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Bicycling Across America: A Journal on the Open Road

• Henry Thoreau:

  "No subject is too trivial . . . The theme is nothing, the life everything!"

• Henry James:

  "Something essentially common . . . diffuse, overgrown, shapeless"

• Robert Graves:

  ". . . Assorted bits and scraps that shake down into a world perhaps"

• Jack Kerouac:

  "There is no reason for it--the original reason for the world is the world."

Excerpts

• April 20th, Day 4: . . . We're girding up for the desert crossing--about 50 miles with no services, according to hearsay and the map (about equally reliable). Extra water bottles, food and sunscreen are the order of the day.

  . . . we haven't yet learned our lessons in desert travel . . . our earliest start 9 a.m.. With a good tailwind we could make it almost to Blythe. A chatty schoolmistress--pert, pixie-like, short-haired, driving a Blazer--pulled up to us yesterday when we first hit town. "I'm a jockette," she declared, and wanted to know everything about us.

  . . . Cyclotouring is like continually looking through a microscope: just as the biologist sees a whole world in a sample of pond water, so the bike tourist sees the riot of humanity and other roadside attractions in much greater detail than the motorist does. Places we wouldn't even consider stopping at were we driving by, forlorn shacks along the freeway frontage routes, come alive for the bicyclist with their treasures of regional food, alkaline water, cold sodas and local lore.

   

• June 4th, Day 49: I really get tired of hearing from the locals: "Looks like you're going to get wet" [snicker].

  . . . Just before Ashkum it began to pour. We rode for a while, getting wet indeed, then took shelter in a roadside corn crib. The rain intensified into a blinding wall of water, and lightning began cracking down all around us. We were in dry quarters, although our feet, tires and chains were covered in thick sticky mud. A decent trade.

  Twenty minutes later we were back on the road, south along the muddy brown Iroquois River for a few miles before crossing it on an old steel-girder bridge.

  . . .groves of trees and the usual water tanks are today lost in the distance behind a thick white haze.

   

• July 1, Day 76: It would be easier, though less adventurous, if campgrounds and motels were more accurately named. We'd have the Tiny Towel Motel, Barking Dog Campground, Road Noise Inn, and Mosquito Pond Resort. Some of the humbler establishments along the way have dispensed with names altogether; rather than an ornament, their name is what they offer: BEER ICE SODA and PIZZA BREAKFAST 6AM Motels will be the last holdout in this new era of minimalist roadside service--imagine a third-rate romance at the B&W TV COFFEE or the $32 DOUBLE.

  Dick, the owner/manager of the Twilite Motel here in Ellsworth, is very enthusiastic about our all-but-completed trip. We should have hired him as our promoter. Last night he buttonholed tired travelers as they checked in, telling them about our adventure. "Sure buddy just gimme a room," we heard one say. Early this morning he knocked on our door, calling out "Hey, you've hit the big time! The newspaper's here!"

  . . . Tom Field of the Ellsworth American (motto: "Americans can govern America without the help of foppish influence") interviews us for 45 minutes in our room, which is hung with damp smelly socks and underwear. Dick makes sure that the photo includes his motel sign out front.

   

• Ed Brown, from the Tassajara Cookbook: "Move with the sense of having arrived every step of the way."

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