Thursday, August 13, 2009

59: Delirium in the Desert & Danger in the Dark

Stoker's Log

Day Fifty-Nine

8/13/09

From Vale, OR

To John Day, OR

126 miles

7.7 avg mph

I've decided that Malheur is an excellent name for this area. Today was miserable for many reasons, but let's start with those statistics to the right. We rode 126 miles at an astoundingly slow 7.7 average miles per hour. For those of you without a calculator, that means we were pedaling for 16 hours. And that's just time on the bike; we were on the road for much longer.

We left before dawn, watching the sun rise from a gas station where we stopped to buy supplies before leaving civilization. I don't know why I was so excited to enter Oregon yesterday: the Eastern half is a barren wilderness, much like Kansas or Wyoming, with nothing for miles and miles and miles and miles. At least in Kansas we had a tailwind twice, which helped us escape the state with our sanity intact. Today it was the opposite, with a strong headwind slowing our speed to a mind-numbing crawl. A few hours into the ride we already knew we'd be riding into John Day in the dark, if we made it at all. It was still so far away that our brains started screaming whenever we thought about it. And it was the same old story: unchanging views that were nice...for the first few hours we were stuck staring at them.

Finally we caught a break, or so it seemed: a town appeared before we were expecting one, and we could see a cafe with a sombrero on its roof. We were incredibly excited until we discovered that it wasn't due to open for another 45 minutes. We seriously considered waiting, but we really didn't have the time to spare. I was still determined to find a bathroom, however, so I jogged to the school across the street and did a little celebration dance when I found an unlocked door. The building was deserted except for a secretary in the main office; she was a complete sweetheart and was happy to let me use the tiny toilets and strange communal sinks in the girl's bathroom. Willowcreek Elementary School, you were officially the best part of my day.

We rode on, trying to break the monotony with songs and conversation, but the cloud of misery never really left us. Sometimes we saw farm animals, and since we didn't have anything better to do we started talking to them, sometimes in their language and sometimes in ours. We saw a number of dogs too, and fortunately only one of them was angry. The rest were busy herding goats or sleeping beside them.

Unfortunately there could be nearly an hour between one mildly interesting sight -- like a sheepdog or a group of men raising a barn -- and the next. Most of the time we were left alone in the high desert with our thoughts, and none of those thoughts were very happy. Even when we finally reached a general store it was bittersweet: we desperately needed the rest, the cold drinks, and the bathroom, but we knew that once we left it there would be nothing, no structure of any kind, for 40 miles.

So we took our sweet time there, even though we really couldn't afford the delay. We chatted to the cashier and admired the quirks of the store, like the pool hall in the backroom, the stuffed deer and mountain lion on the wall, and the rattlesnake contest:

I especially like the reminder not to bring the entire snake. So far the snake-hating owner had collected 73 total; the longest rattle was a foot long and the most collected by one person was 23.

To our surprise, we also met another cyclist there; he was on a recumbent going the other way. He was nice enough, but like too many of the cyclists we've met he was too pessimistic for our tastes, insisting that there was no way we would ever make it to John Day today. Thanks buddy.

We finally left the store, even more reluctantly than usual, and started on what promised to be over 5 hours without seeing another person or building, unless you count this empty post office, which looked like it had been closed for a decade.

It was just us and the desert, and it was getting sunnier and hotter by the minute. Then, as if the headwind wasn't detrimental enough, we also had to climb a series of hills. Add my usual desperate need for a bathroom and you've got some miserable hours of riding.

Eventually we entered an area that called itself a town, but it didn't seem to have any public buildings, just a collection of spread out houses and farms. The steep miles that lay ahead looked completely open and unprotected, so I really wanted to avoid going to the bathroom out there. Remembering the kindness of people who lived in the middle of nowhere in Kansas and Idaho, I decided to throw myself on the mercy of the last house we passed. No one answered the doorbell, but as I walked back up the path a truck pulled into the driveway, so I explained our situation to the driver and asked if I could possibly use her bathroom. She just glared at me as if I must be clinically insane, so I backpedaled.

"Sorry, I know it may sound weird, it's just --"

"Yes, it does sound weird, actually. You don't squat in the woods?"

"Um, not usually..." I was met by steely silence again, so I continued: "But I guess that's my plan now."

When she didn't say anything else I walked away and got on the bike, quietly fuming. Clearly people like Joann and Jon dangerously raised my expectations of Western hospitality. I do understand people not wanting to open their home to a stranger, but let's be serious: I couldn't seem threatening if I tried. Maybe as a rugged, rural woman she was just ashamed of my lack of outdoor skills. Or maybe she was a misanthropic bitch who lives in the middle of nowhere for a reason. Who knows, but I needed a plan B. A ditch with weeds almost tall enough presented itself, so I jumped down into it and attempted to use the Pee Pouch we'd bought at an outdoors store earlier. It was a complete disaster, and I climbed out of the ditch cursing the inhospitable lady, my lack of camping experience, and the uncanny ability of this day to get progressively worse.

We started the second of our four major climbs of the day, a long one with a series of switchbacks. We had to stop halfway up to eat something, but we eventually made it up and over. We started to see trees, which under the circumstances made us incredibly excited, but after a few miles we were back to desert and nothing to see. The most excitement we had was crossing into Pacific Time.

More miserable hours passed and we eventually reached the town of Unity. When the first buildings we saw -- a restaurant and visitor's center -- were closed, I was ready to kill someone, but luckily we spotted a convenience store further down the road. The camo-clad cashier also ran the campground next door, and asked if we wanted a spot for the night. We thanked her but said we were still going to try to make it to John Day. What a colossal mistake.

Our third long climb took us into the National Forest, and we were certainly glad to see trees. Unfortunately we wouldn't benefit from their shade for long: the sun was already setting, and we were still far from our destination.

Soon enough it was dark, and it also got cold. When we stopped to use a campground bathroom, we were almost tempted to sleep there. It would not have been a pleasant night, but it might have worked: it was handicap-sized (thank you Eagle Scout who built it as a final project) and the air-freshener hanging from the ceiling was a nice touch. Instead, we rode on and started our fourth and longest climb. I'm not talking about a hill; this was a long, mountain pass that seemed to stretch on and up forever. And downhills weren't rests; they were torture in the cold and the wind. I put on every layer we had, including some of Kyle's, and I was still shivering and miserable in my wind-break position up front.

As we rode on I felt increasingly uneasy. We were in the middle of the wilderness in the dark without cell service. The one time we stopped I suddenly found myself clinging to Kyle, haunted by vague apprehension and a child's fear of the dark. Stars kept shooting over our heads, and every time I wished fervently that we would be safe. And I didn't even know about the cougar.

Kyle spotted its eyes through the trees: glowing, close together, and just the right height for the cougars that frequent this area. They followed us for a few slinking steps, not scared but also not hunting...yet. It was just stalking us lazily, trying to figure out what we were. Instead of telling me about it, Kyle started singing and pedaling faster, and I joined in assuming it was just a motivational technique. Fortunately the combination of our noise, our speed, and our lights convinced the creature to leave us alone and it let us pass into the night.

Somewhere along the climb we discovered a miracle: a porta-potty on the side of the road, part of a small construction project. We pulled over and I went to use it, but as I got to the door the structure clanged and shook. I took a few startled steps back, and Kyle asked what I was doing just standing there.

"I think there's someone or something in there," I whispered, realizing how crazy it sounded. Kyle refused to believe me -- maybe he thought I had started to imagine boogeymen everywhere -- so I told him that he could use it first. As he walked up, however, a man emerged from the porta-potty, looking as confused to see us on the side of the road near midnight as we were to see him. It turns out he was a construction worker paid to camp there overnight to keep an eye on the signals. He offered us a Coke and wished us luck on our crazy journey.

We eventually made it to Prairie Home, which seemed cute but was all closed. Then it was a long, cold downhill into John Day, which we reached just shy of 2:00 AM. And we weren't done yet: when we rang the doorbell for the (locked) front office, no one came. We rang it again, and again... still nothing. We called the phone number and listened to it ring behind the glass, but no one came to pick it up. While we were waiting, I tried to get a soda out of the vending machine, but it just ate my money instead. There wasn't even a good place to sit down outside. Finally, almost half an hour later, someone came out and gave us our key. We couldn't decide whether to hug her or punch her, so we just took the key and collapsed into the room without worrying about anything but sleep.

So, to summarize: We rode from sunrise to 2AM, covering 126 miles of nothing much, very rarely encountering bathrooms or other people. We traveled through stifling heat, freezing cold, and a headwind that demolished our speed. We climbed four serious inclines and were briefly stalked by a cougar. When we finished all of that, we still had to wait outside for half an hour to get a place to sleep. Yeah, I'd say we're more than ready to be finished with this trip.

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