8. A Little Below the Great Lakes

A Little Below the Great Lakes

I am sitting in the only shade at the pool at the Rodeway Inn in Sandusky, Ohio. It is near noon, and Big Riders are emerging through the doors like slow ants. Many are carrying their gear to rental cars, taking the large pieces to our camp at the Erie County Fairgrounds where they will stash the gear underneath the gear trucks for the night to come. The crew has the day off too so the gear trucks are locked. They will pick up their bikes, and leave here early tomorrow morning on their bikes with just the shirts on their backs so to speak. I will probably do a similar thing later, the only difference being a wobbly ride for me tomorrow morning to the camp with a heavy backpack on my back where my Powerbook is stashed.

I imagine that every motel in and near Sandusky is filled to the brim with vacationers and Big Riders. Reportedly, the world’s scariest roller coaster is located at Cedar Point amusement park, helping make Sandusky both a tourist attraction and trap in the summer. I discovered the part about the trap when I booked this room  — $58 for Thursday night, $108 for Friday. I talked to one couple whose room at another motel started at  $110 for Thursday and jumped to $170 for tonight. In addition to the amusement park, Sandusky is also the jumping off place to what are billed as really interesting islands in Lake Erie where I may go this afternoon if I locate the energy and time.

This motel needs work. Only one of two soda machines delivers soda (ever, according to a woman in the office) My sink will not hold water (making my laundry work a little difficult last night). The laundry that the motel claims to have has no washer nor dryer, just pipes where they used to be. I was into serious bleaching so I stayed away from the laundromat a mile or so away, ultimately doing the wash in the bathtub, and the final drying is taking place in the sun a few feet away as we speak. And, the light in the bathroom can’t be turned on without an accompanying fan that sounds much like a small lawnmower, making a tranquil bubble bath an elusive dream.

I suppose I sound cranky. Well, I’m not — exactly. I arrived in Sandusky yesterday afternoon in front of a tailwind that had carried me forward 83 miles from Napoleon, a neat little town 40 or so miles south of Toledo, full of incredible houses and one of the most interesting churches I’ve ever seen.  The day before I had left Kendallville, Indiana in a driving rain with serious lightning going on to the south, but yessiree Bob, I’d rather have rain and lightning (the latter, at some distance) than direct sun, and besides that, the rain and storm stopped at midday and the tailwind showed up and took me to Napoleon.

Earlier in the day in Waterloo, Indiana, I was standing outside a convenience store drinking coffee (it was too cold and smoky inside so Big Riders were swarming outside the building like bees sipping out of styrofoam) when the police arrived, called to the scene by the store owner who was complaining about Big Riders peeing behind his store. As the police roared up in the rain, Fred, my 71-year-old opera-loving friend from Scranton yelled, “I’ll do anything to be arrested and taken to jail.”

There’s now a woman of a certain age in a very pink two-pieced bathing suit covering very little of her leathery skin (it looks like an old saddle) on a lounge chair a few feet away. Every now and then she sprays herself with something from a little brown bottle. She keeps looking at her watch. I can tell her for sure, it is already too late.

We had lots of bad weather in Illinois (major thunderstorm at 4 am in Belvidere, Illinois that ripped my rain cover off my tent and sent buckets of water in the mesh door) and then again early in the evening in Kendallville, Indiana. That last storm caused lots of damage elsewhere in Indiana and Ohio. We’ve gotten a break from the heat though — yesterday, today, and tomorrow below 90 degrees. Oh happy day.

The roads in Illinois were no fun. Lots of traffic, potholes, and your basic suburbia. It was interesting, though, to see pennies scattered on the shoulder all over Illinois. I can’t explain it. I kept seeing pennies along the road, and just one dime. In Indiana, there was a stretch of a mile or so when there were dozens, if not hundreds, of white golf tees scattered along the shoulder. I am reminded that back in Montana there was a day when I saw three identical pieces of Tupperware, each with their tops, in three different locations along the road. Lord knows how many single shoes I’ve seen, usually fairly expensive sneakers. I’m guessing 1500 dead raccoons and at least 100 dead skunks. In South Dakota near Miller, there was a stretch of about 50 miles or so where the road was covered, and I mean covered, with the remains of frogs. I’d see one standing at the edge of the road, contemplating the crossing. “No,” I’d screamed, “No. Go back.”

That day I sang:

Ninety nine frogs are dead in the road.

Ninety nine frogs are dead.

One got over, the others died,

Ninety eight frogs are dead in the road…

On the particularly hot day between Lisle, Illinois and LaPorte, Indiana, I was struggling to make it to Pit 3 around 1 pm when I looked up and saw a street sign that read “Mary Byrne Drive.” For a moment I contemplated a photo or some video but thought, “No, I think not,” and rode on.

Speaking of pictures, Bill Dale has become a photo op. As Big Riders and crew realize that the end of the road is upon us — eight more days after today!!! — they are rushing to get their pictures taken with Mr. Bill. He’s gotten quite grizzly and increasingly more handsome. There are any number of women with fairly serious crushes on him, and the men mill around him like some sort of returning war hero or sports star.

In camp the other night at dinner-time announcements in Belvidere, relatively near Chicago, one of the staff members thought they’d play a little joke and pretend that Michael Jordan was there to greet the riders (the origin of this joke, I both believe and fear, is a strapping and handsome young Black man on the crew who was playing basketball earlier). People already in their tents but able to hear the announcement ran toward the dinner tent in various stages of undress and anticipation carrying pieces of paper for autographs. It was quite amazing to watch. And we were not a bunch of happy campers when we learned it was a joke.

That same night, though, there was an incredibly well-received announcement that one of the Big Riders, a paraplegic named Keith, had completed some trials the day earlier in Madison and had been accepted as a competitor in the Sydney Olympics. The applause was loud and lasted several minutes. It made my throat so tight I could hardly swallow. It still does, writing this. I can’t read it out loud.

On the outskirts of Belvidere, Illinois, there was a tiny park with flowers where I stood early one morning eating a granola bar and drinking water. Across the street, there was a house and a barn and an old man precisely the shape and size of my dad the year or two before he died. He walked slowly around the property, doing a slow chore here, shutting a door there, stooping to pick something up, and staining to put it down again. I was far enough away that there were no details in this portrait,  just an outline. He WAS my father. I couldn’t leave until he went out of my sight, inside his house, away.

On the outskirts of some other town somewhere, there was a single tombstone with some rather pretty flowers. Carved in the marble, “This town’s last shoplifter.”

Even though we have been blessed with several days of relatively flat or downhill riding, as I sit here by the pool remembering the Appalachians are ahead of me, I remember that what I initially think is the top of the hill is very rarely the top of the hill.

And speaking of pools, here in Ohio, they are most often ponds. Swimming ponds. Complete with slides, diving boards, floating rafts. According to a policeman in Napoleon whom I queried about this oddity to me, the ground is mostly clay underneath gravel and holds the water. It’s an odd sight, a pond with all that clear blue water and pool paraphernalia.

I am especially grateful today to the encouraging and sometimes just interesting words along the way by phone and e-mail from Susan Dowling, Helen Matthews, Ann and Parker Ward, Jon Boettcher (among other things Jon has sent along, I offer “I’d rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city of earth.” — Steve McQueen), Kate Bonvicini, Art and Charlotte Warren, Jan Kozen, Carrie Corbin, Barbara Bradley, Ann Thorpe, Pia and Anil Britto, Andrea Hanson, Vickie Rogers, and Virginia Bunn (the latter whose brother’s name and date of birth and death from lung disease has ridden across the country with me on a dog tag around my neck). To everyone who’s been in touch — and there are many more than named here — thank you. You have no idea — or perhaps you do — how much it means to me.

Washington DC and August 1 are right around the corner. Well, relatively speaking, after Chagrin Falls and Canfield, OH, Washington and Confluence, PA, Flintstone and Frederick, MD. Whoop-de-doo!!!!!!