ratio is off. I was going to say I have a tremendous respect for those who post videos on YouTube or play at open mics, but I think respect is the wrong word. Thousands of people post videos on YouTube that are not really respect-able. But making your own fun is important, it entertains your friends, get good friends, invest it with intelligence, and it can entertain the World.

I meant to include this all as background bias for my urban homesteading plan. I believe it would be a good idea if the government gave people 5 years to turn an abandoned building (Baltimore has 14,000 of them, eg.) into a home they would could own. I still believe that if you allow people with a genuine desire to build something, and if you give them ownership, new, crime-freer neighborhoods will grow out of a desire to make something permanent. I just no longer believe a new Homestead Act will create another urban artists community like in NY in the 80s (for the reasons listed above, the scene was remembered falsely, NY has little abandoned housing). Still, reinvigorating a city like Baltimore from within could, it might be argued, serve a greater good than O Superman. I know I've gotten here naively and pettily, but surely that's worth the eminent domain squabbles, disenfranchising the slumlord, and the stack of paperwork.

Yet More Kissinger

2008-02-13T17:18:00.002-05:00

Nick has kindly brought to this article by Kissinger to my attention and reminded me of some things I neglected to mention.

Dr. Kissinger is not actually a doctor.
Mr. Kissinger is indeed wanted for questioning in a bunch of countries, some of which you may have heard of. These include France, Spain, presumably Chile, ...
Henry went out with Marlo Thomas and Bond girl Jill St. John. If being a war criminal wasn't reason enough to hate somebody, surely this is too much.
Hank is quite frightened of his past coming to light. He is quite libelous and, thanks Nick, has written in Foreign Affairs on limiting universal jurisdiction. He calls it a dangerous precedent, retroactive one assumes, where some old internationally appointed activist judge could accuse anybody of injustice with enough evidence.

The Trial of Henry Kissinger

2008-02-11T23:02:00.000-05:00

I like Christopher Hitchens for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is he has given me this bit of wisdom: You do not have to like someone to like his work. The strongest work and ideas should stand independent of their authors if they are to withstand any inquiry. I think Hitchen's work will, by and by, withstand himself. Even if I disagree with him on specifics, as in God is Not Great, I have concede to him the better argument [certainly regarding the religious institution, although I would fight to keep this separate from the spiritual individual: these might not be the same].

I've read five of his books. I was quite aware of how forcefully Hitchens can rip something down when I got The Trial of Henry Kissinger. This might have been why I picked it up. I have always disliked Kissinger, perhaps at times for as small a reason as taste, and I thought I'd outsource my battle.

Hitchen's claim: The US Government searches the world to bring justice to evil-doers and war criminals like Milosovec and Hussein. Perhaps they're traveling too far. Consider Henry Kissinger, snug in the nicest building in New York, as a war criminal yet untried. The US set a precedent at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials which strong discourages leaders (with death) from mass murder, genocide, plots to overthrow governments their nations are at peace with, and otherwise acting illegally. Hitchens claims that Kissinger is guilty of all that and more, except where the Nazi might (falsely) argue he was just following orders, Kissinger was more often than not the one telling people what to do.

War crimes and other unpleasantness aside, the book does a good job of dancing around a central paradox of the political and power aspirant: how does a fiercely intelligent man with first-hand knowledge of the horrors of unchecked power not get it -- that he is continuing a history of mass murder in the name of a bad idea (realpolitik)? I don't believe there's a finite amount of good traits. One can be smart and compassionate. Perhaps ambition is the culprit. Perhaps the skills it takes to get the job precludes a more reasonable candidate? Perhaps you can't make generalizations about the rare unique individual in politics?

For those who hate reading, Eugene Jarecki adapted the thesis of Hitchens' argument in a more even-handed (a better thing), less-detailed (worse) documentary available here. An impressive roster of politicos give their opinion on Kissinger, although the man, sadly, does not speak for himself. Jarecki's other film is Why We Fight. It's very good. The trailer is below.