Month: August 2015

At every whistle  stop  from Wimbledon to Waterloo Station, a Posh English voice recording said, “Mind the Gap.”  Lynn Fowler and I did our best to mimic the voice,  but we sounded like demented American tourists.  Also,  we were shunned by the  London commuters as we watched our step off the train.  “Brilliant.”

 

These past few weeks back home, Judy and I have been  entertaining the troops, our homies , our third generation, Sam, Griffin, and Maisy.  It’s like “mining for  gold,” we just watch our steps, and  “mind the gap”

There was an unbridgeable gap with my father, as I stepped into the 1980’s. Thank goodness, there was no Waterloo.  Judy and I watched  our steps, “mind the gap,”  and have three great sons….each a different gemstone.

On Monday,  I trekked  to D.C. and  helped Tom move back home. He starts UK  grad school in two weeks.  On Friday, Judy drove  to Norfolk, with Melanie  to help with the return road trip.  Judy sat in  the middle row with Maisy.  She fed treats to the boys, caged in the back row.

Actually, she played defensive soccer  for 12 hours. Griffin repeatedly  kicked her seat like  a soccer ball while saying “not working”  referring to the DVD player, or headphones, or etc.  Judy  watched her step, fended off shots on goal and never let the explitives fly.

Once the kids were home, however, she and Melanie drank a gin and tonic.  As Judy said, “Years from now, they will not remember what I said on this trip but how I made them feel.”  Pure grandma gold, live and not prerecorded.

It’s life’s interruptions, that challenge us the most.  Those recurring gaps set the stage, or in some cases, the Waterloo  train station.

Bill and Melanie are well connected to their “diamonds in the rough.” Its their turn to step off the train and “mind” the where and the when of upcoming generation “gaps”.  Ready or not here they grow.

As “Pop”, I treasure  those unpolished gems, as long as they retreat back to their parents before the arsenic hour.

So it goes.

 

Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense. That thought came to mind, after I  retold  all of Gnomeboy’s shenanigans to Judy.   She replied, “If he behaved that badly, why then did you continue to take him along?”  I didn’t have an immediate  answer and felt like a co-dependent in a bad relationship.

There were three gnome mishaps on this last trip.  On the first Thursday,(paradise lost) he broke a rear spoke.  On the downside, I lost three travel days and needed to outfit a more durable touring bike. On the upside, Gnomeboy reintroduced me to the Ohio River (  water motif ) and  rejoined the trek.

The following Thursday,  in Marshfield  Missouri , a pick-up truck slowly backed into my bike and right knee. I was in a parking lot, waiting for the traffic to clear.  After the accident, I  detoured to the Holiday Inn and iced my right knee   (downside).  On the upside, I could never have biked to the next city before severe weather arrived.  Gnomeboy swore ” I’m not involved.” I was not  convinced.  He traded for foxglove that evening.   His trading looked like an addiction to me.  It’s always about the “deal.”

The third mishap  occurred earlier that same week.  On Tuesday night in Farmington Missouri,  Gnomeboy was frustrated.  Chris and gang intended  to bike about 100 miles on Wed.  Gnomeboy  wanted to stop at the Wilderness Lodge, a 50 mile trek, and float down the Black River.  After dinner, on the way to the Hampton Inn’s hot tub, I literally slipped and fell into a Popeye cartoon, even thought I was 30 miles from Chester Illinois.  Gnome boy splashed the deck.

I entered the scene (stage left),  when Popeye gives Brutus (me)  the uppercut, and sends Brutus’s feet flying  skyward.   After Brutus sticks the landing, stars and birds circle his head.   In slow motion, I heard a rib snap, crackle, and then “pop.”  After asprin, aleve and tylenol I went to bed but couldn’t make the 6am start time with Chris and the gang.   Gnomeboy kept repeating, ” I only promised not to break the bike.” Wednesday, I slowly treked to Wilderness Lodge wondering if the biking was over for a few weeks.

Gnomeboy’s rationalization was as follows:  All gnomes can feel, and see the “Force.”  This  sensation is similar to holding  two magnets in your hands.  All objects, such as trees and rivers  have some gravity or as he says, some “density.”  Any object with great  “density”, creates a visual disturbance, similar to that watery mirage  seen on the road in the desert sun.  Books, novels, and poems  also  can have this “density.”  “In Lesterville  you will SEE IT.” he chided at me.

If you get his watery drift, the Black River had “density.”  People who drank from the river had “density.”  We were going to Lesterville,… come Hell or high water.    And as Gnomeboy’ told me, “The ends justified  the means.”

That afternoon and evening scenario  had “density.”  Raindrops hit like cannonballs but nothing broke.  Of course, the pool water offered some protection and cover.  However, I still couldn’t cough or put pressure on my right side.  To climb out of the pool, I continually had to lead with my left foot.

The rain stopped, but the air remained heavy.  Anna and her family had been floating and drinking in the river their entire lives.  After dinner, Anna  spoke from her heart with the river in the background.  She had fulfilled her personal destiny and distilled three truths.

1.love someone

2.have something to look forward to

3.don’t miss today

As the old man, I could not agree more.  This third trek has been one wonderful wet rollercoaster ride. Meeting and  listening to everyone elses adventures has been the greatest treasure.  It’s like panning for gold  in the river.

After listening politely  to my fractured tale, Judy smiled innocently enough, and  replied with this weighted response,  “Make sure you take the garbage out,…. before you write your blog.”

So it goes.   At least until after Labor Day.

Enterprise car rental opened at 7:30 am., and I was eight miles away.  The bike was packed and on the road by 7am.   At 7:35 Enterprise sent a “heads up voicemail.” There would be no Camary today, even though  Carol had a confirmation number.  I went to the store anyway, after a McDonald’s frappe and a failed call to Avis.

At Enterprise, I retold a Seinfield joke.  “They knew how to make a  reservation, but they just did not know how to keep a reservation.”  John laughed and then offered a truck for me to drive home.

 

We did the paperwork and off I went, after a second Seifield joke.  John had asked how “the little lady”  felt about my adventure?  I replied that “the little lady” was exactly like my biking shorts; “They both gave me a little support and both gave me a little freedom.”   I ride on.

The return trip home allowed me to reflect about the highlights and contrasts of each trek.

The NEWNESS of the Florida bike trip kept a smile on my face. Everyday, presented new geography, new people, and a new biking lifestyle. Long distance biking  created a very fullfilling  adventure for a sixty-four year old.  The bike breakdown, south of Fayetteville Tennessee seemed random and offered  an unexpected detour.  The side trip opened up a new route and pleasent new people to swap bike stories.

The second trek, Virginia Beach to Bardstown, had a daydream quality about it.  Unstuck in time while biking,  I could feel, in a small way, the enormous  struggle  pioneers faced in overcoming the rugged mountainous terrain along the Wilderness Trail.  I coasted  over bridges as they  forded unnaviagated rivers.  They endured exposure to weather extremes while I watched passing storms from a motel or McDonald’s window.  However, to cross the Appalachian Mountains by bike instilled  a great sense of achievement for an old man.

On the third trek, I followed the trans-american  trail on a waterlogged adventure.  The route offered very quiet but hilly roads. The last bike breakdown ordained an unexpected day’s rest at the edge of the flooding Ohio River.  At mid-afternoon, I crossed the river by ferry, with entire trees floating by.  Staying at the River Rose Inn that night, allowed me to be on the river banks for sunset and sunrise.   The river carried such enormous energy,  an unstoppable force.  And yet flowing downstream, it too would be absorbed quietly by  Old Man River .

On the trip home, I crossed the flooded Missouri twice, along with a flooding Mississippi, Walbash, and Ohio rivers. They all flowed with a muddy yet overwhelming energy, distinctly different from the Black River in the Ozarks.

 The Ozark’s terrain, the limestone, and the spring waters  combined to give the effect of being at the water’s source.  For one brief moment,  the liquid blue surface clearly refracted the future of my crystallizing  whims. The water’s weight, its gravity, floated my notions lightly downstream.  And then, seamlessly, swirled  those  colorful blues back to the present, and to the bike trek at hand.  I ride on, sometimes unstuck.   And so it goes.

 

 

Monday morning I left the Super 8 motel at sunrise. The goal was Wichita by sunset and to rent a car for the journey back home.  I would split up the road trip back to Kentucky by driving a few hours before I stopping at a motel.

 

The first four hours, the breeze came from the south so the pace remained 12 or 13 mph. Before noon, the wind direction changed to the southwest and  increased  to 30 mph. That 100 degree heat blasting away, sure did slow me down to 7 or 8 mph.

Carol, back at the office, faced strong head winds of her own. It seems hard to believe, but in a city the size of Wichita, you could not rent a vehicle for a one way trip without days of notice.

 

The sky was serrilian  blue and feathered with cirrus clouds. The rolling  bluestem grass fields greened out the panoramic vistas.  Kansas, in a unique way, was stunning.  About a 120 miles later, I reached the Wichita suburbs, and Carol had made arrangements to rent a Camry in the am.

I am half way across the country, and well pleased with my progress. The grandchildren are coming to Fox Hill Farm for two weeks.  After Labor Day, I hope to restart the trail, but in Astoria Oregon. Hopefully, I will ride on to Kansas.

So it goes.

Taming the Kansas grasslands had many raw and exposed historical periods.  President Franklin Pierce opened the Kansas territory in 1854 and removed the Indian tribes. The homesteaders  decided whether to enter the union as a slave or a free state. Massacres occurred from both sides.  John Brown was the most feared Kansas abolitionist and took part in the Pottawatomie Massacre. After his hanging for similar events at Harpers Ferry,  he became a union hero/martyr.  His deeds  were commemorated in the marching song “John Browns body.”

Barbed wire in 1874 helped precipitate the “range wars” between cattlemen driving up the “Chisholm Trail”  and farmers fencing the “open range.”

With  no wooden fence posts, farmers carved limestone posts to fence off their farm. The southeast region is called “post rock area.”   The stones weighed over 200lbs. and were delivered to the site for 25 cents apiece. Some of the original barbed wire remains.

Today,  I started from  Pittsburg Kansas. I rode past the remains of a large open strip mine, pits filled with small ponds and trailings now covered with cottonwoods . The highways  were quiet , flat, and smooth.  At high noon (heat index 106),  we  met more of Gnomeboy’s  “Low Dutch” cousins, outside Walnut Kansas (Pop. 219).

He  was trading Mammoth Russian Sunflowers for their Turkey hard red winter wheat.  Let me explain.  The Kansas state flower is the sunflower.    His cousins wanted some “Mammoth Russians” from the “old country”. The sunflower is the background for all the  Kansas highway road signs.

 

Since the reformation, gnomes worked hand and hand with the Holland Mennonites.  The Mennonites were expelled from Holland for their religion, but gnome lore repeated that  the Mennonites were the scapegoat for the Tulip financial crash of 1637.  After the crash, Gnomeboy’s side of the family, crossed the Atlantic  in steerage and then prospered throughout the colonies especially in the Dutch region of Lancaster Pa.

The remaining Mennonites, and Gnomeboy’s great uncles settled the Ukraine with Catherine the Great’s blessing.  On the Russian  steppes, they developed the hybrid winter wheat.  In 1873. Czar Alexander instituted one Czar, one religion.

The gnomes and the Mennonites then emigrated  to Kansas in 1874 and took their hybrid grain with them.  This winter wheat quickly replaced the more fragile summer wheat.  After the grinding mills were built, Kansas became the breadbasket for the world. Their mutual success was well deserved.

With all the seed trading completed, we  sat under the largest black wanut tree and sipped  iced “Russian Caravan” black tea. Young Kazok gnomes danced the Hopak with Balalaikas  strumming  traditional songs.  After the dancing, we said our goodbyes, and off to Chanute we rode. No worries, no complaints, no wind.  Just lots of heat.

If that wasn’t a nice day, I don’t know what is.  I ride on.

 

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Saturday is my last biking day in the Ozarks.  On the outer edge of the Ozark mountains , the Springfield Plateau  continues to be eroded by wind and rain. Today’s bike route rolls over spring fed rivers and steep knobs between 900 and 1200 feet above sea level. The entire Ozark Plateau is undermined by streams that percolate underground, through the soft limestone mantle. These waterways feed about 500 major springs in the region.

 

“The force that drives the water through the rocks drives my red blood.”  Dylan Thomas’s poem seems appropriate  as I crest over one more unnamed hill.  Gnomeboy has me pacing to make Ash Grove Missouri, and the Gnome’s Fresh Market by noon.  He needs to trade for Ginseng, Wake robin, and Skunk cabbage.

His uncle, Hans, emigrated with Colonel Nathan Boone, the youngest son of Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone, in 1837.  Both were very successful in making Ash Grove a cattle and agricultural center.  His son, Hans jr., now trades in hickory nuts and wild blue cone flowers under a large Blue Ash Tree.

The market was a happening place.  There were hundreds of Gnomes, mostly with blue cones, but obviously, there were scatterings of  red, yellow and greenies,  As they say ” Buisness is Buisness.”

Historically, red gnomes would grow red cabbage or red peppers. Green gnomes would grow corn or green   squash. They needed camoflage from medieval dragons.  But that was  a millennium ago . Now, dragons bring loose scales to be gnome pasted back on.  However, the tradition continues.

After catching up with their family events, Gnomeboy traded from stall to stall and left well supplied for the remaining trek . I ended up giving away small chunks of salt from my pretzels to any begger that asked.

After the climb out, from Turnback Creek, the trail returned to gently rolling hills.  At Golden City Missouri, Cook’s Cafe served up a great meal and coconut cream pie for dessert .  Their logo is “Come for the brisket stay for the pie.”

 

Thirty flat miles later, I watched my first Kansas sunset.   The day’s total mileage surpassed 120 miles, with a heat index over 105.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,………….Old  age should burn and rave at close of day……………Rage,rage  against the dying of the light.”

I ride on with kindred spirits and Westerly winds.

Friday morning, the Piney River basin was crossed in the first eight miles.  The elevation dropped down to 800 feet above sea level, but then immediately climbed back to 1500 feet.  What a beautiful wake up call from the Ozarks.  Down in the valley,  a dense morning fog hovered  over the river.  It muffeled the song birds  and muted  the dense vegetation colors .

Missouri’s state flower  the “Flowering Hawthorn” has a small red berry called the “haw” which Gnomeboy collects  to treat small critters. I broke off the thorns while he picked the red berries.

 

In exchange for the thorns, the barn swollows would shuttle the berries back home pony express style.  The thorns were  needed to defend their chicks from Black Ravens.

Friday was one more day of up and down hill biking.  The Garmin stopped recording the grade over 12%. The county roads were straight rather than switchbacks and routinely topped 12% for a length of 100yds.  I grumbled but pressed on.

By noon, the heat index was over 105. I stopped in Hartville for a long, cool lunch at Lisa’s Lid.   From the side wall of the police station next door,  I snapped this picture below.  I love Americana art.

 

The Weather Channel said “stay inside.”  There was no climate control botton to push on the bike so I drank Gatorade all afternoon.  The weather channel predicted dangerous weather late in the afternoon.  I checked in to the Marshfield Holiday Inn by 3pm and was in the pool minutes later.

 

There were tornado watches by 5pm.  Thunderstorms continued throughout the  evening with dazzling lightening strikes nearby.

I ride on.