by Neil Peart
As usual, I took up the story with my friend Brutus . . .
Oct. 1, ’99 Sauk Centre, MN
A-2 Bruté —
Yeah, that’s one possibility we haven’t discussed for your future: what about professional wrestling? You’d probably have to “bulk up” a little (like Cartman’s “Weight Gain 2000”), but with a good manager (like me) and a good hype (how about “From Hard Time to the Big Time”), you could make a go of it, dude. And no telling where it might take you: consider Jesse Ventura, the governor of this very state, whose opinions are now quoted by the likes of Mark Riebling, for pity’s sake.
Man, you have to admit, your future’s so bright, we don’t have to wear shades. Just rainsuits . . .
And I’ve been wearing mine for the past four days, with no relief in sight. I’m riding “mad from hell” southward now, trying to escape a vicious cold front across the Prairies and the Dakotas, and I may end up in Oklahoma before I’m warm again. I started out on that nice route we discussed, on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, to where 148 ended at the Île des Allumettes (Matches Island?), then across to Ontario, and into the pouring rain. I gave up in North Bay, staying in a nice place on the lakeshore, and enjoying a good meal at Churchill’s (prime rib was their specialty, and even a rabbit-food lover like you would have liked it).
There were righteous thunderstorms that night, and again the following morning, but as I was riding out of North Bay a marbled gray sky and a brief ray of sun emboldened me to stick with the “scenic route,” and I headed north to Temagami. Wrong.
Rain and trucks and construction and mud and cold. I huddled under the dripping eaves of a driving-range shack for a smoke, thinking, “Why am I not at home, warm and dry, writing a great book or something?” And you know, I could just imagine it, and it made a lovely picture. But the answer remained the usual one, “Shut up and get back on the road.”
So I did. Through the mine-towers of Timmins, the “Shania Twain Way” (oh god!), Pegi’s [long-time employee of Ray’s and the band who had also been a great support, especially for Jackie, in the House of Mourning] home town of South Porcupine, long-ago memories of high school gigs up there, then into the lonely, rain-washed, green-and-yellow woods, through Chapleau, and all the way to good old Wawa. A journal entry that night:
Weather shows single digits all across the Prairies, and I feel . . . lost. Teary and uncertain. Don’t know where to go, or what to do. Once again, reading soothes me, takes me away to Augie’s problems [The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow]. But I’m still lost.
However, next day, back at it again, around Lake Superior through rain and trucks and construction and mud and cold. Glimpses of glorious scenery between showers, and even a few blinding rays of sun through Thunder Bay, then the clouds darkened again, and the heavy rains came down.
For reasons fanciful (and ultimately erroneous) I had my heart set on Fort Frances, or even Rainy River, but by Atikokan, that heart was weary, sodden, and chilled, and I settled for the White Otter Inn, with gangs of utility and construction crews. The Weather Network showed my foolish heart the error of its westward ways, and this morning, when it was 3°C [37°F], and raining again, we finally got the message. Despite a potentially beautiful and almost pleasant ride along that deserted two-lane to Rainy Lake (aptly named today), when we got to the hellish pulp-mill steam and smoke and stench of Fort Frances, we crossed to the ditto of International Falls (which, on the Stuart Hall weather reports from Burlington, Vermont, was alternately the coldest spot in the U.S., sharing that distinction with Caribou, Maine, which was definitely warmer today!), and headed straight south, on Highway 71.
Ever colder, I noted 41°F at 2:00 p.m. on a bank sign in Wadena, Minnesota. Bright spots from the journal of Mr. Ever-the-Optimist: “Red pinewoods on the edge of prairie farmland, lakes and rivers, a pair of bald eagles, traffic going the other direction (weekend hunters), rain tapering off, and — no bugs!” [Meaning splattered on my faceshield.] I made myself laugh at that hopelessly optimistic observation.
(By the way, I saw an item on the Weather Channel which confirmed that the fall colors are triggered by the angle of the sun, as I had thought, and not by cold or frost. Apparently some response to the sun’s angle stops photosynthesis and cuts off the chlorophyll. The key fact is that the local weather only affects the duration of the colors — whether or not the wind and rain knock the leaves off.)
So many connections to our experiences at this time of year, near the beginning of the Rush tour in ’96: Michigan, Wisconsin, and, yes, Minnesota (today I saw a bumper sticker: “Our Governor Can Beat up Your Governor”); the ride to Minneapolis, and from there down to the “Quint Cities,” and even the ride cross-country, with our feet pigeon-toed under the bikes to catch the exhaust heat.
I was even doing that today, while wearing full-out cold weather rainsuit, balaclava, sock liners, and all heating systems on full. And as on those other occasions, it was far from enough, with a cruising speed windchill of, say, -90. (I don’t even have to say “Sayin’?” You know what I’m talking about here.)
Late in the afternoon I saw this place on the mileage signs, and it rang a bell. You ever read any Sinclair Lewis? His Main Street, published in 1920, was set here, in the town where he’d grown up (called Gopher Prairie in the novel), and caused a big to-do at the time, especially among the townsfolk he’d lampooned so mercilessly.
So as I rode in, I wondered if even today they would acknowledge their ungrateful native son. Well, my first clue was when Highway 71 became “The Original Main Street,” then led to Sinclair Lewis Park, and the main intersection in town with Sinclair Lewis Avenue, leading to the Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home, then farther along to the Sinclair Lewis Museum and Interpretive Center (where the nice old lady promised to send me a Sinclair Lewis sticker, as soon as she got some more), beside the Gopher Prairie Motel. So yeah, they sort of acknowledge him: he’s America’s first Nobel-Prize-winning writer, after all.
Here at the “AmericInn,” surrounded by the usual Interstate exit (I-94) detritus of truck stops, McDonald’s, Hardees, Super 8, and supermarkets, I wonder what old “Red” Lewis would say about the modern version of Main Street. Probably not much, because he’s dead . . .
Oct 2, ’99 Maryville, MO
Ha ha, what a card! And I had lots to laugh about today, boyo, starting with scraping the ice off my saddle this morning, at 30°F, then riding through the snowy fields of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. At least the road was dry, the sky was clear and blue, and there were no bugs!
Though I have to say it was actually a pretty nice ride, as Highway 71 continued to carry me southward through brown cornfields alternating with stubbled wheat and soybeans, gentle hills and occasional neat towns with Sci-Fi grain towers, monumental courthouses, and vast implement dealers. The Saturday traffic was light and unhurried, and town names like Sacred Heart, Minnesota, and Spirit Lake, Iowa, kept me entertained.
Judging by the Weather Channel, a move westward seems prudent now, and I’m thinking of picking up Highway 36 across northern Kansas, hoping to hit Colorado on Monday, and maybe a BMW dealer for an oil change, say in Fort Collins. (Now I’m navigating by the jetstream and the dealer directory!)
Rain coming in around here tomorrow, and colder air, so no sense sticking with 71; it’s done its job. During dinner tonight at the excellent (not) Country Kitchen (next door to the equally not Super 8), I finished the epic The Adventures of Augie March, and it is definitely going on my book list for you, with Wolf Willow and Tomcat in Love. If there’s anything else I’ve mentioned you’d particularly like, let me know c/o Danny and Janette, for (despite appearances) I am still Vancouver-bound, and will be trying to organize some reading for you.
Otherwise, I’m going to close this one off for now, and aim to get it mailed before the first of the week. (And I still hate this cheesy, thin writing paper, but even in New York City, at the main Staples store, I couldn’t find one of those old-fashione
d typing tablets. What a world we live in, huh?)
That’s all from Maryville, MO, and I’ll talk at you again soon.
El queso pocito
Oct 4, ’99 Santa Rosa, NM
El Cuervo!
(Which I just passed a couple of hours ago.) Yes, this is how far south I had to go to get warm! When I mailed your letter this morning, from Garden City, Kansas, it was 30°F. Do you believe this mu-fu’n weather?
True to my pledge, though, I just kept riding south until the temperature reached at least 60°F, and this is how far I had to go. And yes, I am still on my way to Vancouver; although I just talked to Andrew, and he says “everyone” wants me to come to L.A. (I still haven’t called that woman, for I’m into this good self-contained travellin’ groove, and I just don’t need all that right now, sayin’? Ghost Rider redux. Far as I’m concerned, I’m over her. However, now Andrew keeps talking about this other girl he’s been working with, Carrie, who “can’t wait to meet me.” He sent me some Polaroids of her in Halifax, and she looks real pretty, but — I just don’t need all that right now.)
So I guess I left you hanging back in Maryville, Missouri. Next morning was cold and rainy (surprise!) as I made my way around old St. Joe, then west on the Pony Express Highway, 36, which was actually a very nice ride, especially as the rain tapered off after a couple of hours. The Great Plains began abruptly, and unmistakably, around Norton, as I turned southwest on 383, running between open views over brown fields, the railroad tracks over quarried-stone culverts marked “1897,” and turkey vultures lifting off the roadkill. The sun finally appeared, though the bank-signs in the towns never showed above 50°F, and around there, on Highway 83, I must have joined the historic Scooter Trash Route: the one we took from Ogallala down through Dodge City, and Pratt, to end up in Fairview, Oklahoma.
And, in the here-and-now of Santa Rosa, I’m just back from the “Route 66 Restaurant” (looks like it could be an original), where I had the #1, Full Mexican Meal, with enchilada, taco, tamale, and beans and rice. (You wouldn’t have liked it, though, ’cause of course it had meat in it.)
Now I’m back in my spacious “pod” (sorry) at the Ramada Limited, which is actually pretty nice. After several nights of Super 8 and Best Western, the Wheat Lands in Garden City, Kansas (whose envelope you should have received), was an unexpected treat. As I was checking in, I noticed a large black-and-white photo of Truman Capote, looking very cool in a tall billed cap and turtleneck with double-breasted pea jacket, and standing in front of a ’50s-style sign for the Wheat Lands Motel. He’d stayed there during the making of the movie of In Cold Blood (which I just read during my travels last fall — yet another “Ghost Writer” connection). The manager told me his father or grandfather had taken the photo, and that old Tru used to come back there a lot in those days, for he’d become “friends” with a local high school teacher. Whoa, eh?
Last night, I took a walk by the Finney County Courthouse, where Dick and Perry had been held, and this morning rode out toward Holcomb, looking for the Clutter house. You’ll understand that I was kind of shy about asking anyone where the house was, but I found one that fit Capote’s description, and whether it was or not, I rode away from there well “creeped out.”
The house is also mentioned in that book, Great Plains, I was telling you about, and which I’ve been reminded of the past couple of days. I’ve added it to your book list, along with Lesley Choyce’s World Enough.
From there, I rode south on 83 again through Liberal, Kansas, then Highway 54 took me southwest through the Oklahoma panhandle, a corner of Texas, and into the sage and juniper high desert of New Mexico. As so often happens, it seemed to change right at the border from flatter, open range land, vast areas of our old favorite, center-pivot irrigation, on soybeans and winter wheat, and towns grouped around those immense, metallic, fearsome-looking grain towers. Plenty of stenching feedlots too, reeking so that I almost gagged, and stretching for acres sometimes, countless rounded cattle-backs like hills of strangely colored boulders. All those cows getting fat for you to eat . . .
Our BMW buddies in Albuquerque were closed, so I figured instead of racing in there, I might as well make an easy day of it — only 657 kilometres [411 miles], versus 855 [534] yesterday) — and I stood in the parking lot here, feeling overdressed but relaxed, thinking “I’m warm!”
At last — 2,913 kilometres [1,821 miles] from Atikokan — I’m warm.
Oct. 5, ’99 Cortez, CO
And today, hooray, I’m even warmer. A strange sort of day it was, though. In the words of the Talking Heads song, “Some good points; some bad points — ah, but it all works out.” (So he says.)
Awake at about 4:30, after those two sudden time-zone changes, I went back over to the “Route 66” place for breakfast just after 6:00, with the air pleasantly cool, stars and planets and a bright quarter moon with earthshine on the rest, then hopped on I-40 a little after 7:00, sun rising in my mirrors, shades of former crossings as I cruised past the big semis from Jim Palmer, Covenant (“It is not a Choice, It is a Child”) [anti-choice slogan on each of their trailers], England, Dick Simon (with the skunk), and the rest. Needing gas, I couldn’t resist Clines Corners, where I also scored some great vintage stickers of some of the western states.
While waiting for an oil change and a new front tire — 17,000 kilometres [10,625 miles] on it, and still okay, but I thought I might as well get it now) — I noticed a place on the map of Albuquerque labelled “Ernie Pyle Memorial Branch Library,” so I got a cab and went to check it out. Years ago, someone sent me a collection of Ernie Pyle’s newspaper columns called Ernie’s America, and I’d become interested in his life and work. Another one of those interesting guys, a “roving reporter” during the ’30s, driving around with his wife, Jerry (to whom he always referred as “that girl who rides with me”), and talking to people and telling their stories in a folksy, understated way. Later, he was a tremendously popular correspondent in World War Two, until he was killed by a sniper near Okinawa, in April of 1945, just a few months before the war ended. Unfortunately, Ernie and Jerry were not very happy people — they were both alcoholics; she was mentally unstable, and he was impotent. (Obviously, all of those conditions may have been linked!)
Anyway, it turned out that this had been their house, and although it now functions as a library, with books in every room (and closet), it is otherwise as it was, with some interesting mementos of Ernie’s life and career, and some wonderful black-and-white photos of their life in that house. So that made a worthwhile diversion.
Then back on the road. But — why didn’t you tell me that Highway 44, despite its scenic “dots” [many maps use dotted lines to signify a scenic route], was actually a straight, busy highway, with lots of trucks, and fairly ordinary scenery of sage and juniper with a few rocky outcrops? Or that Farmington was a busy, dusty oppression of four-lane traffic, franchises, and unaesthetic Southwest glut? (Don’t know what’s going on there; gamblers, retirees, or what; but it’s definitely the bad side of the Four Corners.) And why didn’t you tell me that there was absolutely nowhere to stay in Shiprock? Because it’s in the Rez [Navajo reservation], I guess.
However, it was 90°F there, and about 80° here in Cortez, and it was awfully nice to be riding all afternoon in leathers and T-shirt. And there were lots of places to stay here (Best Western was my choice tonight) and a good restaurant, the “Main Street Brewery.” So you’re lucky. (Oh yeah.)
There’s a good motto on the wall here (part of an extraordinary “mural”): “Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.”
I’m reading Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life right now, about the difference between the “survival of the fittest” and the “survival of the luckiest,” but I’m finding it hard to get engaged with this book. Like, who cares about the contingency of primitive life? What about the ditto of modern life? Yeah . . .
Say, on that subject, it occurred to me toda
y that if you are to be banned from riding the roads of America hereafter, at least you know you have ridden the best already. If it’s any consolation . . .
I’m sure it is.
Oh yeah — happy anniversary, tomorrow, I think.
One whole year of injustice.
Oct 6, ’99 Moab, UT
Now, this is better. Not just being here, but getting here too. Tell all your clients that Colorado 141 is a “must;” the best ride of this fall Ghost Riding season, and certainly one of the all-time Scooter Trash best as well. Need I say more? Of course!
After all, I am your Ghost Rider; it’s my job, right?
Well, you start off out of Cortez climbing through tall yellow-and-green forest to Lizard Head Pass, at 10,222 feet, where it was cold, but not too, then down to Telluride. I believe you’ve been there in ski season, no? Well, it looks pretty good in autumn too, and would be worth staying there for a day or two, I reckon, for bikin’ or hikin’.
Now, yesterday I found myself wondering if I wasn’t getting just a little jaded about the fabled Southwest scenery, noting in my journal about yesterday’s route, “scenic, but perhaps too familiar,” but then I absolved myself, “But no. As always, it’s the road.”
And sure enough, just a day later, I was ga-ga; and it was the road. In many ways it resembled our ride through Sheep Creek Canyon and Flaming Gorge (only a couple hundred miles away, after all), beginning with high, bare red-rock walls on either side, the road following the meanders of the San Miguel River most deliciously, then opening up into more monumental formations, the view stretching wider over red, crimson, rust, and orange scrub, with patches of bright yellow aspen up high and occasional bursts of bright gold cottonwoods along the river.