day 38 -- clinton to dayton

450 miles to dayton, fantasy football draft starting in 12 hours (and first class of the quarter at 8.30 sharp the next morning), labor day traffic across illinois and indiana, that same apocalyptic storm always in the background. cutting it this close wasn't the smartest idea, but with two new tires what could go wrong? sure, a garden variety breakdown would leave me in some small town with no way to secure transportation home short of leaning too hard on some hapless friend. but since groundless optimism was the theme for the trip, it was a fitting end.

crossed the river not as early as I'd hoped on a narrow concrete bridge on the lincoln highway. taking US30 as far as it would take me was tempting (grew up just a few miles from its eastern end, went to college right on it), but I was still harboring a neurotic urge to avoid chicago. crossing the mississippi is a disappointment in most places...apart from levees there isn't any topographical relief, just a sprawling river with scruffy islands and indistinct banks. so what span it are low, nondescript bridges that don't lend any grandeur to this greatest of rivers. crossings are infrequent, but the width of the river is the only engineering challenge -- the number of pylons determines the cost, not innovative solutions for spanning the distance. and so it is for the US30 bridge(s -- one on the north end of town, one just south of the city center). on the illinois side was flat nothing, straight roads, summer haze. none of the rolling bluffs that crowd the iowa side. followed the lincoln highway as far as rock falls (missed a section where now-US30 departs from the historical highway (confusing)) and was flipped onto I-88 for a short stretch, and then due south on SR40. at the junction the road crossed over the feeder trough for the hennepin canal, which linked the illinois and rock rivers to cut 419 river miles off of the freight journey from chicago to rock island. and further south I crossed the canal itself, which the state has rehabbed into a multiuse recreational trail on land and water. the route was long and dead straight and didn't do much to keep me ahead of the rainy tail end of the haunting storm of the previous night, but I missed rain once again even with a breakfast stop at peoria, which is where I turned east for good. somewhere along the way I hooked up with the ronald reagan heritage trail through this utterly nondescript landscape. and I thought he was a golden state cowboy. the trail did lead past tiny eureka college, the name of which I guess presaged his california destination. dodged a closed-off town square in bradford, but no time to wait around for labor day festivities, though the bbq drums were already a-smokin.

from peoria I turned east on US24, chosen for its run well south of chicago (see above) and its long straight line into the heart of indiana. this was familiar corn country. now dry-cold stalks, gleaming silos of familiar shape (not the open-framed silos of california and oregon), the sweet sickly smell of silage and manure that I caught for the first time in weeks when I reached minnesota and iowa. towns with optimistic names like eureka and fairbury and goodland. overall miles and miles of an identical human landscape. barn-silo-house-town-house-silo-barn, and on this day frantic harvesting perhaps ahead of the storm rolling in from the west? and in this everyone-harvesting-at-once a reminder of the trap of modern farming -- a small fleet of combines mowing down stalks in just about every field. no opportunity for pooling resources and sharing that $280k piece of equipment that you use for two weeks a year. the amish win again. I crossed into (back home again in) indiana with little fanfare and not much traffic. until I crossed I-65, that is. immediately the westbound lane was stacked up with trucks towing weekend boats from the exotic indiana lake district back into the big shoulders. I was headed the right direction at the right time to miss all this, but I was slightly concerned that I'd have to dodge a road-raging and sunburnt drunk trying to move up a couple of spots, but all was quiet. no vacation traffic coming in from central illinois, but lake schafer and lake freeman make north central indiana the hot spot for an exotic interstate getaway. or something. better than the borrow-pit pond slash campgrounds that hug I-75 in northern ohio.

traffic thinned as I neared logansport, which was the downriver pull-out of a wabash canoe trip I took last summer. I managed to lose a pair of oakleys stashing the canoe by the river while I biked back to huntington to pick up the car. so I figured if I was ever back in town I'd dig through the river mud for them (yeah...they're not cheap shades). and there I was a quick turn off US24 to the river road, but the chances of finding the spot were slim -- I picked it as a good place to hide for the bike and then the canoe, after all. anyway, a half hour treasure hunt didn't fit the schedule, and it was on to kokomo and a slog through indiana strip mall territory -- the summer heat was back. on the way I stopped for a sandwich in galveston, IN, where a blustery young infantryman was regaling old classmates with a jumble of basic training tales and 'remember that time when...' exaggerations. he exuded new recruit confidence, backed by a sergeant who promised to 'bend the rules' so he could speed up his deployment to afghanistan...though in this there was a shrill note that didn't cover his nerves. despite his charisma there was something about him that made his friends nervous and anxious to see him go...in his mildly souped up ride.

I was back on US35 now, which happens to lead all the way to a quarter mile from my apartment. through the indiana gasfields and around muncie, where I got impatient of suburban arteries and veered off on SR32. I should have stayed the course through the familiar towns of economy and williamsburg into richmond, but instead I was on the just-as-familiar but slightly longer route past quirkily scenic farmland, IN and the winchester speedway (a favorite of dad's old mechanic, randomly). so the equally familiar but more boring US27 south to richmond, some quick jogs through the west side of town and then a straight shot down the main drag. time to spare, so I skipped even the last 30 miles on I-70 and stuck to US35 through eaton and west alexandria and new lebanon, towns and pizza shops and christian-themed coffee shops familiar from lazy afternoon commutes back from adjuncting at wright state when I lived in richmond. and then the scruffy west edge of dayton, the abandoned delphi parts plant, and home. home. 38 days, 9986 miles (on the second bike), 21 states. from dayton, OH to dayton, NV; florence, KY to florence, AZ; clinton, OK to clinton, IA; el paso, TX to el paso IL; jonesboro, AR to jonesboro, IN.

and with that, as a wise (very) young friend remarked, 'his trip is done.'

day 37 -- new ulm to clinton, IA

two days to go and still nowhere near the mississippi, so New Ulm (and its monument to Arminius, apparently -- this town is seriously German) was in the rearview early as I headed southeast toward Dubuque in an effort to give chicago a wide berth on labor day. the route I took kept to the eastern edge of the prairie...tributary valleys for the big muddy dropped off to the left until I crossed over in Decorah, IA, home of Luther College and the upper iowa river. the college is tucked away down the valley, but it's left its mark on a vibrant main street...couldn't find a seat in the crunchy grocery store slash deli and ended up in a (you betcha) German-themed golden arches, listening to college boys trying to impress women by talking casually about internet porn. from there I outraced a stormfront across a patchwork of farmed highlands and creek hollows, each one deeper than the last as I approached the river. climbed over a last set of bluffs and dropped down to the mississippi at Guttenberg, and I was back in the dead zone of river towns. chatted with a couple that had leapfrogged me a couple of times along the way -- they'd roar by, get lost as US52 wound through a town, then catch up to me again. when I said I was headed for 'ohio, eventually,' they heard 'waterloo [, iowa].' and then through the rest of europe-in-iowa back above the river: luxemburg, then durango. and finally into Dubuque. a touch bigger than I thought, a town of brick warehouses and the river and crumbling industry. that rivertown time warp again...even the cars sun was setting, but I wanted to roll on closer to the river crossing on the lincoln highway. so now past the 'mines of spain' state park (once spanish property, mines visible on google earth), a fantastic sunset over the bluffs, then back down to the buggy river. hilly country, not bottomland at all here, more low hills and roads winding back into woods, turnoffs for old ferries. by late dusk had pulled into the surprisingly lively town of bellevue with several bars, lots of bikers, but no motels except for a bed and breakfast in a barn on the outskirts, so I pressed on to Clinton, IA.

I found a budget inn right downtown and grabbed a room, parked next to a pair of his/hers old model yamaha cruisers. lazed around savoring my last motel parallel universe night...crappy TV, anonymity on an empty floor. by the time I roused myself to forage for food, it was too late to find anything on a sunday night without heading out to the outskirts. china garden was around the corner, but a hand-markered sign announced that the proprietors were off on vacation for a couple of weeks. the bar across the street featured a disconcerting interaction between a woman in a wheelchair and another patron, so I steered clear and wandered around a starkly empty town. dimly lit storefronts, a handful of abandoned cars, a trio of youngsters hurrying away from a downtown apartment building. they were bundled against a surprising wind, which was what drew me outside more than the prospect of food. I was vaguely hoping for an iowa tornado -- no luck there, but the wind certainly was fierce. leaves raining sideways, dust clogging my eyes. all of this added to a vague surreality. could be that this was the last night out on a long trip, but something about the silent downtown and the apocalyptic wind without a storm gave me the sense that I was in a haunted landscape. alas, no ghosts, not even in the motel.

day 36 -- morehead to new ulm, MN

due south from morehead through now-endless cornfields. I must have missed the descent into the red river bottom on the dakota side while zipping along on the 'superslab.' not quite as soul-crushing as the arkansas-missouri bottom, likely because it was cooler than 105 degrees, absent the blazing sun. it was sunday morning quiet and still. small towns and grain elevators and the red river and western rail line...and the iowa, chicago, and eastern...and one stray canada pacific train decorated with 'come to canada' slogans fading on the boxcars. and here hunting licenses for sale, bait and tackle in convenience stores. no wilderness in sight, but the route skirted the forest margin. and everywhere a parkway in this featureless cornland -- highway 75 the king of trails (from the gulf to canada), the prairie passage, the laura ingalls wilder parkway. there was more history on these routes, or more like manufactured historical places with shiny new asphalts looping off the scarred concrete of the secondary highway. minnesota was surprisingly immediately in the lead for roughest roads, though the rural sample was probably not representative. seamed concrete, endless rough tar squiggles.

roads in disrepair notwithstanding, I'd actually reminded myself to slow it down a bit once I got to the more well-ordered and lawful side of the red river. no more desert and high plain highways here. and sure enough, the very first dotted-yellow pass I attempted in the state of Hubert Humphrey and Jesse Ventura? undertaken just as a squarish car with not-a-bike rack-on-its-roof appeared over the crest of the next hill. seriously. he U-turned behind me and the truck I'd passed, I pulled over, yadayada. somehow I divined that this was minnesota and the tough guy out-intimidate-the-cop act wasn't necessary, so I was polite and positively gregarious with a trooper who was in fact fred rogers' grandson. he had me at 76mph in a 55, but focused on a 'new law' that limited passing speed to 10mph over the speed limit. I'm not clear why it's okay to speed while passing, and he correctly pointed out that I passed another vehicle that was doing 61mph at the time. but I produced the trifecta of license, registration, and insurance info (even after he told me it was okay if I didn't want to dig them out of my luggage), and because I don't yet have any bench warrants, officer very friendly helped me 'get through this state without a ticket.' and I thanked him for his concern for my safety. 'magine that.

stopped to blog in a sleepy coffee shop somewhere and zig-zagged across the minnesota river valley on a sweep southwest of the twin cities. I missed one scenic route when it slipped off onto a county road...minnesota roads were obsessively numbered, and there was no road too small to get the scenic designation. ended up a town short of a mankato destination, but happily, as it turned out, in new ulm, MN. the road to mankato turned north across the river one more time, but I took a quick detour into downtown new ulm down a treelined boulevard, along a notably lively main street and then down a steep hill to the river and the annual RiverBlast. clouds of bbq smoke, music, crowds, and I'd managed not to miss labor day weekend completely.

surveyed the scene, then headed back out to a cheap motel on the edge of town where some good ol' boys had set up their own par-tay on a picnic table in a corner of the parking lot. bud lite and cards and kid rock (!) on a genuine boom box. tempting, but RiverBlast smelled a touch better, so after donning the party shirt I rolled back down to the river. at first glance this looked like any smalltown festival -- food trucks selling pork bbq, a tent for beer armbands and a separate tent for beer tapped from the side of a truck (from the local august schell brewery). I had already missed a lot -- the saturday started with a road race and later a paddling rally and canoe obstacle course on the river. various boomers were discussing aches and pains from same. and the music! the plan b band, which the website advertised as 'minnesota's fastest rising blues band,' though perhaps 'the palest blues band on the planet' would be more accurate; Donnie Klossner on the accordion -- 'musik mit Herz;' and the band I saw, finishing off the festival -- Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans. but even at 10pm riverblast was still very much alive, nearly raucous. admittedly it was competing with stereotypes about you betcha lake woebegone scandinavians, but new ulm is self-identified teutonic territory. perhaps this explains the remarkably bacchanalian atmosphere, as far as public festivals go in recent midwestern experience. the crowd leaned heavily toward boomers, though there was a smattering of younger folks...but everyone was into the band. so none of this sounds all that wild, really, and it wasn't...but there was an openness that stood out. everyone knew everyone else (and eyes followed me as an interloper)...people slid in and out of conversations over beer and brats and canoe stories, and in and out of the stiff-legged but uninhibited jiving in front of the funk 80s soul from the milwaukeeans. that reunion-of-some-sort vibe was awesome, esp since there was a complete lack of posturing and self-consciousness. and precious little awkward flirting though the crowd looked more and more unattached as the evening wound down. maybe all of this was boomers passing into the who-cares-anymore phase. two tall frizzy blondes in matching semi-uniforms who were in charge of drawing names for the gun cabinet giveaway shimmied away with whoever happened by. the resident punk danced with someone's grandma. a squat couple with matching flattops fired off some seriously dirty dancing. the drunk girls from the office wore glow-in-the-dark bracelets seductively. cowboy hats were about as ironic as it got. and so on. can't adequately describe it, but there was something easy and joyous about it that made an impression, even sounds from a distance when I wandered down to the dock on a misty moonsilver river.

running and philosophizing

on the other side of the red river from fargo is morehead, MN, home to Concordia College and philosopher matt. for those keeping score, philosopher matt is not to be confused with gandhi matt in portland, though they have philosophy in common. philosopher matt is a philosopher by trade, not just avocation, and is nearing the end of a three-year stint at Concordia that may well continue on. he's from (very) small town indiana, grew up in an evangelical family and has developed a uniquely positioned perspective on faith and reason that's way more than just academic posturing. he's also a runner with remarkable range -- 1:55 (correct me if I'm wrong) for 800m in college to 2:42 for a hilly marathon -- and a touch more athletic than most runners: rail thin but capable of benching 250lbs* back in the day (*edited for accuracy and so as not to slight anyone's athleticism). most importantly he can sketch complex thoughts while running up steep hills...college roommate booboo may be a better storyteller-on-the-run, but philsopher matt wins on quality per mile at pace. so this is a long introduction, but philosophy and running are what we do (okay, I'm faking both right now), training together intermittently (mostly because of my frequent retirements from running and general absenteeism) and bouncing deep thought beachballs around on runs. the gaps between runs grow increasingly longer (with repeated conversations and tales the result, though this is also a symptom of the aging academic), but the idea synthesis still works. I know that I could finish the dissertation if it were possible to dictate it to philsopher matt over the course of a few months of consistent runs. distilling thoughts we do well.

so I pulled into philosopher matt's driveway in morehead in the early evening after winding through downtown fargo and after an initial lap past his house...which sits a bit precariously close to the flood-prone river, though apparently just high enough that it didn't require the sandbags his neighbors' places did in the last couple of floods. he's renting this well-lit little house, sparsely furnished as you'd expect since he's still technically based in cincinnati -- his guitar and a table were the most substantial possessions I saw. and after dusting accumulated arthropoda off my gear, we set out for a quick jog along the summertime sedate river. the discussion this time was on 'shopcraft and soulcraft' and competence and labor. and then to JL Beers for burgers and local brew in a surprisingly cosmopolitan fargo. a handful of colleges make for a downtown strip that is way more impressive than dayton's...so perhaps I don't have to escape to the coast. we squeezed in another run in the morning and a family diner breakfast, and it was back on the road...next discussion run TBA.

day 35 -- williston to morehead, MN

what I noticed as I pulled out of williston was the dust. dust on cars in the motel parking lot, dust on the sidewalks, dust on street signs. as much as dust is iconic for the dakotas, it still surprised me -- when I first glanced at the dust-streaked cars I wondered how it was that every car in the parking lot had arrived there on dirt roads. and there are a lot of the latter, admittedly, but I think that had nothing to do with this urban dust. and wind, also iconic but surprising just the same. figured that heading consistently east would spare me from the worst of it, but plains gusts are stronger than that, ricocheting off the relentless sand hills. there was something incessant about those hills that I can't quite figure out...you'd think that of these landscapes the endless open spaces of the Montana plains would qualify as oppressive, not gently rolling scrubby hills above a slow-moving river. perhaps it was fatigue, perhaps it was that I couldn't process anything more complicated than plains-to-a-mountainous-horizon at this point. whatever the case, the maze of scarred hills was daunting. I tried to imagine it covered with tallgrass prairie, but that was hard to do while dodging and passing lumbering tankers and passing relief-valve flames roaring behind brand new oil and gas rigs that are surely residual from the halcyon days of $95 barrels of oil. presumably these ancient coastal swamps are richer than illinois cornfields, but still it's hard to imagine profiting from these trickle wells when the oil gushes unabated from saudi sands. halliburton was here in any case, and in a sprawling convenience store in new town on the Fort Berthold reservation there was a rack full of flame retardant coveralls. (but none of the giant wrenches I saw in texas.)

the three affiliated tribes -- mandan, hidatsa, arikara -- were in the midst of election season as well. and just as the incumbent sherriff in any county election wears his/her badge and pointed hat on election signs to demonstrate crime-fighting bona fides, so incumbents here wore feathers and braids. I was following SR1804 as it right-angle snaked around the chain of lakes, taking a scenic route suggestion from the atlas as far as Underwood before turning east on SR200 instead of continuing south to Bismarck and I-94. the significance of '1804' it didn't occur to me until I was on the road -- I figured the four digits signified a county road taken over for yet another auto trail, but of course this was lewis and clark country and so the 1804 wasn't a random number. I couldn't get into the 'in the footsteps' angle, possibly because I was headed the wrong way, but also because everything about the modern traverse is so different than the original journey. I know that's obvious, but it's hard to imagine what they saw and how they traveled while flying along on asphalt behind 50 horses, give or take. the mud, the baggage, the endless scanning ahead for a better track.

when I turned east I rather suddenly found myself in more comfortable flatness. endless wheat, a few towns, but most of the latter offset from the main road. this was real farmland isolation -- not the nothing-for-100-miles of nevada, but skeletal towns enclosed in small stands of trees, tucked away a half mile from passing traffic, a post office and two bank branches and a gas station and a rarely-open cafe...all just enough to keep residents close. no tourists except for the occasional wayward biker who mistakenly took a dirt road into town instead of the haphazardly paved one asphalt artery. an absolute isolation despite the presence of towns 10 miles down the road in either direction, though I'm sure consolidated high schools and commuting to urban jobs and the like make living here less shut in than it appears from the outside. I passed on the 'confederate bar and cafe' in McClusky not really wanting to know how the owner landed on the decision to paint a charming stars-and-bars across the roof of his establishment, or how it fit at all with the north dakota experience. and would stonewall have darkened the doorway of a cafe? perhaps the proprietor came north to plant peanuts unmolested by people of any color other than pink. also iconic and obvious, but the unsullied caucasian-ness of eastern dakota and the rural minnesota to come was remarkable.

anyway...the rest of the ride was a zig-zag toward Fargo and an inevitable stretch of I-94 -- I passed on riding by the KVLY television mast, which at 2063 feet was for two periods the tallest human-built structure in the world. (a Polish mast outstripped it in 1970 before collapsing in 1991; burq khalifa has rather more impressively passed it now.) I did pass by Sykeston, the home town of one Travis Hafner, whom a baseball historian tells me has a slim lead in home runs hit by a north dakotan over Darin Erstad. and Williston claimed Phil Jackson as a high school grad. and on the edge of arrowood national wildlife refuge -- tragedy. I was following SR9 and its right-angles, watching various waterfowl in some of the 10,000 lakes (more like ponds here). and then one hopped onto the road ahead...I slowed a bit, but the duck saw me and lifted off with plenty of room to spare. but at the last second it dipped low and straight at me...toward my face, specifically. quick calculations determined that this wasn't a good thing, so I half-swerved and half-ducked -- not enough to miss it completely, and it glanced hard off my left shoulder. a thud at 65mph, for sure, but presumably worse for the duck than for me. couldn't find it in the rearview, and when I wheeled around it was nowhere to be found. ugh. sickened me to think of likely injuries, but nothing to do.

the positive highlight, however, was a stop for a buffalo chicken pizza at the 'pizza ranch' in carrington, ND...a chain that I'd never stumbled across despite its dozens of locations in the heartland, especially iowa. sorta like the 'texas roadhouse' chain, based in Clarskville, IN.

day 34 -- havre to williston, ND

headed out from havre on a bike now with two great gripping tires, just in time for endless straight roads and no turns. more of the same montana countryside, with the space between towns shrinking steadily. from glacier to havre and beyond the hi-line ran to the north of US2, but at some point it crossed over to the south side. the template for towns changed at the same time, from (in north-south order) tracks/grain elevator/main street/perpendicular residential streets to something more complicated but just as formulaic. US 2 was isolated on the north edge of town and lined with gas stations and fast food without entering the town proper. in each town one or two streets cut underneath the tracks to enter the town, which consisted of a 2x1 block commercial district with two bars, one casino, and one cafe fronting the tracks; and western wear and hunting outfitters and municipal offices around the other three sides. too too many places to explore, so I resolved (the third such resoluation) to spend at least part of next summer hopping from town to town in montana and spending at least 2-3 nights in each place. diners in the early morning in time to catch ranchers, countryside during the day to capture the trains and the grass and the sky properly, bars at night.

an attempt on that score didn't work out to well in the whistlestop of saco. I stopped at the diner for a late lunch. two waitresses, a third off duty. the menu has a smattering of prices filled in, greek style, so I figure that marks what's available. club sandwich? not available since they can't afford to keep lunchmeat on hand. and actually nothing from the grill either since it's stuck on way-too-hot. pretty much only the daily special is on offer -- chicken patty sandwich with tots. and I get two patties as compensation for the limited choices, though I'm not really all that excited for that much breaded chicken. straight from the school cafeteria. but...later an elderly couple comes in. the occasion? just dropped off the steer! too perfect to make up.

no time for enough of that on this trip, though. back onto the endless US2. I covered all 664 montana miles from the edge of hells canyon above troy to the first sand hills of the dakotas. all along the route there were signs urging voters to pressure lawmakers into considering '4 for US2,' presumably referring to lanes. outside of havre there were occasional packs of five cars together, but nothing that could reasonably be called 'traffic.' several hundred miles of widened highway for the 100,000 or souls who live along the corridor? perhaps in alaska. more train traffic than cars and almost no semis since all the freight is on the rails, making for a parade of the 21st century railway picturesque. in place of boxcars and tankers and hoppers there are stacked containers. behind the iconic orange of BNSF locomotives a rainbow of the shipping companies: italia azure, hyundai rust-red, yang ming red on white, evergreen...well.

but for residents, not aesthetics-tourists, meth is a bigger concern. the public service campaign here is 'meth -- not even once.' this shows up on official billboards and hand-painted murals alike, often accompanied by images of the family you stand to lose. it's hard to imagine the real devastation meth inflicts, but do forty years of politicized hysterics over marijuana and cocaine blur the no-turning-back reality of meth? cocaine is a you-could-die-each-time gamble, but not the once-and-you're-hooked guarantee. there's no game to it. it is too much to imagine that meth takes hold in only the most hopeless communities, small towns that are in some ways worse than the inner city because there isn't even a distant uptown to dream about?

somewhere between brockton and culbertson the landscape shifted to dakota, the jumble of sand hills into which the plains deteriorate. the border came a bit later, and soon after I spun through williston, ND. I was hoping to stay downtown, but the old west main street hotel-casino was too far in the rearview. so the next best thing -- the 'vegas hotel' on the strip mall outskirts. complete with a random public fantasy football draft at 7pm!

day 33 -- coram, MT to havre, MT

the gear didn't exactly dry off in the heater-less room, but I still wanted to avoid the rain and tried to wait it out. by 7am it hadn't let up much, and I had to get to havre. so a rainy and cold run along the flathead river until I passed into the glacier rain shadow. just on the edge of have-to-stop bonechilled...completely inadvertently (as with everything on this trip) I packed just enough warm clothes to get by...helly hansen long underwear and a sporthill 3sp top underneath the leather works down to about 50 degrees, it turns out. barely. and it was critical that I bought thinsulate gloves in the middle of summer and thought to bring them along. almost enough to reconsider the 'I'm too cool for a windshield' attitude. damn you teehay. from that first stifling night in the tent to this last cover-my-face-with-the-sleeping bag night.

the montana plains come up abruptly, likely because the mountains of glacier are an overthrust of older rocks on top of younger strata. indian reservations are stacked up against the park with spectacular views but dry country. standard markers on the edge of the res...fields of abandoned ford pickups, still lots of 80s american cars on the streets, scattered trailers like the one val kilmer visits in that movie. communities that are heavily native with a smattering of visiting ranchers. a macdonald's full of blackfeet families, a blackfoot on the corner all in denim and dark sungalsses.

when the clouds cleared the ground turned brilliant gold under that biggest sky. sweeping swells and broad swales, staggering and immense but easy to scan, somehow welcoming despite the scale. windmills casting spinning shadows on the grass. no resistance to wind power here, apparently...people who have unlimited sky aren't as defensive of their beachfront views as those usually surrounded by cityscape? there's no way to oversell this landscape, even if I can't explain why exactly this sky is so big. on this post-rainy day the contrast of sky with brown grass was exquisite, and cinder cones on the horizon in whitlash. and the towns along the way almost reveled in this beauty, welcoming visitors with chirpy wrought-iron signs with snappy slogans (in rudyard, '596 nice people, one old sore head,' referring to a 1960s resident with dubious social skills). that or these towns are relatively thriving, still tethered to the hi-line, the northernmost american rail line that's crowded with BNSF freight trains coming one after another, those headed west backed by helper locomotives for the long push over the divide. US2 follows the line all the way through montana, and each town has a co-op grain elevator complex smack in the middle of downtown on the trackside of main street. in chester, superior feeds was proud of five -- count 'em, 5 -- accident free days.

passed by kremlin, which had to advertise its 'USA style' with a stars-and-stripes painted sign, and then into havre (thankfully not pronounced 'harve'). checked into the sierra motel and unloaded gear, then out to the yamaha dealer. then lots of exploring on foot. out toward montana state-havre, downtown for a haircut in a barber shop full of farmers discussing who'd cut his wheat and who hadn't, pizza in an empty pizza-pro and ice cream in an empty ice cream parlor until a youth group on a scavenger hunt started to burst through the doors in groups. I was hoping to while the evening away in a bar, but all were attached to casinos, so I turned in early and slept on and off while neighbors lurched in and out, made loud threats to 'smoke' someone, puked occasionally, and burned holes in the room's carpet.

day 32 -- rainy glacier

seriously? a crew had hiked in early that morning and started repairing the hitching post, so no late sleep. they hadn't arrived the night before, since there weren't any bags hanging from the pole at 9pm, but there they were. and better prepared than me, with rain slickers and hiking poles. so plan C: leave the tent and hope it dried out a bit before I packed it up, hike out to the continental divide and hopefully spectacular views, return to the campsite, pack up, and get back to the packer's roost by 8pm at the latest so I could get back on the park road and through a road closure at logan pass by a 9pm nighttime construction cutoff. around 21 miles in all (8 miles out and back, then 5 back to the bike), but more than half with a light pack with food and water only. misty damp to start and more than a bit chilly, but I had enough layers as long as I kept moving. I kept hoping for the sun, but no luck there. over the course of the hike I went from hoping for sun...to hoping against rain...to very glad for bouncing hail rather than soaking rain...to hoping the gusty winds would die down...to hoping the trail at the bottom wasn't two inches deep in water.

for all of that, though, the landscape was even more inspiring than I could have imagined. I won't try to describe it...it's way bigger than words. check out the photos, some of which worked especially well with the swirling clouds on these rainy days. it's the sort of landscape that invites cliche -- I'll go with a scale that would force even lance armstrong to recognize his insignificance. the trail headed just over the next ridge turns out to be two miles away. the view just around the next corner isn't actually reachable. a campground called 'fifty peaks' for the endless series of craggy edges visible from that spot. inspiring hiking, most of it across the well-named flattop mountain and easy, still mostly through burned forest that afforded views all around when the mountains weren't obscured by clouds. the bb sized hail and wind weren't all that bad, though they cut a quiet picnic short when I started shivering, and past the divide a heathy moor that recalled scotland, even down to the invisible and inaudible creek ('burn' to stick with the scottish imagery) the gurgle from which rushes up only as you step within a few yards of its rocky course. so I re-resolved to make glacier the focus of a trip for summer '11, to hike across the park from west-to-east and to loop into the canadian section along the way. peaks, glaciers, forests, glacial ponds. otherworldly.

all went well until a ginger limp down the trail back to the bike -- the achilles quit after about 15 miles. I thought I was making good time, esp when more rain sped me along, but I reached packer's roost at about 8.10pm. since everything was soaked, I decided to repack under the stable overhang, and by the time I'd stuffed and remounted luggage and changed back into rain-soaked and heavy, smelly leather, it was 8.40pm. only twenty minutes to reach the road closure point and make it to the east side of the park and a good 50 miles closer to havre for the next day's ride. a rainy ride in the dark through hairpin turns wasn't all that much fun, but better now than a few weeks ago. minutes clicking by, construction lights appear on the slope too far away, more turns and turns and turns...and the construction zone at 9.02. road closed. ugh. back down the same winding roads, in the rain, and farther. faceshield rain spotted and fogged up, car headlights blinding me. and frigid. the first unpleasant ride of the trip, but no choice this time. back down past lake macdonald, past the park lodge (surely full), past the west side visitor center, past the town of west glacier (no vacancy), resigned to a ride all the way back to columbia falls. but vacancy at a summer resort motel, and desperate enough to overpay for it, if only to dry out my gear so as not to ruin the tent with mildewy saddlebags. naturally this summers-only spot didn't have heaters, so I cranked the air conditioning and hid out in the lounge with a roadtripping couple from the smokies and shared a couple bottles of moose drool. in sum, I would have been better off spending another night in the campground with the chainsaw crew and heading off in the morning. anyway. glacier dampened me...but not enough to scare me off.

day 31 -- troy to glacier NP

libby turned out not nearly as dire as expected...run down for sure but no more than your average mining town, and livelier / more crowded than I'd have thought. after sleeping in at the ranch motel to make sure the rain had passed, I stopped at the 'world famous' libby diner for a late breakfast with a very gregarious hostess who commanded the room. at the next table there was what appeared to be a CSA general complete with absurdly bushy mustache-connected-to-pork chops, unsurprisingly from andersonville, GA (see above for georgians trying too hard at authentic southern street cred). all sorts of deep south connections claimed by the happy hostess and grand reminisces had by all. fox news was shouting in the corner. I won't wade into the irony there in a town where a callous corporation has fatally sickened someone in every family and then declared bankruptcy so as not to pay for the damage. but the foxies were all about holding BP responsible, right?

onward and upward from libby toward kalispell and glacier NP. caught up to the rain again outside of kalispell and bounced through a muddy construction zone in a steady downpour. sheltered in a gas station and attempted to calculate where the rain was headed (rather than oh, checking weather.com or something), securing reassurance from a local outfitter that the rain was headed toward missoula. though there was a big purple cloud parked low over the mountains. I got halfway out of columbia falls on the last stretch to the gateway of west glacier when it started to rain hard. this time I turned around and pulled under another gas station just as it started to hail. not good for chrome, presumably, so a surprisingly good call. another snickers and coke to pay for my stay, then to the grocery store to stock up for a hike this time and wait out for the rain. all this worked well enough, as it was dry and sort of sunny when I started back up the hill. got lost in the crush of end-of-the-season park visitors trying to ask about backcountry permits and decided just to head out into the woods in secret. followed the park road past lake macdonald and turned off as the 'going to the sun' road started its climb toward logan pass. a quick glance at the map suggested that most short-term hikers do 'the loop' from a point a bit further up the road or drive around to the eastern end of the park and hike from many glaciers. the latter looked most attractive, but it was getting late, and I really wanted to get into the woods without following a train of backpacks. and I was set on completing a loop that I had eyeballed at about 40 miles (without looking at the scale, of course) instead of an out-and-back. a gravel road led down to the macdonald creek trail at packer's roost, and I set out from there after covering my bag with its rain slicker...and wisely draped my leathers over it and my clothing bag under the bike, instead of stowing all of it on the porch of a nearby and apparently disused stable. impressive (for me) foresight but half-assed execution.

the trail was predictably spectacular, and because of the rain I had it all to myself. started out through swampy lowlands but soon emerged in a huge tract of burnt-out forest not yet recovered. a sign on the road noted a 1987 lightning fire, but if that was this fire it was surprising to see so little regrowth. not exactly the aesthetic ideal of the conifer forest, but striking just the same, all grey verticals and rain-shiny burnt stumps. the trail crossed the creek and headed up toward two possible passes, and with each switchback I recalibrated my guess on which one the trail was aiming for. at this point I still planned to sprint 12 miles to the second campsite and then march off another 30+ miles the next day to complete a loop that looked to cover a good section of the scenic core of the park. I've never hiked more than about 25 miles in a day, but the aforementioned explorers did routinely on their PCT adventure, so I figured I could, creaky achilles and all. only problem was that though I had food this time, I hadn't filled the camelback, so I only had a liter of water. to compenstate I sipped water off leaves every 50m or so, as if that would make up for poor planning. fortunately for me the ascent was slower than I planned and I only made it to the first campsite before it got dark, after about five miles. so no 40-mile hike the next day...I'd have taken an extra day, but I had another tire change appointment scheduled in havre, MT and of course some 1600 miles between me and dayton. so I set up camp in the near dark and discovered another slight problem...there was a food-hanging pole but no bear box. I had lazily assumed that all national parks had moved to boxes rather than relying on hikers' food-hanging skills, and hadn't brought any rope on the trip. this didn't trouble me too much until I realized that the bears here weren't just friendly and scare-able black bears but grizzlies too. so I stashed the bag under the rain fly of my tent and hoped that if I heard rustling I'd make the right call on scaring the bear away or playing dead.

in the event it started raining early in the morning and there weren't any visitors. I gave up even on the shorter loop and decided to sleep late in the wonderfully quiet woods. until I heard chainsaws at 7.30.

day 30 -- mazama, WA to troy, MT

after breakfast in the resort town of winthrop at the base of the mountains (which had managed to pull off a fake old west vibe without looking ridiculous or too chintzy) the other washington was next, ranches and farms and sleepy towns in the rain shadow. a different world from west of the cascades, for sure, but not the sharply us/them red/blue divide many would like to imagine. I didn't see placards demanding that regular americans 'take back' their country from... anyway. drive-thru espresso huts still showed up in towns, farms advertised organic produce, land was assigned to conservancy. the ferry county weekly news was full of candidates for local office thanking their supporters and reminding them to vote again in november. one race in particular was turning gossipy, in that one dennis boone, running for sherriff, found it necessary to take out a quarter page ad to print a letter battling false rumors. apparently some are claiming that if elected he'll fire all the deputies and cancel a drugs initiative, assertions that a smiling mr boone assured us were categorically false. he was pictured leaning forward over the railing of his front porch, wearing a plaid rancher shirt and jeans. elsewhere in the paper was a long letter criticizing the business column editor for her impassioned plea that people patronize a struggling bookstore in ***. the letter writer felt that the column unfairly criticized any who bought books online as traitors to the local economy, but then also attached a long list of perceived failings of said bookstore -- no roadside signage, wrong end of town, no attached coffee shop. a pretty classic dispute that seems never to have taken off in most places after the shortlived 'buy american' surge of the 1970s. the economy sucks, local businesses struggle, blame government regulation/immigrants/walmart while at the same time doggedly boosting the free market which strangles local business. crocodile tears for mom-and-pop, but rarely a concerted effort to spend a little more or endure the parking nightmare of having to walk a couple of blocks to the store...

the further east I went the more the country dried up. and in the driest parts, naturally, were indian reservations. announcing omak on the edge of one such parcel was a sign spelling out the town name in red figures twisted into the shapes of letters -- cowboy boots, a tepee, and a red-skinned indian. I'd love to find out how indian and settler identities have merged there. crossed into idaho and through the soft upper end of hell's canyon (deeper than the grand canyon at its southern end, but not as dramatic) and then into montana. out of the national forest the landscape changed to a patchwork of regrown forest and more recent clearcut, which was all the more chaotically spectacular in the mismatched patchwork of sun and shadow on the hillsides. I'd considered libby as a destination for the evening (dodged rain all day and so canceled camping plans) because I knew the name and figured it must be a resort-y town for that reason. after a while I remembered why libby, montana rang a bell...the eponymous documentary about the residents' decades long struggle with the predictable results of an economy founded on the largest asbestos mine in the world. the film painted a pretty grim picture, so I settled on the closer town of troy, 'lowest in elevation, highest in recreation.'

but if everyone in libby is dying of mesothelioma, troy is just plain dead. the town was quaint in a ghost town sort of way, but I found the 'ranch motel' at the far end of town, the parking space of which were for some reason full of troy police vehicles. temporary offices? (perhaps...more on that in a bit.) the office door was momentarily locked but opened just as I pulled my hand back by a guy in his mid-20s who was surprised to see that I was not his buddy riding up from bozeman. not exactly the proprietor, he was dressed only in some crazily printed pajama bottoms and lots of tatoos. I didn't get a good look at any of this because he was too jumpy and vibrating to bring into focus. on his left knuckles I did catch 'DOOM' printed in thin, hasty, lines. he told me he was 'just the son,' but that the could probably figure out how to check me in, though he couldn't work the credit card machine. he's recently returned from living all over the seattle area but didn't explain what brought him back to troy...and conversation was as disjointed as his movements, so I gave up. I wandered back into town to find a bar on a sunday night (timing, again, not so good). on the other side of the street from the police station / municipal building was a mobile marquee pointing at the government center and indicating that 'dictator don' was within. I sensed this was not a joke, and a little research came up with a nasty spat pitting the mayor (don banning) against the city council. the former has taken to making executive decisions without involving council, suggesting that it concentrate more on legislating and less on management. the latter has responded by refusing to approve anything and closed the last meeting before addressing anything on the agenda in protest. dictator don is trying to pay city employees anyway, and no one is picking up the tab on $60,000 in obligations the city owes. all this proves that if only we delegated all our important decisions to small town politicos, this country would run so much more smoothly.

I ended up at the 'home bar,' which was empty except for the barkeep and two guys playing video games and/or slots, two guys with hair that matched the journey-class music on the jukebox. though it was dead quiet tonight, in a couple of weeks the home bar holds a huge biker rally and was elaborately decorated with biker paraphernalia, like an old air conditioner to which dual chrome exhausts had been lashed in keeping with the 'cool your pipes at the home bar' theme. behind the bar was a lengthy list of people on probation for misbehavior and a shorter list of those 86'd for a year or permanently. the barkeep had recently moved to troy from aberdeen, WA with her retired-from-the-state husband, who was building a cabin 12 miles up winding roads in the woods above the yaak river. progress was slow, and they were just starting to think that they should find a place in town to spend the winter (sounds wise). troy is low elevation-wise, but the cabin is just high enough (but not too high and dry) to get a good amount of snow in the winter. and soon, I'd think.

so she wasn't a great source for local lore, but to the rescue rode 'junior.' junior was clearly happy to see a stranger at the bar and sidled up straightaway and started to fumble for change for his $2 budweiser, and I crawled under the pool table to retrieve a dropped quarter. junior is the sort to offer his life story without prompting. and it was a solid one. he's clearly of native extraction, though he didn't mention this, and looked about 65 despite his birth certificate age of 81 (except for some key missing teeth up front). he was wearing a yellow and white mesh baseball cap that advertised troy, montana, but has lived there for 'only' 44 years. moved from minnesota to work in construction. the rest is murky...despite his hearing aid, junior spoke in a barely audible not quite whisper, and a lot of enunciation was lost in the space where his front teeth were supposed to be. but he related everything in such a matter-of-fact tone that I didn't doubt much of what I pieced together. worked hard and followed the money, always cognizant that one has to work long hours when the money's available...perhaps an inevitable conclusion for any who work in the boom-bust economy of construction and logging and mining, but junior pointed out that he turned down longterm company jobs several times because he knew that the 'guarantee' of lifetime benefits was never really a serious one. so he moved from digging ditches to operating a crane to buying a logging truck, then more logging trucks, then log loaders and cranes until he'd amassed a small fleet of construction equipment and thence a small fortune. through it all there was a current of perceived disrespect, as in a long story of his expertise in fixing a crane on the libby dam project. company higher-ups ignored his suggestions, but when the manufacturer reps were called in they concluded that junior knew more about the machine than they did. and so junior saved the day, and promptly quit after fixing the problem but sneakily not calling attention to another one. I have no idea whether junior is the know-it-all pain in the ass sort of line worker or a non-company-man indian who suffered undeserved condescension. the next story was even harder to gauge, the more recent murder of his wife. junior was off in north dakota somewhere working when it happened (he too adamantly insists), the police pinned it on 'bikers,' and junior spent a while trying to point the sherriff in the right direction to the man he knew did it. the rest was completely opaque...where/why it happened and so on, but in the end junior found peace in knowing that whoever did it had to live with the guilt, and one of the two conspirators (the number of the guilty grew with the story) had already died from shame. again I leaned hard toward respect and compassion here -- his demeanor demanded it -- but then again the canned and unprompted nature of the narration was suspicious. I barely got a word in after 'did you grow up here?' other than the murder story, the rest was typical enough...grandkids have moved off in search of work, either down to missoula or up north to work on a gas pipeline. nothing to be done...but of course better than things in libby.

day 29 -- seattle to mazama, WA

midday start for the official turn eastward...keeping up with the brazilians and company meant closing down the pub, after a recurring encounter with a dude who spent the night spouting nonsense and punctuating it with odd tongue wagging. one of the seattle natives suggested that this behavior was indicative of too much time on the boat. and this made sense since the tongue-wagger was clearly a seattle native himself, correctly identifying neighborhood origins for the locals in our crew.

anyway, just before I took off I committed to the far northern across washington and then into glacier. SR20 winds through the north cascades and stays north of spokane, picking up US2 only in sand point, ID. US2 was attractive as well, but remote was more appealing. I headed out of seattle on SR9 as an alternative to more I-5. suburbs stretched on for miles past the standard quick fade-out of the west, a reminder that this climate is rather more forgiving. suburbs to out-of-the-way eateries to outfitters...finally yielding to gritty farming and logging towns. there was a street fair (=big yard sale) in clear lake featuring a chihuahua rescue outfit and kids riding miniature ponies around a ring that was no more than 20 feet across. and suddenly the wild west in sedro-woolley, an old school town with a very 90s hyphenated name. I was still in seattle ethnic/crunchy food mode, but the best I could find was a bacon bleu burger at 'just moe's' at the end of the L-shaped main drag. this was real small-town crowd. little league world series on the TV, some spouse-abandoned late middle-agers alternating beers at a high table and smokes outside, and finally a slightly rougher crowd getting an early start on the saturday. a bald and tattooed but slickly prettyboy-as-convict look with his moon-eyed girlfriend, who remarked to me (or no one in particular) as he strode out for a cigarette that 'there's nothing quite like watching someone you love walk away.' she said that adoringly, not wistfully. interesting take. and another biker couple, this one dressed as if they were on the way to hawaii...she earned two scoldings from the barkeep for language violations. I zipped out before she got the boot. left coast sensibility re-emerged at an organic farm and land conservancy along the skagit river -- and more importantly fresh raspberry ice cream.

all along the skagit I leapfrogged a filipino-american family (mom, dad, teenage son) inexplicably driving an unmarked minibus, like the airport rental car shuttle or a nursing home campus shuttle. and then SR20 turned out of the skagit valley, and I fell in love with the north cascades. the topography isn't all that different from the cascades closer to portland, but there's something about the unbroken forest here that separates it. forested mountain views around every corner, as if this is where artists come to learn how to paint forested mountain views. green spiked hills in the foreground against faded blue slopes in the background, misty clouds, the works. and trails! trailheads left and right in the national park, in the national forest...I resolved on the spot to spend weeks hiking this landscape. conifer forests can get monotonous in the uniformity, but it's hard to imagine tiring of the piny scent, the dripping silence. (which raises a question. do we associate that scent with clean because it's somehow intrinsically clean-smelling? or have lysol and dish detergent reverse-engineered that association?) the road climbed gradually in this glaciated landscape over rainy pass (where it rained, natch) and then to washington pass and dramatic vistas over the glacier-scoured uplands above the wonderfully named early winters creek. rolled down from the pass and turned in at the lone fir campground. the rushing creek sound that I associate with ideal campsites from time spent in the smokies (where it's impossible to find a spot where water isn't gurgling) clashed a bit with the rushing traffic sound from the road in this narrow valley. quiet crunchy campers in hats and fleece...and after dark someone with a flute playing generic 'native american' music. the sort of music that sounds like it's continuing even after the flute has stopped it blends into natural sounds so well. (this was better than hearing a flute at big bend, assuming indian music but realizing it was just a high school kid practicing band music...)

days 27-28 -- on the water with cap'n casey jones

the next morning it was off into the water on the captain's zodiac. rainy, blustery day...not typical seattle august, apparently, but it fit the imaginary seattle well enough. first stop...crab pots off richmond beach and a hoped-for dungeness feast later on. but no recognizable buoys despite a few passes. this was seriously bad, not just for prospective crab wontons but because these were serious traps. possibly confiscated by fish and game officers because they were out during a sunday-tuesday moratorium, but that level of enforcement looked unlikely. more probably some punk had grabbed them. we hoisted someone else's to look at the catch (and now I know how to sex crabs and what constitutes a legal catch), and I suggested that we could bait someone else's trap, head across to a planned lunch on bainbridge island and slip back for 'our' catch before the real owner returned, but there were karmic problems with that, so no go. disappointment aside, we motored over for that lunch at a great waterside joint with local beer and local food (smoked halibut and jalapeno salad sandwich for me...excellent). casey's caught between selling the boat in an effort to pare down his stuff...and listing all the improvements he was considering. a rear platform to accommodate a dual engine complex to make it more sea-worthy (redundancy), for example. I took a turn at the helm and learned the rudiments of engine plane and throttle and riding through wake. we explored a possible diving spot (casey is a PADI instructor) and mugged for photos with the skyline, then toured the yacht marina and a billion dollars of boats. some post-outing boat care and then some more great city fare, some pho accompanied by blaring muzak.

casey's other current interest is a 1989 volvo station wagon in remarkably good condition. after a series of brand new SUVs rapidly turned over, the idea now is to put energy into tuning and tinkering a machine with 200,000 miles into another 100,000 miles...not really out of necessity but out of the challenge and ownership of the project. so yuriy the russian volvo guru was consulted on repairing a broken parking brake cable, checking the moving brakes, and investigating various squeaks and rattles that kept cropping up. for all his roughshod bravado and derring-do (from skateboards to wingers to late night quarry diving), casey always had a meticulous side. running wasn't a lark fueled by raw athleticism...casey followed the sport and training closely and was borderline obsessive about thinking ahead to the next race. so for all his formidable competitive drive there was a strong intellectual slant to his running. all this makes sense for the volvo and the boat, but also for the scuba thing...adventure and risk but very carefully managed -- you can't just strap on the tanks and head for the bottom. so after it's all rehabbed, this will turn out to be one remarkable 1989 volvo -- re-upholstered roof liner, replacement leather seats, dark tinted windows.

but there's still the freewheeling casey -- we spent part of the next day attempting to find some downtown tourists to take out on the boat. casey latched onto a couple of kansans in town for a wedding, but with me-deadweight as a silent sidekick we didn't get very far. (all I had to contribute were my goofy shoes.) which was all good in the end since there were backup plans to end the evening with various brazilian friends and s.o.'s -- casey has taken to brazil and brazilians recently, speaks portugese fluently.

in and around these various events we managed to sample burritos/enchiladas from a literal hole-in-the-wall around the corner from pike street, visited pals at the hydroponic garden shop, scrabbattled latenight, and counseled a friend through a breakup-with-kid-complications situation. casey still is a pastor's son at heart...true to form his high school ambition was to start his own religion.

day 26 -- portland to seattle

after a day spent mostly borrowing wireless on office park medians and a 7-11 sidewalk waiting for the tire to arrive, for the service dept to mount it, and then slow slow pre-rush hour traffic across portland (even after I figured out that 'motorcycles OK' was appended to the HOV lane signage), I gave up on the secondary road thing and headed north on I-5. scenic enough, but I missed mt st helens again -- the first time I visited washington the summit road was closed due to snow. anyway, zipped into watery seattle and checked into the george and dragon, which advertised itself as a 'british pub' in the nonsensical chain-pub way, but this was a very local joint. the seattle sounders were a few blocks down at qwest field playing some mexican club in the CONCACAF champions league (who knew that existed?), but plenty of the faithful were outfitted in green and watching at the pub. and then the indisputably one-of-a-kind cap'n casey jones showed up. the kid who cajoled a handful of weirdly matched semi-athletes into competing like contenders, the kid who submarined authority at every turn but got teammates to follow his lead without question, the kid who messed around when it didn't count and toed the line hard when it did, the kid who alternated casually nasty barbs with fierce (if gruff) support for friends, the kid who put 'casey jones' on an endless loop at cross-country camp and had the bus driver blare 'freebird' incessantly, instilling a vaguely rebellious (but not hippie) streak in at least one straight arrow band geek. crude, moody, doggedly independent...but dripping charisma. we spent the year after he graduated trying to out-casey each other.

casey headed for the coast fifteen years ago and I'm not sure I've seen him since (though I swear he ambled out of the shadows at a the hershey texaco some time back). but it's no surprise that he's the same guy, despite some rough breaks. and I know that's what everyone says about long lost friends, but sometimes it's true. he looks the seattle part now, a little grunge, a little shaggy. we compared notes on lost hershey denizens...he had a lot more juice on that score, including the unlikeliest multimillionaire porn star ever. (and I just looked him up under his stage name to confirm. still speechless.) we traded my bike for a buddy's SUV to tow the captain's boat the next day and turned in.

day 25 -- tire education in portland

turns out I completed that 575 mile ride through oregon on a nearly shredded rear tire. I had managed to convince myself that the absence of a central tread on said tire was normal since there was plenty of side tread left...and that these original tires were fine for the 14,000 total miles they'd have covered. suspension of disbelief. I'd attach a photo, but in the interest of not horrifying family members, imagine better than I'm describing. that there was fabric showing should suffice. limped over to downtown vancouver instead of a planned portland coffee shop expedition and searched for someone who could find a not entirely common tire for this rig. I lucked out when the local motorcycle hub had one in a nearby yamaha warehouse and could have it the next day. crisis averted. later that afternoon I gingerly rolled across town to meet the explorers (my vancouver hosts) for a run on trails with their team. one of the guys had an impressive collection of cycles, and after one look at the tire he suggested strongly that he'd happily strap the bike onto his pickup and take it down to the shop rather than let me risk any more miles on that tire. very generous, and yes, brought home just how derelict I was in letting it go so far. what I've learned: riding 2000 miles a week demands a touch more attention to tire wear than normal usage.

the rest of the break in vancouver/portland was less dire. anyone reading this blog has heard plenty about the explorers, a recently married couple I know from the running spot. he's done turns as gandhi/student council president, a disgruntled midshipman, an optimistic appalachian trail dropout, a bearcat, and returned to annapolis to complete the rare double of academy attendance and great books at st johns. she's the levelheaded one...cinti eastside refugee, redhawk, bemused running shoe expert and person-observer, ethiopian adventurer, and master electrician. they've speed-hiked the pacific crest and talked of sailing around the world, but for now they're biding time and making money as financial analysts...convincing new jersey dentists not to give up on the stock market just yet. or at least not just now. the pattern is work/make money then head out on an adventure, but the wanderlust has stilled for a moment, and they're focusing on running and coaching and more local adventures. their quirky and remarkably well-matched outlooks haven't changed, and they've come to realize just how strong that bond is. curious, open, logical, non-ideological. intentional and unintentional philosophy. and appreciative of good food...we headed south into portland warehouses for a sublime cajun meal of oysters and etouffe and mac-and-cheeses.