In Which No Sex Takes Place

(Personal essay, published in AGNI 88)

1.
By the time middle schools finally resumed classes, three years of complete freedom had turned my cohort—who’d last sat in a fourth-grade classroom—into a herd of wild things. There was never a moment of quiet when we sat down at our desks. High-pitched talking mingled in the air with the low burr of voices, but a careful observer could see two parallel streams not crossing, as no dialogue took place between the girls and the boys.

The Cultural Revolution was entering its fourth year. Rampant violence had crested a year earlier, but there were still no books to read. Boys I didn’t much care about (not yet); they were just a species with shorter hair. But the dearth of books—that was like roasting my brain in a hot wok.

Continue to read my essay on AGNI's new website 

The Cremation

"It is better to have the first cremation of the day, my younger sister said, because the furnace is clean. It is better that the view of the furnace is blocked, she again said."

Read my flash nonfiction "The Cremation" in Brevity Magazine

Gifts from a Great Man

Today Bob and I attended Jay Forrester's memorial service at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord. Jay was the founder of System Dynamics and Bob's mentor at MIT. Jay was also the inventor of magnetic core memory—the earliest widely used computer memory. (See the great man's obituary in New York Times, which was written before his death, with his approval.)

Beyond all that, Jay had a much more personal impact on my life. Twenty nine years ago, Bob was teaching System Dynamics in Shanghai, and I was studying it in Chengdu. Our first encounter in spring 1987 thus was an unintended gift from Jay.

When Jay was a young inventor of computer memory (1951)

Who'd have thought that Jay, even after his death, would give me another surprise? Today's otherwise completely traditional service took one digression from beautiful Christian hymns: we all stood and sang "Home on the Range" with the church's choir. Jay's children said this was a song Jay loved, and wanted to be sung in his service. Bob was amazed that I, who didn't know the other songs, was utterly at home with this one. I don't know who the Chinese translator of its lyrics was, but in the 1970s, for many of us "zhi-qings" (also called "sent-down youths"), the song had accompanied and consoled our homesick hearts through long days and nights in the countryside far away from home.

My eyes were wet when I softly sang the Chinese words I remembered from my youth—words I was surprised to still remember after all these years—they mingled harmoniously with others' English rendition. The words and music are so dear, intimate, nostalgic, that I've lost the ability to judge the translation.

[Chinese] 草原上的家园

在草原上 野牛自由流浪
我愿 把草原当家园
这儿难得听到 诅咒和吵闹
黑云消失在天外远方

我家 在草原上
有小鹿和羚羊在游荡
这儿难得听到 诅咒和吵闹
黑云消失在天外远方

[English] Home on the Range (listen to it on YouTube)

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

Home, home on the range
Where the dear and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

A Few Anecdotes about My Hexagonal Pavilion

On its last day, let me end 2011 with a personal note.  After two laborious years, the hexagonal pavilion (六角亭) Bob and I started in September 2009 is finally finished (actually, I can only take credit for the inspiration, design and quality control; Bob is the one who built it):

To compare, here is a photo of it in the first winter:

From the beginning I racked my wits trying to come up with a good name for the pavilion. After many failed tries, the name arrived without effort. In December 2009, I emailed the above photo to a friend, Wang Yan, in China. He replied:

宋人当年每起一亭，必做文以记之，如“喜雨亭记”，“黄州快哉亭记”等，皆吾所爱。但最爱者，为苏东坡“超然台记”。

In translation:

In the Song Dynasty, whenever a pavilion was built, notes were written to record it.  I love such notes as those for "Happy Rain Pavilion," "Huangzhou Pleasure Pavilion," etc, but what I love the most is Su Dongpo's "Notes on the Terrace of Transcendence."

Terrace of Transcendence,  Shandong

I had forgotten all about it: The Terrace of Transcendence (超然台), in Shandong Province, was where the great Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo wrote his eternal verse "Bright Moon, When Was Your Birth" (明月几时有). (Some translate the poem title as "When Will the Moon Be Bright," which is clearly incorrect to me as the poem itself indicates that it was written during a full moon.)

The word "超然," besides "transcendence," can also be translated as "detachment,", "aloof," and so on.  "Transcendence" seems to fit our mood the best and, on reflection, it must be more than coincidence that we live in the area where the 19^th century "transcendental movement" originated.  It was sitting by Walden Pond one day in 2010, for example, that Bob wrote his letter of resignation to the company where he had worked for two decades. (Later, when discussing the pavilion name, I asked him, jokingly, what we are transcending, and he said, "The chaos of office politics." In that case, I “transcended” seven years earlier than him, when I quit my job as an algorithm developer with steady income and became a writer with two sleeves of clear wind (两袖清风). :-))

Looking back, my whole life seems to be a struggle between aspiration for some sort of transcendence and failure in achieving it. No matter.  Don't you know a classic Chinese saying, "Though unreachable, my heart longs" ("虽不能至，心向往之")?

Thus we settled on the name for our pavilion:  超然亭, or "The Pavilion of Transcendence."

The last touch to complete the construction requires an engraved plaque, or 匾 (bian), with the name inscribed.  I decided to use seal script (篆字) for the inscription, and easily found an on-line generator for the three characters. But the color combination for the background and the characters was a bit difficult to figure out, even with computer simulation.  I asked around for opinions among Chinese friends, but they were as varied as our own.  Alas, one friend convinced us that "only black characters on a wooden background would match the meaning of the words."

I sent the specification for the plaque to my sister and solicited her help to have it made in Shanghai. She took my request seriously.  A few days later, she wrote back (in translation):

At first I thought this would be simple, because on Puxi's Fuzhou Road there are all kinds of culture and art stores that make anything and everything. When I went to the store that made frames for my paintings, however, the wood-master who has worked on this 'culture street' for more than 30 years told me no store makes bian (匾). 

I didn't believe him, and walked through the entire Fuzhou Road to look. I found several engraving shops that make metal or plexiglass seals.  The workers, all young men in their 20s, had their mouths gasped in the shape of the question mark on hearing the word bian (匾), clueless as to what kind of thing it is. A nice young man called the storeowner for me. The owner asked, 'What is bian?'  I had no choice but say, 'It is a piece of wood engraved with words.' 'Aha,' he said, 'store sign!' I was speechless.  He then said if I provided a piece of wood he could engrave the words for me, 60 yuan a character.  Well, where do I go to find the wood?  Not to mention the wood for a bian requires certain machine processing.

I called directory information asking where to find a store that makes bian.  The operator was even more amazing. "Bian?" she said, 'you mean shoulder pole (bian dan 扁担)?'

I hadn't thought that Shanghai, the so-called international cosmopolitan center, would be so culturally ignorant.

I searched the internet with no results. An entire day was wasted.

The next day, my sister (who lives in Pudong) went to Puxi again and randomly looked around.  When she almost gave up, she ran into an auction store, above its door hanging an antique plaque with the inscription of "青莲阁," looking cultured.  She ran to the third floor asking if anyone knew where that plaque was made, and everyone thought her absurd. Fortunately she ran into a passerby, Mr. Dai, who said he knew which contractor made the plaque, and he helped to find their phone number. The very kind Mr. Dai also advised her that elm would be the best material for making a bian.

My sister then called the number Mr. Dai gave her, and found a Mr. Shen, who said he wasn't the right person and provided another number. Through that number my sister reached a Ms. Li, who told her to meet at a far place, nearly an hour's subway ride away. It turns out Ms. Li is a Fujian migrant worker in the business of antique imitation. My sister had finally found someone who is not a Shanghaies and knows what a bian 匾is.

And certainly, the bian is made of elm, just as Mr. Dai advised:

I can't wait to hang it up on the pavilion next spring.

Btw, Bob is writing a series of posts on the process of building this beautiful monster.  His first post is already up here.

My Own "9/11" Complex

... reposting a personal essay from three years ago.  

The Camphor Suitcase

(Published in Literal Latte, 2008)

In the recent Year of the Snake — I remember because it's my daughter's sign — the image of a maroon suitcase made of camphor wood began to follow me like a phantom. It became most vivid in the dusk as I drove home from work, when my mind was free from corporate politics and daily domestic troubles. Along the road from Newton to Wayland, the famous New England autumn painted my windshield with shifting hues of golden red, dark red, light yellow, bright yellow, eclipsing shades of green and other unnameable colors. For me, born in southwest China, New England’s icy five-month winter imposes an unjust imprisonment; spring is practically non-existent; summer plays the double role of benefactor and spoiler; only the brilliant and solemn autumn calms my soul. But it failed me that year.

I hadn’t set eyes on the camphor suitcase for 13 years. (>>read the complete essay here)

Ba Manzi's Tomb

It was reported that, early this month, the Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing was reopened to the public ("for free"), after being closed for more than a decade.  This news bears certain intimacy to me because, I suspect, Ba Manzi's blood once steeped deep in my mother's veins.

During China's Warring State Period (475-221BC), Ba Manzi was a general commanding the Ba Kingdom's army. This small kingdom was caught in a civil strife that its tiny army was unable to quell. Manzi turned for help to Chu, a much bigger neighboring kingdom, and offered Chu three towns to restore order. Chu’s army came to Ba and quelled the internecine war, at which point Chu’s king sent an envoy to receive the three promised towns. Manzi said to the envoy, “My head may be given, our land may not. Because I can’t give you our land, to keep my promise I’ll give you my head.” He drew out his sword and cut off his own head. All were shocked. The envoy brought Ba Manzi’s head back to the King of Chu. The king was so moved that he held a grand burial for the head, while the Kingdom of Ba gave an equally grand burial to the body. The three towns of Ba stayed intact.

Thus Ba Manzi's head and body were buried in separate locations. However, Huayang Guozhi (《华阳国志》), the ancient book that recorded the story, does not say exactly where. Experts say the Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing does not contain his remains; it could contain just clothing, or could be empty. Why such an empty tomb is in Chongqing, who built it and when, is one of numerous puzzles in China's history.

My mother shares the hometown, now the Zhong County (忠县), with Ba Manzi. The place, a few hundred miles downstream from Chongqing, was the ancestral land of the Ba tribe that mysteriously vanished some two thousand years ago. It was an improbable chance of literacy that brought my mother, the daughter and only surviving child of poor peasants, to learn the story of Ba Manzi at age thirteen. For two thousand years until the 1949 liberation, in each spring, on the third day of the third moon of the Old Calendar, Zhong County held a grand temple fair called “third moon festival” to commemorate Ba Manzi.  As a middle school student in the early 1940s, my mother danced and sang and paraded in each year’s “third moon festive." Since then, Ba Manzi's patriotic, self-sacrificing heroism has never lost its vitality for her. I suspect her drive to join the underground Communists before the liberation and risk her life for a cause that later proved vain, that brought her life-long pain, had something to do with Ba Manzi's spirit. On the other hand, her illiterate mother, my grandma who we called Gaga, who knew nothing of heroes beyond cats, water buffaloes and mythical rhinoceroses, lived a relatively more contented life of 95 years. Gaga was born in the same year as Mao – 1893, but out-lived Mao for a full cycle of twelve Earthly Branch years.

My mother is sure that her ancestors were native Zhong County inhabitants ever since Pangu separated the sky and earth from chaos, because in her youth she had read her family genealogical chart. "It contains eight generations of my ancestors, all in Gingko Bay village," she once told me. When the Chinese say "eight generations," it does not mean eight; it means all. If this is the case, then I'm fairly confident my mother is a descendant of the Ba tribe, the valiant, dance-love ancients who forged bronze swords along the Yangtze and buried their dead in boat-coffins hanging on high cliffs above the gorges.

In February 2009, I revisited the Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing. It had become a forgotten, dilapidated, dark basement of the commercial world. Though its name was on the tourist map, few residents along the street knew about its exact location, and I had to ask many people to eventually find its obscured entrance. Down a flight of wide stone steps piled with furniture supplies, the tomb front had turned into an unauthorized storage room for a retail store. Another, fancier furniture store sat on top of the tomb. I asked a store worker if he worried about the government's punishment for occupying the site of a cultural relic, he said no, during the several years he worked next door to the tomb, he had seen occasional tourists, even foreigners, but no government people. That's why they had unscrupulously piled their furniture supplies, blocking the sight of it.

The Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing (February 2009)

in front of the tomb (Feb. 2009)

on the tomb's top (Feb. 2009)

Now, why did the Chongqing government suddenly remember it? Is it because Bo Xilai needed another teachable instrument for heroism and patriotism?

That's beyond me at this moment, as I'm fascinated by something else: it just occurred to me that my father's lineage has an almost opposite nature, almost anti-heroism, from that of my mother's.

The Chinese say marriage is the combination of yin and yang, in which the woman possesses the softness of yin and the man the power of yang.  In my upbringing, however, it had always seemed to us children that our mother was the yang element. This is to say, while we grew up, the family's roof had been pillared by our mother, not father. I wonder if my father's soft personality has to do with his ancient heritage.

Next time I'll tell you the fascinating story of my father's ancestry, one that he himself might not be aware of. 

Standing Water: "Not the Town’s Problem"

It was sunny while I was in Scotland in mid March. Everyone said it always rained in Edinburgh, but not on me. Only when Bob phoned from home that I heard about rain, and lots of it. He was in the basement of our house, pumping out water everyday.

Now it is April 1st, and the water is there again, and more. We are not alone, we have lots of neighbors with flooded basements and flooded yards, roads are closed, dams have burst. Even our tax filing deadline has been extended because of the flood. We just keep pumping and getting soaked.

Yesterday, the skies opened and it was possible to go outside. In our yard, the standing water formed little lakes (see photo below, taken today). Bob tried to figure out where it spread to. Hopping on his bike, he took a ride to the street corner across from our yard. There he found a little stream running down a road, through a culvert, and into a forest. Following the road, it became clear where the stream wanted to go: a massive wetland on the other side of Rt. 30. But the highway blocked that and the water had no place to go. So the water spills up onto the road and also back to our yard, all the way to our basement.

I finally called our town's Conservation Department yesterday, hoping they would know about streams and, in our case, unwanted little lakes. This was the first time I've ever called the town for help during our 12 years living here. The nice lady there couldn't really understand my question, but she called back in the afternoon, directing us to the Highway Department.

So, here's a rough rendition of Bob's conversation with the Highway Department this morning:

Bob: "There is a stream that runs through a culvert then hits route 30, thus the water on the road. It looks like the highway is blocking the water flow. Could you do something about it?"

Highway Department: "No. The water runs into a retaining area and that is overflowing."

Bob: “Isn’t there a culvert under Route 30?”

Highway Department: “No.”

Bob: "Shouldn’t there be?"

Highway Department: "Not the town’s problem."

Bob: “So who is responsible?”

Highway Department: “Nobody, it is what it is.”

Bob: “Would it be possible to pump the water across the highway?”

Highway Department: “Absolutely Not.”

I would not be surprised if I heard a bureaucrat talking like this in China. But this is Massachusetts, USA. I guess my two countries have more in common than I think.

Update:  Apparently Obama was in our neighborhood today for the flood. 

Where and What to Eat for Chinese New Year

Today is the lunar New Year's Eve and tomorrow starts the year of the Tiger. It is the Chinese tradition to have a great feast today (and for three contiguous days) to celebrate. If you are in the great Boston area, I recommend two restaurants that are the best for Sichuan cuisine:

• Red Pepper (重庆食府), (508) 620-9998, 17 Edgell Road, Framingham, MA (off Rt. 9)
• Chili Garden (川王府), (781) 396-8488, 41 Riverside Ave, Medford, MA

We are going with a bunch of friends to one of them. Can't wait!

One of the must-have traditional New Year dishes is smoked pork (腊肉). The restaurants above smoke the pork themselves to make this wonderful dish and it tastes great. Also, when you go to any Chinese restaurant, don't forget to ask if they have sweet-rice balls (汤圆), a must-have dessert to celebrate the New Year. Not every Chinese restaurant offers it, but good ones should.

 

smoked pork 

sweet-rice balls in rice-wine

四川凉粉 (Sichuan's cold rice noodles)

By the way, my old townsfolk in Chongqing believe a Tiger Year will be severe. I don't think the young generation would buy that. Apparently the older generations have a more pessimistic world view.

Among all the Tiger Years I have lived through, the one that stands out is 1974.  In January that year I finished high school, without any graduation ceremony. In May I was sent down to the countryside as an "insert," and labored in the fields with peasants for nearly four years, until universities re-started in spring 1978.  Life was really harsh in the countryside. But unlike many of my peers, I don't resent that time. I treasure that experience; it opened my eyes to the reality of how people at the bottom of society lived. One of the stories in my book Apologies Forthcoming, "Disciple of the Masses," has parts based on my own experience. Check it out.

Happy New Year everyone!

Hot Peppers for Thanksgiving

Monday night Bob and I had dinner with Jonathan Tel, author of The Beijing of Possibilities, in a Chinese restaurant named Chili Garden (川王府). This is one of the few truly authentic sources of Sichuan cuisine in the Boston area. (Numerous Chinese restaurants here advertise themselves as Sichuan, but provide only dishes catered to American eaters who don't know what they are getting.)  Another authentic Sichuan cuisine is Red Pepper (重庆食府) on Rt. 9, which we go to most frequently, because it has a great Chongqing chef and is closer to us.  Chili Garden and Red Pepper have different specialties and varieties; the dishes in both restaurants are mouth-watering. Not surprisingly, many of their dishes are cooked with hot peppers as the dominant spice. Try them for Thanksgiving if you want to go for something non-traditional.

  A Chengdu restaurant prepares hot peppers for lunch (photo by Xujun)

I had thought I was pretty knowledgeable about Sichuan's, especially Chongqing's, history. So much for my conceit.  One thing Jonathan mentioned during dinner surprised me: he said all chili peppers came from South America, and the Chinese history of eating chili peppers is only about three to four hundred years old.

I was suspicious; in my mind we Sichuanese had been eating hot peppers since time immemorial. Digging further after returning home, however, I had to admit Jonathan was right. Apparently, chili peppers migrated into China at the end of the 16^th century, and the first written record of them was found in Ming Dynasty's '草花谱' ("grass and flower album"). They were called 番椒 ("fan jiao," meaning "foreign pepper") at the time. In Sichuan we call hot peppers 海椒 ("hai jiao"), which makes perfect sense to me now because 'hai' in this context means "overseas."

It seems only appropriate to have a post about food today. Tomorrow, for our vegetarian daughter's sake we are going to have a turkey-free Thanksgiving dinner. While Bob is going to cook all those traditional veggy dishes such as cranberries, sweet potatoes and beans, I will cook a Tofu dish spiced with chili pepper. Not your traditional Thanksgiving dish, but neither the turkey nor the chili pepper tradition has been going that long after all. The White House's hypocritical tradition of pardoning one turkey (and eating another) is even shorter. Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

He's Arrived!

Bike Travelogue: the 22nd (and final) day, Santa Fe to Albuquerque NM 73 Miles

by Bob Eberlein

July 25, Santa Fe, NM – It is cool, but not cold this morning. I consider putting on a sweatshirt but am quite confident that being a little bit cold for a little while will be a nice contrast to the rest of the day. The road starts out as a big urban street – lots more motels go by so I was just at the beginning of that. The road is downhill, and I can cruise along. The stop lights are a little bit annoying but there is not too much traffic so I make good time. Once I pass Interstate 25 route 15 turns into a normal and relatively pleasant road with a generous shoulder and very little traffic.

It is still downhill, and I am making great time. I wonder if I can just coast to Albuquerque. The road ahead is perfectly straight and downhill, but header toward mountains. I begin to doubt that I will simply be able to coast. The road is going south, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what it will do when it hits the hills. Perhaps I am losing my touch, but I do enjoy a road that presents a mystery. I am heading south.

Eventually the mystery begins to resolve as I head into the hills and turn a little bit to the west. I will be going over these mountains; I guess it could be a challenge. But it starts as relatively short ups and downs, with some interesting vistas and one really great rock formation. I am definitely in a dry area that used to have an active river.

cool rock formations

After a time a come to the town of Madrid and it seems like a good time for second breakfast. Unfortunately I don’t see anything that looks like a store. There is a little café, but the people around make me a little uncomfortable. On reflection that is pretty strange, but this was like being blown back to the early 70s. I felt like a kid again surrounded by adults who had chosen a different lifestyle from that normally pursued. Madrid seems to be an odd artists Mecca. Perhaps it will turn into another Taos.

As it happens, it does have a hill climb that is pretty similar to what Taos boasts on either the High Road to Taos or the pass to Cimarron. Unfortunately the climb starts too low, and does not get high enough to make it a delightful mountain ride. Still, there is significant elevation gain and this does help to keep the temperature down, so the ride it not too uncomfortable. I pass a few cyclists going in the other direction – no packs just day riders.

the climb ahead

Having missed my second breakfast in Madrid I stop to down a little bit of water and a few cookies to keep up my strength, or perhaps spirits, on the grinding climb. It is daunting, partly because so much of it is visible from the bottom. But, like any climb, it eventually ends. At the top I try my cell phone on a whim and it actually has a signal. Amazed I call Xujun to tell her I am at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, or fortunately since I am just standing in the sun, I did not charge my battery last night and it is twirping out. Actually, this explains the odd noise I kept hearing which I thought was a strange bird.

There is a short steep descent, but for the most part the road continues along a high ridge roughly level. I just keep going until I get to a really spread out set of housing developments below what is clearly a ski resort. I don’t know if these are ski condos or just houses but there is no town, just the development. It is all kind of strange to me.

The road starts to climb slowly, but a big tail wind has kicked up so instead of going really slow, I simply go slow. I just plug along, feeling pretty hungry and hoping something like a store will appear. The road gets bigger and more cyclists appear. They seem very little interested in me, oh well. Eventually I do find a gas station store combo and buy a quart of chocolate milk. It tastes wonderful. The store is really busy, I guess it is the only thing around. Lots more cyclists ride by in both directions.

From there the road gets bigger and bigger. Usually there is a decent shoulder, so the riding is not bad, but the whole thing feels a little bit yuppie surreal. There are lots of cyclists, but this is not really the nice part of the road to be riding on. A couple pass me and say hello, but are only mildly curious about what I am up to.

Route 14 finally ends and this is where I am pretty sure there is a road that follows I-40 even though it does not show up on my map. It turns out to be NM 335 and is also marked bicycle route 66, which eventually becomes historic US 66. This road is basically downhill into Albuquerque, but now a big headwind has kicked up so I only make a moderate pace. More cyclists pass me in both directions.

The road is not really very interesting, and I reflect how much more fun it is to ride around the Boston area than it would be to ride around here. There are, however, probably lots more riding days here. Which one works better? Boston seems clear to me. These roads are too big with too much traffic. Plus it is a desert.

Eventually this road turns into historic US 66 which is an incredibly straight road that runs downhill about 10 miles from the outskirts of Albuquerque to the center of town. I stop at a Carl’s Junior for my final on the road fast food and all the root beer I can drink meal. It is a little bit too soon after my Chocolate milk and I have trouble finishing my hamburger. Still, it is a nice cap to the trip.

From there it is just down the long straight hill. Lots of traffic, stop lights, entering cars and similar obstacles. There are three lanes in my direction with no shoulder so I ride in the middle of the right lane. I decide to stop the stupid drivers, of which there seems to be no shortage, from passing too close. It works, and nobody seems to get mad at me so while they may be bad drivers, they are nice bad drivers.

The road is lined with miles of motels. The going rate seems to be 29.95 per day, though that may require a weekly rental. I am amused by all of this and also by the destruction of the Economy Motel on the left of the street. Still, for all its run down appearance there are not that many places that seem to be out of business. It just looks like business has never been that good.

I finally reach Rio Grande Blvd and call ahead so that Roberta and Robin can get a picture of me as I ride up to the hotel. There they are, a final photo op.

I started on July 4, the same day as the Tour de France, but they still have a day to go, and still will not go as far as I have. I look at the times and have to laugh – 81 hours, I can do way better than that, why I must have at least 200 under my belt by now. Gosh, I’m as good as a whole team. Still I will follow the end – it looks like Lance Armstrong has been a good team player and will help Alberto Contador to victory.

I am off the road, and into real life mode again. Or maybe not, I am writing this in a Laundromat as I wait for my clothes to dry. Who knows what tomorrow holds.

Total Distance 2425 miles. Average daily 110, riding daily 116.

Bike Travelogue: the 21st Day

bike sculptures in Taos, NM (photo by Bob)

Taos-10 to Santa Fe NM 87 Miles

by Bob Eberlein

Taos-10, NM – Having gone to bed tired, cold and downtrodden I wake up early in the morning. No email to catch up on, but I do complete my log for the day before. As light begins to filter into the sky I get up to have breakfast. I only have 4 pieces of bread left so decide to make it peanut butter and jam for breakfast in order to push me further into the day. Since I am at a campsite with a picnic table I take advantage of it and have my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in style.

Next I start to look at the bike. I pull off the rear panniers and put out the cover to my tent to catch any loose bearings. Then I pull of the crank arms to inspect. I discover I do not have the tool to pull the bottom bracket so make do with looking. The bearing unit has fallen apart. The thin metal guide which holds the bearings in position has fallen out and the bearings are not in that any more. It looks pretty bad, all in all. I can pack the remaining ball bearings into the race and they seem to stay, though there are not nearly enough to fill the unit. I do this, put in the bearing shield which has also fallen out to hold them in place then roll up some electrical tape and pack that around the shield. To keep it all in place I wrap the whole bottom bracket with several layers of electrical tape, and put the cranks back on.

This is not a pretty solution, but it seems to be viable. I am pretty sure I can make it to Taos, but I am not hopeful of finding a bike shop there. I wash my hands with water from the stream, pack up camp, pay the $5 fee to the US Forest Service and limp out onto the road.

Fortunately the road from my campsite to town continues to be downhill. I eventually pass out of the mountains into an area that could almost be suburban Boston except for the Adobe buildings. A woman out for a morning walk says hello to me. I continue into town. My bike randomly shifts gears as the chain drops from one chainwheel onto the next when the peddles wobble. I get to an intersection with a coffee shop and see a man with a bike drinking coffee. I ask him if he is from around here, and if he knows whether there is a bike shop. He says he is, and that there are two. One is just down the street we are on, and another about a mile down a parallel street. He says he thinks the nearby one opens at 9:30 and the further one at 10. He also says the one further away has better mechanics.

It is still only about 7:30 but I decide to check out the shops. I go to the nearby one, which is on the left. Even at this time of day there is so much traffic it is hard to cross the street. Eventually I do, it is a big place, opens at 9:30, and looks like it will work. I sit down in front of it and get my computer out to catch up on email and call Xujun.

After looking at my email it is still early so I decide to check out the other bike shop. I use Google maps to figure out the location, though the instructions I got at the coffee shop turn out to be right. I ride toward it and notice a McDonald’s at Taos, one of those rare McDonald’s that tries to blend with the local character, and figure I will come back for some more breakfast.

The second bike shop Taos Cyclery is where it should be. Smaller than the first, the sign on the door says it opens at 9. That clinches it for me. I decide to forget about food and sit down to wait. The shop is in a small plaza and there is an electrical outlet by one of the stores so I plug myself in. About 8:40 somebody rides up and unlocks the door. I ask him if they will open soon and he says 9. Ten minutes later he is back though, and I head on in.

I pull all my packs off the bike and my mechanic, whose name I never learned, puts it up on the stand and pulls off the cranks. He has a bottom bracket the right size so it is just a matter of getting the old one off, and the new one on. That turns out to take a while.

They do not have the tool to remove the bottom bracket; it is smaller than the standard. We resort to tapping it out with a screwdriver but it just breaks up the part. I try a Vise Grips, but only have the same effect. I am almost ready to give in to despair, but eventually Doug, the owner, comes over and explains we are trying to tighten not loosen the thing. That is helpful info, and pretty soon we do manage to get the old one out.

Putting the new one in starts out smoothly, but once it is in the crank is hitting the bike frame. This requires a spacer and the adaptation of the retaining bracket so that it will thread into the frame. That takes a while, but it does work.

In the meantime somebody has come in flaunting TGIFFF burritos. I couldn’t figure out what the last two FFs are all about but say I would love one. He says it is chicken but is seemed to have bacon, eggs and a whole bunch of other stuff in it. It is good, I guess, but seems to require a cast iron stomach. Anyway, it serves as my second breakfast and lunch combined.

I go to the store to get some batteries for my camera, and also a loaf of bread. Come back and get some pictures of the bike shop.

I go over a map with Doug who tells me the straight shot to Santa Fe is a narrow busy road and that I should take what is known locally as the High Road to Taos (even though I am starting in Taos). He also says that Espanola is worth avoiding. Advice I would not take from the Wal-Mart bicycle guy I do take from Doug. And so I set off for the high road.

Only a block from the store there is a thunking every time I pedal. All this work and just trouble, I think to myself. I take a closer look and it turns out one of the bolts holding the small chain-ring is loose. An easy fix. I pull out my allen keys and tighten it up, and I am off.

Doug described a 5 mile climb to start the high road, and reality does not disappoint. It is getting warm as the sun comes out but as I climb the air cools so it is not so hot. The big problem is flies. I am going so slowly that the horseflies act as if I am standing still. The horseflies are more annoying because they bite. There is nothing to be done but wave at them, sometimes I wish I had a tail.

The road goes up and the mountains are beautiful, with a great vista looking back toward Taos. After that there is a descent, and I find some chocolate milk for a mid day snack, since the burrito took care of lunch. Food is followed by a brutal section of up and down riding. This is very much like New York, except the uphills seem steeper and the descents do not require as much braking. I am not sure what to make of that.

Eventually I come to what I can only describe as the edge of the desert. There is a very long, and very steep descent from the beautiful mountains to the scrub brush desert below. It is so steep that I hold the brakes tightly and creep my way down the hills. I get to the turnoff that will allow me to avoid Espanola and take it. But the road quickly turns tiny, and begins a difficult, and seemingly purposeless, climb. I decide to go back to the main road and deal with Espanola.

There is, however, a second chance. This time the road that avoids Espanola is recommended by a sign about the High Road to Taos and it looks like a more respectable road. With the exception of the odd cattle gate, indeed it is. After one more hard climb heading south I hit the road to the west and get to easier riding, that eventually takes me out to the main highway into Santa Fe.

I stop for dinner and rehydration. The cool of the mountains has given way to the heat of the desert and I am thirsty. It is only about 14 miles into Santa Fe and that seems like an easy ride to me so I set out. I climb for the next 10 miles. Most of it is not steep, but it is slow going and it takes a long time. By the time I reach Santa Fe the light is starting to fade. It is not getting dark yet, but soon will be and is later than I like to ride. I find a motel on the road and check in for the night. Not too impressive, but it will hold me.

Following Santa Fe Trail to National Forest

Trinidad, CO to Taos-10, NM 110 Miles

– bike travelogue by Bob Eberlein

Trinidad, CO – Even though I felt exhausted yesterday, I still get up early, work on email and am on the road a little bit after 6:30. Last night I had planned my clever route from Trinidad to Raton NM that would avoid the interstate. Using Google maps I figured out a path that required only two crossings from one road to a nearby disconnected road. I have a long list of instructions, and it starts by following Santa Fe Trail drive. This I do, the road is a residential road, but also it is clearly the old highway. After a while it runs right beside Interstate 25 and I can see a sign on I-25 saying caution bicycles next 10 miles. This leads me to conclude that it would be okay to ride on the interstate. Another sign, shortly afterward, on the road I am on saying No Outlet leads me to believe my route may not work anyway.

Santa Fe Trail (photo by Bob)

Nonetheless, I continue to follow the road I am on. Stubborn persistence is a quality I have always had. After a while it turns into gravel, but not too bad gravel, and then it just sort of peters out. I can see something that looks like it might be this road up ahead but no obvious way to get there. I am right beside the Interstate at this point and there are no barriers. I put on my running shoes and walk across the field, then the northbound lanes, then the southbound lanes and I am on the shoulder of I-25 headed south. All this happens without a car passing. The road is not busy this time on a Thursday morning.

As far as Interstates goes I-25 is actually somewhat deficient. Rather than a full lane width shoulder it has been built with a guardrail and a half lane shoulder. Thus it is still pretty annoying to have to deal with trucks passing, though this happens only a few times and they are going slower and slower.

The trucks are going slower and slower because the highway is going across Raton pass, about 7800 feet. So I just put it in a low gear and grind along, much like the trucks but much more impressively slow. The hill goes on for a long time, but eventually I get to the top, and get welcomed to New Mexico. Not a very impressive sign, but I still take a picture of it.

The descent is too steep to just let go so I ride the brakes for a mile and a bit. After that the grade lessens and I can just coast down. I come to a much nicer welcome to New Mexico sign and take a picture of that. Two young women are doing the same and running around giggling.

I take the first New Mexico exit into the town of Raton, which is actually just an exit onto the old highway. This road has no traffic and I ride it into town. Raton is full of no especially nice looking motels and has a little downtown that looks nice, but not special. I am not sure what its claim to fame is but I expect it is mostly tourists who want cheap places to stay.

I stop at a supermarket to get some bakery and milk. There is a bench outside that is clearly for smokers, but as no one is around I sit down on it to eat my second breakfast. Just after doing this two people come along who look, if not homeless, then at least indigent. One of them is smoking so I get up to move, but the other says stay and I don’t want to be completely insulting to them. I stay for a bit and eat. One says he has a bike but needs to get it fixed, and the other says there is a bike shop in Trinidad. “Maybe I’ll take my truck and go up there” says the first. It is not clear if he really has a truck. While the two seem to know the people around who pass by and say hello, the one sitting beside me asks if I have any spare change as I make to leave. The wind has shifted and the cigarette smoke is blowing my way.

I ride across the highway to finish breakfast under a tree. I check and there is a cell phone signal – what a surprise. After breakfast I get back on the road and make for Cimaron, where I plan to stop for lunch. The ride is actually much like Colorado was though I do end up chasing 3 deer. As I come up on them they panic and start to run. Because there are fences on both sides of the road they are hemmed in. I am a little bit surprised they can’t jump the fence, but they are small deer. Eventually they get bored running away and when I am even with them run the other way. This happens once with one deer, and a second time with two deer. The second time one of the deer actually managed to get through the fence by squeezing between the wires.

Fortunately, none of this caused an accident, though it was a little close as they would run back and forth across the road. A little later I came across a recently killed deer, at least this was not on my conscious.

I was expecting Cimarron to have some fast food places to eat but it is a more rustic town and does not have any brand names showing. I go into a restaurant that looks small in front but is huge behind. I sit down in a booth and order a sandwich. The waitress is polite, but hardly warm. I ask for lots and lots of water and she brings me a glass which she dutifully, but reluctantly, refills several times.

The food is actually not that good, and the service is annoying. At a fast food place I refill my drink when I want to and don’t get these funny sidelong looks from the wait staff as I work on my computer. Somehow, the romantic image of the local café is fading from my mind. Perhaps it is just the voracious thirst of the road that does this, or perhaps eating alone is a very different experience than with a group of people.

Cimarron claims to be the gateway between the planes and the mountains and it turns out to be a true claim. After I leave town I begin to climb and soon am following a small river up into the mountains. It is a long, about 15 mile, hill climb, but it is absolutely delightful. I move slowly and revel in the sounds of the river and the smells of the trees and forest that surrounds it. Eventually I come to a big open meadow and there are a whole bunch of summer houses around. If not for all the houses, it would be an absolutely delightful place to summer.

Eventually the road diverges from the river and goes up a switchback to a pass. At the top of that I can see Eagle Nest Lake below me. This claims to be the best trout lake in New Mexico, though I think it is a created lake and not natural. It sits in a broad alpine valley at about 8000 feet. Eagle Nest Lake is also where I intend to stop for food so I head down the road into town.

Eagle Nest Lake, the town, is there only to support the people who come to the lake to catch the trout. It has small motels and such, but I really don’t like it. I go to get some milk and some guy wants to tell me how bad the bike he got at Wal-Mart is and how the drivers in Esponosa are terrible. The whole conversation seems kind of odd and I run away to drink my milk and eat my leftover second breakfast in peace. It is cold, and I put on a sweatshirt.

The road from there runs along the broad valley and the wind has kicked up into my face. Frustrated, and more tired than I thought I would be, I sit down on the side of the road to see if I can get a signal for email. I can, though it is weak. I check email and then continue on.

My original plan was to get to Agua Fria and then camp down in the National Forest that follows. But looking more closely at a map I see there is a mountain pass just after that and don’t feel I have the energy to do that. So I decide to just find a place to camp down. I ride along and fail to do so and find myself climbing the mountain pass. Oh well, I continue along. It is just two miles of switchbacks and I am at the top. It is late in the day but there is plenty of light. I get to the top, 9010 feet, and try to take a picture, but my batteries are dead and the camera refuses to let me.

Frustrated I begin my descent, I don’t want to camp too high up as I suspect I will be cold. After a while I stop to put on another sweatshirt, then continue descending. It is generally a pretty easy descent so I just let the bike go and enjoy watching the mile signs go by. I come to an organized campground and check it out but it is designed for RVs and does not look attractive. I decide to just find a spot off the road but as I descend everywhere becomes houses. I am pretty sure I am in a National Forest, but apparently it is a well inhabited one.

As I am peddling on one of the short flat stretches my crank makes a funny noise and I look down to see that the bearings are falling out. The crank started a little bit loose, and has been getting worse, but I thought it would continue to wobble along. I was wrong. I need to pull it apart and see if I can convince it to take me on for another couple of days. If not, I will be hitchhiking.

I want to try to repair things in the morning but I can’t stop where I am. I put on my running shoes and push the bike through the flats then coast. I am afraid if I pedal all the bearings will fall out and I will have nothing to work with when I try to repair it in the morning. Eventually I come to an official National Forest campground and settle for the night. Not surprisingly, there are no cell signals at all here. I will not be able to communicate tonight.

I am very close to the road, but also right beside a stream. The sound of the stream drowns out the road noise and makes for a pleasant sleep. Tomorrow I will have to see if I can get my bike to work again.

110 miles today.

"Maps and reality don’t always match up"

(Bob's bike travelogue continues from yesterday's post "Western Kansas is so refreshing!" This one is from Colorado, some 2000 miles from home.)

"Welcome to colorful Colorado"

Lamar to Trinidad CO 137 Miles

by Bob Eberlein

Lamar, CO – I get up early, and have my jam and bread for breakfast. I still have a little bit of leftover chocolate milk and this poured over ice is a nice variation from water. Outside is cool enough for a sweatshirt; Lamar is about 4000 feet so it gets a little colder at night. It is a little after 6 when I get on the road, and it is a very big road. I am not sure how it got so big, as I thought I was basically in the middle of nowhere. But big it is, and mostly trucks at this time of the morning.

By whatever process the road got so big, it gets small by intersecting with an interstate onto which most of the trucks disappear. So I am back to a pretty ordinary road with a decent, but gravel strewn, shoulder. The land is actually not that much different from Kansas, pretty flat with some extended up and downs. The wind, out of the north, has been shifting around to the south. The complete reversal is surprising to me, but I guess there are no big bodies of water to give any consistency to the day’s winds up here.

Santa Fe Trail

I stop in Las Animas for second breakfast then continue on with only about 20 miles to go before my planned lunch. Too short, I know, but it seems better than too long. Lunch is early at La Junta and it has turned warm so I tank up on liquid at a Carl’s Junior. I take my time catching up on email in the restaurant and move out. It is 80 miles to Trinidad and that seems too far so I plan to just ride and then stop when I feel like it. I am getting tired of having to make all these goals, feeling a need to relax.

On the map the ride from La Junta to Trinidad looks pretty pleasant. There is a river and a railway and we just follow upstream along what I hope will turn into a nice river value. Little towns dot the route. This is the Santa Fe Trail and that will also be fun.

Maps and reality, of course, don’t always match up and that is definitely the case here. The terrain out here is interesting. It starts out very plains like and slowly, on the horizon, mountains emerge. I love watching the clouds on the edge of the earth and seeing if any turn out to be mountains. This is, of course, what the people traveling the Santa Fe Trail would have been doing, and I am moving much faster than them. Traffic is light and the road is narrow and straight.

Of course the interesting terrain is only one part of the experience. The road runs through scrub brush and dry grasslands. On each side of the road is a low barb wire fence, and there are railway tracks on the right. The towns that dot the route are, at best, a few broken down houses and there are actually only two of those. The rest are either abandoned or apparently did not ever exist. The sun is high in the sky.

I had planned to stop for lunch along the road but there is no place to stop, no trees to seek shade under. I finally come to a few trees by the roadside with a gravel access area and pull over. It smells like drivers have been doing their duty here from time to time, there are flies, and there are mosquitoes. The poop and flies I understand, this is what I would find at similar spots in the Mediterranean and the two go hand in hand. The mosquitoes are a bit of a puzzle, for there is no water in sight.

I eat a few cookies, snatch down some water and move on. There are consistent markers along the side of the road. They started at 72, with 79 miles to Trinidad. So I know how far till the road ends. At mile 27 there should be a town. I clamp down and just ride. The road never changes. It is not really hot, but it is warm and the water in my bottles does not taste great. I count down the miles till 27, and before I hit 28 there is a sign for a town. Off the road is a building that looks like it might not be abandoned, then again maybe it is. There is also a house just ahead. I go to the house to try to get water. No one answers the door but there is a hose in the front yard and I fill my water bottles from it. The water tastes awful.

I continue on, now knowing that I really do need to make it to Trinidad. I am hot and thirsty and my feet hurt but I press on. There is no pleasant place to stop and finally, as the afternoon wears on, I lean my bike against a post and hide in the shadow it casts. It is not much, but it is better than the open road. I eat a few more cookies and drink some water then move on.

There is a military training ground off to the side of the road and signs elsewhere saying that land is not for sale. Apparently the army wants to expand the facility. I continue along and see a big building down a road. It seems like a factory in the middle of nowhere and I am puzzled. It turns out it is a prison, a good location for that.

Finally my milestones go under 10. I am counting each of them carefully, just trying to get to the next one. The road finally emerges into land that is cultivated. There are irrigation ditches and now there are trees. At this point I am tempted to just stop under the trees and fall asleep. The shadows they cast from the low sun are completely refreshing. 4, 3, 2, 1 and finally the highway I am on ends. Now I know there are 7 more miles, but I hope something will appear sooner.

My hopes are never met, the road just continues to wind on. More ups and downs, some of the downhills pretty big, and I just let the bike go, numb to the exhilaration. Finally the vestiges of a town appear. There are some businesses, a movie theater or something like that, and eventually a little sign saying Trinidad, elevation 6000 and some. Here the road forks and I am at a loss which way to go. I expect entering a town to be intuitive, but this is anything but.

I stop in the shade of some U-Haul trailers and get my computer out to look at Google maps. Based on this I take the road up the hill. Houses, a dentist, not much on it but I continue along. Just as I start to enter what looks like a town I notice a Motel. I stop, that is the end of this day, thank goodness.

137 miles today.

"Western Kansas is so refreshing!"

(Note: If you've read yesterday's post How Strangers Go out of Their Way to Help a Bicyclist, you might want to know what happened next to Bob's bad wheel. The story continues below; at the beginning of this log he was some 1900 miles from home. – Xujun)

Garden City KS to Lamar CO 102 miles

by Bob Eberlein

Garden City, KS – Knowing full well that I won’t be able to do anything till the bike shop opens at 10, I decide to sleep in and don’t wake up till quarter past 5. Oh well, some habits just won’t go away.

The pause is useful as it allows me to catch up on email. This is one big difference from 25 years ago – communication. Even riding across the US back then the most one could hope for was a pay phone once in a while. And of course this is the first time I have ridden when I actually had a job and a family. Life changes, but the good news is I can still get up in the morning and keep on riding.

I show up at the bike shop about 20 minutes before 10. Five minutes later a man about my age shows up and unloads his bike from his car. He is from a town some 30 miles away and is dropping his bike off to be tuned up for an upcoming event in Colorado. It is a really nice bike, also a Trek, but a modern one with top of the line components. It probably retails for four to five thousand and he asks me to watch it till the shop opens so they can take it in. Ah, western Kansas is so refreshing.

As we are talking another person shows up. He is from Dodge City and has to come here for anything related to his bikes. A good decision back in Jetmore not to go to Dodge it seems. He actually used to live in the Boston area back in the 70s but left when the local economy went south. That was slightly before I moved to Boston, but it is interesting how economic fortunes fluctuate. Soon afterward another man shows up with a bike. When the doors finally open at 10 we converge on the shop. But the convergence is not in a Wal-Mart crush, the last man holds the door for everyone else to go into the shop.

The shop is run by one man with two young women working for him. The man is on the phone and I speak with one of the women and tell her I need a 27” rear wheel. After a while she comes back with two choices and the man, off the phone at this point, recommends one as slightly stronger saying that neither is really designed to stand up to use on a packed touring bike. I am nearing making a choice when I notice that both are actually 700c wheels, like yesterday, so ask again if they have a 27” wheel. This time the man disappears into the back and returns with one.

It looks like I am in business, I ask him to change the freewheel, which he does by putting on rubber gloves and then pulling it off the old wheel and carefully putting it on the new. After that I take the wheels outside to swap the tires and the tape over the spokes. As I do this I study the rim and I know that it will only be a matter of a few weeks before it disintegrates under load, something that has happened to me a couple of times before. My current wheels, on the other hand, have stood up to everything I have done to them with no complaint. I actually had an extra rim that I carried everywhere in South America over two decades ago expecting something to break, but it never did.

I decide to keep my old wheel, and try to replace the bearings and axel when I return to Boston. Whether I will do this, or just let it gather dust, is an unknown.

With the new wheel in place and I am back on the road before 11. Now it feels like I am riding a bicycle, and not some torture device. Life is sweet. I race some earth movers that are building a new road, apparently doubling the highway near Garden City, and then just start to ride. The winds start from the north, which means a crosswind going west, but slowly shift to be out of the east. A real bicycle and a tail wind to boot. Life could not be sweeter.

I stop for lunch about 1 at a little café. I am either invisible of look too much like a vagrant to be of interest to the waitress so after about 10 minutes I leave and go to a Subway where they take my order (I am the only one there) and I have lunch. I have observed this before. People at fast food style places are invariably nice and respectful. Waitresses, and waiters presumably, clearly do not see me as a desirable customer. This is probably training, the fast food servers are told to be always polite. The people with more judgment are not so consistent.

After lunch I get back to my tail wind and just make miles. I stop after a while with a flat front tire and eat some raisins and peanut butter. My seemingly lost raisins had reappeared somehow, and now I finally finish them off. All this under the shade of a tree in another cemetery. Again the grass is well mown, though everything is brown from lack of water.

I ride on, then stop for some chocolate milk and to get another jar of peanut butter (never leave town without it). After that it is clear sailing to the Colorado border. Though I left at 11, I have made good time and think I will be able to make Lamar, the first place that appears to have any accommodation. I ride on, pass through Granada (where I thought I would make it to) and get to Lamar. The time has changes to it is only 7 local time. I find a motel that is run by people speaking Mandarin. I ask them where they are from in Chinese and we chat a little bit in Chinglish. There are three of them and they are amused by me. The room is small, but there is a bed and a desk so I am content.

102 miles today.

How Strangers Go out of Their Way to Help a Bicyclist

(Note: This one continues from Bob's bicycling log I posted yesterday. Before you read it, there's more to the story you need to know. That day when he was heading toward Burdett, KS, Bob called around noon from Great Bend to tell me his target, which was on Route 156, in an area that looks largely uninhabited. After our chat, I Googled to see if I could find a campsite for him, but with no luck. Just when I was about to give up, to my delight a place called "Elaine's Bicycle Oasis" popped up in the search results. It is in Bazine, about 20 miles north from Burdett and "a nice resting place for cross country bicyclist." But I had no way to tell Bob this because there was no cell signal in his area. The only thing I could do was wait for him to contact me through his computer. It was quite frustrating.

After he arrived at Burdett in the evening, not only there was no cell signal, but his laptop phone also stopped working. Fortunately we could still communicate through email.

With his unexpected bike trouble, there was no way for him to reach Elaine's Bicycle Oasis. Worse, it didn't look like he could find a bike shop anywhere close. I decided to take a chance and call Elaine's Bicycle Oasis, hoping to find help somehow. Can you imagine? Elaine, a woman I've never met and who didn't even know me, was so kind and helpful! As soon as I explained Bob's situation to her, she said she had a friend Dave living in Burdett who might be able to help. She called Dave right away, and Dave drove east of Burdett about 4 miles to look for Bob, but didn't find him. At the time I had lost communication with Bob again and couldn't find out his exact location either. I sent Bob Dave's email address, which Elaine gave me, hoping he would contact Dave in the morning. I myself also had a few brief email exchanges with Dave, who said he would go look for Bob again at sunrise. I could tell from his words that he's a man with a great kind heart. For some reason, I felt he's probably one of our generation, because it's hard to imagine young people these days would go out of their way to help a stranger like this.

Anyway, I'll let you read Bob's log now and, if you are a bicyclist who might ride across Kansas, you should definitely consider stopping by Elaine's Bicycle Oasis, for she surely will be the kindest host for you. And if you pass by Burdett, please say Hi to Dave for us. We'll never forget his generosity! – Xujun)

Burdett to Garden City KS 77.7 hot noisy difficult miles

by Bob Eberlein

Burdett, KS – I wake up lacking the enthusiasm to do too much, but still around 5. As my computer had died and I had gone to sleep last night Xujun had gotten in touch with Elaine who runs a bike hostel who had gotten in touch with Dave who lives in Burdett. Unbeknownst to me Dave was driving around looking for me. He was looking in the wrong direction, and would not have found me anyway. I hide well when I camp by the road.

I send an email to Dave and he replies right away. I tell him where I am and he says he will drive out to meet me in half an hour. I push my bike partially packed up to the side of the road so Dave will see it if he drives by then go back down the hill to break camp. I am just adjusting all my attachments when Dave drives up. We throw the bike in the back of his truck and he takes me to his house. It is getting to be around 7 in the morning.

I went to take another look at my wheel and tinker with it a bit. In addition to the bearings gone haywire the axle which has one part sliding onto another is not staying together. Between my seat which is starting to come apart at the seams and my wheel it looks like my ox died and my axle broke. I really feel like I am on the Oregon trail (though actually it is more the Santa Fe trail at the moment and I have had the nerve to attempt a short cut.)

We pop a little tyvek in as a spacer for the axle and hammer it down. The bike seems a little bit more manageable than it was last night, and I decide I can probably press on from there myself.

Thank you, Dave and Cathi! (Photo by Bob Eberlein)

Dave’s wife Cathi makes me some breakfast – cantaloupe, pancakes and eggs. It is a wonderful treat to get something cooked instead of eating jam on bread. Though I guess I am getting spoiled because when I was young I used to think just peanut butter on bread was sufficient fare for every meal of the day. Dave manages the computers in the local schools and tells me a bit about the system. It really is a different world from what I am used to. They expect to have 10 kids in the sixth grade this year. The vast difference in population density from suburban Boston makes me reflect on the nature of education and the educational system. Then I reflect, ironically, on what the METCO program (the outgrowth of the court imposed school desegregation action) would look like in Kansas. Get on a bus, 48 hours later get off. Then class? I guess it would be tough.

Dave prints me out what he can find on bike shops in Dodge City, about 40 miles away, and Garden City, about 75 miles away. The Dodge entries are old and suspect. Dave advised me to go to Jetmore then phone around to see what is really in Dodge, figuring things will be open by then.

I thank Dave profusely, get on the road and warble off. My wheel is still pretty flakey and will go for a while then push itself into the fender or make a grinding noise. It is kind of like hitting the breaks every few seconds. Still, I muddle on to Jetmore not feeling too confident about getting any distance that day. In Jetmore I stop and get some bananas and milk (ok and a little chocolate too) for a snack. I have a good internet connection and call the numbers in Dodge that Dave found for me. One is a different business. The other is a generic voice mail. I Google bike shops, find a sporting goods store and call them. They sell a few bikes but not parts and the man says he thinks Country Pedaler is still in business. He looks up the number and it is the same one I tried before.

Discouraged, I decide to try for Garden City, which is 50 miles anyway. Still, I am not hopeful and expect I will end up hitchhiking in the end. A few miles out of town I drop the packs and pull off the read fender. This, I figure, will at least get rid of the constant braking from the tire hitting it. It works. I have gotten the bike to the point were it just constantly grinds, bumps and wobbles. What an improvement.

It had rained a tiny bit in the morning, but as the morning wears in to afternoon the sun comes out and it turns pretty hot. About 20 miles out of Jetmore I get to Kelvesta. Not much there, but there is a Church with a water spigot. I drink some not hot water and fill my water bottles. That is the last nice place to stop before Garden City. It is too hot to feel hungry so I press on about 35 miles to go.

After a while I decide it would be a good idea to eat something even if I don’t feel hungry. I stop at one of the rare trees and eat the rest of my fig bars with warm water. The thought of sandwiches just does not do it for me. I have forgotten about the banana I bought but did not eat – perhaps that will become a late night snack. No cell signal – not even sure why I checked.

I get back on the road and ride. The bike is noisy, the traffic is a little heavy, the road is narrow, it is really hot and my feet hurt. I keep thinking how nice it would be to walk instead of ride so any time I want to snap a picture I could just do it. This is ironic since all I really want to do is get off my bike and get it fixed. I press on but my feet hurt so much I need to stop for a minute. There are no trees. I stop in front of a sign that advertises some organization is keeping the road clean and position myself just right to get shade. I ponder what it must have been like to cross this land with a cart drawn by dead oxen. I guess I am lucky.

The water bottles are so hot it is disgusting to drink from them, but I still try. I know I am not keeping up with my sweat, but the distance to Garden City is counting down. There are little sign posts 16 miles, then 14 (how could that have only been 2 miles), 11, 8, 6 then a sign welcoming me to Garden City. Actually nothing much changes except that the water towers are visible in the distance.

Eventually things resolve themselves and there are the Home Depot and Wal-Mart that Dave said I would encounter. I see a cop stopped at a light and decide to ask him directions. As I ride up he waves and smiles at me and drives off. Pretty strange I think, but a little down the road he stops under a bridge and gets out of his car. Apparently he wanted to give me some shade to talk to me.

I ask him about a bike shop and he points me at the most obvious candidate from Dave’s list and tells me they are closed on Mondays (a common thing for bike shops) but I can look in to see if anyone is working. Otherwise it will be Tuesday morning. He also tells me if I ride through town there is a motel that is not expensive and clean, though I don’t remember the name he tells me.

I ride to the bike shop and indeed it is closed. I can’t see anyone inside so decide to go eat some supper and start rehydrating. As I am returning to the strip with fast food places I double check the list Dave printed for me and there is another candidate nearby. I head there, a place called the Tinker Shop. It is run by two old men and is semi organized chaos. I like it, and they do have all kinds of wheels hanging from the ceiling. I go in and they hunt around for a wheel and can’t find my size but do find one that is a slightly different size (mine is 27 inch and they have a 700C rim which is a little bit smaller). It will work, but I need a different tire and all the road tires they have are 27 inch. That is actually the reason I chose that size some 25 years ago – easier to find tires. Go figure.

So still on the burping bike I head to McDonalds for an Angus Burger (these are actually pretty good) and lots and lots to drink. I check the internet for motels in town and all are over $65. I decide to take the cops advice and ride to the other side of town. I am also quite cold because of the air conditioning and want to return to the warm outdoors. A bank thermometer puts the temperature at 98 – pretty warm I guess, so it is not long before I again don’t like the sun. After riding through town I do find another motel – the Soft Pillow Hotel – it calls itself though everything inside says Super 8. Apparently it recently disfranchised. The rooms are only $45 so it seems a good place to put my head. I can get a good night’s sleep and catch up on things I need to do.

77.7 hot noisy difficult miles today.