Going Somewhere: A Bicycle Journey Across America Read online

  The music stopped abruptly. I heard a man talking to Sherry, and under his voice the sound of plucked strings. He was speaking in halting bursts—the same way I did whenever I tried to talk while playing guitar—and then he wasn’t speaking at all; he was walking through the house and out the door, shaking our hands, and introducing himself as Paul, Sherry’s husband. He said he had been playing a Dobro, that he also played mandolin, banjo, and a dozen other instruments, played them well enough to make a living doing session work in Nashville with big-name bluegrass players. He and Sherry and their two daughters lived in the Cities, but they tried to make it to the cabin often, hoped to eventually live here full time.

  They invited us in for a spaghetti dinner, then served up heaping bowls of ice cream, then invited us to camp in the yard and do laundry and take showers and hang out inside as long as we wanted. We thanked them repeatedly and clumsily, then took them up on every offer. And just as we were about to bid them good-night, Paul hauled out an old nylon-string and played a medley of Celtic ballads, which I still recall as one of the most stunning performances I’ve ever heard.

  Eventually, reluctantly, we headed to the tent.

  “I wonder if the whole trip will be like this.” Rachel was propped up on her elbows, considering the Minnesota map.

  “Like what?”

  “Every person we’ve met has offered something,” Rachel said. “It’s been, what, two weeks? We’ve barely even had to look for campsites. And every time something remotely bad happens, a guardian angel swoops in.”

  “I know. I kind of expected it to be harder. Or lonelier. Or something.”

  I looked at the map. The part of Minnesota we’d just ridden—up the North Shore, across the Mesabi Range, into the Chippewa National Forest—even looked pretty on paper. Expansive chunks of forest and thousands of sky blue blobs and tendrils. We had maybe one more day of that Minnesota. I traced our route to Detroit Lakes, a sizable city that lay about seventy miles away. It too was surrounded by tiny blue splotches. But to the west the splotches ended. And North Dakota began. I didn’t know if Dakota was going to be lonelier, or harder, or something else. I just knew that once we crossed that border, it was going to be different.

  I looked up from the map to find Rachel looking at the house.

  “It was so fun hearing Paul play tonight,” she said. “I miss making music. We should find people to play with when we get to Portland.”

  Now that the mania had subsided, I was back to feeling like Portland maybe wasn’t such a swell idea. For now, I decided to leave it alone.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  • • •

  By midmorning, after breakfast and photo snapping and good-bye hugging, Rachel and I were on our way, heading west on the Heartland State Trail. We’d been thrilled to learn that yet another trail, this one twenty-eight miles long, lay directly in our path. Later we’d learn that these “lucky” encounters were anything but. Minnesota has been recognized as the “Best Trails State” in America, boasting over twenty-five thousand miles of paved rail-to-trail bikeways, and one would be hard pressed to ride east–west without running into one. But at the time, we didn’t know this. It felt like every trail we encountered had been built just for us.

  The Heartland was empty and well paved, and though it steered us through more charming small towns, it was hard riding. With every mile, the forest thinned, opening up more space for the westerly winds we’d heard so much about. I kept looking down, checking for blown spokes or flat tires. Nothing. Just the low, almost imperceptible breeze, its fingers on my forehead. By the time we arrived in Park Rapids, Rachel and I were both exhausted, and we headed to the town park and passed out on picnic tables.

  It was dusk when we pulled into the barely there town of Osage. We had no idea where we were going to sleep, and prospects were looking dim. The land was nearly treeless, the park too open to properly hide in. As we sat on the shoulder, considering options, Rachel noticed a woman in the front yard of a nearby house.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  I shrugged. The woman, who appeared to be in her sixties, was watering plants. The house was modest, with a large, well-groomed yard sloping down toward a creek bed. Yeah, she might be another angel, but I was feeling queasy. This wasn’t just accepting generosity but actively seeking it out. I pondered. Considered. Ruminated. And as I did so, Rachel walked her bike toward the house. I followed a few steps behind, close enough to be associated with her if the conversation went well, far enough that I could feign disapproval if the woman was put off.

  “Hello!” Rachel’s voice was chipper. The woman looked up, hesitated, then walked over. Rachel quickly explained who we were and where we were coming from and going. “We’re trying to find a good spot to sleep tonight. Do you have any suggestions?” Now I played along, looking back and forth, playing the part of lost little puppy.

  The woman looked at the highway, then toward the river, then back at us. “I guess you could just set up here in our yard. We’ve certainly got the space. Let me ask my husband.”

  Rachel did a little dance. A minute later, the woman, Nancy, came out with her husband, Bill, and they showed us a nice spot by the river. Their son, they said, was our age, and he had once taken a long trip of his own and had stayed with several strangers. They were happy to help.

  After setting up the tent, Rachel and I biked to the town park, on the south shores of Straight Lake. In the cool water, we bathed and washed away the day’s dirt. I’d grown accustomed to this ritual, the nightly cleanse, the moment when we scrubbed off everything that had stuck, so we could start the next day fresh. I had the feeling we were about to lose our little ritual. From here on out, we’d get dirty, and we’d stay that way.

  CHAPTER 9

  Slightly Mangled but Still Intact

  I’d somehow been expecting the Northwoods to melt away like a slow-fade outro, the lakes and forests shrinking slowly and sweetly, easing us into the silence of the prairie. And so as we rode west from Osage, still buried in boreal forest, still marking miles with sun-sparkled lakes and streams, I did not pay proper homage, did not swim at that pristine beach or rest under this roadside pine bough, because I thought there would be more ahead, because I was waiting for the hush, the sign that it was time to be attentive and nod reverentially and say good-bye.

  But there was no hush. No sign. One moment, Rachel and I were lazing in lukewarm shallows. The next, we were riding west, and I was blinking once, twice, thrice, and poof, plains, period. Suddenly the land was treeless, save for rows of oak planted to block wind or protect property, and waterless, excepting the brackish sludge that sat in irrigation trenches and ponds.

  By noon it was ninety. Sweat escaped from pores I never knew existed, stinging my eyes, soaking my shirt, pooling in my shorts. Clouds of grain dust blew off fields and into our faces, mixing into sweat streams, streaking Rachel’s cheeks with what looked like gravy. All the while the wind lashed us, variably: ten miles of I can’t believe we chose to ride into prevailing headwinds (fifteen miles per hour), another five of I think I have a flat (eight miles per hour), and an all-too-brief lull of it’s perfectly calm but I still feel like my arteries are filled with Velveeta (three miles per hour).

  Thirty miles of this felt reasonable. Forty, even. But ninety-two? Not so much.

  And yet. We had made plans to stay with some Fargonian friends of Rachel’s folks, and said friends had promised us a meal and a bed and a shower, and so even though Fargo was ninety-two miles from Osage, we were going get there by nightfall, goddammit.

  For forty, fifty, sixty miles, I pretty well sustained this can-do bluster. But by the time we hit seventy, I was standing more than sitting and newly sympathetic to the term “ass hatchet.” My legs were noodles, my neck no longer interested in supporting my head, my head no longer interested in much at all. Save for a ve
rse of “Home on the Range,” I hadn’t strung together anything like a continuous, coherent thought for hours. Also, the air must have phase-shifted at some point, because, well, I now seemed to be underwater. Or in space. That would certainly explain the stars. And maybe the cotton mouth? I wasn’t sure if space gave you cotton mouth.

  I coasted into the lane, and Rachel pulled beside me. Her face was crimson, her right cheek smudged with grease. I wondered if I looked like that. I hoped so.

  “It’s awful out here,” she said. “If we don’t find water soon, I’m drinking that chain lube.”

  “I think we’re almost to Downer,” I replied. “But by all means help yourself to the lube.”

  We had failed to refill water bottles in Detroit Lakes, the last town we’d seen. For miles, we’d been nursing the final drops, but now the bottles were bone dry. Thus the twinklevision, the cotton mouth. Our plan was to rehydrate in Downer, an intersection town that, according to the map, should be appearing anytime. Should, as a matter of fact, be just past this bend in the—

  “Civilization!” Rachel pointed at a distant silo, a cluster of beige buildings.

  We rolled into downtown Downer. Dropped the bikes. Wandered. Peeked. Knocked. Sighed. The town had zero open businesses, zero accessible spigots, zero residents willing or able to answer their doors. Downer, we agreed, was a total fucking downer. And so we continued on, bound for the equally sexy-sounding town of Dilworth. For a short while, we were laughing, about Downer and Dilworth, sunburn and sweat gravy, but soon the laughter stopped, and the headaches started, so we just hunched over the bars and sucked on saliva and endured eighteen miles of gusting wind and beastly hot sun and, once we merged with Highway 10, poison-spewing rush hour traffic.

  Given certain anatomical realities, whenever I forgot to monitor the rearview I ended up leaving Rachel a hundred yards behind. Every time this happened, I’d feel a stab of guilt, and then I’d coast, or hop off the bike and check the tire pressure, or come up with another ruse to let her catch up without seeming like I was letting her catch up. Maybe she felt I was rushing her, and maybe I felt she was holding me back, but neither of us said a word. We were a team. If we opened our mouths, it was only to complain about the wind and heat. To rally against a common enemy.

  After we’d at last hit Dilworth and found a spigot and filled our bottles and drunk them down and filled them again, after we’d promised to never again be so careless about staying hydrated, we spotted an ice cream drive-in and, recalling a certain candy-and-soda-in-the-morning splurge, decided to treat ourselves to one carton of cheese curds and two extra-large milk shakes. This seemed like a truly stupendous idea until I got back on the bike and realized I now had to ride seven more miles with a helium balloon in my colon.

  It was half past seven by the time we pulled up to the Levitts’ home. We’d been on the road for ten hours. A bruise pulsed between my legs. My left pinky was numb, my joints frozen solid. I could barely bend my knee, so the only way to dismount was to lean onto the bars and swing my right leg over the frame—a slo-mo, off-balance roundhouse kick. Rachel leaned her bike beside mine and pulled off her helmet. Back in Dilworth, she’d tugged her hair into a ponytail, but by now a few locks had slimed out and cemented themselves to her forehead. She removed them one by one, as if peeling an ear of corn.

  I felt I should say something profound. We had just ridden ninety-two miles in hellish conditions, had moved beyond the cozy Northwoods into the brutal Plains, and we were still standing. Together. I stared at my feet, tried to find the right turn of phrase. Rachel beat me to it.

  “I feel like shit,” she said. “But I’m proud we did that.” She gritted her teeth and dropped into a squat and did her best full-body flex.

  “Rach,” I said, “we discussed this. Even though the chamois feels like a diaper, it’s . . . ”

  Now she exploded up into a sort of airborne curtsey. She stuck the landing, raised her arms high, and started laughing that delirious staccato laugh.

  I stood, smiling, watching. Here she was, doubled over beside a bike-tank in some stranger’s driveway, covered head-to-toe in Lycra and plastic and polyester, wind blasted and sunburned, sweat soaked and filthy, and she was not just game but happy, not just happy but delirious, and now she looked up, saw me seeing her, and right when it was about to get real schmoopy, Helen Levitt opened the front door and beckoned us inside.

  • • •

  The next day, I went to a bike shop and talked to a mechanic, who recommended I pay him several dozens of dollars to relace my wheel with double-butted spokes. I wasn’t quite clear on what “double-butted” meant, but I knew the guy had kind eyes, and that “double” sounded sturdier than “single,” and that I needed sturdy. Adept as I was at flustered roadside fixes, I was feeling pretty done with blown spokes and did not want any surprises in the coming weeks. Ahead loomed North Dakota and Montana, vast tracts of sparsely populated territory, the next known bike shop nearly a thousand miles away.

  As we left the shop, Rachel said, “I wish something would go wrong with my bike. I figured I’d have learned so much about maintenance by now, but I haven’t even had a flat.”

  “You want to trade?” I asked. “I think you’ll like my bike’s pedagogy.”

  She shrugged. “I kind of do.”

  I kept walking, smiling now. I hadn’t thought of it this way. The Fuji didn’t hate me. It merely wanted to help me build character.

  We spent that afternoon walking around town. Sort of. I couldn’t get much more than fifty degrees of flexion from my knee and hip joints, and, really, that was probably for the best. I felt like I’d spent the previous day sitting on a cheese grater, and my nether nerves screamed at the slightest brush of boxers against skin. Rachel was no better off, shuffling alongside me. But we both found that a slow, straight-legged gait largely protected our tender taints from the caresses of well-intentioned undergarments.

  We’d wanted to explore Fargo, but it was ruthless out there. The temperature flirted with triple digits, and at the slightest movement drops of water materialized from the air, landed fatly on foreheads and forearms. After a ten-minute waddle around the surprisingly charming downtown—an ornately restored theater here, a straight-from-the Old West hotel there, a diverse array of small businesses in between—we holed up at Juano’s Mexican Restaurant, bought happy-hour margaritas and indulged in the free chips and air-conditioning.

  By five the shop had built me a bombproof wheel, and we returned to the house for dinner with Helen, a petite, frenetically friendly nurse, and Ralph, a doctor who was doing a way better job wearing those blocky, black-framed glasses than his legions of hipster imitators. As we ate, I tried to come up with something nice to say about Fargo. I hadn’t, of course, really seen it, but Helen and Ralph had been so generous with their space, letting us stay two nights, inviting us to raid their refrigerator, and so I figured the least I could do was douse their city with midwestern effusiveness. I began commenting on all I’d seen, and then, at a loss, I brought up the Coen brothers’ movie named after their city. I did so with the same silly grasp for connection that compels people to talk about their favorite character on The Wire whenever they meet someone who is from, has been to, or has heard of Baltimore.

  “It must have been really cool for you guys when Fargo came out.”

  “Uh . . . sort of,” Helen said. “It sure got us a lot of attention. I’m just not sure it was the right kind of attention.”

  I backpedaled the same way I always do, lapsing into convoluted, pseudoacademic jargon. “Well, yes, I guess it was a highly subjective perspective on a place few had previously sought to understand.”

  Rachel was smiling. She’d heard this crap before.

  “And I’m sure,” I continued, “that people internalized it as this supposedly authentic—”

  “Steve Buscemi got put in a wood chipper,” Ralph interjected.
>
  “Yes. Right.”

  I sat with this for a moment, considered the fact that the vast majority of Americans most likely associated the name Fargo with a man being fed into a wood chipper. I could think of no other place, save for Casablanca, whose identity was so completely wrapped up in a piece of cinema, and none with such unfortunate results.

  Later I lay in bed, thinking about Fargo. I knew all about banal regional stereotypes and damn near lost my mind every time some jackass boiled Wisconsin down to cows and cheeseheads, both of which were far better connotations than—not to belabor the point—a man being fed into a wood chipper. Anyway. Now I had new images of Fargo. My own images.

  • • •

  The next day, the wind was vicious, the forecast calling for triple digits, and so we decided to linger until late afternoon and wait out the worst of it. We dropped the drapes, cranked the air-conditioning, and for much of the morning, mapped our route through North Dakota, by which I mean that Rachel pretty much instantly suggested we take Highway 200 border to border, then curled up on the couch to enjoy her novel, while I spent hours in front of the computer, gorging on options, frozen by indecision, before eventually, inevitably, agreeing.

  We spent the afternoon taking care of chores. We washed our crusty socks and shirts—I’d begun wearing the gray T-shirt almost exclusively, and a dinosaur-egg-shaped, salt-rimmed sweat stain now splotched the back—then headed out to the garage to tune up the bikes. Together we lubed the chains, aired the tires, even wiped road grime from the frames. It felt good, taking care of the Fujis—knowing how to take care of them. Sort of.

  Finally we repaired to the kitchen, pulled stools to the counter, and tried to decide what to do about those two quart-size bags of Cheerios and M&M’s—the “trail mix” Helen had whipped up for us. We had no qualms about the contents, but the volume was worrisome. Each bag easily weighed a pound and a half, which meant three pounds of food (good), but also three pounds of luggage (bad). Eventually we balanced our gluttony against a fastidious aerodynamic sensibility, and took one bag, leaving the other with an appreciative and explanatory note.