Molly's Journal: Week Eight

ahhh, rest.

Hey, look: a Google guy is biking across America!  I like seeing other people doing what we're doing. Sure, he's doing it in 3 weeks. But still! I like to think we're in the same boat, or traveling under the same cruise agency, at least.

Today we're in Smith Center again, because we needed it. Lots of sleep and lolling about, a cheesy movie, and a luxurious mid-day nap. No report - no news!

In which we conquer the heat by avoiding it altogether

It should say something that I, the lazy slug-a-bed heroine, was a big proponent of getting up at 5:30. After the day where we left Topeka around 1 PM and biked through sweltering heat all day, I'd have biked all night to avoid severe weather. After all, getting up before noon feels pretty much the same to me, whether it's 5:30 or 7:30; the only difference is how much light comes through the window. At any rate, we seem to have fallen into a new routine that I rather like. Get up at 5:30 or 6, get on the road at 7 or so, finish biking as early as possible. The worst heat is between 2 and 8 PM - there doesn't seem to be any solace until the sun goes down. In Smith Center, for example, it was still 105 degrees when we went out to catch the 8:00 movie. So the best bet is to get the biking over with before the day heats up, check in to a motel, and then hang about town all afternoon, moving from place to air-conditioned place.

Today was our most successful venture so far. There wasn't much to see along the route, so we ate the road up in large chunks and arrived in Norton at 2:30. The heat had just started to hit me as we were crossing the town line.  A mile later, we had pulled into the Dairy Queen and were happily eating ice cream, savoring the knowledge that we had conquered the day's biking before even eating a real lunch.

The only sight worth mentioning today is a bird sighting. Those of you who know anything about birds are going to have to fill me in on the details here. We saw a few largish, light-brown birds that I am calling hawks because I can't think of what else they might be. They were grand-looking things, sitting on telephone poles and swooping about. At one point, we saw one take off , trailed by a little tiny cheeping bird who was barely able to keep up. Just when I thought the little guy was going to get left in the dust, he flew up and settled down on the back of the larger bird. The hawk flew like that for a few yards, and then the small chick jumped off and started flying again. I have never seen a bird riding another bird. Is this a common way to teach the young to fly? I felt privileged to see it.

Toto, I think we're still in FREAKING KANSAS

Nothing against Kansas. Kansas is great. Kansas has lovely roads and Kansans have gone out of their way to be welcoming, encouraging, and cool. But I'm TIRED of this place.

I believe that it's the first state since New York that we've been biking in for more than a week. And it shows.  We are itching to get out. Crossing state lines is a great mark of progress - another notch on the belt, another state on the map. It feels good. And even though I knew that the states were going to get much wider and lonelier as we headed west, but it's still an annoying hurdle. But! Tomorrow, we will be out of this state! We'll pick up our post in St. Francis and then head off to the teeny little towns that dot the eastern Colorado roadscape.

Today was eventfully dull. We learned about nature's caltrops, called sand burrs, which lurk innocently along the side of the road waiting for bike tires to roll over them so they can puncture the poor things with reckless abandon. I picked one out of my front wheel and didn't see the two stuck in Colleen's trailer tire. We noticed them at the next stop, because the tire was completely flat.  30 minutes and probably 12 patches later, we gave it up as a lost cause and got a ride to the next town with a kindly highway worker. It turned out that the thorns from the burrs had broken off inside the tire and scratched huge gouges along the tube, perforating it ever so slightly. Big enough to leak air and render the tube unusable, but not big enough to be easy to find. These scratches were literally 9-inch-long holes in the tube. We successfully patched one simple puncture, one small centimeter-long scratch, and one nine-inch scratch before deciding to take the next kind soul up on his offer for help. At this point we only had six patches left. As it turned out, we would have needed at least forty to get out of that mess with a working tire. So there's another drawback to trailers - more potential points of failure.

In Oberlin, the next town, we ended up at a truck stop conveniently owned by the town's Tire Guy. Even though the tire store was closed on Sundays, he went down and got us a couple of thorn-resistant innertubes of exactly the right size for our trailer wheels. We do carry a spare tube for our bike tires, but didn't ever go out of our way to find one for the BOBs - after all, they don't carry much weight, right? If anything went wrong, we'd be able to just patch it up, right? Bzzzzzt. At any rate, now we have a spare. This did slow us down enough that our last 27 miles were through nasty, nasty heat and we both used up a lot of water. But at least the scenery was dull.

We saw another pair of birds, one teaching the other to fly and acting as an airborne launch pad. Also, the climate and local geography seem to have abruptly changed in the past 10 - 15 miles. Suddenly it's rocky and very very arid. There are cactuses and yucca plants. Sure, fields of corn and milo still line the roadsides, but things are planted more sparsely out here. I can see why this area is thinly populated, at best... no people, no good land, what on earth do folks do out here for a living?

In which we cheat, just a little ...

It seems to me that I've been unnecessarily boring in my entries recently. At the end of the day, I find that I'm tired and hungry and unreasonably impressed by whatever happened in the last 10 miles of biking, and that's usually what I write about. What this means is that I often forget to convey the little incredible things that really make the days worthwhile, like the time in Illinois where we saw someone learning how to skywrite. He drew a big backwards "N", a few silly lines around it, and then apparently turned in for the day. It was fun watching this lesson unfold over the corn and soybeans. One thing that made today worthwhile was finding an enclave of Really Good Food in Idalia, CO. Small towns in Colorado seem to consist of a crossroads, a grain elevator, a minimart/cafe/gas station/excavation service/what-have-you, and some trees. Idalia also has a small motel and a restaurant. In this restaurant, we ate fabulously marinated shrimp cocktail and wonderful salads, one with a delicate red-wine salmon, and the other with some sort of tasty chicken breast. The thing that was most striking was that we had gone out to eat expecting to reluctantly choose grilled-chicken burgers or fish fry yet again. And here was something that passed remarkably well for interesting and tasty cuisine. When you spend as much of your day eating as we do, a little variety goes a long way.

It made me think about all the things I never thought I'd miss, and wonder how snotty that made me. I knew I'd miss entertainment and friends and cool cafes, but I never thought about missing dark bread and baby corn and brown rice vinegar and spinach salads. Is it bad to dread yet another lunch in the only sub shop in town? Or to miss bookstores and wonder how people can live without them out here?

On a related note, we stopped in at our mail drop in St. Francis and were greeted with an amazing wealth of goodies -dried cherries, dried blackberries, pumpernickel and zucchini breads, nuts, teas, homemade granola and cookies and rice krispies squares, and even an angel food cake that we shared with the kind folks at the post office. We also got a bit more gear, since the Rockies are bound to be cooler than heat-infested Kansas was. Thank you all for your support, both culinary and otherwise. I was very touched.

And then, at the end of the day, we cheated. I got hungry, so we stopped in the corn for some shade and snacks.  We were busy congratulating ourselves on making good time despite the 111-degree weather when an 18-wheeler pulled up and offered us a ride. Apparently he'd overheard us talking about our journey in St. Francis and wanted to know if we'd like a ride 10 miles down the road to Idalia. Now, we really didn't need it. Both of us knew this. We were perfectly capable of finishing our food, slinging our powerful thighs back over the bikes, and rolling down the road to Idalia. It would have been no hardship. We had no health problems or mechanical failure. But here was a chance to ride in a big rig! And, for better or worse, coolness won out over butchness and we took the ride. Sure, I feel a bit guilty, but it was just 10 more miles of flat corn and grassland. Instead, we rode up in the cab with a guy hauling 22 tons of dog food and talked about life on the road.  Guilt aside, I think it was worth it. The people make the trip, right? Right?

Last, but not least, I have to publicly apologize for accidentally stealing Colleen's line about Toto and Kansas. I felt guilty about that, too. Oops. Anyway, we're NOT in Kansas anymore, so a big fat HURRAH is in order!

Salvation in Last Chance

We've been staring at this lonesome dot on the map for days - Last Chance, Colorado. It's the last outpost of what passes for civilization out here before hitting the Denver area. That's 35 miles between Last Chance and where route 36 meets I-70 and stuff picks up where it left off.  The little dots on the map in Kansas were reasonably large, so we'd assumed that Last Chance would have a motel. With a name like that, after all, who wouldn't? But gradually, we shed our expectations for this little hamlet as we heard reports like "Yeah, there was a gas station, but it closed," and "There used to be a Dairy Queen but I don't know if it's still there".  Figuring, hey, what's the point of staying there if there's no there there, we'd planned to fill up on water and ice in town and go on into that 35 mile stretch, camping in one of the many open, empty fields we had been encountering all day. But when we pulled into town to discover not only a functioning burger shack/ice cream joint but also a Methodist church, we decided to try and stay there.  As it turned out, a gentleman was hanging around the church, measuring the building for a new heating unit, and it was unlocked. He soon left, but mentioned that the woman who'd opened the church for him would be back, and we could ask her for permission to stay. Time passed, and your heroines decided that they had to either fish or get out of town - if we were going to camp, we reasoned, we should do it well out of town so as to be closer in to Denver.  This meant that we had to leave town in time to bike 10 or 15 miles and then make camp before sunset. Staying indoors was much more appealing. We left a note on the door saying "hi, we're biking across the country and were really really hoping to get permission to stay here and we're downstairs and you can kick us out if you want, just let us know," and eventually a guy came around and validated our presence. We liked that.

Another reason that I personally wanted to stay in Last Chance is that I was feeling a bit ill. My body has changed the way that it reacts to food - for example, whenever I eat mammal meat now, I have, shall we say, violent negative reactions in my gut. I wasn't exactly a big steak-eater before, but now I have to be very careful to avoid beef and pork. Apparently, though, today's lunch had had a bit of beef in it, and the lingering effects were quite unpleasant. Spending the night in a field wasn't high on my list of Fun Ways to Kill an Evening, so perhaps finding a church was for the best.

This morning had been a bit more dicey. We used up a lot of patches on the BOB trailer tube the other day, and only had a few left. Wouldn't you know it, I got punctures in both tires. They were old sand burr punctures that had been leaking air very slowly and had just caught up with us.  Last night, I fixed the rear tire; this morning, both tires were flat. The front had blown a little tiny hole near the valve, and by the time I got around to fixing it, I had run out of patches. I really really didn't want to get a ride 150 miles into Denver, which would be the nearest bike shop, and it wasn't likely that there would be a friendly neighborhood Tire Guy like we met in Kansas, so I was forced to improvise. I coated the puncture area in rubber tire cement, let it dry, and then used electrical tape instead of patch rubber. I figured it was stretchy, likely to seal well, and more suited to the task than duct tape would have been. Sure enough, it worked! I pumped the tire up to 70 PSI (normally we go up to 75, but I wasn't pushing my luck) and rode on it all day.

Tomorrow, on to Denver. The current questions are: how much time are we going to spend there, and what route are we taking to Salt Lake City? Several people have written in to say that it's a good idea to take a minimum of two days' rest to get acclimatized to the altitude, and we're really not sure how to handle that. We'd only budgeted for one day, time-wise, and adding another on is a risky prospect. The biking is only going to get harder for the next week or two, and the more time we rest, the more we have to bike each day. On the other hand, biking up a mountain when you have no energy and your heart is racing at a mile a minute isn't really the brightest idea, either. We'll get there, poll the bike shops for information, and see how we feel.

Serendipity reaches up and bites us on the butt, and Molly still tries to get over her need to Do Everything

Colleen is a big believer in Serendipity. She can explain it better than I can, but the short story is that everything happens for a reason. I was searching hard for that reason this morning when my electrical-tape seal on my front tire blew out this morning. It had held admirably well, and only lost 5 PSI of pressure in 24 hours, but when we tried to pump it up to 75 PSI this morning, it just crapped out. Started hissing. I tried the trick again, but I think the hole must have enlarged, because it completely refused to work a second time. "No, Molly, you already tried that hack, you don't get to use it twice," it was saying. "Good try, but no tomato."

Grrrrr.

35 miles from I-70, 77 miles from Denver, no spare tube, no patches, and almost no people. Everyone trying to get anywhere uses I-70, except locals and truckers. We decided to hitch a ride, since the favored local transport seemed to be empty pickups.  So we walked our bikes out of town, figuring that we'd look more helpless and pitiful if we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, rather than in Nowheresville itself. Nobody seemed interested in stopping for us, so we tried sitting by the side of the road. No takers. I took off my front wheel and set it behind my trailer, hoping it would serve as a big red "WE'RE TOTALLY STUCK" sign and cause someone to pull off and help us. Everyone still had a singleminded interest in not picking us up. People would pass us and wave hello, the ultimate insult: "Hello, obviously stranded bikers! Isn't it a lovely day? I'm so glad I'm taking a ride in this big lovely empty pickup truck without you! Have a good one!" Finally I decided that if we were going to sit by the roadside all day waiting for a ride, then I would at least true my front wheel while we were at it. Also, having the bike flipped over might be an even more obvious sign of distress. Just as I was starting to spin the wheel and look for wobbles, a truck pulled over and gave us a ride. It turned out that they were going very near our destination in Denver and were willing to drop us off. Hurrah!

I was miffed at myself this morning about the whole tube thing. I shouldn't have pushed my luck, I shouldn't have gone for all 75 PSI of pressure, I should have just ridden on it at 65 and called it good, then we would have been able to bike in to Denver. I had actually been looking forward to that stretch of lonely road - a sort of test of our mettle. However, it didn't escape my notice that this gave us an extra day of rest without eating into our schedule, and without depriving us of any of that lovely Rocky Mountain biking we've been so looking forward to. Lesson: perhaps it is for the best.

We are resting in the home of some lovely people that neither of us had met before today - Colleen's friend's sister and her husband and little one just happen to live in Denver and just happen to be very cool and also interested in hosting us. Julie took us out to a bike shop, and we brought the beasts in for a little checkup and routine physical. We also quizzed the bike shop folks on the best way to get to Salt Lake City. We had planned two potential routes; one biker there recommended that we take Route A, and the other recommended Route B. So much for getting a definitive answer.  Tomorrow, we're going to drop by the local recumbent-only bike shop (!!!) and see what they have to say on the matter. Both bike shop people said that they'd never met a cross-country cyclist before, which completely flabbergasted me. Here we are in Bike City, USA! Everybody bikes! They have bike racks on the bus, and a shop that caters only to recumbent riders! Why on earth would these people not have met cross-country tourists? It was suggested that tourists might take a route through town that wouldn't pass this particular shop, but that still doesn't seem to cut it for me. Here are a bunch of fit bike nerds who all live at high altitude. You'd think that even if they hadn't met outside bike tourists, they would at least know someone who had attempted the trek! But I suppose not. Their loss...

In which we are again eternally grateful for surprising hospitality

I am beginning to understand why Patti Romp talked about her desire to pay back the world for all the favors they got while biking across the country. Yet again, we stayed with people who went out of their way to provide us with every comfort imaginable.  Yesterday, we got in to Denver, spread out our stuff, and went out to a pub where I had a big fat pint of a fantastic, locally-brewed porter.  I don't often drink on the road, because it makes me feel icky and slow, so indulging in a rest-day pint was a heaven-sent opportunity. Today we did all of our errands and went out for fabulous Indian food. As if that weren't enough, Julie and Tony offered to take our trailers for us while we biked up and over Loveland Pass, a two-day journey across the Continental Divide that has been on my mind ever since Day One. Wow. What is it that makes people bestow unbelievable kindnesses on almost-strangers?

No amount of research can save us

A strangely mixed day, in all respects.

We had sent our bikes in to be fixed at Wheat Ridge Cyclery on the day we arrived in Denver. We both wanted our brakes checked out before heading over the Rockies, and I wanted some other stuff looked at as well. When we went to go pick them up this morning, planning to set out right away, we were thwarted by ... it wasn't clear. By something. There was some unexplained delay with my bike, and we hung out in the store for an hour. While we were waiting, the nice guy who had originally taken our bikes in (Doug?) apologized and brought me over to meet the (owner? manager?) of the store and told her what we were all about. She was quite effusive and interested, and gave us both excellent Wheat Ridge Cyclery gear (Zephyr vests and socks). This didn't diminish the fact that we had to wait even longer, keeping Julie from an appointment she had to make, and keeping us from getting on the road. When my bike was finally finished, the computers were down and Doug couldn't ring us up. He stopped, perhaps mentally weighing the consequences, and took me aside.

"Did you want to pick anything else up today?" he asked.

"Not much," I said, indicating the two patch kits and spare tube we'd picked out.

"OK. I'll take care of it. You just go on your way. I'll take care of it."

I had assumed he meant the tube and patch kits, but it turns out he meant the entire cost of repairs - two new tires, two new tubes, a new derailleur cable for me, new brake shoes, and a thorough cleaning and inspection. Add to that the vests and gear and spare bits, and it comes out to quite a chunk of change he was waiving. I was so confused and surprised and anxious to leave that I never got a chance to thank him properly for that amazing bit of customer service. It really was vital for us to get out of town as soon as humanly possible, and I think he knew that. It was a very strange encounter, and it left me with a good feeling about the shop. Strange, yes, but good. Hooray for the Dougs on the world.

With that little hurdle behind us, we set off from the Jordan's driveway. Before I get into what happened next, let me give a bit of back story. We've been trying to plot our route through Colorado since we met Chuck in Kansas. Our two options: try for frontage roads and bike paths along I-70/route 6, or head north and try route 40. We canvassed the local bike shops, pored over topo maps, and even tried to contact the highway department before deciding that I-70 would probably be more pleasant, if only because there are more people along it. People mean civilization, and civilization means water and beds and indoor toilets.  Amazingly, Colorado does not seem to put out a single comprehensive map of trails in the state, so we bought a book detailing some trails and road routes that run along I-70 and set out to brave Loveland Pass. We planned to get out of Denver, pass through Golden, and then join up with route 6 for a while.

We were met with a rude surprise coming out of Golden - route 6 has zero shoulder. Just you and a white line, with tour buses and 18-wheelers squeezing you into the rock wall. At best, it was just barely tolerable; at worst, highly dangerous. We were both filled with anger when we reached the first tunnel and saw the "no bikes allowed" sign posted at the entrance. No bikes allowed? we marveled, looking at the massive cliff that the tunnel bored through. You couldn't have warned us BEFORE we got on the road that we wouldn't be allowed to pass? We dithered for a bit and finally decided to turn on our blinky lights and brave the big hole in the rock, sign be damned.

Bad choice.

It wasn't clear whether the buses were playing chicken or just didn't see us at all - either way, it was terrifying. Here we are in a black tunnel, clinging to the side of the road, when a bus comes by within inches of our elbows and obscures all of the light from the row of sad little bulbs embedded in the ceiling. Biking in total darkness with a bus on your butt and winds buffeting you about is a singularly unpleasant experience. It's almost distractingly unpleasant. When we got through the tunnel (alive, I might add, though only just), we learned that there were two more of these babies before Idaho Springs where we would move to frontage roads. Criminy. There was no way we were going through that. Lost and confused, we called Tony Jordan (our host for the past two days) to see if he could give us a lift and get us out of our particular pickle. He did - with a smile. Hooray, also, for the Tonys and Julies of the world.

So we got a lift to Idaho Springs, where we went in circles trying to find our path to Georgetown until it started to rain and we holed up for the night. 17 weird, weird miles today; tomorrow, we cross the Divide. The day I've been worrying over in my head since Maine.