Day Seventy: 8/2/08

I'll make this quick.

We're Armstrong and Glen without the moon.
Lewis and Clark without the entourage.
Shackleton without the freezing seas.
Marco Polo without the Silk Road.
Hudson without the promise of the Northwest Passage.

We are, of course, none of these things, yet all of of them. But, most importantly, we are done. PeterB and I rolled over the George Washington Bridge ahead of a storm front this morning, and we're camped out in Tribeca with our friend Rob.

I'm drained on a lot of levels right now. Substantial commentary will follow very soon.

Day Sixty-five: 7/28/08

There's not much to report as of late. We're currently hunkered down in Newark, New York, (not to be mistaken for Newark, New Jersey - although neither locale is very nice), somewhere between Rochester and Syracuse. We spent most of the past two days riding along the Erie Canal. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to ride for so long along what amounts to man-made ditch steeped in so much historical importance, because as we all know the Erie Canal played no small role in establishing New York City as an industrial and larger economic hub that it came to be. I told my twin brother, Brad, that I was riding along the canal last night and he reeled off the chorus of an old song learned in elementary school, the only line I remembered was, "....15 years down the Erie Canal", (although Brad remembered it as 16 years...).

We branched off from the canal route this afternoon and are now following a state bike route - the Bike 5 Route - that runs along state highways with nice shoulders to Albany. Once we get to Albany we're going to get on another state bike route: Bike Route 9 to the City,

We would have made more progress the past two days, but PeterB suffered from a fairly serious mechanical problem yesterday. His rear dérailleur cable snapped and reduced his gearing options to three gears. He rigged a pretty nice fix to keep him going the rest of the afternoon, but we stopped at the first town that had a bike shop, albeit the shop was closed as it was Sunday. Long story short was that we ended early yesterday and left late today because the bike shop didn't open until 10:00 am this morning. To add a bit more drama in the mix, we ran into a relative short but intense downpour that sapped a bitof our energy and spirits this afternoon. As a result we've vowed to regroup tonight,and get out of here early in the morning and pound out a lot of miles tomorrow. We'll definitely get past Syracuse, but I'm not sure after that.

Flickr is kind of screwy right now, so I couldn't upload any pictures as a result. I'll so so as soon as I can.

Day Sixty-three: 7/26/08

We're back in the USA. PeterB and I rode through nearly 300 miles of Ontario in less than three full days. Ontario was flat so high mileage days were the norm. We stayed at a provincial park last night. I met a family RV camping near us and wound up getting drunk with the father. He just kept handing me beers. Very cheap beers. It made for a rough morning today, but another century was in order.

We met three college-aged people - two girls and a guy - riding from Washington (state) to Burlington, Vermont. We rode with them for a couple of hours and chatted. Two days earlier we stopped and talked with a couple of girls riding west from NYC to Seattle. Both groups mentioned a story that we had been hearing in various forms since North Dakota, namely that there is a 70-something-year-old, recently widowed woman, (we've also heard a variation that involves two women riding together), who is riding across the country alone. We're always told that this woman/women are a day or two ahead or behind us. And we've heard this a few times since North Dakota. And we've never seen this mythical lady. The trio we met today added a wrinkle to this tale: according to them, they had met this woman two days earlier. I still don't believe it.

The group also claimed to have substantiated another bike touring urban legend. We had also heard a story for a quite while involving two older guys. One of the guy leaves their motel in the morning to start his ride, while the other guy stays a bit longer inside. Guy #2 has a heart attack, while guy #1 blissfully unaware of this tragic development rides along all day. Near the end of the day, the cops catch up with him and give him the bad news. Again, we had been told about this at least a month ago. But the three people we met today claimed to have met the unfortunate rider who's riding partner died, and they met him a few weeks ago. I can't and don't believe it.

We crossed over the border today at Niagara Falls. I had never seen the falls before, and it is a really impressive spectacle, especially from the Canadian side of the border, but it was a zoo around there, so we didn't stay around there for very long. Tomorrow we head to Lockport and start heading east along the Erie Canal toward Albany and then south through the Hudson Valley to the City, If things play out the way I think they may, we'll be done by the weekend.

Day Sixty-one: 7/24/08

*Note, this was drafted last night, so no anonymous commentary is necessary on the date issue....

We made up for lost time yesterday after our foul weather delay. PeterB and I cranked out 100+ miles and made it to the Canadian border. Along the way we ran into a group of a half-dozen college-aged guys heading west along the Northern Tier route. These were not the first people we've seen going west, but they were the first we'd actually talked to. They told us about the strong tailwinds we would get going through Ontario, as they had fought hard headwinds on the way through. Everything I've read about the route indicated that the winds were relatively light, which made me think these guys were going to be miserable once they hit the Dakotas and Montana. Now those were winds. Every other person we had seen riding west through that area, (and they were very rare), looked utterly beat down by the headwinds, and they had no desire to talk with us – who were riding the wind full bore the other way. I'll never understand why some people opt to ride though the Midwest from east to west....

We rode into Ontario on a ferry out of Marine City, Michigan. The river isn't so wide as to prohibit a bridge, but a number of ferries still operate up and down the river, which is nice. There's some romance in riding a ferry no matter how short the trip may be. I think the forced waiting makes the transit and the subsequent destination that much more meaningful. PeterB told the Canadian border agent that he was not carrying any mace with him when asked about it, even though he was, in fact, carrying some with him. Of course, we still got through without any problem. I told PeterB that I wasn't about to go to jail because of his lying ways next time.... (I've heard the Ontario jails are REALLY bad. They make Mexican prisons look like country clubs....)

The geography here is unbelievably flat. It makes Nebraska look downright mountainous. But that made for some really quick riding when we had a tailwind for about half the day. Ontario is, of course, almost indistinguishable from the U.S., but with some noteworthy exceptions. First, a lot of people really do use the non-word, “eh” quite a bit. It's such a bad stereotype, but it's true. Secondly, all distances are listed in kilometers which requires a bit of math in the head to figure them out, (1km=.62mi.!). Lastly, and perhaps this is the most important, the currency is all weird. It's a lot of different colors, and there's a liberal use of coin dollars, (the 'Loony”), and 2 dollar coins (the “Two-ny”). The use of both of these measures makes a lot of sense – as does the use of the metric system – but since we don't use it in America, it feels strange.

The people here are really friendly though – which was not the case in Michigan! PeterB left his wallet at a gas station 15 miles, (or 25km!), from the campground we're staying at. As soon as he realized that his wallet was missing when we arrived at the site, he dumped his stuff and headed back to hopefully find it. Meanwhile a woman who worked at the campsite scoured the phone book, found the gas station and confirmed that his wallet was there, and called her friends who were in a car nearby. The friends picked Peter up about 8 miles away from the campground, put his bike in their truck and gave him a lift to the gas station and back. And to think we're only about 90 miles from Detroit!

If the good weather holds – which it should for at least the next day or two – we'll be in Buffalo, New York on Saturday night or Sunday morning. At that point the plan is to break off from the mapped route we have, which takes us northeast into the Adirondacks, and forge our own route into the city. If everything goes well, we should be there by next weekend. That prospect makes me both very relieved and profoundly sad....

Day Fifty-nine: 7/22/08

T'was a short day today. We rolled out of Bay City this morning with our eye on reaching Cepac 90 miles to southeast, which would put us within 30 miles of the Canadian border. The Weather Channel was calling on a 60% chance of rain in the afternoon.

All morning we rode with a big front of clouds moving in behind us. We rode past some fields where cucumbers were being harvested. It smelled pretty damn good. We stopped in Caro for lunch and as we ate an ominous looking storm cell rolled in. I voted to take cover in town as there was nothing between Cairo and Cepac, and the last thing I wanted was to get stranded in a storm in the middle of nowhere. So we opted to get a cheap hotel room in town. Sure enough, a nasty storm - complete with hail - rolled through. It seems we made the right choice to stop.

So after eight weeks without riding through a drop of rain, it's been dealing with it for the past three or four days. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but be clear after that. We'll see if we can make some headway tomorrow.

Day Fifty-eight: 7/21/08

I dislike a handful of states. For the most part, I typically dislike a state for largely unfounded reasons. One of the states I have always disliked is Michigan. I have always had a negative impression of Michigan, despite never having spent any time there. I imagined Michigan as a bastion of urban decay and crappy weather. And now, having ridden through roughly 200 miles of the state today, I'm sad to report that my suspicions have largely proven themselves to be correct.

After the four hour ferry ride to Ludington, Michigan, PeterB and I were met with muggy and hot weather. We wound up camping at a site near the lake with a couple of guys - Michael and Steve - we hadn't seen since Rugby, ND. Unfortunately, the big thing to do on the weekends when you're from Ludington is to go to the campground with 30 of your friends with hundreds of beers and party until 4:00 when the cops show up because the last men standing decide to pick fights with one another. this all meant little to no sleep for us.

To make matters worse, the roads here are awful. They are by far the worst we've ridden. I understand that the state's economy is enduring a major slump,but these roads have not been maintained for a decade or more.

But more importantly, everything here feels odd. The towns are odd. The insects are odd. The people are odd.

Oh, and the University of Michigan Wolverines play in Ann Arbor. I can't stand them.

Good thing we'll be in Canada at some point on Wednesday.

Day Fifty-six: 7/19/08

PeterB and I are waiting at the boat terminal, waiting to board the SS Badger for a fun filled afternoon cruising across Lake Michigan. It's lightly raining outside, so we'll likely be holed up inside on the boat with everyone else. Someone told me the boat has Bingo on board and that "it's a lot of fun". Thankfully, there's also a bar on board. I'm not even sure how long the ride is....

At the risk of sounding about as provocative as a high school stoner, I'd like to let you in on a few things I've been mulling over during these seemingly endless hours in the saddle lately. I was talking with my friend, Sack, (clearly not his first name, but he's one of those mentor types so I can't call him by his first name), the other night about our latest travels through northern Wisconsin. I was telling him about how the trees seem to arch over the narrow roads as if they're trying to bridge the gap between them on either side of the road. Sack commented that if given 10 years without human intervention, they'd likely be able to do just that.

The underlying issue at play in conversation was one that I keep dwelling on lately; namely that the idea that humans have significant dominion over nature - an idea that I had pretty much tacitly accepted most of my life - is tenuous at best, or, at worst, entirely an illusion.

It's so easy to think that somehow we, (as in the collective "we"), have figured it out compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, while we fly down a ribbon of smooth asphalt, encased in two tons steel and plastic, with the AC cranked high and radio even higher. We can surf the information superhighway, (like I am now), and drink foamy coffee drinks from Starbucks five times a day. And nature always seems to be just on the other side of a shut window. And, to me, it's easy for me to see why anyone would think this way.

But the reality of the situation is that humans are fooling themselves if they think they control any of this world. The sun can bake us, rain can wash us out, wind can blow us over, and the rest of nature - the rest of the living creatures who have learned to live within the confines of the natural order, as opposed to control it as we do, will continue to go about their business all the same, even if our TVs never flicker on again, or we run out of coal to burn in our power plants. And at some point this will happen.

At the very least, I'm glad that I took this trip because I'm at least coming to grips with the idea that this land is vast - very vast - and largely uninhabited. NYC or LA are big places, but they are mere blips on a much larger radar screen. And that open space, full of flora and fauna, tries, quite successfully to reclaim the areas that we've bulldozed, drilled, and built on. So I'll appreciate the glass towers in the cities that much more now. Because I know that it's only a matter of time before the trees pull them down.

And that's the opening salvo in my unfolding manifesto. I have to get on the ferry.