Travel day

So 20,000 Alaska Airlines miles will get you a free 8-hour flight from Juneau to Salt Lake with only three stops. That's a bargain at twice the price.

I am mainly posting today because I can't get over that landing strip in Sitka (top photo.) It's just a narrow spit of sand with some rough pavement on top. Starts in the sea. Ends in the sea. Sea to every side. No room for a pilot to yawn or a plane to slightly stall. I know landing strips can be so much worse, but you don't usually see someone trying to land a 737 on them. I am terrified of flying anyway, and when I say I am terrified of flying, I mean I am terrified of the taking off and landing part ... at normal airports, airports built on actual land. Let me just say that after a long, bike-less hiatus, it was kinda nice to be back on endorphins today. Oi.

It was another beautiful day for flying, though. I didn't get good pictures because the window was dirty. The plane looked and sounded like something purchased at a discount airline repo auction; I swear I saw bolts peeling off the wing. Again, Oi.

Now I am in Salt Lake City. As much as I come back, it is always strange to be back. I am a different person here. I feel like an observer who has just stumbled back after an extended bathroom break, waving a broken remote control at a life I left behind. But it is easy to get sucked into the swirl of images. The plot is easy to pick up, the characters all too familiar. And it's amazing how quickly Alaska becomes the broken storyline. It's been 12 hours, maybe 13. The time change always throws me off. Not that it matters, though. I will move through here as if I never left, and return as though it were all a dream.

This is where I work

And I don't have to come back for nine days. Ode to joy.

Here are my goals for my vacation to Utah:

1. Ride the White Rim, but not all of the White Rim. Maybe what Geoff says is right. Maybe the first 10 miles are the most boring 10 miles of mountain biking in the West. And maybe he will take my Advil and force me to turn around at Mile 10. And maybe, as he disappears into the Canyonlands chasm, he won't even notice if I drop off the back side of Schaefer. After all, I have all day to hoof it back up. Hooray!

2. Eat Mexican food like people in Mexico intended it to be eaten, with actual peppers and everything.

3. Go swimming in the Colorado River.

4. Somehow not fry (I haven't experienced an outdoor temperature above 59 degrees since July.)

5. Remember Mother's Day and buy my mom something nice.

6. Find out Dave's endless endurance fixie secrets.

7. Find out Pete's nutrition secrets (and end my inner debate about what's the better subzero fuel, licorice or Oreos.)

8. Remember that Geoff is the one who planned to bring nearly a dozen people from all over North America together for a disjointed week in the middle of the desert, and so it's his job to work out the logistics, and it's my freedom to eat licorice and hobble around on my trekking poles without a care in the world.

9. Be good to my knee but not too good.

10. Come home in nine days only feeling only marginally worse than I do now.

Yeah! Vacation!

Looking back

(Nebraska/Wyoming border, September 2003)

I've been put on alert that my blog has been a bit of a downer. So I'm taking a different direction today. Sometimes when I'm in a rut, I like to dig through pieces of the past as a road map to where I've been and where I'm headed. This is an excerpt from my old blog, dated Sept. 26, 2002. The context is my first bicycle tour, when I took to the lonely desert roads of Southeastern Utah and Southwestern Colorado for a 600-mile trip before I knew how to change a tire or even shift the gears on my $300 touring bike. I still see it as an ongoing journey.
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Lucky day thirteen. We leave the jagged sandstone peaks of the San Rafael Swell and merge onto I-70, joining the swift flow of trucks and RVs in the emergency lane, concrete “wake up” grates and all.

Most bicycle tourists dread the stretches where the freeway is unavoidable, but I actually enjoy the large shoulders and gentle slopes of U.S. Interstates. The traffic is heavy but friendly. In fact, we got more honks and waves today that the rest of the trip combined, and, unlike two-lane state highways, didn't have a single “rude driver” incident (as we all know, those drivers who swerve toward you on purpose are merely jealous.)

As we pass through a gray alkaline hill and began to drop into the Green River Valley, the end of our trip becomes real. Tonight we will dine at our favorite veggie burger stop, Ray’s Tavern, and by tomorrow evening we’ll be back in Moab, back to our car and the now inconceivably quick drive to Salt Lake.

How did we get here? The town of Green River draws nearer and I begin to realize how far we’ve come. Less than two weeks ago we passed through here, stopped our car in Moab, mounted loaded-up bikes for the first time in our lives, and now, over 500 miles later, here I am. I’ve seen the thick pines and glacial lakes of the San Juans, the destitute reservation, the rolling redrock of Escalante and the San Rafael Swell, and I did it all with my own body, with my own two legs. Really, how did I get here?

I think back to the way I felt when the trip started - tired and pessimistic. It’s that feeling of physical defeat- when just mounting the cold saddle sends sharp streaks of pain through your pelvis. Knees crack and throb as you rotate the crank. Eyes dry out in the heat and wind. Palms are red and raw. Even feet protest the pressure of pedals, and legs feel weary at the first sight of a steep hill.

As the third or fourth day winds down, all feels lost. You’ll never make it. Your body is shutting down, and you drift to sleep feeling a vague sense of disinterest. Then, the next morning, you wake up. Suddenly, inexplicably, everything becomes easy. Your pelvis is numb. Your hands are calloused. The wind prompts you to action. You mount your bike with the cold morning wind tearing at your nostrils, squint toward the mountains in front of you, and just laugh, because you realize you could go forever. Then, you just go.

This is a phenomenon I couldn’t begin to explain, but I can’t deny it either. Runners would call it “hitting your wall,” to burn until your fuel is nearly exhausted, until you can see your physical threshold blocking the finish line, and through pure mental will, you tear through it. Once you reach that wall, you’re either going to collapse, or you’re going to go forever.

And this is how I’ve felt since I woke up in the San Miguel basin on Day Four and realized that not only would I finish the climb that day, but I’d finish the trip. At that point, I had no more doubts in my mind. This is why I no longer fear the great distance of a cross-country trip. The question I'm asked the most when I tell people about my plans to cross the country on a bicycle is, “How will you ever make it?” I don’t know. I’m relatively inexperienced. I’m out of shape. I’m slow. But my will is strong, and I’ll make it. I just will.