EnRouteTransport

Amtrak’s Cardinal line looked like it would get me close to the TransAm. By some rough estimations, I figured it would take me two days of riding to return to my route. I couldn’t get off the Cardinal at any ol stop though. I had to debark the train somewhere that had checked luggage service. My bike. The whole reason for doing this it sometimes seems. Also, I needed to reassemble my bike, and I wasn’t sure what kind of challenges I might or might not encounter. It would be helpful if there were a bike shop in whatever town I landed in. As it turned out, Charleston, WV met all the criteria. A little shopping around revealed that the only lodging that wasn’t in a chain hotel was the one and only bed and breakfast in town. With rates comparable to the chains, it seemed the likely choice, and it came with proximity to the state capitol as well. Right on.

I caught a cab from the train station to the Brass Pineapple. Happily, my bike had arrived with me, and it fit in the back seat of the cab. My original thought was to put the bike together that night, but I soon set that idea aside. The train arrived at 9 p.m., and I’d been up since 3:20 a.m. with only a few moments of anything that could be considered a nap. I didn’t want to lose a piece of my bike in the dark or in an unthinking state of mind. Plus, the B & B looked great. I wanted to spend some time there.

Nice historic house with amazing wood floors and woodwork. They’d creatively arranged bathroom and sink facilities in the room, making use of what I can imagine would have been a closet over the stairs. The downstairs bathroom had a similar set up, and they sunk a short, deep bathtub in at floor level. For a house that probably only had one bathroom to begin, how they made it work impressed me.

I was so tired and the bed so cushy and comfortable, I just pulled the feather bed up around where I’d nested among the pillows. I’m generally particular about having my head down to sleep, but when I’m totally surrounded in a soft, mushy nest, head down becomes irrelevant. In the morning, I opened my eyes to the alarm and went downstairs to start working. Writing. I wanted to post first. Big change getting back on the bike. I met the other guests in the house, pleasant people all of them. One couple described the history of town a bit. Charleston grew on salt mining before shifting over to other economic mainstays and experienced its heyday in the mid to late 1800s. The state was sympathetic to the Union causes and didn’t want to secede when other southern states took their stand.

When I was done writing, I zoomed to my bike and opened the box. I pulled out the frame. A coil of cable fell to the ground.
“Oh man. Did they undo the cables? I’m not sure I know how to put those back on. I’ve seen people do it several times, but I’ve never learned. Hmmmm.”
I called the bike shop.
“I just came into town on the train with my bike and need to assemble it. I’m not sure I have enough skill to get it together. Do you have time to do such a thing?”
“The soonest we could have it done would be tomorrow afternoon.”
“Hmmm. Well, maybe I’ll just work on it and see how far I get.”
“You can always bring it by if you need help with something.”
“Ok. Thanks.”
I went back out and looked at what I had.
“I can do this.”
I looked at the brakes and shifters. Everything was connected.
“Maybe they just replaced the brake cable in St. Louis and put the old one in the box. They put the new tire on the wrong wheel though. I’m going to have to get a new tire before I leave town.” The front tire still had huge slices in it. I had no idea what the rear tire looked like. Maybe it looked bad like that too.
I put my bike back together methodically. “I can totally do this.”
I hurriedly dressed in my cycling clothes and packed my panniers.
Oh it felt good to be on the bike.

I followed directions Steve (of the Brass Pineapple) had given me to the bike shop. I ended up on a busy street that didn’t really have a bike lane. It had a foot-wide segment from the curb to the white line that had storm sewer grates every 20-30 feet that took up the entire lane. These grates would have eaten my bike alive. I’d gone about eight blocks when I pulled over at a mailbox and called the bike shop.
“Where do people ride in this town? Do you ride on the street? The sidewalk? I don’t want to get squashed.”
“Get on one of the side streets. One block over should work. We’re ten more blocks down.”

I found the shop easily, got a new tire, and had the guys at the shop install it. I looked around at what they had.
“Do you have many women cyclists here?”
“Yeah. There’s a ride for MS coming up.” That didn’t exactly answer my question, but it kind of did.
I asked someone else about the best way to get to Elkhorn City by bike. “Google bike directions say to take 119 pretty much the whole way. It looks like a big road.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much your only option. It’s a big road with a nice berm on it. Once you pass Logan you’ll be in Hillbilly territory. I think the berm is paved the whole way, but you’ll have to watch for debris. After Logan, it’s No Woman’s Land. People are generally pretty nice. You’ll have coal trucks to deal with and the occasional people who’ll give you a hard time.”
“It’s kind of like that everywhere.”
“Well, be safe, and have a good time.”

The road out of town went straight up to start. The climb felt good, a refreshing change from sitting around for two weeks. Bugger, another problem. My seat post was moving around. When I put force on the pedals to climb, my seat tweaked to the left and right. I could adjust it in motion, but that wouldn’t do to have it wiggling around like that. I rode to a place where I could dig out my tools to tighten the seat post clamp. This was that special locking bolt to keep people from stealing my seat. It was stripped, and I couldn’t get the clamp any tighter than it was.
“Maybe it’ll be ok.”
I had another hill to get out of the parking lot. My seat moved around again.
“No, this isn’t going to work. Fix it now, you don’t know when you’ll be around the kind of supplies you need.”
I was riding through the big box center outside of town. Looked like all the large footprint stores had to locate about four miles out of town. At the top of the hill I saw a Home Depot.
“Surely they have a bolt that will work for this.”
I wheeled my bike into the fastener section and tried and tried to find something that would work. I got close, but not close enough. Eventually I caught the attention of an orange-aproned guy to help me find what I couldn’t find on my own. From the bolt I found that was too short, he found one too long and then struck gold with one right between the two. Yes!

With my seat finally stable and the hour twenty after three in the afternoon, I continued on my way down the highway. Soon, I didn’t feel well.
“Now what?”
I stopped at the first gas station I saw.
“Whew.”
I hadn’t eaten lunch and hadn’t hydrated much either. The previous day on the train I basically ate and drank nothing.
I drank a liter of water and a V-8. “Maybe that will help.”
Maybe it did help, but my body was having none of it and continued complaining. I wanted to get down the road, get some more miles in. Not gonna happen. I decided to stop at the next town. I pulled in looking for lodging. I didn’t see any. Google. Finally I found a spot just down the street from where I was. Not where I would have thought of looking for a motel, but there it was.
I went into the restaurant that also served as the motel office.
“Do you have a room for one for tonight?”

It was a cheap place with no wifi. I didn’t care. I just needed to start over…clean up, eat, get some sleep. I opened the door to my room and my nostrils were assaulted with a foul, dank odor.
“Don’t tell me this is the air freshener here.” Sometimes the cleaning products people use make a place smell disinfected…sort of…but usually they just make a room smell. I was less than excited and the smell did nothing to make me feel better. I felt worse. I looked around the room. It looked like there was a powder sprinkled all over the floor.
“Do they have fleas and left the flea powder on the floor? That’s creepy.”
I took a shower although I didn’t feel like I was doing myself much of a favor getting clean in that place. I didn’t want to step on the floor. Feeling rather tired and out of balance, I went to the restaurant where I’d checked in. Google said the menu had a variety of things from American fare to Mexican and Healthy. I looked at the actual menu in front of me and wondered where the missing pages were. Everything was fried.
When my dinner came out, it looked like Brendan’s favorite meal: French fries and chicken tenders.
The waitress said something to the effect of, “Is this what you ordered?”
I looked at it thinking I ordered chicken and potatoes, “It could be.”

When I checked out at the register, the same woman who’d given me the room key asked, “How was everything?”
“It was ok. But the room I’m in…I think there’s mold growing on the floor. It smells really musty in there. Is there some way to get some air?”
She talked to the motel owner and came back. “Would you like another room?”
“If that’s possible, yes, I would.” I couldn’t imagine how I would relax enough in the room I was in to get some restful sleep and feel better in the morning instead of worse. I’d probably be puking by midnight if I stayed in there.
She gave me another key and I checked out the room. It had a distinct smell too, but the place wasn’t moldy, and it would work just fine.

I fell into a deep sleep and woke at two something in the morning from a dream of being pregnant.
“Drink water.”
I downed half a liter of water and fell back asleep.

I wanted to leave early in the morning and get the miles in before the day heated up. I had a serious hydration mission and spent my time downing water. The sky stayed dark late. Now that it’s almost September, a 6 a.m. departure puts you on the road in the black of morning. I still don’t want to ride in the dark. I waited another hour and then got moving in the early morning fog.

The next town about 15 miles down the road, Chapmanville, proved an excellent spot to stop for a hot chocolate. While drinking cocoa, I noticed the local paper had a story that Oprah had been to the town of Williamson earlier in the week. She’d done a story in 1987 on a gay man with AIDS who lived there. She came back to check in. While I was getting my technology in order before I got back on my bike, a nice man pulled up.
“Where are you from?”
“Oregon. Where are you from?”
“Here, in West Virginia.”
We had a nice, quick chat. He got back in his truck, “Go Ducks.”
“Yes!” Now, I’ve never been one of those people with loads of school spirit, and I’m not a sports fan either. Frankly, I don’t care for sports. It could have been the unpleasant experiences I had in grade school and junior high when I tried to play team sports. Story for another time. Or, maybe I’m just not wired to care much about that kind of thing. The conflict of man vs. nature has always had considerably more appeal to me than man vs. man – or so I learned in sixth grade when we were studying Jack London and To Build A Fire.

I had in mind to get breakfast in Logan. When I got up to it, the mess of chains and big box stores on the highway were a total turnoff. The next exit showed Logan off the main highway. I kept going. Williamson. I could make it there. From one of the towns, Williamson was 50 miles down the road, maybe it was Danville where I started. I didn’t know. I didn’t have a map. I couldn’t find a map in Chapmanville that I wanted, but that’s probably because I was spaced out, not thinking clearly. By the time I reached Williamson, I needed to check in. At the bike shop, the guy had mentioned Pikeville, and that came up on the signs along with Williamson. I just wasn’t sure though.

Right before Williamson I started crossing into Kentucky. I never crossed back into West Virginia (according to the signs), so it surprised me a bit when I saw West Virginia on the window signs in downtown Williamson. I found a coffee shop next to a bookstore and went in there. Everyone looked at me. I tried to feel normal and walked to the counter.
“Our lunch special today is spaghetti.”
“What kind of sauce does it have on it?”
“Shmsihmnisl.”
“What kind of sauce?”
“Meat sauce.”
“Oh. Ok. That sounds good. What kind of tea do you have?”
“Sweet.”
“I mean hot tea.”
“We can make it hot.”
“Do you have Earl Grey or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Any black tea at all?”
She called someone in from the kitchen and the two of them started lifting and shaking the eight tea tins. “All we have is organic green.”
“That sounds great. I’ll have that too.”
I chuckled a bit at the meat sauce. It was kind of like sloppy joe on a bed of noodles. Everyone in the coffee shop had gotten spaghetti. That, more than anything else, I found most notable.

Two men in nice shirts and slacks came in, one with a computer. “What are you riding?”
“A bicycle.”
“What kind? We ride too?”
I chatted with them a bit, Matt and Jeff (or was it Mark?). They work in the pharmaceutical industry and ride and compete in triathlons. I appreciated encountering some bike-friendly folk in West Virginia. Mostly I felt like everyone was looking at me weird.
“You’re brave to be out by yourself.”
“I suppose. It feels pretty normal to me.”

I stopped at a gas station to look at some maps. I was headed the right direction. Pikeville was definitely on the way. All good. Thirty miles to go from Williamson. As soon as I turned onto the highway, I crossed the Kentucky State Line sign. I was so surprised by it that I simply passed it. “I’ll find another one.”

Even though the mountains had been cut down and the valleys spanned with bridges, I had some good climbs in those thirty miles. I came upon a sign to Pikeville, 15 miles. I continued. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Another mileage sign ahead. “Surely I must be in the single digits by now.” I got closer, and it looked like double digits when I was hoping for 9 or 8 miles. “15 miles! Wait a minute. Well, fine. 15 still isn’t that far.” Up, down, up, down, watch out for the debris.” The mile posts were going steadily down. It looked like I had a major climb and descent every mile. Fatigue was setting in along with heat and road weariness. I’m not sure I can do 15 more of these.
Pikeville 8 miles.
“Ok, we’re on our way.”

Up, down, up, down, up, down. I had to stop and recharge. Up, down, up. I had to stop and recharge again. The mile marker said 3.
I passed another sign. Pikeville 7 miles. “What? Ok, fine, 7 miles.”
Up, down.
Pikeville exit, 1 mile.
“Yeah, I made it! I knew there was something screwy out there.”

I couldn’t wait to get off the freeway. Town did not come into view easily though, and I asked directions from someone parked at a bank – a nice man who’s front teeth were rotted off at the gums. He directed me to downtown Pikeville where I came square into the visitor’s center, Pikeville College, the expo center, central park, and post office. I couldn’t find the lodging though. I called a place that sounded reasonable and got directions I couldn’t follow. I ended up back on Google to figure out how to get to the motel. And, I ended up back on the freeway. No way around it, my motel is on the freeway.

Dear Readers,

Sorry for my erratic posting this last week. This morning I feel I have a better handle on what’s been going on and what might happen in the next few weeks.

I got separated from my tools.

My bike has been on its own journey for two weeks, who knows where, leaving me dependent on foot travel, train travel, or being transported by others. This kind of dependency replaces a degree of agency I have in choosing my whereabouts and whenabouts. You may argue that I am always present wherever I am, that I do not cease to exist as an entity just because you can’t “see” me. However, I would argue that translating myself into blogspace is a whenabout. Monday morning after my return from the internet void, you, my readers wanted to know:

“It has been a real treat this summer….you sweat and I read and enjoy…hahahha…doesn’t seem right some how….Thanks for all your efforts and time it took to write it.”

To which I reply, “I’m not done yet.”
I can’t wait to get back on my bike. I have it with me now – at long last! – but haven’t opened the box. I plan to put it together this morning and get down the road before eveningfall. Given my writing demands for the morning…well, it will all work out. I’ll just write for a while because that’s what I do. And then I’ll ride for a while because that’s what I do (and I haven’t been doing much of it for a bit).

I had another full transit day to arrive in Charleston, West Virginia. For all you geography buffs out there, you recall that this is the state’s capitol. I arranged to stay at a lovely bed and breakfast in a historic brownstone a few blocks away from the capitol. Fine spot. Every time I stay in a place like this, it makes me wish I didn’t have a schedule to keep.

Aimee kindly agreed to drive me to Philadelphia to catch the train. Even though I came into NJ on a commuter train from Philly, I couldn’t go back the same way with my bicycle. If I could have, there might have been an issue with checking my bike as baggage, but as it turned out, my bike exceeded carry on size no matter which way I measured it.
Early in the morning, Aimee asked, “Why didn’t you leave from Penn Station in New York?”
I sat, puzzled for a moment. “I don’t know. It wound up being a matter of how to get to Philly because I would have to get on that particular line there. Who knows, maybe it would have been easier going to New York. I didn’t know Penn Station was so much closer.” The online trip planners don’t offer much help here. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to figure out where the train stations are in a state. You can’t put in the town where you are and have the schedule and fare finder locate the station nearest. I’ve been looking at the list of stations by state and then going to a map to see where those cities are or bringing up the list and asking someone more familiar with the area, “What’s close?” I tried calling NJ Transit, but their “out of state” customer service line only operates during east coast business hours. I looked into other bus service. It listed the route options as highway numbers. “Will any of these take me where I want to go?” I started looking at limousine services and had absolutely no idea where to start with that.

It didn’t seem like it should be such a big deal to get me and my bike to Philly, again. With Aimee’s help, it wasn’t. Still, it should be much easier to travel with a bike on a train.

The train ride this time went much smoother than the ride from Chicago to Pittsburgh. We had only one delay of about a half hour. The train collected many passengers along the way and at the first major stop a young woman was assigned the seat next to me. She wanted a window seat as much as I wanted a vacant seat next to me. But, for the next eight hours, we traveled peaceably next to one another, she engrossed in her iPod and me devouring books.

The only thing of note on the train itself, every train ride has a story, was the loud and obnoxious man who eventually got kicked off the train. I originally thought he was one of those New Yorkers used to having his own way everywhere. Later it sounded like he lived outside of Charleston, WV. He could not be quiet. Talking to himself, talking to everyone on the train car, talking to the conductors, talking to the little girl across the aisle, complaining about this that and the other thing, wanting a smoke break, accusing people of being liars, threatening to hurt people, swearing…. He’d been in another car and apparently had threatened someone there and got relocated into my car. He would come and go. The conductors gave him two seats hoping that would keep him quiet. The woman next to me couldn’t stand him. I don’t think anyone in the car could, but most of us probably figured it would be best not to engage him. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it took as long as it did for the conductors to kick him off the train. I know they needed back up to do it, so maybe that’s what they had to wait for.

Despite not being able to sleep, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The prospect of getting on the road again and returning to my independent mode filled me with nervous excitement. It’s tough to sit in a train for twelve hours with that kind of buzz going on inside. At the Philly station, my first stop was the newsstand. In Chicago before the fateful 8-hour delay, I tried finding something to read at the newsstand but had only come away with a magazine I didn’t read much of and a Sudoku book. Those will only last so long. Throughout the family weekend at the cabin, I also wanted something to read. On my return, I came back to a book Daniel sent me, a curious collection of narrative poetry, Archy & Mehitabel. I knew I would finish it before I made it to Charleston.

I browsed the books in Philly. I looked at the best sellers. There are a few there I have interest in reading. I read the back covers, replaced them on the shelf. Felt like I was at the grocery store, taking it all in before making a selection. I liked the early morning there. I could browse with my bags and not feel like I was creating a major obstacle course for others. From the best sellers I went to the row with Sports-Science-History above. I surveyed the subject categories on top of the other shelves. Something in me wanted ‘Travel’ or ‘Philosophy’ but I could find neither. I stood in front of the Science section and quickly scanned the book spines.
“This is all sports and history!”
I didn’t see a single thing that looked like a scientific topic. I moved on quickly, away from the football and political histories. Funny thing that I didn’t have any interest in picking up a book on history. I gave it a quick look, honestly, but nothing jumped. I avoided the ‘Fiction’ shelves, skirting them as if they were an island. Most of the books comprised this island, and at the edges I ended up in ‘Self-Help’ – no, nothing there – ‘Religion’ – rather limited selection and nothing with appeal – ‘Health’ – sorry, not interested in diet books. ‘Biography.’ Ok. I spent some time here looking from top to bottom. I pulled Gunter Grass off the shelf because I liked the title of his memoir, Peeling the Onion. I read the back of the book. Maybe. I put it back. Down, down, down. Murakami! I picked it up. What I Talk about when I Talk about Running.

Last year I had a Murakami day planner, but I’ve never read any of his work. I liked the day planner a lot because it had pictures running throughout, segments of his novels interspersed throughout, and it wasn’t very big – a convenient size for my life on the go. In its way, it inspired me. Plum blossoms, Japanese maple leaves, koi, cats, clouds, whimsy. I wanted to make day planners like that. Of course the one I made for this year wound up being nearly everything opposite from what I liked about the Murakami date book, but I made it and like it. It’s entirely too large to travel, so I didn’t bring it, and apart from a daily schedule I can’t seem to keep, I wouldn’t put much in it. My journal suffices for those kinds of notes and holding spaces.

Murakami writes a memoir about long-distance running. Yes. That sounds like something I could get into. I looked further and selected another one, a woman who blogs about food and tells a romantic story punctuated by recipes and cooking. Different than Julie & Julia, which I passed over because I’ve seen the movie. I know, I know, books are almost always better than movies, but I hunger for new stimulus. Julie & Julia already got me pretty far. I might wind up telling a romantic story about long-distance biking. You never know.

What I want to know is, “How do people tell stories?” I feel pretty good about the story I’ve been telling although I’m a bit perplexed about how the past two weeks fit into it. There’s something different about writing daily and putting together a book. According to Murakami, there isn’t much different between long-distance running and writing a book. By similarity, long-distance writing and long-distance riding are the same process. Unfortunately, I can’t do them both at the same time, but I need the one to do the other.

The night before Aimee came to fetch me to Philly, I watched some shows with Anna, Katherine, and Auntie Cookie.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” This from Cookie while we were watching the titles to a show lead in.

“What’s interesting about it?” I had to ask.
No one responded to my question, so I watched it being otherwise limited on entertainment and activity options. The show was about a bunch of kids at a performing arts high school. Anna wants to go to a performing arts school. All good. I want to know what they’re interested in. I never want to have to go through being a teenager again…the terrible angst, but, yes, it’s a necessary part of growing up. The protagonist is new to school and has to pass a mysterious test. Third time she finally gets it by standing in front of the gathered group and telling them how proud she is of the work she did, that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. With that impassioned monologue, she passes the test. Murakami says something similar in his book, he writes and runs to meet his own standards, to achieve a personal sense of satisfaction. His audience matters; the “regulars” help fuel his activity. They receive.

I like beginning this last segment of my journey having been given a pep talk on writing and other endurance activities. Now I get to ponder my own level of talent, the way in which I train as a writer, and what my goals as a writer are. How is my measuring stick scaled? In some sense I know that the scale has to do with how much I feel like me. Increments of WhoIAm-ness. And thus the struggle continues because I cannot see who I am. What is plain to other people is not something that comes easily to me.

Reading Murakami is a lot like reading me…the mental process, the physical process, like looking in a mirror. Within the first fifty pages I had to find out when his birthday was because my mind works that way. For a novel I wouldn’t care, but a memoir is different because it’s who we are. January 12, 1949; Kyoto, Japan. Information enough. I picked a favorite line.

“No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked in the mirror, you’ll never see reflected what’s inside.”

From Archy & Mehitabel, I selected “the lesson of the moth” as my favorite passage.

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
…
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

I’ve been dreaming about riding my bike. Some mornings I wake up having spent memorable dream time pedaling on the open roads wondering why people don’t stop and offer a ride only to show up in a town with no services. Other times, I’m just out there riding. I wake into the reality that my bike is still out on its own journey. I wonder what stories it will have to tell. I can’t wait to see it again. Today should be the day.

In the meantime, I’ve been with family. My Aunt has some rather gruesome challenges with her spine. She doesn’t drive anymore. I went out walking in Chester one day. Chester is a small town connected to lots of other small towns. There’s a certain amount of small town feel to the place that’s easier to appreciate out on foot than in a car. When I’m in a car, it seems like one dizzying maze of streets and houses and commercial areas after another. I have no sense of direction with no sense of landmarks.

I walked to the post office. Somewhere along the trail I learned that you can forward unopened mail from one general delivery spot to another. I called Berea, KY, where I had originally planned a mail stop and had them forward my mail. I still hope to connect with the letter and postcard that should have arrived in Chester when I fetched my modest resupply box. We shall see. The short distance to the post office from the house gave me an opportunity to observe the discontinuous sidewalks. They just disappear. Walking on the road is how they do it, among the SUVs and minivans. No one has a small car out here…that I’ve observed.

When I reached the post office, wonder of wonders, I saw a woman and three girls riding bikes! Am I still dreaming? After I left the post office, I also saw a man riding a commuter bike down the bike lane on the main street, and he turned when the lane terminated mid-street. Those have been the only people on bikes I’ve seen for weeks, well, excepting the ones in my dreams. Ride.

Everyone gets in a car to go anywhere even to go to the grocery store, which is no more than half a mile down the street. No wonder why my Aunt pretty much stays at home. It seems that if you don’t drive, you don’t go anywhere. It’s good, I’m getting a sense for why and how people are attached to their vehicles and a better understanding of what they consider giving up if they use other forms of transportation. With groceries, it becomes a matter of changing frequency and quantity based on how much you can carry. I’ve been shopping based on backpack capacity for a long time. It’s second nature to me now.

What a great way to get some weight-bearing activity into my daily and weekly routine. Keeps my skeleton strong.

This annual family vacation, “Gone Fishin’” weekend, involves a caravan of vehicles driving about 280 miles (more for those coming from DC and less for those coming from other locales in PA) to Elk County to “the cabin.” Now, when I think of “cabin,” a modest one- or two-room structure made of logs or planks comes to mind. The “cabin” in PA has been rebuilt to accommodate a number of visitors at once—making it a nice spot for family gatherings. It’s more a lodge with three bedrooms downstairs and four bedrooms upstairs. Less important what the place looks like, more important what you do there and the quality of experience.

I looked forward to watching the littles and learning some of who they are. In the twelve years that have passed, only two of them existed. As little babies, it’s tough to know much about them. Now, there are six kids (if you don’t count my brother’s kids who don’t live on the east coast and have only ever been to this event once). A generation gap exists with the littles. Two of them are my first cousins (my uncle’s kids) and four of them are my cousins’ kids. We got confused on the genealogical terms, but we think that makes them first cousins once removed. The actual relational part means very little to me. The six of them get together and have a blast the way my brother and I did with our two cousins when we were young. The first morning of the entire gathered group, we had the opportunity to reflect on hanging out as cousins. My brother, absent, but three of us present.
“Check it out. We’re still hanging out as cousins. We just do different things now that we’re older.”
“Yeah, now we make breakfast and do the dishes.”
“All they have to do is eat chocolate chip pancakes, go fishing, and catch salamanders.”
And we like it.

Later that afternoon, after I chopped some wood, made the campfire and stoked it a few times so we could have a midday marshmallow roast, and after Sherry and Aimee had both facilitated fishing and crawdad catching, Aimee came up to me.
“You want to go for a ride?”
“Where?”
“I need to go to St. Mary’s to get gas. Want to come?”
“Ok.”
I grabbed my go bag. One never knows.
Sherry & I both had our phones out checking for service as Aimee drove. I guess we care less about salamanders these days and more about open wifi networks and how many bars our phones get. Suddenly both of us were excited and trilling over connectivity. Aimee pulled over at a wide gravel spot at the intersection of two highways, and we spent a glorious half hour there talking, texting, and facebooking. Ahhh, what was going on there? Were we in the desert without water?
Felt like it. Nice to have a drink, hydrate a bit.

Plan for the evening was to get dinner at the Benezette Hotel. The thirteen of us descended on the place and filled the long table in the middle of the dining room. Earlier we’d joked that I could sit at the kids’ table. Sounded just fine to me. We hadn’t anticipated all sitting at one table, but I still wanted to sit with the kids. I don’t think the grown ups quite understood that and kept encouraging me to sit with them at the other end of the table. No thanks. I’m happy here.

Several of the kids have particular eating habits. What a treat to watch them all. And this to be said, they were all ravenous. Katherine and Laura had only had marshmallows for lunch I think, and I couldn’t believe how much they ate. Reminded me of what I do after a good day of biking. Brendan cracked me up. He unfolded his napkin and smoothed it on the table for his placemat and set his silverware on the sides, fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right. As Aimee says, “He only eats beige food.” He didn’t fully understand appetizers and salads coming before dinner.
“Why did everyone else get dinner and not me?”

“You didn’t get an appetizer. Here do you want some of my nachos?” Katherine and Laura sat on either side of him and both had each ordered a nacho platter (a meal in itself). Before we left for dinner, Brendan had announced, “I am the President of the Cheese Club.” None of us doubted him. Still, he didn’t want any nachos.
“I’m waiting for my favorite meal, French fries and chicken tenders.”
All the while, Griffin sat to my left frosting cupcakes on an iPhone app to give Katherine. He thought that was the grossest thing to make cupcakes of grated carrot and then to commit the greater sin and frost them with cream cheese. In the morning, he and I had walked down to the pond during which time he educated me on nuclear reactors and perpetual motion machines.

After dinner back at the cabin, we paid homage to the great dessert deity with offerings of cookies, pie, Twizzlers, Rice Crispy treats and other high-sugar madness. I wanted to play a game, and we eventually organized enough players for a round of Taboo. The mix of older kids and younger kids offered a nice range of respondents with select knowledge handicaps.
‘Know your audience’ never rang more true.
Katherine would look at the cards and say nothing, stymied by how to get anyone to guess one word without being able to say any of the others.
I thought I was pretty good with the vocabulary but found myself flailing on the pop culture references. It went both ways too. Uncle John passed on ‘Jesse Jackson’ because he didn’t think any of his young teammates would know who that was.
Emily passed on ‘Flaccid’ which led to a giggly girl teaching moment.
Anna passed on ‘Sexist.’ She and Emily kept saying “Sing it.” They managed to guess ‘Secret’ through humming a song. Uncle John got shut out of guessing that one.
Laura was great with them all, having selected me and Aimee as her teammates. “This is a film. I think Robert Redford was in it. Yeah.”
I have no idea how we got Hopscotch out of that one.
We agreed to play to 35 points, which took considerably longer than any of us anticipated. We gained points, lost points.
I wound up concluding the game with a four-point advance that got us right to 35 points. The last word wound up being a fantastic way to end the game.
“I study these, but probably no one here knows this about me.”
The timer went out.
“What was the word?”
“’Sidewalk.’”
Brendan had come to the table and started laughing, “Haha, that’s the most boring thing to study!”

The next day in retelling the story to someone else, Anna asked me, “How do you study sidewalks?”

I spent the weekend in the heart of family without any link to my bicycle or my technology or any way to communicate with the world out there. Even now, my first thought on return is to be in touch with you, to let you know how the story continues. Back in touch, but without my tools — still — I will be brief.

In the time leading up to departure with family into the void called “the cabin,” I pulled together a grant proposal for the next part of this project. When I come home, I have the pleasure of producing a management plan for a driving and cycling route through the rural and historic areas of Lane County, the parts that wrap around Eugene to the west and south. Should I successfully secure the grant, it will fund the public involvement component of the process, print materials — maps, brochures, the plan — some additional education, and an event to celebrate and launch the project. I’m looking forward to this part, where I get to apply what I learn pedaling the country, putting the field work to purpose.

I carved out time and space to create that proposal. As it turns out, it happened with family. Had family not been accessible, I would have made do somewhere on the road, but I would have had to take a couple of days off from riding. Pedaling a bicycle and peddling ideas require two completely different forms of activity, and the activities make the same intense demands on my time but I can’t time share the activities simultaneously. One must stop for the other to begin.

This brings me to two elements of the sustainable transportation system that I kick around in my mind. Access to technology has become a fundamental element of these transportation systems. Sometimes we puzzle over telecommuting as a form of transportation, but it is. I wonder myself how I managed to transport myself around via technology. When I experience it, I realize that we’re not all that far away from the ringing phones in The Matrix, our teleportation stations.

Family (and friends) also has the same effect. They serve as destinations and nodes in the network. For example, New Jersey became the great station for me because of the presence of friends and family. Happily, the density of the area offers abundant opportunities for transit and activity. Plentiful access to technology. And, once in the network, a safe place to unhook from transportation modes. I let myself be transported, and this too is a necessary component of maintaining the system. We strengthened our connections across time and space. I look forward to the time when I can host my young cousins, family, friends — wherever I happen to be.

Now I am in three places. Perhaps I am also in three pieces. Tomorrow, the places and pieces should reunite. Then I can offer pictures, I will be able to say with certainty where the next leg of transportation will walk me. And, at long last, reunited with my bike, I will have opportunity to pedal more.