Be Brave, Be Strong

by Jill Homer

  “Do you want me to show you where it’s all going down?” the man in the poncho asked.

  “No,” I said quickly. “No, I just want to get out of here. How much farther to Cuba?”

  He shook his head. “Cuba? Like the country?”

  “It’s the next town over, oh, never mind,” I said, doing nothing to muzzle my disgust. Obviously, this guy drove through Cuba to get to the Rainbow Gathering, but never even bothered to take note of the town. He probably came from some gray industrial city in central California and worked at Burger King when he wasn’t downloading Grateful Dead bootlegs. I was ashamed of the way I was judging him, looking down at him from the lofty perch of my bicycle seat, but I couldn’t help myself. I had my own hippy background, going to Phish shows in high school, attending tree plantings, and joining in the environmental club in college. I had been a longtime advocate of wilderness and conservationism. But in the Rainbow Gathering, all I could see were the abandoned vehicles in the embankment, the piles of trash, and hitchhiking hippies unwilling to walk just a few miles down a road. I wanted to tell all of them to get a bicycle, and try using it to go somewhere, somewhere real, somewhere true, somewhere they discovered for themselves. Couldn’t they see that this place was so contrived? That it was just a strip of public forest that had been effectively condemned by the hippy bureaucracy in a misguided search for some kind of Mecca? But I suspected that most of them didn’t care about the ideals; they just wanted to get high.

  I took off without saying goodbye, smiling at the thought that poncho guy was probably thinking, “That bicycle chick was a real bitch.” But I didn’t really care. He had no idea where I had been and where I was going, and I had no business trying to enlighten him. My only prerogative was to flee that awkward place before the rest of the hippies woke up and caused horrible traffic jams.

  Several more miles of vehicles passed before I was truly alone again. The road wound around the mountainside over the Rio de las Vacas. Below, lush green hills rippled across a broad valley. Tufts of fog draped the dense forest, whose colors and details softened behind a screen of falling rain. The scene was so startlingly similar to the coastal islands of Southeast Alaska that I felt instantly homesick — for perhaps the first time on the Divide. I wasn’t homesick for my friends and family in Utah, but for my faraway home in Juneau. I imagined I was descending down a broad trail on Douglas Island, and felt comforted by the image of my rainforest home. The fact that I was pedaling deep into the desert Southwest, thousands of miles from Douglas Island and continuing to travel farther away, was a harsh truth momentarily lost to dreams.

  I reached Cuba at 9 a.m., having pedaled thirty miles in two and a half hours. I was still beyond ravenous. I had snacked on the way into town and raided the nearest 7-Eleven while I waited for Subway to open. The day’s calories were already approaching 3,000 and I had yet to eat “second breakfast.” But, as of yet, none of that food had threatened to come back up. I couldn’t decide whether I had eaten something bad in Abiquiu, drank too much water, or reacted badly to that one spot of heat. But I finally felt comfortable ruling out giardia or a virus or some other race-ending malady. I felt cured.

  Even though it was only 10:30 a.m. by the time I rode out of town, I was apprehensive about leaving Cuba that day. The next section of route traversed 125 miles of Navajo Indian reservation. Race veterans had warned me that under no circumstances should I camp on “The Rez.” It was not only illegal, they told me, but dangerous as well. Since I was a woman, they continued, I should probably consider not stopping at all, lest I surely be harassed by the poor and unfriendly denizens of The Rez. “They don’t like any white people,” they warned me, “especially white people on bikes.” The first town off the reservation was Grants, and I would have no choice but to reach it that night. The road was all paved and relatively flat, but 125 miles was still a long way to pedal in less than a full day, and I still wasn’t a hundred percent certain about my recovery.

  Encouragingly, food continued to slide down easily and settle happily in my stomach. Even after a second breakfast of a foot-long turkey sandwich, chips, and a brownie, I was munching on Sour Patch Kids less than an hour later. I had become a calorie-devouring machine, and as the energy accumulated, my legs managed to attach themselves back to my body and commenced eating up the miles.

  Highway 197 traversed the expansive Chaco Mesa, an open desert rippled with ochre bluffs and arroyos, and dotted with tiny flowers and bushes, none higher than my hips. It was a new world after the thick forests of northern New Mexico, but maintained a decidedly old-world feel. Adobe structures scattered over the mesa with no obvious attachment to towns, streets or property of any sort. Vicious dogs darted out from the seeming middle of the desert to snap at my ankles. The occasional white truck rumbled down the pavement, but traffic was sparse at best.

  I had made plans to stop at a store indicated on my map, but when I reached mile 48, I realized the supposed store wasn’t a store at all, but a laundromat. It was the only commercial structure in the entire area, and it just happened to be a place that was not likely to have food or supplies. A dozen vehicles were parked out front and I expected it to be full of reportedly unfriendly Navajos. Still, even though I’d had a hankering for an ice cream sandwich, the only thing I truly needed was water. It was worth the risk.

  The laundromat buzzed with activity on a Friday afternoon. Children darted around the washing machines as women leaned against dryers, chatting in both English and Navajo while they folded clothes. As I had suspected, mine seemed to be the sole white face in the entire building, a white face attached to embarrassingly pale legs and body-hugging Lycra bicycle clothing. But I hadn’t even walked all the way in the door when a tiny old man, nearly a head shorter than me, walked up and beamed with a wide, toothless grin.

  “Hello,” he said. “You need something?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Is there a place in here where I can get some water?”

  He pointed to a bathroom. “In there,” he said. “But we have pop machine over that side. You can get a Coke. It’s much better.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Sounds kinda good.”

  The old man walked with me over to the machine and pulled out a handful of quarters. He moved to drop some in the coin slot and I grabbed his hand. “Thanks, um, but I have change.”

  “It’s no problem,” he said, moving to drop the quarters in again.

  “Really,” I said, my face flushed with bemusement and embarrassment. “I’d like to buy my own soda.” I rummaged around quickly in my wallet and pulled out a bill.

  As I sipped the can of Cherry Coke I had just barely stopped the man from buying, he said, “So you are traveling on a bicycle? Where are you coming from?”

  “I started in Cuba,” I said, thinking it pointless to mention I had actually started the day thirty miles north of Cuba.

  “Oh, very good,” he said. “And where are you going?”

  “I think to Grants,” I said. “I’m going to try to make it to Grants.”

  “No,” the man said and shook his head. “No, it’s too far. You go to White Horse. I have son there. You go stay with him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I’d really like to make it to Grants today. I think I can do it.”

  “Oh ho!” he exclaimed. “So you super bike woman! I see. Okay, that’s good.”

  As he laughed, a few of the women approached me and asked me where I lived and where I started bicycling. I told them I lived in Alaska but started in Canada, and that I would end in Mexico. They smiled vaguely, possibly because all of those places were too distant to comprehend. A little girl walked up and gave me the white sheet of paper she had been coloring. I thanked her, folding up the paper and placing it in my backpack. The unconditional caring I had come to know so well on the Divide surrounded this simple laundromat. I smiled. So much for unfriendliness on The Rez.

  As I continued south, five different people stopped to offer me water or ask if
I needed directions. One woman offered to let me have a sip of her half-empty bottle of Gatorade, an amusing gesture I was almost reluctant to decline.

  The rain had stopped before I left Cuba, but all day long, spotty clouds hung over the desert and the temperature stayed mercifully cool, right around seventy degrees — almost unheard of on the Chaco Mesa in July. One of the women I chatted with at the laundromat had even complained about it being “cold,” and I realized I had been spared a full day of typical but oppressive heat. It was a big reward for the small price I paid by riding through two hours of rain in the morning, and I was grateful for it.

  Thunderstorms built over the distant mountains as I approached Grants. About thirty miles from town, the wind picked up speed and blew directly in my face — twenty miles per hour of backward force. It was a small hit to take in an unbelievably lucky day, but I took it hard, despairing about the significantly increased difficulty in each pedal stroke. I tried to swallow my anxiety about the lightening that exploded many miles in the distance all around me. Still, the storm never planted itself directly overhead, and by the time I plodded in the dull twilight toward the city lights, the lightning-streaked clouds had were disappearing to the east.

  I pedaled through town on Route 66, alongside the dilapidated remnants of the glamorous travel culture that the highway once embodied. Boarded-up diners, darkened service stations, and run-down hotels welcomed me to town, the only place on the Great Divide more depressed and therefore more depressing than Rawlins. These conditions always seemed to happen near Interstates, where shiny new truck stops and Wal-marts lined the freeway and historic downtowns lingered in an open state of decay. I checked into a twenty-eight-dollar hotel room before it was even fully dark outside with 155 miles behind me, my farthest day on the Divide.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Independence Day

  Never underestimate the disorienting power of pedaling.

  On its surface, human-powered motion seems rather straightforward, slow and steady. Because of its unhurried pace, observations from a bicycle are thorough, sometimes excruciatingly thorough. Tiny contours in geography, subtle details in plant life, and changes in weather are all scrutinized and analyzed. Even as fatigue and malaise begin to soften the edges of intellect, cyclists must still observe their environments. Bicycling demands constant if involuntary attention to detail, even when the mind loses focus. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, cyclists’ line of thought tends to shift between confusion and reassessment. Cyclists find themselves pondering, “Where did this canyon start?” or, “When did the forest become desert?” or, “Why in the world is there a river across this trail?” before accepting their new reality without ever really understanding how or why it changed.

  Thus was my state of mind as I flipped through the TV channels inside my hotel room in Grants, New Mexico, searching for the weather report. The smiling visage of my state’s governor, Sarah Palin, flickered on the television screen, so I stopped to watch. Through gasps of disbelief, I learned that this ambitious politician had resigned from her position as governor of Alaska to pursue a vague retirement that sounded like doing a lot of nothing. Not only was she inexplicably quitting her job, but the announcement that she would no longer head up a small state of 650,000 people somehow mattered enough to the whole world to land breaking coverage on a major cable news channel. I was already starting to believe I lived in the Twilight Zone, so this small shot of reality from the outside world only bemused my numb sensibilities.

  “The whole damn world’s going nuts,” I laughed. I forgot all about the only news that really mattered to my existence as a cyclist — the weather report — and tuned intently into a stream of useless gossip and commentary. After about twenty minutes of Sarah Palin, my cell phone rang.

  “Hey Jill. Congrats on making it to Grants,” John said on the other line.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, a little stunned to hear his voice.

  “From watching your SPOT, it looked like you slowed down quite a bit during the second half of yesterday, but you really made up for it today. That was what, 150 miles?

  “155,” I said.

  “That’s really awesome,” he said. “How are things out there?

  “Pretty much exactly the same as when you left,” I said. “Cold, wet, and stormy.”

  “Really? Cold? The last time I was in Grants, it was 106 degrees.”

  “I’d be surprised if it broke seventy today,” I said. “It rained for three hours straight this morning. It was downright Juneau-esque.”

  “That is strange. So how are you doing?” John asked.

  “Good,” I said. “Well, I was crazy sick yesterday. Parasite or food poisoning or twenty-four-hour stomach flu, I don’t know which. I tried to figure out what bad food I could have possibly eaten in Abiquiu. I think it might have been the yogurt. Anyway, I threw up several times. I had no energy, no ability to climb. I walked up every single hill. It was pretty miserable.”

  “You mentioned in your call-in you weren’t feeling well,” John said. “I’m sorry. I know that can be rough out there.”

  “Yeah, rough doesn’t quite cover it,” I said.

  “I know you have a lot to do and don’t have much time to talk on the phone, but I thought I’d call you to talk about the next four days.”

  “Four?” I said. “I was thinking three. Tops.”

  “Well, yes,” John said. “It’s only a bit over 400 miles to the border. Three is definitely doable. I just thought you might want to play it conservative because of the weather and the limited supplies along the way.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What do you know about the weather?”

  “I just checked the radar and saw that massive storm sitting right over you.”

  “Massive storm? It’s not even cloudy here,” I said. “I just looked out my window. I can see stars.”

  “Maybe it’s south of you,” John said. “Either way, it’s right in your path, and that probably means a really muddy road into Pie Town. It’s going to take you a while to get there, probably most of the day. But they have a nice hostel in town. You probably want to plan on staying there tomorrow.”

  “Really?” I said skeptically. “I was hoping to get south of Pie Town tomorrow.”

  “To where?” John asked.

  “To wherever I can,” I said, starting to feel an old frustration bubbling up. “That’s half the fun of riding this thing.”

  “Well, also remember that it’s the Fourth of July tomorrow,” John said. “Those two Pie Town restaurants keep really strange hours, and the chances that they’re open on a Saturday that’s also a holiday are almost zero. I wouldn’t count on them for any food. Get everything you need in Grants.”

  “I was already planning to,” I said in a tone as reproachful as a scolded child’s. I felt that John was being condescending or at the very least thought of me as a clueless novice after all this time, even though I had covered more distance on my own than I did with him. Still, I had to admit that I was really hoping Pie Town would at least have drinking water, so his advice was useful in that regard.

  “Well, if you do decide to stop in Pie Town, the next stop is a private ranch near Wall Lake. I’ll give you the number. Tell them my name when you get there. They definitely give you a room.”

  “Thanks, John, but really, I’ll be fine,” I said, not hiding my exasperation. I knew he was trying to be helpful. Still, he was making a completely unveiled attempt to wield the reins of my Tour Divide effort from afar, for whatever reason. And for whatever reason of my own, I vowed — even if I had to swim through mud until midnight — that I would pedal past Pie Town on Saturday.

  A few seconds of silence pierced the unspoken tension. “I’ve watched what you’ve been doing, but I’ve wondered how you’ve been feeling,” he said after the long pause. “It’s really good to hear your voice again.”

  In a rush of self-consciousness, I thought about my bike and body troubles in the Great Divi
de Basin, being stranded in Rawlins, my crash outside Steamboat Springs, Pete’s accident, and my exhausting battles with New Mexico’s weather and mud. A lifetime had passed since John and I last spoke.

  “I’ve felt all right. How have you been?” I asked. “How’s your knee?”

  “It’s fine,” John said. “I’m already back into training. My short Divide race did nothing to slow that down. Knee’s getting stronger, too. But I miss touring with you. I still come home from training rides and take showers wearing all of my clothes, just to relive the old glory days on the Great Divide.”

  “Ha!” I said. “I hate the clothing showers. That’s one thing I won’t miss. I found the guest washer-dryer at this motel and locked myself inside the room naked just so I could wash every piece of clothing I had, even my rain gear.”

  “Did you really?” John asked.

  “Actually,” I said, “I snuck out with a towel on. A half hour is a long time to sit naked in a public laundry room.”

  John laughed weakly. “Well, I don’t want to keep you,” he said. “But please call me if you need anything at all.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up the phone wondering what it all meant — John, Sarah Palin, the reasons why these flickers of the real world might be reaching out to me, and the reasons why I just wanted to shut them out. I turned off the TV before I found the Weather Channel, confident John’s radar observation was accurate. I felt a little despondent. I took a sleeping pill and slipped into oblivion, only a single notch deeper than my usual disorientation.

  On July Fourth, I woke up to brilliant sunlight and crisp air. It tasted like morning in the early fall, with hints of seltzer and wood smoke. I stocked up at the last gas station in town and checked my maps for the phone number to the Pie-O-Neer café in Pie Town. I had already accepted that clinging to the hope it would be open on a national holiday was a futile at best, but I had heard entire legends formed around the pie in Pie Town. That one stop was likely my only shot at human interaction in the next 300 miles, so even a miniscule chance was certainly worth a try. Plus, I would need to restock my drinking water somehow.