The set-up

I officially kicked off for my four month bike tour on Saturday, happily escaping the mysterious late-March snow and sleet for the weather-proof confines of a 34 hour session with the Amtrak bus/train tag-team.  For once in my life, I actually locked in all of the necessary preparations in advance- making thousands of phone calls, getting everything in order for my touring job, arranging work and house responsibilities for a relatively long Portland absence, staging the requisite 30 going-away parties for myself, and packing up every asexual REI product I own into a box with the sweet, new ride (thanks, Ira and Dawn!)  This blatant defiance of my true irresponsible, procrastinating nature must have angered some powerful force in the universe, because just as I was checking in at the train station, the build-up of weeks of stress ready to be washed away in a mindless transit coma, the good people at Amtrak informed me that my bike box would not be allowed on the bus they were rerouting us onto since a major landslide had recently taken out the train lines.  Not to worry, however, because my bike box would instead be allowed its own whirlwind vacation in Chicago and luxury tour of half of the South and Midwest before the eventual exhausted rendezvous with me in San Diego 7 days later.  “But… I called twice,” I stammered in shock, not willing to accept that bad things happen to even the kind of people who try to line up all of their preparations ahead of time.  Unfortunately, the indifferent verdict came down from two separate Amtrak sources- the policy changed YESTERDAY.  I’m only including this entire bureaucratic fiasco in case anyone else is planning on bringing their bike along on an Amtrak journey- beware if you end up on a nonconsensual bus!  Anyway, my encroaching panic attack was wildly unneccessary, because at the last minute the collective Amtrak work force decided to throw me a bone and permit my innocent box to occupy a small portion of the ample space left over beneath the bus after everyone else’s oversized duffel bags had been securely stowed.  The ensuing delirius of relief enabled me to actually enjoy the next 15 hours spent on the same kind of cramped bus that I had initially chosen Amtrak over Greyhound to avoid.  So, anyway, to speed up this long-winded narrative and get to the actual bike tour, I met up with Claire en route, precisely as scheduled, and we eventually got to the San Diego transit station at around 2 am Monday morning. 

If Highlights magazine were interested in running a very special Goofus and Gallant segment devoted strictly to the common sense and safety of bike touring, Claire and I could have easily shared the irresponsible role of Goofus, with all of his disappointing foibles.  Am I the only one who remembers that comic strip?  I’m not going to say that it ever had any influence on my childhood behavior, but I tend to categorize many of my actions to this day on the old Goofus/Gallant spectrum.  After Claire and I laboriously put our bikes together, we set out Goofus-style from the train station at around 4am, down heavily-trafficked roads in a dark city with which we had absolutely no practical experience.  Without a map or lights, we somehow managed to fumble our way to the trailhead of the Southern Tier bike route.  Adventure, Excitement, bring on all of those things that a Jedi isn’t supposed to crave, ’cause we were 100% ready for anything!

First thing we were ready for, though- sleep.  We found a nice tree in the park to pass out under, get into our sleeping bags, and wait for the sun-up so we could set out on the road.  As anyone who’s ever witnessed me in inaction can tell you, I’m a skilled artisan when it comes to sleeping.  After years and years of diligent study at the dozing feet of masters (or just one narcoleptic dad), I’m now able to outshine even the fiercest lazy-bones competitors in a multi-round snoozeoff in a variety of categories such as length, uncomfortable location, deepness of REM, and ease of entry into state of slumber.  So when I woke up several hours later in the park with an angry policeman nudging my foot, it was no mystery that he had probably been trying to wake me up for awhile.  I’m not really sure about the nature of the exchange that followed because I was too woozy to actually focus any of my senses on anything beyond hustling back onto the loaded behemoths that we call bikes and setting out onto the gritty open road.  Which was actually a really long bike path.  Austin, TX, lock up your 20-sided dice, ’cause we’re comin’ for you!

Advertisement

Tags: bike touring, Portland, Southern Tier