Mountain back roads

The above picture reminds me of Yellowstone.

Thursday, May 26th
Canyonville, OR to Medford, OR.

I'm running up against highway-only routes and mountains and huge detours if I pick an impassable path. There's one bridge coming up on I-5 South through Northern California that goes a few miles over a lake. If I can't take that road, I have to plan a way around. Or else it's like an extra 200 miles.

I get these mini-nostalgia flashbacks on the road. Sometimes it's a moment that never amounted to anything, but promised like it would. Locations and situations I encounter recall those moments as if my trip is bringing them all together.

Biking home 26 miles from Boston, MA out to the far suburbs. Not telling my parents I was coming. Surprise. Resting on the couch and eating watermelon.

A trashy city on the way, where several local roads intersected. Trashy dressed people walking down the street with nowhere to go. Making a left turn at a big clock. Not knowing directions. Feeling out of place.

Chinese language school on Sunday. I wonder if they have those around here. Can I just walk in to the middle school, prop my bicycle against a wall, watch the kids speak in English and play with Pokemon cards? Hunch on the floor over giant flat screen TV iPads?

A dusky road with insects clouding faint yellow street lights. Passing by diners closed for the day. The wind threatening rain. Cemeteries. Residential homes with toys on the lawn. Thick curbs where the sidewalk ends. Da-dun! Afraid of a popped tire. Stopping, checking. Stopping, checking.

The medical area around Boston. White lab coats walking across the lawn holding boxed lunches and apples. The COOP bookstore with anatomy skeletons and laminated place mats with memorized facts. Reading Goosebumps stories on a hot, bright July - inside the sterilized air conditioning of the store. Walking out shivering into a blinding, toasty afternoon.

Bits and pieces of memory locking into place along my bicycle ride. They never led anywhere. But here they are: everywhere. They travel with me. Travel gives them continuity, gives them a home. It's my life in fractured memories, pasted together into a scrapbook with a cover and a title. That's what this journey feels like.

Navigation told me to take this road it thought was a highway. I was like, for reals?

The right lane was barely wide as my handlebars. Road ended soon at a dead end. Trailers camped there full of barking dogs.

2,400 ft climb on the road today. The road was not too steep, but it kept going up and up and up. I dismounted and walked for long sections. I am now very glad that bicycles have a 1-1 gear!

I began to question the physical impossibility of a mountain that does not come back down. Isn't that how Moses walked up to God?




Climbing a mountain on a bike is fair. You get a free ride on the way down. And you're only really doing work when you're going uphill on a bike anyways.

The shoulders vanished on the way down. I didn't feel in peril on the mountain, even on sharp blind turns. No traffic, and cars could be heard coming far away. Closer into town though, the roads became risky with the afternoon commute.

Came down for a big meal at Walmart deli. A new guy was working who gave me a monstrous portion of mashed potatoes. I love the $4.38 meal deal. The employee has free reign to give you a ton more food than you are paying for.

Long day. I ate two bricks of Ramen for lunch. Rinsed in some of the seasoning packets to replenish salt. But wished I still had Cliff bars.

My kneecaps felt like they were falling off. I got cramps in my legs. Needed potassium: bananas, milk. Still dreaming about that ice cream sundae from the night before. Mmm, couldn't wait to get into town.

A park ranger asked me why stay close to cities? She said, 'How boring!' One word answer: buffets. Eating after a day of traveling is the best part.