Month: June 2021

Day 59, 43 miles (and 4,500 vertical feet), Cottonwood to Prescott, AZ
Day 58, 55 miles, Flagstaff to Cottonwood, AZ
Day 57, 38 miles, Meteor Crater to Flagstaff, AZ
Day 56, 68 miles, Holbrook to Meteor Crater, AZ
Day 55, 69 miles, Chambers to Holbrook, AZ

First of all, thank you to whoever is still reading this blog, and sharing this trip with me. Your much-appreciated comments, likes and other responses have kept me from feeling completely alone out here on the bike road.

As I think back over the past two months, and the nearly 3,000 miles ridden across this diverse, fascinating, naturally beautiful country, it’s difficult to get my head around it. I’m still too close. In 9 days, if all goes as planned (must be said), I’ll roll into Los Angeles and triumphantly plunge into the Pacific Ocean at Long Beach.

For now, I continue to try not to consider that moment too earnestly. There is still a lot of riding to do – more than 400 miles, and a tricky ride across the Mojave – and it has to be one day at a time.

My 70-day xUS bike trip will likely be more like 68 days, a tad ahead of schedule. These days in the Southwest have provided some wonderful tourist stops. Meteor Crater, for example, just west of Winslow, AZ, is a stop I’ve wanted to make for years. I camped out at the Meteor Crater RV park just off of I-40,

then rode the 12-mile round trip deep into the desert to the monument, a mile-wide, 600-foot-deep, 60,000-year-old hole created by a meteor about 150 feet across. Well worth the desert ride to see this immaculately preserved phenomenon.

Here on Day 59, I can check off another experience from the life list: staying in a tree house. This Prescott, AZ, airbnb is a perfect fit for an adventure, and it’s one of the funkier places I’ve stayed in (meant in a positive way). Exterior:

Interior, from the front porch:

It’s good to have a place with character here in Prescott, because it was not easy getting here. From Cottonwood, where I stayed last night, viewing the smoke-filled sky from the San Rafael fires up in the hills, it’s a serious climb up through Bull Canyon pass to get to Prescott. Up I labored, 4,500 feet in 15 miles, from Cottonwood, at 2,500 feet, up to a little over 7,000. Here’s what I was looking at all morning:

Breathtaking views at the numerous rest stops along the way. And the downhill, 2,000 steep feet on the other side of the pass, is a great payoff. I coasted at up to 40 mph at times, and even passed a car that was unable to take the hairpin turns fast enough.

Once near Prescott, there’s another great payoff, one of the best bike trails I’ve been on, the Mile High trail, a remote trail with spectacular views of towering pointed rock formations.

Now, 9 days to go (8 days of riding after a 0 day tomorrow here in Prescott – more treehouse time). The trip, so far, has contained everything one could want in adventure: ecstasy, uncertainty, pure joy, danger, freedom, pain, wonder and drudgery. One thing it hasn’t contained: boredom.

Day 54, 49 miles, Zuni, NM, to Chambers, AZ
Day 53, 35 miles, El Morro to Zuni, NM
Day 52, 70 miles, Acoma Pueblo (Sky City Casino) to El Morro, NM
Day 51, 71 miles, Albuquerque to Acoma Pueblo
Day 50, 0 Day in Albuquerque
Day 49, Nearo Day, 10 miles, from Trek bikeshop
Day 48, Nearo day, 8.5 miles, to Trek bikeshop
Day 47, 43 miles, Moriarty to Albuquerque, NM

I was warned. Way back in Gainesville, TX, Chris, from New Mexico, told me, “New Mexico is always windy, and hot. And watch out, the drivers are crazy.”

The drivers proved to be no more or less crazy than anywhere else. But he was right about the wind. And he didn’t mention the altitude.

Riding west from Santa Rosa to Moriarty, NM, I first started feeling the effects of climbing above 5,000 feet. It was subtle, an increased fatigue, a slight need to breathe faster during climbs, a little bit longer to recover.

I got to Albuquerque and spent a planned three-day break, staying first with my dear new friends Martie and Judy (pictured here with Martie and her cool RV Brooklyn),

and my wonderful cousin, Kathy, and her husband Pope.

Thank you all for sharing your awesome homes with me.

Albuquerque was a great break. I visited the Trek store for a quick bike tuneup, for the home stretch. And I got to play tourist for a day, taking the tram up Sandia Peak.

Heading west from Albuquerque on Route 66, I got my kicks, but I also struggled against the wind, heat, increasing altitude, and rough road. At one point, I cut the day short when the headwinds were gusting to 25mph and a huge dust storm loomed ahead; and stayed at Sky City Casino in Acoma Pueblo, Navajo Reservation. (I didn’t gamble; I figured I’m gambling enough on this southern-route-in-June bike trip).

I continued climbing toward Grants, NM, then headed south for a while, toward El Morro National Monument. Day 52 of this 70-day xUS bike trip was one of the toughest. Climbing, climbing, pushing hard against gusting winds, sometimes riding down to 7 mph. I climbed up through a steep mountain pass, rounded a bend, and came across this sign:

with some relief. Long, wonderful downhills followed. For a while.

But more importantly, it’s a conceptual triumph to have made it to the other side of the Continental Divide. It’s akin to crossing the Mississippi River, a major demarcation that announces you’ve covered some ground, you’ve pushed through obstacles and crossed another division.

From now on, all water flows toward the Pacific, the same way I’m going.

I rode downhill for a while. Then the wind resumed, and the uphills resumed, all the way to El Morro.

I continued east into the Zuni Reservation, and stayed at a very charming bed & breakfast, the Inn at Halona, in Zuni Pueblo, highly recommended.

From there, it was a short, windy jaunt to the Arizona border,

and I waved goodbye to New Mexico.

The Arizona winds have been no different from New Mexico. But at least I know, up ahead, the altitude will ease up. Then the real heat sets in.

Day 46, 81 miles, Santa Rosa to Moriarty, NM
Day 45, 41 miles, Sumner Lake State Park to Santa Rosa, NM
Day 44, nearo day, 21 miles, Fort Sumner to Sumner Lake SP, NM
Day 43, 116 miles, Dimmitt, TX, to Fort Sumner, NM

“If thou are not versed in the business of adventures…get thee aside and pray…whilst I engage these giants in combat…”~Don Quixote, Adventures of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes
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Don Quixote is my favorite literary character, and has been since I read Cervantes’ novel in my early 20s. Don Quixote is gallant, fun-loving with a sense of humor, cares not what others think, and lets nothing get in the way of adventure.

I’ve been relating with Don Quixote lately, seeing a lot of windmills, for example, new and old.

I keep happening upon burros.

And I’ve ridden past more mcmansions than I can count, any of which would have easily passed for castles in Don Quixote’s day, if not of the La Mancha sort. (Not glorifying their ostentation with pics.)

And like Don Quixote, I’ve been accused of insanity –an accusation not without merit, in both our cases – for attempting my quixotic adventure.

But you have to be a little crazy to embark on adventure. It might not always be safe. Things might not work out. You could fail in any number of ways. In the planning and execution of big adventure, you simply have to suspend sanity at times, or you won’t proceed.

So I’m out here like Don Quixote, on Day 46 of my 70-day xUS bike trip, roaming the countryside upon my faithful steed, taking on challenges and brushing aside danger. And, sometimes, sleeping under the stars.

All I’m missing is a trusty Sancho Panza to entertain my fantasies. But people back home, and you all, fill in nicely.

I love Don Quixote for his carefree delusions, his determination in the face of impossible odds, and his impenetrable enthusiasm in taking on giants. Were it not for the forbidding heft of Cervantes’ nearly 1000-page masterpiece, I would have carried it along.

Don Quixote, one of the most enduring characters in literature, might have been crazy. So what. We could all learn from and apply some of his jovial spirit and zest for living into our own lives.

Live on, Man of La Mancha. I look forward to another reread when I finish my current quest.

Day 42, nearo day, 30 miles, Tulia to Dimmitt,TX
Day 41, 59 miles, Turkey to Tulia, TX
Day 40, 57 miles, Childress to Turkey, TX

I rode into Turkey, Texas, with a scowl on my face, a chip on my shoulder and my steady hand ready to draw. Turkey ain’t the kind of town you ride into with your guard down.

It was nigh on 2 o’clock and hitting 101 degrees. I came off the Caprock Canyons Trail, more of a rock-filled bygone railroad bed that ain’t seen a train in at least 50 years. Getting to the trail wasn’t fun either. It included a 100-foot mud bog that tried like hell to suck my shoes off with every sunken step as I yanked my 60-lb. loaded steed mud hole to mud hole. Something stung me on my side right in the middle of it, leaving a welt three days later. A rancher in a truck waited patiently on the other side for me to hobble my way through. “You don’t got 4-wheel drive on that thing?” he asked with a smirk. Reasonable question.

It was Day 40 of my 70-day xUS bike trip, amid a three-day heat wave pushing temps into the 100s across the Texas panhandle. And the hot, rough, untended Caprock Trail worked me into a tither as I finally entered the tiny town of Turkey, Texas.

Then I rode up to the Hotel Turkey and traveled back in time.

The Hotel Turkey is like a throwback, in all the good ways, to a time before international hotel chains and interstate highways. It’s like stepping back a hundred years – which is how old this hotel is – and experiencing life as a drifter in the panhandle plains in need of a bed and a drink, not in that order.

If you’re ever in this part of the panhandle, exactly between Amarillo and Lubbock, (say, on a road trip from Albuquerque to Dallas?), the Hotel Turkey is a must-stop, for the bygone experience of taking a room at an inn, downing a whiskey in the saloon and being treated as a friend, not a customer. (Commercial concluded. But seriously.)

Completing the retro feeling in Turkey was a quick bike ride across town to visit the Bob Wills Museum. Turkey, TX, happens to be the home of Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing. Heard of him? He was huge across Texas and the Midwest in the late 1930s and 1940s.

This is life on the road. Quick experiential juxtapositions that yank your emotions from one pole to another. One minute you’re huffing and puffing through a mud field not sure if you’ll make it through, and a few minutes later you’re sipping ice cold lemonade on a ridiculously comfortable leather couch being cooled by an ancient ceiling fan in a quaint hotel lobby. One minute you’re fighting with every rev to make way forward into a forbidding headwind, the next minute you turn a corner and that same wind is delightfully pushing you fast forward.

It’s not just life on the road, I guess. It’s life. One day you feel like your world could end and everyone hates you. The next day things fall into place and some friends unexpectedly do something that makes your day.

It’s what keeps us going. This notion of hope that, when things aren’t great, they’ll get better. It’s why someone can make it all the way across the country on a bike. Not because it’s easy or always fun. But because you know and trust that no matter how hard it gets one minute, the next one might be amazing, and often is.

One minute you’re swearing at yourself for taking this muddy, impossible trail. Two minutes later, you come across Hotel Turkey.

Day 39, 59 miles, Vernon to Childress, TX
Day 38, 57 miles, Wichita Falls to Vernon, TX

I’m hearing music here amid the Texas panhandle. In my head, that is. Majestic melodies, weaving harmonies, underlying cross-rhythms that provide a soundtrack to these sweeping, infinite vistas.

I’m always hearing music, always have. But way out here where the road leads you mesmerizingly straight ahead and where the horizon is so distant you can see the earth’s curve, the score is more insistent, closer to the surface. I miss my baby grand, and though I can’t play music at the moment, I can still write about it.

Yesterday was like a symphony. Three distinct parts, plus a coda today.

Pedaling Texas, a Symphony in Three Movements
Movement I: Alone

There was a torrential downpour all through the night, with thunder and lightning. So Day 38 of my 70-day xUS bike trip began wet. The streets out of Wichita Falls were puddled and streaked with last night’s rain. The morning air was cool as I wended my way out of town onto an endless succession of what they call farm roads here. These are back country lanes that get quite remote the further you ride out of town.

After about an hour riding along one such road, seeing no cars or people, I stopped for a drink and found myself quite alone. It was delightful.

The only sign of people on these roads are the occasional ranch gates and fences that announce this is someone’s property.

That and a few cows and horses every now and then, such as this family.

I could ride these empty, isolated ranch roads all day. But alas, it had to end, with…

Movement II: Mud

There are times when you should heed nav lady’s advice, and times when you should not. I seem to guess wrong every time. On Day 38, when she instructed me to “turn left” off the beautifully paved, winding ranch road I was on, I should have ignored her.

I slowed and looked at the road she was leading me onto with raised eyebrows. Mud. Lots of it.

But this is an adventure, right? Not a time to shy away from daunting pathways that may hold wonders. This one didn’t.

I regretted taking this road. At first it seemed passable, if messy. But after about a quarter mile in, it turned into a serious misjudgment as my tires sunk into the wet mud and frequently threatened to remain there, leaving me stranded. Me and True – that is what I’ve named my bike – struggled for mile after mile, slipping and sliding, nearly toppling over into the endless mud puddles.

It might have been beautiful scenery out there so far from everything in mid-Texas. But I didn’t notice, I was too focused on getting through the next ten feet upright.

For six miles, we struggled through the mud, wearing a good share of it by now. But True and I gritted our teeth and finally pushed through to paved Highway 25. I apologized to True, flicked off some mud cakes, and we silently made our way onto the pavement, agreeing never to speak about this ordeal again.

Nav lady is on probation. I’ll be considering her advice closely from now on.

Movement III: Speed

Miles of mud remained fresh on my mind as Highway 25 led me to State Route 287W, an interstate-like highway, four lanes with a median, and a wide, smooth shoulder.

As I turned due west toward Vernon, I felt a push at my back. Wind, finally, moving in the same direction as me. I shifted up and quickly hit a fast cadence. I shifted up again, and again. For the next hour, I cruised along at 20 mph, happily covering the distance into town in an abbreviated timeframe.

The first place I went in Vernon? The DIY car wash. I couldn’t wait to wash all that mud off my bike. True seemed happier after the shower, too.

Before:

After:

Coda: Day 39, Patience

After an uneventful night in Vernon, we hit the road at 9 a.m. on Day 39, with temperatures forecast in the upper 90s for the afternoon. Time to move.

Unfortunately, this morning’s headwind made movement slow.

Riding into a headwind for hours on a road that doesn’t bend requires patience. Patience to go slow, to relax, to breathe, and to work with the wind. Take what it gives you, no more.

That has also become my main Rule of the Road. Take what the road gives you, no more. Solitude. Mud. Speed. Wind. It’s all a masterpiece symphony.

Day 37, 84 miles, Gainesville to Wichita Falls, TX
Day 36, 46 miles, Eisenhower State Park to Gainesville, TX
Day 35, 78 miles, Paris to Eisenhower State Park, TX
Day 34, 0/work day, Paris, TX
Day 33, 97 miles, De Queen, AR, to Paris, TX

“No, but Budweiser is kinda dark.”~bartender at Alex’s Tacos, Paris, TX, one of the diviest bars I’ve been in, when asked if she had any amber or dark beers, like Dos Equis. I walked out.

“If this keeps up, I’m gonna start believing in this global warming crap.”~An otherwise intelligent-seeming fellow camper at Eisenhower State Park, up from Dallas, after remarking how much rain there was in Texas in May.

“Don’t eat the green chiles.”~Wise advice from Chris, of New Mexico.

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Some days everything clicks. Day 37 of my 70-day xUS bike tour was that kind of day. So much happened today I’ll just give a blow by blow.

The bliss of Day 37 actually started on Day 36, when I met up with my nephew, Lee, and his fiancee, Allison, in Gainesville, TX. These are two of my favorite people and I can’t wait to see them get hitched (Texas lexicon) in October. We grabbed some burgers and beers in surprisingly cute downtown Gainesville, we saw a rainbow and an explosive sunset, and I got a vital family fix.

That visit set me up for today’s awesome ride. I left Gainesville at 8 a.m., heading due west for Wichita Falls, hoping to beat most the afternoon heat. Before I left town I met Chris (on right) and Damien, a couple of kayak fishermen from somewhere down near Roswell, New Mexico, which is cool and wacky in itself. “Don’t eat the green chiles” when I get to NM, advised Chris. I shall adhere.

I’m not certain what was so perfect about this day, but I was high as I set out from Gainesville on Route 82W, clouds cluttering the sky and blotting out the morning sun, a cool breeze blowing in from the southeast, and a beautifully smooth, wide shoulder to ride on. What more could a cyclist ask for. Once out of town, the central Texas landscape opened up and I was daunted by the vast openness of these unfathomably expansive grasslands.

Traffic started to thin out and I found myself pedaling in welcome silence, but with a stirring western wind in my ear (and mostly at my back!), happily isolated on this remote highway heading west.

I came across one of the cutest rest areas I’ve ever seen, and had to stop. Not only did it provide vital shade for a 10-minute respite, but it was Texas oil well-themed.

A couple hours later I ambled into Saint Jo, TX, like a thirsty traveler on a steed, and pulled into this downtown straight out of the Wild West. I thought maybe I’d traveled back in time 120 years. Gun Shop, so perfect!

Back on the road out of town, the traffic disappeared again. Then came the cows, long horns, Herefords, Angus, Brahmas, brown, white, black, spotted. Montague County here in central Texas has way more cattle than people, and it’s evident along this road.

Sometimes the cows followed me, sometimes they run away, other times they just stare and chew. Always, they are entertaining.

Those morning clouds stuck around for about four hours, which I was thankful for. But they finally started burning off and the temperature rose into the mid-80s. A few miles down the road I pulled into another rest area seeking shade, and came across Bill and Amy from Shreveport.

Bill and Amy recently quit their jobs and are headed up to their new home in St. Louis County, Colorado, to live off the grid and spend more time together at home. “Life’s too short, you gotta enjoy every day,” Bill said. I agreed wholeheartedly.

There are occasional days when things make sense and the answers are apparent before you have to ask the questions. You’re doing what you should be doing and you don’t have to wonder.

May there be more days like this. For us all.

Day 32, 0/work day, De Queen, AR
Day 31, 87 miles, Hot Springs to De Queen, AR
Day 30, 61 miles, Little Rock to Hot Springs, AR
Day 29, 72 miles, Brinkley to Little Rock, AR

Total miles to date: ~1,610

If ever there were an activity designed to underscore the importance of family and friends, it has to be spending a couple months biking across the country solo.

It’s lonely at times. The remoter it gets, the more acute the loneliness digs. Here in southwestern Arkansas on Day 31 of my 70-day xUS bike tour, it’s getting pretty remote. A stone’s throw from Oklahoma, I’m starting to see a lot of cows, at least I have them to keep me company.

Like many people in youth, I used to issue grand proclamations, like “I’ll never go to that place again,” and “I’ll never use that product again,” etc.

I swore at one point I would never enter a Walmart again in my life. So much for that. As any AT thru-hiker (or, as it were, x-country bike tourist) will tell you: Walmart happens to be one of the best and most convenient resources for resupplying on the trail/road. So I’m reluctantly appreciating the chain’s ubiquity out here when I need a fresh supply of road snacks.

Same goes for fast food joints and convenience/gas stores. I’ve long eschewed these unhealthy venues. But when a quaint cafe offering hardy breakfast sandwiches cannot be found, McDonalds and Dunkin’s breakfast concoctions fill in admirably. And convenience stores are just a reality on this road, where frequent Gatorade stops are a necessity.

Finally, I once swore off Facebook and other social media. The Luddite in me would like to not need them. But if it weren’t for these online people-connectors (and dividers?), I wouldn’t have the virtual company of you and so many others that sustain my need for contact.

I also wouldn’t have met my cousin, Andy Weld, and his wife Jena, and son Drew, in Blytheville, Arkansas, were it not for Facebook.

Out here, far away from family and friends for an extended period, the solace and comfort of a family connection was essential, and I am forever grateful for the wonderful stay with Andy and Jena. It was amazing to get to know my first cousin, whom, we determined, I haven’t seen since I was about 10 and he was a baby who – according to my single memory of the incident – inexplicably handed me his shoe.

I also wouldn’t have met my first cousin once removed (I think that’s right?), Andy’s daughter, Katie Weld (and boyfriend Kinzie), who is entering a physical therapy graduate program near Little Rock.

By the way, Little Rock is a very attractive city with its bike and pedestrian pathways along the Arkansas River.

Examples abound of times I’ve said “never” only to eventually end up in a position of eating those words at a later stage. My takeaway lesson is to remain open, don’t close off future possibilities and necessities, and appreciate it all: Walmart. Convenience stores and fast food joints when necessary. Social media, in moderation.

And most definitely, family and friends.