the story of how i rode for ten hours today with scarcely a break and don’t even have a century to show for it, but had a pretty great day anyway (abridged):

not too windy!

get a flat ten miles into a 58-mile stretch of no services on route when i accidentally ride myself off the edge of the road ’cause in kansas obstinacy (i thought the word was obstinance, but spellcheck corrects me) is generally rewarded more than alertness, so i put my head down and pedal…

all out of unpatched tubes, and i’m really not too sure of the efficacy of my patches. i bet on the most likely candidate among three patched tubes and manage to wrangle it onto the wheel, which i can’t pull all the way away from my bike (or so i think) ’cause it’s hooked up to my generator lights. when i am just about finished, the connectors slip off easy-peasy, just like they’re designed to do to make fixing a flat possible. of course.

pump up the tire as best i can and set off again.

a few miles later, the tire’s lost a bit of air. okay, so it’s gonna be a slow leak. i can live with that. pump it up every ten miles or so. not too bad.

clouds gather ominously overhead. nothing i can do about it. they’re keeping me nice and cool. the wind’s picking up–from the west. but that’s okay. the clouds part and move together again. the scenery is pretty today–through quivira national wildlife refuge. there’s even some trees!

meet another solo woman on a bike, janeen, who actually greets me by asking, “are you stacia?” no way! we chat about the usual. when i head off again, my tire’s gone flat. pump pump pump pump.

so little traffic i feel like i’m on a bike path! lovely!

a bit futher on i’m due to pump up the tire again. when i go to attach my pump, the valve stem pops right out and disappears–not that i would know how to put it back in if i could find it. ok. pull the wheel off–pull out the tube–try another patched one–pump it back up–i’ve got it all the way back on the bike before i realize it’s not holding air at all. pull off the wheel again.

this is the point at which a guy on a motorcycle passes me, looks back, turns around, and asks me if i’m doing all right. since at this point i’m wondering if i’ll need a ride to hutchinson (my destination for the day, and also the nearest bike shop), i tell him what i’m doing, and that i’ve got one more tube left to try. he introduces himself as tim, the pastor of a nearby church, and offers to stick around while i see if i can make it work or not.

he asks, “are you getting a little frustrated?” and i surprise myself with the truth of my answer: “no, i’m all right. really i’m just glad to be outside!” yes. yes yes yes yes.

meanwhile tim calls a cyclist friend of his, don, who digs up a tube of the appropriate size that he just happens to have lying around and offers to bring it out to us by the side of the road. by the time he gets there, i’ve got the last tube on and it seems to be holding air all right, but he gives me the tube anyway, just in case.

i am on my way again.

in nickerson, a woman at the convenience store where i stop to fill up my water bottles asks me where i’m headed and gives me directions into town that’ll take me right to the bike shop. for the last nine miles or so from nickerson to hutchinson, i’m headed straight into the wind. but it’s okay–the bike shop doesn’t close until 6 and the wind keeps me cool. a headwind teaches strength and patience maybe even better than a mountain pass does–and, though maybe i am reaching a bit here, mindfulness as well, i think. you can’t anticipate from one moment to the next how hard the gusts will be or where exactly they’ll be coming from. it really keeps you very present. plus, you can’t brag about it the same way you can about the mountain passes.

get to the bike shop and buy two more spare tubes, just in case. realize i’ve got another one coming in a package from my mom that i’m picking up tomorrow, which will make four–i’m sure i’ll never get another flat now!

head to the bike hostel at a nearby church. finally meet up with the two guys ahead of me i’ve been hearing about for a little while, jason and greg. they like to ride at night (it’s cooler) so they just headed off again, but we might meet up in a bit and ride the katy trail together. also meet a family from missouri riding to arizona–they give me great, clear directions for getting on and off the katy trail, and reiterate that it’s lots more pleasant than the ozarks. since there’s also a note on the bulletin board here from a westbound rider describing in grim detail the traffic situation on some of those roads, i think i will ride the katy trail after all.

feelin’ good. it’s way past my bedtime. gonna sleep in tomorrow, maybe find a coffeeshop.

and then

this morning i woke up alone in a church basement, missing my home and my friends and loved ones more than ever. anicca.

photos
(probably the last i’ll post for awhile! hoping to track down an sd card reader to use in libraries, but i’m sending home my netbook today. the angle required for the screen to work is officially too sharp for the screen to be, you know, SEEN. i’m pretty annoyed. cute and cheap they may be, but i don’t recommend an asus eee pc.)

(the loudspeakers at the major intersections on this street played a country music satellite radio station. yup.)

heading east:

(no kiddin’)

(we saw this sign once or twice in some other state, too. it actually means “there’s a picnic area comin’ up in the middle of nowhere,” but i always read it as “look out, a tree may fall on your picnic table!”)

scott city:

next morning:

(this exists. in dighton, i think)

cutest graffiti ever (anywhere else in the country this would be covered in vulgarities, right? here it’s birthday wishes and celebrating high schoolers):

bazine:

another sunrise:

(the full message, written i think in old stone fenceposts, is “christ pilots me”)

(because trees were not exactly in abundance, settlers carved fenceposts out of stone. there are lots of them around still, though there are also wood and metal ones now)

yesterday:

(there’s a lot of this, too. i thought this one was noteworthy ’cause the other message in it is “and you better get married, too!”)

(janeen and precious, her bicycle)

(i usually spare you photos of roadkill that’s this far gone, but i thought this was really interesting)

books i’ve read recently

* bury my heart at wounded knee by dee brown–
heartbreaking. important. american imperialism is, of course, nothing new… and manifest destiny continues to poison the way we interact with other nations and peoples. we are doing it right, we are a democratizing/christianizing/civilizing force, and the resources of the world are ours to dispose of as we see fit. what has changed? it’s not quite “might makes right,” that would be too obviously imperialistic–more like this weird belief that america has might because america is right. i don’t know. in all these museums and so on, it’s easy enough for me to put myself in the shoes of white settlers who were just trying to make a life and who were terrified of indian attacks and so on. in the same way, we can be sad and outraged about 9/11–but to pretend that indian attacks or 9/11 were completely without cause or explanation is misguided and inexcusably ignorant. the root cause, i think, is the same.

* courage: the joy of living dangerously by osho–
i picked this up at a bookstore in boulder for obvious reasons, as i was preparing to set out alone. this book is wild, wandering, and a little wacky. osho talks himself in circles sometimes, and i don’t agree with all (or even most) of the conclusions he winds up at. which he would probably approve of: “anything that is not based on your experience, accept it only hypothetically.” he also has a funny habit that sort of warms me up to him as a person of using funny little jokes to not-very-effectively illustrate his points–i mean, i get the feeling that he just wants to share the jokes.

i was surprised to read in this book a mention of “the dark night of the soul” just a few days after my own such night in denver. osho says:

“for many years you believed yourself to be somebody, and then suddenly in a moment of loneliness you start feeling you are not that. it creates fear: then who are you? … it will take some time for the real to express itself. the gap between the two has been called by the mystics ‘the dark night of the soul.’–a very appropriate expression. you are no more the false, and yet you are not yet the real. you are in limbo, you don’t know who you are.”

ahh… the liminal space! one place where i think osho and i disagree is that he things everything you TRY to be is a mask or over of who you ARE, which you need to accept fully. i think you BECOME as you DO, i guess. and then osho says: BE an adventurer, CHOOSE the path less traveled by, etc–and i don’t really understand how he can say both. he seems to vacillate between believing in free will or not as it serves his point.

as for ‘where is freedom?’ (always my question)– “insecurity is an intrinsic part of life–and good that it is, because it makes life a freedom, it makes life a continuous surprise. one never knows what is going to happen. it keeps you continuously in wonder. don’t call it uncertainty–call it wonder. don’t call it insecurity–call it freedom.”

mostly, i feel about osho the way he feels about freud–”in fact he is a little bit cuckoo, but sometimes cuckoos also sing beautiful songs.”

some other beautiful songs:

“god simply means the whole universe. it is not a question of having to face a person; you have to face the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the stars–the whole universe. and this is our universe, we are a part of it.”

“nobody is against you! even if you feel somebody is against you, he too is not against you–because everybody is concerned with himself, not with you. there is nothing to fear. this has to be realized before a real relationship can happen.”

“the english word ecstasy is very, very significant. it means to stand out. ecstasy means to get out–out of all shells and all protections and all egos and all comforts, all deathlike walls. to be ecstatic means to get out, to be free, to be moving, to be a process, to be vulnerable so that winds can come and pass through you.
     ”we have an expression, sometimes we say, “that experience was outstanding.” that exactly is the meaning of ecstasy: outstanding.
     ”when a seen breaks and the light hidden within starts manifesting, when a child is born and leaves the womb behind, all the comforts and all the conveniences behind, moves into the unknown world–it is ecstasy. when a bird breaks the egg and flies into the sky, it is ecstasy.”

“it is very easy to think about love. it is very difficult to love. it is very easy to love the whole world. the real difficulty is to love a single person. it is very easy to love god or humanity. the real problem arises when you come across a real person and you encounter him.”

“be responsible–and when i use the word responsible, please remember not to misinterpret it. i am not talking about duties, responsibilities, i am simply using the word in the literal sense: respond to reality, be responsible.”

* the omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals by michael pollan–
i would really like to list all the things i learned from this book, which i really, really(, really, really) enjoyed. maybe i will, when i have more time. mostly, though: it is a mistake to believe that all we know about a system or process is all there is to know!

three days ago i crossed the border into kansas. two days ago i crossed into the central time zone, which means i’m closer, as far as time is concerned, to the east coast than to the west coast (yay!). today, i crossed the humidity border. actually theoretically that was yesterday, at the 100th meridian, but boy did i feel it today! also today, i turned off of hwy 96! today i was riding south, directly into the wind, for nineteen miles. i will not complain any more about the sidewind. actually, by the end of the headwindy part, i was feeling pretty zen about it. i think i’m gonna make it. and so on.

the wind in kansas is funny. for something that’s theoretically objective and measurable, it is awfully subjective. no one seems to have the same opinions about it or even know the same “facts” about it. i’ve been told that this strong wind outta the south is due to hurricanes in the gulf right now and i’ve been told that it’s always like this and i’ve been told that i’m lucky i’m going east ’cause the prevailing wind is out of the west and i’ve been told just the opposite. here’s what i know i know about the wind: only what it’s doing right now. and how i feel about it: pretty zen.

today the route went past the fort larned national historic site and then, a few miles later, the santa fe trail center museum. when a. and i would stop at places like this, we used to joke that when people asked us where we were riding to, we should tell them, “here. we rode our bikes from oregon just to visit this very place.” i realized today, though, that it is pretty much true. i mean, i’m sure not riding my bike to yorktown, virginia, to go to yorktown, virginia. the little museums and sites and historical markers and mountains and rivers and, of course, people, are the reasons to do this ride. the reasons we/i didn’t know about specifically.

you think a lot about “why” when you’re plowing into a headwind across the endless kansas plains. here is another reason: a little placard on the wall in elaine and dan’s house last night: “don’t worry when you begin that you don’t have the strength. it is in the journey that god makes you strong.” (or: it’s the journey that makes you strong, it’s in the journey that you make yourself strong, etc.) was i capable (whatever that means) of biking across the country when i started? probably not. am i capable now? i dunno. will i be when i finish? self-evidently. the proof is in the pudding.

and: awhile back, matt posted this link to photos of the “tough guy challenge,” a race in england, on his facebook wall. (yup, of course i check facebook from the road.) the race involves mud, fire, ice, and all kinds of horrible discomfort to the racers. and my reaction, as well as that of everyone else who commented, was “awesome!” but it seemed strange to me that all of us would react so enthusiastically to something so objectively unpleasant. i wrote, “i think it says something about our culture, or our human need for real challenge/engagement of our bodies and so on and the fact that our culture does not provide it, that this looks awesome. i mean, because it’s sort of meaningless, isn’t it? says the woman who is currently engaged in another arguably meaningless and sometimes painful pursuit for reasons i don’t understand intellectually but feel intuitively.” matt replied, very insightfully i thought, that it probably appeals to the part of us that needs something to react to, fight against, and/or overcome right in front of us–because “most harm wrought upon us nowadays is in myriad, small, boring, soul-sucking ways. We can’t punch Enron or BP or Wal-Mart in the face, as much as we’d like to. It’s just not possible, and so we (I, anyway) get itchy for things that we can look at, and understand, and know either You win, or It does.” the fact that i am riding my bicycle across the country makes me feel totally badass, like I Definitely Win. but on another level, it still feels meaningless. i don’t Need to be doing this. and i think one of the big things i am figuring out is, i Need to do something Needed. (but first, i am gonna bike across the freakin’ country.)

oh! today is day 63 of my trip. the other day, i was thinking about how far i’ve come, and how much farther i have to go, and i thought it might be cool if i finished in exactly 100 days–a nice round number. then i counted up all the miles i have left to go, and if i continue at the pace i expect, i will arrive in yorktown on october 7th–day 100! yes! i did not fudge the numbers or calculate differently or anything. so there you go; that’s my goal. i’m looking to buy my train tickets soon. planning to visit philly, nyc, family in upstate new york, boston, my grandparents’ place in maine, and chicago, then take the train cross-country to the sf bay area. i will probably be back in portland around thanksgiving, i figure. i’ll stay for the holidays, and then, i think, i’ll leave again.

i ran into a westbound cyclist the other day who asked me (as folks ocassionally do) what i do that i can take this time off to ride across the country. i said i was between jobs and that, actually, i was sort of using this ride as a vision quest to work on figuring out what i want to do next. he asked me if it’s working (”yeah, sort of”) and told me that in his experience you come home from these trips feeling like anything is possible, but within a couple weeks you end up mired in the same stuff you were before you left. i told him i’d thought of that–and in fact being away from portland has given me some perspective on it that i think i really needed. i LOVE portland, and i feel like it very well may be “home” in one way or another for the rest of my life. but when i am there (at this point in my life), it’s so easy to just hang out, float along, and so on, without really having to live/grow/make things happen that need to happen for me.

so. there’s that.

anyway, kansas is: plains, plains, plains, oil rigs, feedlots, really pretty sunrises. pictures coming. (incidentally my p.o.s. netbook is getting more and more difficult to use–the connection between the screen and the keyboard part is failing, such that in order to see the screen it needs to be at an increasingly acute angle. if it gets much worse i might just send it home to save on weight, and then i’m not sure i’ll be able to post photos anymore–a tragedy!)

i’m tucked in next to the county library here, which is closed but has unprotected wireless and a little outlet on the outside of the building. i think i’m sleeping in the city park tonight, which i have yet to locate. anyway, some quick catch-up (AS ALWAYS) and then maybe i’ll have time to actually go on for a bit about how things are/how things will be/et cetera.

eastward at last, towards pueblo

(oohhh the mountains…)

(outside of a tiny store near wetmore where i filled up my water bottles, with tibetan prayer flags and a photo of the dalai lama hanging behind the counter)

pueblo

in pueblo i stayed with couchsurfing host jenny. my first night in town, she made me a delicious dinner, and my second night, we made it together! including a tasty chocolate-zucchini cake with a huge zucchini from her garden. thank you jenny!

the levees along the arkansas river through pueblo are covered in murals–very cool:

there’s also a riverwalk (along a canal? i am not entirely clear) through downtown.

pueblo to ordway

(go, grass, grow! take back the streets!)

in ordway i stayed at at this sprawling property owned by a woman named gillian who is in new zealand right now, where she’s from, but her friend mark is taking care of things for her. apparently she has been hosting cyclists there for years and years, and two years ago a big fire burned everything to the ground. cyclists who had come through and stayed with her heard about it and some of them got on planes out here to come help rebuild, plant trees, etc. now the trees are small but you can’t tell it was all gone. there’s goats and horses.

i met two retired guys, jose and paul, who are biking from colorado to texas (god bless ‘em, the heat is gonna be killer there) who were also staying at gillian’s. we chatted some and they bought me dinner at the local cafe.

i sorta get the feeling i am gonna be the recipient of EVEN MORE generosity on this leg of the trip, as a woman traveling alone. i am really grateful for that, though “you stay safe now, you hear?” is gonna get pretty old. but i realize that it’s not advice–staying safe would’ve been staying home–so much as a prayer, and i think i can appreciate that.

oh, also in ordway i learned that the communities along us-96 (which i have been following since west of pueblo, and will remain on for at least another few days) in southeast colorado have joined together to welcome transam cyclists by creating the prairie horizons trail. they publish a super-cute little map with a services index and some historical info and stuff. so nice! in tiny arlington, for example, they’ve built an outhouse! with a cyclist logbook in it and everything. love it.

ordway to eads

(there are TONS of medical marijuana dispensaries in colorado–apparently until recently it was/is badly regulated. this one was in tiny sugar city… i couldn’t resist the punny name)

this is what the plains look like here:

this is what i look like here:

these are some abandoned buildings in disrepair (a pretty common sight):

(self portrait!)

this is a sign welcoming cyclists to the prairie horizons trail:

colorado rocks!*

* also wyoming

my campsite in the eads city park

(this is for you, mom)

eads to KANSAS!

i got up before dawn to leave at sunrise, hoping to beat the heat!

(yeah, saw some of this. sure is a smelly operation. ugh!)

(in the distance the blue horizon looks like the ocean, and so i pedal onwards…)

kansas!

hurray!

all the other photos i took in kansas today are of DUST (and WIND). all these fallow fields… didn’t the dust bowl teach us anything, kansas?

oh, and this awesome hastily-taken photo of a real live TUMBLEWEED a-tumblin’ across the road:

ok, i gotta figure out where i’m camping tonight.

boulder

boulder to sunrise ranch

marionberry jam

drivin’

hikin’

horsetooth

ice cream

biking south

(co spgs)

garden of the gods

the may museum
(this place was so wacky! it looked like it had remained pretty much exactly the same for thirty years. at least. my favorite was this little display on the wall that looked like it had been clipped from a magazine, about the insecticides we spray on crops to control insect pests, “including DDT.” it said something like, “some people say that these chemicals cause environmental problems and should be outlawed, but they probably won’t be because they are so agriculturally valuable.” all the preserved insects [and some arachnids]–the main draw of the museum–were pretty cool, though. some of them were HUGE! like, grasshoppers the size of your hand. it was more a museum about insect collecting than it was about insects.)

south along 115

small mysteries
(took all three of these photos from one place, and i swear i’d seen the fourth hubcap a bit further down the road. what happened?)

wrong way
(oh oh oh)

(by the way, if for some reason you ever want to see EVEN MORE PICTURES than i post on my blog, you can! all my pictures from this trip are collected here.)

—

am in pueblo (a city called people) now, spending a day “doing errands” which i guess means sitting along the river reading the omnivore’s dilemma. as always… more later!

i’ll be back on the transamerica by the end of tomorrow (KNOCK ON WOOD of course). it’s been a rough couple days here and there (i’m sure i’ll tell you all about it), but THE POINT IS i am completely 100% head-over-heels in love with colorado. i am in colorado springs tonight which no one told me i’d like (quite the opposite in fact) and in fact it is beautiful! (cheyenne canon! manitou springs! garden of the gods!!) i am looking at my transam maps just now and wondering if when i get to canon city (tomorrow’s destination) i shouldn’t just pretend i’m westbound for a bit and go see royal gorge and guffey and all the little western slope towns i missed. climb hoosier pass? hah, and then what? backtrack again? i sort of do want to get to the east coast one of these days. i am just wondering if i shouldn’t do the biking here in holy-crap-gorgeous colorado and do the train riding in kansas and missouri and so on. hah! but i have a hunch that i’ll be back. i guess i’ll leave some stuff to discover next time.

well, i don’t know. i just read this on the back of the kansas map: “NOTE: Be aware that city parks in Kansas close when public school begins in mid-August.” dude! free camping in city parks was kinda kansas’s #1 main attraction for me. also, there are not really any OTHER camping options. the second kansas map (alexander to girard) does not mention anything about it, though. i guess i’ll find out… when i’m in the middle of nowhere far from an amtrak station. or i could scrap my plans and ride down to new mexico or something (a. would be so jealous!). if i could find good route maps. my struggle to find a decent route south to the transam has been a large part of why the last few days have been so exhausting.

so: a dark night of the soul a few nights ago. i reached out to some loved ones and got some of what i needed… including in part i think a good cry at 2:30am alone on my borrowed couch in denver. when i hit the road in the morning (after a delicious french toast breakfast courtesy of matt), i felt better, but then it took me 20-something awful highway miles to get the heck out of denver–and then i got hit by the worst headwind of the trip so far. in conclusion, i turned west (the sidewind was almost as bad–kept throwing me off balance) and i made it to castle rock and i got a motel and i watched o brother where art thou? on tv until i fell asleep.

this morning i merrily followed my google map bicycle directions until they dead-ended on private property. dear google map bicycle directions: we’re over. luckily the spandexed roadies were out in force today (a sunny sunday!) and i was able to ask a couple of them how the heck to get where i was going. the road they put me on was longer and hillier than i had planned for (and i had to backtrack to get to it), but it WAS prettier than any road google has put me on. in palmer lake i got a root beer float and tried to figure out how to take a bus the rest of the way. emotional exhaustion is worse than physical exhaustion. i’m still working on my emotional fitness, i guess, now that the crutch of my companion has been taken away. i believe i will get better at this.

anyway, the bus doesn’t run on sundays, but a couple enjoying some ice cream offered to take me and my bike to the northern edge of colorado springs, and though they probably only saved me a few miles, their kindness really lifted my spirits. they put me on a bike path that took me almost all the way into downtown and made sure i knew where i was going. thank you, mark and denise!

tonight i am staying at my ex-boyfriend landon’s parents’ house in colorado springs. rock and gretchen took me out to dinner, drove me through cheyenne canon, and took me to the garden of the gods (which was apparently thusly named ’cause some dude thought it would be a good place for a BEER garden! hah!). the moon is almost full and have i mentioned that colorado is breathtakingly beautiful? i want to stay and go rock climbing and hike up 14ers and raft down rivers.

tomorrow’s route to canon city is pretty much ONE ROAD the whole way (route 115). it is the only way and i don’t think i will get lost. plus, there’s a cool bug museum on the way.

—

some things i’ve learned on this trip (a very incomplete list)–

* the trick to riding with slick tires on dirt trails is to pretend you’re going in slow motion. no abrupt turning! no abrupt braking! no abrupt anything!

* when fear is not a factor, people are pretty much universally kind and generous. this fear can take many forms: fear of being hurt physically or emotionally, fear of not having enough, fear of embarrassment (or social censure), etc. i think one of the reasons permaculture is such a powerful idea is because it represents a shift from thinking in terms of (the possibility of) not having enough to thinking in terms of abundance and thus eliminates one of those fears that prevent us from living in a world full of the kindness and generosity of which we are capable. i also think that fear builds on itself and kindness & generosity build on themselves as well. i know which i want to nurture.

* how to ask a green bean whether or not it wants to be harvested. how to harvest basil so it grows more like a bush, and how to harvest it less carefully when it’s growing too vigorously. what a really really fresh organic cucumber tastes like (hint: amazing).

* it is sometimes lonelier to be around people you don’t know very well than it is to be alone. too much alcohol exacerbates this. i think i have learned this lesson several times before, but i guess i needed a refresher course.

* real people almost always give better directions than the internet does, especially in the countryside.

—

(hi! i am posting this entry from outside a coffeeshop in florence, colorado. i am BACK ON THE TRANSAM! hurray! trying to decide whether to stay here tonight or head west nine miles to canon city. i think i’m gonna hang out here for a little bit, anyway. i’ve been thinking about the emotional fitness thing i kinda came up with above. it makes me feel better about things. some sore muscles but that just means i’m getting stronger. yeah.)

—

here’s some photos of sunflowers from sunrise ranch (that’s the farm outside of loveland)–

i got a flat that i had to fix twice ’cause the patch didn’t take the first time, and then wasted time looking for a bike shop in lafayette that didn’t exist (i wanted to borrow their floor pump– there’s only so much air i can get in with my little pump–and also i think i need a new rear tire–mine is super worn!), plus there was that thunderstorm i had to wait out. none of that is a big deal at all, but somehow i was running out of daylight, and then i got lost not very far at all from my destination and i was riding on a bike path through some sketchy industrial areas. i called my parents when i couldn’t get myself un-lost by myself, so they knew how far i was and they were worried about daylight too, and even in portland i wouldn’t bike on, say, the springwater corridor alone at night. i biked so fast down that path, dodging dumb rabbits who kept darting out into my headlights in front of me, and i saw a coyote, too (my third on this trip). and then i got off the path, finally, and there were trucks and rain and it was thoroughly dark and i couldn’t find the street i was supposed to turn onto, so i gave up and stopped at the comfort inn on the corner.

mama said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this, my mama said.

i am less than six miles from my friend matt’s apartment (i was gonna crash on his couch). oh well; i’ve got all day today to hang out in denver. and figure out how i’m getting to where i’m going from here. i am pretty eager to be back on the transam.

(photo of me from a wonderful hike above the farm that i took on wednesday with alisha, dave, and yet another matt. more later!)

.

also, this happened–

“on the way to the play, we stopped to look at the stars.
and as usual,
i felt in awe.
and then i felt even deeper in awe at this capacity we have to be
in awe about something.

then i became even more awestruck
at the thought that i was,
in some small way,
a part of that
which i was so in awe about.

and this feeling went on
and on
and on…
my space chums got a word for it:
‘awe infinitum.’

because at the point you can comprehend how
incomprehensible it all is,
you’re about as smart as you need to be.

suddenly i burst into song:
‘awe,
sweet mystery of life,
at last i’ve found thee.’

and i felt so good inside
and my heart felt so full,

i decided i would set time aside each day to do
awe-robics.

because at the moment you are most in awe of all there is
about life that you don’t understand,
you are closer to understanding it all
than at any other time.”

–trudy

(from the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe by jane wagner)

boulder pretty much rocks. lots of outdoorsy hippie types. there’s tons of bike paths and a wild creek running through the city and a big pedestrian-only area downtown and lots of delicious food. right now i am sitting in a grassy park listening to a band cover led zeppelin at a free concert (seriously, there is wifi EVERYWHERE). a. is joking that i will never leave. he leaves tomorrow to fly home to portland, load his stuff in a van, and drive to his new home in berkeley to start his phd program. i leave at some point to conquer some fears and pedal headlong into my future, whatever it might be. in the meantime, here’s some catching up and photos…

walden to hot sulphur springs–over willow creek pass–

(this guy got himself stuck to my tire)

(in i-can’t-honestly-remember-what-tiny-town, someone had peeled up all the center lines from this newly-repaved road and made them into greetings)

(blurry photo of our eighth continental divide crossing. in colorado they specify which side is which!)

(is this weird geology or is it man-made? in the middle of nowhere?)

we camped for free in hot sulphur springs about half a mile down a dirt road in some kind of city park. ran around doing laundry and so on, chatted with a woman at a burger-and-shakes stand about bike touring and the santiago de compostela pilgrimage, and then headed to the hot springs (of course!). they were nice–24(!) different pools with various temperatures and mineral concentrations, some indoor and some outside–but pricey! $17.50 per person for a day pass. in the hottest pool, we met a guy named ted from denver who bike toured when he was younger and who offered us a place to stay in denver if we need it. there’s really nothing like traveling this way to convince you that people are fundamental generous and good. that’s the truth. fear is the biggest hurdle between us and the amazing world we could live in.

in the morning we ate breakfast at this place:

yeah, seriously. but the service was super-friendly and the food was pretty good. my french toast was more-or-less deep-fried. yum. we also met a young couple from england who were westbound on the transam. we recommended enthusiastically that they stop at the hot springs in saratoga.

(rocks from the hot springs in saratoga; ring tarnished from hot sulphur springs)

hot sulphur springs to grand lake–a pretty short riding day–

in grand lake we completely spoiled ourselves in preemptory celebration of our climb up trail ridge road–bought delicious crepes and huge glasses of sangria at a wine bar, after which, tipsy, we played 18 holes of mini golf down the street (i won).

needless to say we failed to wake up as early as planned the next morning. which was just as well ’cause it was c-c-c-cold! frost on our tent and bikes. but for the climb itself, oh boy did we get lucky with the weather–it was perfect! first sunny storm-free day in weeks, apparently.

(hell yeah–here we go!)

(the colorado river!)

(living sod roof on an ice cellar at an old homestead site in the park!)

(the red/purple color of many of the trees, by the way–and this has been true for several states now–is due to bark beetle infestation. the trees are weak, often because of decades of fire suppression that have allowed them to get much older than they otherwise would, and the beetles flourish. but since they only infest weak trees, it’s more or less a natural ecological process, etc, just unnaturally widespread due to suppression of natural fires.)

(the wind is so harsh that branches can only grow on the leeward side of trees)

(estes park in the distance!)

the first people we met in estes park:
1. a man who rode the transamerica in 1976, the first year, when it was the bikecentennial route
2. a couple from kansas city who dug out their road atlas to give me route ideas and then offered me a place to stay should i pass through kansas city

!!

estes park is a beautiful town, with mountains surrounding it on all sides. we spent the morning in a coffeeshop writing postcards and so on and then hanging out in by the river that runs through town. then we headed off towards boulder–a few miles up out of the valley and then down, down, down all the way to lyons. so much fun!

(a. waves goodbye to the rockies)

we stopped:
1. for black cherry cider at the colorado cherry company (or something like that)
2. at a winery tasting room on the lovely grounds of an inn of some sort, for yummy wine and a bottle for later
yum.

we ate some lunch in lyons (bread, cheese, and fruit mmm), a town about 16 miles from boulder with a good vibe.

(wind sculpture)

heading south towards boulder, the mountains were to our right and to our left the plains began, stretching out so flat to the east that i kept glancing that way and believing for a moment that i was looking at the ocean.

(suicidal grasshoppers are abundant along shoulders in colorado as well… and apparently they eat their dead, which might help explain why they keep coming onto the road even though they die there)

and we made it!

end of the road for a.

—

now: a. is back in portland; i am outside of loveland. as always, more later…

our highest point, on one of the little foot trails across the tundra off the road, was over 12,300 feet above sea level. on the downhill bits, when we could spare the breath, we sang “we are the champions.”

best day of the trip?

(our ninth crossing of the continental divide)

(they sold these t-shirts to tourists who DROVE trail ridge road… what?? congratulations, you didn’t drive off the road. i bought one–my purple t-shirt is getting some holes anyway–and wore it all the way down to make ‘em all feel lazy)

(as it got colder and windier, we got pretty ridiculous with our layering. this is bike tourist style!)

bonus pika–

approximately 36,000 gorgeous photos (if i may say so myself) of mountains coming soon (and all those wildflowers and stuff that i promised you).

lots o’ love,
stacia

me:
i am slow and he’s unsteady!

a.:
she’s unsteady, and i’m slow!

tutti:
together we’re team slow and unsteady
for mountain passes, we’re sure not ready
most of the time, we’d rather go to beddy
but look out! ’cause team slow and unsteady
will make it someday…

and eventually we did make it over willow creek pass, which actually was not too bad at all and took us through our first forest since grand teton national park… very nice to be back in the trees!

but i’m getting ahead of myself. we’re in colorado! which has a great big satisfying welcome sign at the border:

before all that, though, we rode south from lander. TWO storms our first day out–we sat out the first one at a little rv park with a nice inside area with a couch they let us hang out on, and the second one didn’t hit until we’d made it to our campsite. we fought the wind all day. anyway, you wouldn’t know it from these photos:

we spent the night in sweetwater station, which is not much of anything, but is home to a historic mormon handcart site, complete with camping and a little missionary establishment. definitely takes the cake for most bizarre place we’ve camped so far. they get mormon kids to come out in the summer and camp and actually pull handcarts on, i guess, part of the historic mormon trail. plus, all the kids wear pioneer clothes, sort of. it was great; i shared the women’s restroom with teenage girls with braces wearing flannel pj pants underneath their long skirts and aprons. everyone was very nice and they mostly left us to ourselves.

(home sweet tent)

the next day was a long one (85+ miles) to rawlins.

jeffrey city is about 20 miles past sweetwater station. we’d been hearing for weeks about jeffrey city… mostly, “avoid it.” it used to be a booming uranium mining town, but when that boom went bust in the early 80’s, it went from being a town of 4000 people to a town of not very many at all. everyone told us the owner of the cafe (the only game in town) was pretty hostile. we mostly just rode on through, but it was interesting to see a different kind of ghost town.

then…

(split rock)

somewhere in here when we stopped for a snack near muddy gap, we met westbound cyclists stephen and erica, who, like (i swear) at least half the young westbounders we’ve met, are moving to portland (from virginia in this case).

another continental divide crossing–

in lamont, home of not much other than “grandma’s cafe” (we got a milkshake), we met rita, badass solo female cyclist who left yorktown, virginia, on july freakin’ 7th. impressive! and check out her homemade rear panniers…

yet another continental divide crossing–

in rawlins, we met a few other bike tourists, including a guy who is biking to palo alto with, apparently, all his earthly possessions (he had four panniers and a huge trailer). also aidan and amanda. aidan is from ireland and is on an epic around-the-world journey; he’s been all kinds of amazing places. his blog is at acousticmotorbike.com (i love it)… check out his photo of the storm that hovered near our campground at sunset (scroll down on that page).

the next day we went to saratoga. we had to ride on the interstate for about thirteen miles from a little outside of rawlins, but it wasn’t too bad–big, wide shoulders with rumble strips between us and the huge trucks that rushed past at 80 mph. a lot of getting over fears seems to be desensitization. a couple more thunderstorms and i’ll be totally over ‘em.

(instead of “next 5 miles,” it should say “throughout wyoming”)

saratoga was wonderful, as mentioned. sorry no photos of the hot springs. you’ll have to take my word for it that they are WONDERFUL. did i mention that they are totally free and open 24 hours a day?

ahem. wyoming, where even the grocery stores are full of taxidermy:

it really was a perfectly ordinary grocery store otherwise.

in the morning we pedaled off towards the border. in riverside, wyoming, we met another eastbounder(!) who seemed to have very little interest in chatting with us. our first unfriendly transam-er! oh well. he passed us not too far out of town and we haven’t seen him since.

unfortunately the wind did not cease abruptly at the state line, but the scenery did change pretty quickly…

and the mountains!!

met another epic bike adventurer, ben, not too far from walden, where we camped in the city park for the night. his blog: ben voyage… like bon voyage, get it? i love puns. actually, there have been some pretty great puns on this trip. they don’t shy away from them in small towns. one of my favorites: wildflour bakery, in lander.

walden has seen better days but manages to support not one but two thriving liquor stores. and, of course, a cafe with an antler chandelier:

i’m gonna leave it at that for now ’cause we ought to head on to grand lake pretty soon. here’s what you have to look forward to in the next installment of our big bike adventure: wildflowers galore, our eighth crossing of the continental divide, hot sulphur springs (oh la la), a cafe called the glory hole, and a chain of convenience stores called kum-and-go (you can’t make this stuff up).

we’re off route today and for the rest of a.’s trip–we’re riding up to grand lake today and then tomorrow we’re taking trail ridge road through rocky mountain national park, over a pass that’s over 12,000 feet (highest paved pass in north america, or so we hear). we have been psyching ourselves up for it for weeks, since we got the idea to bike to boulder (rather than put a. on a bus to denver in some tiny town somewhere). we’ll stop either in estes park or lyons tomorrow night and go to boulder the next day. we’ll hang out there until a. goes home, and then i’m going to bike up to loveland to visit my friend k. on the farm where she lives and works. from there, i’m not sure how i’m getting back to the transamerica trail… i’ll figure it out. seems like forever from now! but we’re almost to boulder, really. dang.