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traviswsoul · 8 years ago

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Day 17 Standish Hickey to Dean Creek Resort. 10 miles

1:02 time, 555 calories, 535' climbed, 9.7 avg mph "Resort" is what private camp site call themselves when they want to charge you more than a state park campground, but I'm getting ahead of myself, there is quite a story tell about today. If I was a pessimist I would call it a shit show but I'm a glass full kind of guy so I'd say it was a blessing in disguise. God/the Universe/ the Trees, whatever you want to call it was telling me today to get off the road and quite riding. So I did. I started out waking up to the sound of freeway, almost as nice as the birds or the ocean, at about 5:45, I got up to pee and should have stayed up and got a better start but I didn't. Despite being a full blown "morning person" I have trouble with pre six am. I rolled around despite the day light for another hour before got up. Luckily inland as we were the dew was not an issue so my riding clothes dried after washing the night before and my tent wasn't wet! I was sure I was off to a great day! My companions were only 20 miles to their destination, the Northern Nights Music Festival, so we would be saying out goodbye and my plan was to ride hard and make a big day of it, an 80 miler maybe even my fist century! I've been learning for the last two years to quite trying to plan things out and demand being in control, today was a beautiful reminder of how silly insisting on running the show really is. We don't run the show, we experience it, our lives exist to teach us lessons; that we not bull our way through this china shop of life but that we may flow, observe, learn and love the process not simply work for the end. So, I wanted to do the most miles I've ever done and I did the least miles instead do to several things that were out of my control! This makes me smile. 10 mile day, let me tell you how it happened, it was a trip. I woke up to the sound of trucks rushing down the highway dampened by a hundred yards of trees, it's like birds or the ocean but not at all. I was last out of my tent again. I had been up at 5:45 and got out to pee, I should have stayed up and gotten started but instead I laid on my stomach and tried to use my hood to block out the increasing daylight. I did barely fall asleep again until 6:45 when I started my morning routine sitting up getting off my ground pad, unscrewing it's air valve, fold it in half and begin to roll it up evacuating all the air, then closing the valve and strapping it shut in a small compact roll with a velro strap. That along with the tent that becomes an equal size but twice as long and a bag of camp supplies makes up the entire contents of my rear left pannier. Well, my Chaco flip flops and my tablet and blue tooth key board go in there too. I rushed to get packed and back across the street which I knew opened at seven and had breakfast burritos, again, I'm not carrying food with me at the moment so I was stoked about a real burrito and coffee breakfast. Then I got a Revive Kombucha as the icing on the cake of the morning. It was their coffee brew that blew me away! I have been discussing the possibility of brewing coffee based tea with kombucha culture and what it would take to make it adapt to that change. Revive has figured it out! That bottle of buch I had was out there, absolutely delicious, kombucha with coffee's spirit. I applaud Revive, I want more, and I really want to be able to have a conversation with the guy that made that! I knew I had a issue as we got ready to ride because my rear tire was low, I almost could have filled it up but the power went out as we were leaving so I couldn't use their air pump. We were given the heads up by one of the rad employees there that we should hit the road before the string of dump trucks did so that we would beat the road block. There was a land slide and since January they have been working to dig out and remove it. So they regularly close the road and let traffic pass along the only one lane strip in about thirty minute intervals, that was to be expected but we could get ahead of it starting for the day since we were ready so early. We booked it. A mile later we see the traffic backed up and I cut over to the opposing lane that is clearly unoccupied and ride up to the front of this situation. Along the existing strip of construction, over night, a tree had fallen into the road and taken down a power line with it. Our friendly construction worker in charge of managing the flow of traffic, Carlos, informed us of all of this and all the different companies and steps involved in getting us on our way. Once we realized we were there for about an hour, at least, we decided to change my tube in my tire, no big deal, I had the CO2 cartridge, the tube, the wrench, the greasy designated chain and gear gloves, I was prepared for this! Because I had just changed the tube the day before when I got my first flat (which, might I add, was caused my some asshole two days ago asking me if I'd had many flats yet?" WTF! you dont say that, FYI) we assumed there must have been something stuck in the tire that punctured this new tube as well and was why it was slowly leaking. Through out this whole ordeal we continued to meet all kinds of people who were out of there cars curiously roaming around or going to the porta potty that at the front of the line where we were. Half of them were also going to Northern Nights Fest, one was a super friendly guy driving supplies to a church camp, which immediately took me back to my indoctrinating church camp days. When I unrolled my yoga mat my muscle roller was in the center, Kurt was quick to grab and use it, as this was going on we were talking with the jolly sunday school teacher, he had the best intentions, and when kurt gave it to him to try he loved and asked me what he owed me for. I told to pray for me and my safety. That was an interesting experience, I have so much I could have lashed out about over why to not be doing "church camp" but instead I didn't judge and jump on a soap box and simply appreciated the power of prayer, which is the same as the intention, manifestation and positive out put that I also believe has power and effects things in the world. He said "Amen, brother," and I smiled. Carlos and we worked out a way to get a head start when it did become our time to go. Sooner than expected they started to clear the traffic with south bound coming toward us first. After the last one we pedaled in, it wasn't more than a quarter mile of construction area and by the time we arrived wreckage from the tree and powerlines was undectable. We went up hill with miles of traffic just released behing us. At times I opted to ride the wrong way on the opposite shoulder along side the newly parked traffic in waiting of instead of on the white line in the appropriate lane with all the traffic buzzing my shoulder. Once the traffic cleared and the hill crested it was a wide open downhill across a bridge with a beautifully lit late morning light warming the cold and smiling on a bright today ahead. Then my new tube went flat for real. Another flat tire. I realized and yelled down Pablo who was 40 meters ahead with "Flat!" Kurt came up behind me as he turned back around and it was what it was, a flat tire when I was out of spare tubes, out of CO2, my levers were broken and clearly my tire was host to something puncturing my tubes or I was having the worst luck ever. I'm grateful they put it into perspective for me because other wise I would have wasted a bit of time avoiding that fact that I was hitch hiking out of there. If you're hitching with a bike it is really hard to get a ride because you take up so much space, all you can really hope for is a pickup truck that's easy to load in the back of with a driver who will actually think all this through and make the compassionate decision to stop. It's a lot to consider, especially when you have just been waiting at a road block and are definitely behind whatever schedule you had. So I gave them hugs hoping to fulfill their invitations to their homes one day and said goodbye. I put my thumb out for the first time in my life hoping to hitch a ride out of desperation, fully in need of the help of a stranger. It's a beautiful experience to have, it's not a failure at anything, getting out of your comfort zone so much that you have to rely on the universe for a nod in favor of your survival, is a task worth pursuing. It wasn't even half an hour, probably on the third wave of cars released from the road block after I came through did Jimmy from Long Island in his beautiful piece of shit RV pull over and pick me up. I strapped the sprouts back on the front, I had already disassembled them thinking I'd have to throw the bike in a truck, but I hadn't anticipated the fact that hitch hike picker uppers inevitably stop a good ways down the road from the hitch hiker, then I started jogging/ pushing my bike up the road hoping they would notice by my body language for as grateful and eager as I was to not make them wait. Jimmy! At first we thought about strapping it on the back rack behind the rv but then realized the bike could probably fit inside. It was a great experience because when Jimmy jumped out of the cap of that van based RV he was asking me how it should go. He didn't question wether or not he had room for me, he didn't think it through and base his decision off what would work for him, he saw me in need and he pulled over. Jimmy is a saint, from Long Island, New York, not Long Island, California, and from whom I heard the word fuck more in the 15 miles I was riding with him than I have in three weeks on my trip. Jimmy is 55 years old and retired from his families business operating construction cranes in New York City. I told him I lived in Brooklyn for ten years and we sailing off on our new roadie friendship, and, he clearly hadn't spoken to so many people since he'd been road tripping from Denver, as far as I could tell, in search of the best weed. His passenger seat was swiveled around facing the living space, as in, not facing out the front windshield observing the direction of motion but it was the only place to sit, after he knocked off the dog bed, so I did, with Bobo, the black Pomeranian, sitting on my lap.

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