Hoping for a Tail Wind

I am a dirty man. Literally. There’s mud currently flying everywhere and caked on everything. Legitimately. Massive mud plashes occupy my ocular experience. Seriously. Synaptic nerves fire and I instinctively feel my body wanting to avoid riding through the muck pools. I resist. Le Résistance. La Revolución. I plow directly through it full Ernesto Guevara style. This whole experience rewinds me ten years prior, to my time in the New York State Academy of Fire Sciences. My bicycle is a motherfuckin time machine. Recruit Class 2011-1. Our PT instructor was an incredibly impactful and impressive man named Tom Margeit. He whooped us into shape each and every morning. He ensured we were “motivated, motivated, motivated, sir!”. He taught us the value of being present in our lives, especially on the job. Focused in the moment. One morning, we’re out running in cadence — in the rain. Chief Margeit was livid when some of us ran around, hopped over, or skipped a step through the rain puddles. Absolutely went off on us like Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket. The Chief slightly resembled Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and he exacted his toll on us that day. We maintained an unflinching pace and cadence from that day on. Tom Margeit lost his battle with multiples cancers a few years ago, but his words and voice have never wandered far from my mind. And his spirit is alive right now as I push on in pouring rain, through mud puddle after mud puddle with no shelter coming anytime soon.

Quantum Leap that ass to when I’m woken up pre-dawn by a movement rivaling anything Beethoven ever pooped out. An hour later and we’re all up and prepping for coffee and oatmeal. I break down the portable palace and within moments Mother Nature breaks down the precipitation. It is something fierce too. I don’t even make coffee. We pack up triple time and get moving. We are in quite a remote section of the C&O and there isn’t much out this way beside trees and iodine water pumps. And by isn’t much I mean there ain’t shit. Nada. Just us and the torrential drenching. So we might as well be moving toward somewhere.

The sludge brings with it a slower pace and much higher degree of riding difficult. Mud wants to grab my front tire and throw me. It’s clear I have to keep pedaling and moving forward. Easier said than done, as the downpour continues and the pools grow larger. I try navigating around. No bueno. Nope. Straight into the heat of the puddle seems to be the messiest but safest way through. Hard and fast. I get better at it. Pick up a little speed. Then almost get thrown when the system fails. I sharpen my attention and stay present with each one, white knuckling a good chunk of the morning.

Eventually the heavy rains let up. The puddles remain. So mud, mud and more mud continues to dominate the day. Finally, civilization! Places with covered shelters. We cruise into Williamsport, sloshing around with soaked sneakers. My feet feel like they might never unwrinkle again.

It’s now just down to a sprinkle. The oasis that is a late lunch at the Desert Rose is keeping us alive right now. Right I’m alive. Coffee is first and foremost on my list and they deliver a cup quite magnificently. The three of us crush a collection of caloric commodities. Sandwiches. Chips. Soup. Lemonade. The decor and staff and owner are all a little eccentric, which fits well with our style. A few miles later up the path and I inform Kara and Chad that they along with myself, we might be the three weirdest people alive. A turtles shows up to agree.

The rain finally let’s up and the sun comes out. We decide pound out 25 more miles (10 more than our daily goal) and check into a outdoor bike hostel for the night, C&O Bicycles in Hancock, MD. Daniel and I sort of crashed this place last year on our ride up the trail. It’s a bike shop up front with a little fenced in compound out back, complete with outdoor showers, toilets, sink and fridge. Apparently one can pay $5 for a shower. Daniel and I didn’t ask to use anything. Didn’t pay anything. Took showers in the middle of the day and kept riding. This time Kara, Chad and I take the official route. We book a space. $15 for everything, including an overnight in the screened-in bunk room. We do some laundry. We hit the grocery store and enjoy some dinner. We clean off the bikes and ourselves. We do all that in the reverse order I just typed it. All of this climaxes with some serious pass out vibes.

Morning happens and I realize I’m not on the Southern Tier Route in wintertime anymore, Toto. This is summertime on the C&O. It’s warm as I wake; I’m not shivering and waiting for the sun to come up. I’m in my new unsponsored tent and not my old unsponsored tent, a North Face Tadpole. Fuck you pay me. You know what else? There is absolutely no hurry to do anything. And I like it. And Kara agrees, adding “great”. And Chad is just Chad. Maybe the Chad. But definitely a Chad. He’s named after an African nation. No he’s not. But my dude Jose riddled me once that there are only five nations on earth whose English language names are one syllable — Chad is one of them. Four more, y’all. Send your guesses via Braille Morse code in a bottle. I’ll get back to you eventually. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not. Don’t let that or anything stop you. Ever.

Coffee and oatmeal dominate the morning picnic table. We’re plush with Jetboils, who also does not pay me to represent their brand. Mine is damn near twenty years older. Chad’s is brand spanking new. He’s a Chad. The Potomac River provides all sorts of birds in the morning, most notably a few majestic cranes and herons, searching or scanning or swooping around for breakfast. I feel connected again; I feel a deep and thorough love. It’s vague though. A few moments later, I realize this deep and thorough love I have is with shitting in the outdoors. And wet wipes.

Sweeping panoramic shots pull in tight to reveal the canal towpath trail. Where the three of us are grinding gravel in ever increasing heat. A dusty hue settles over the trails color pallet. I’m certain it’s got one of those Instagram color posts somewhere. Streaks of morning light beam through the lush forest coverage, manifesting in dust clouds rising up to meet leaves and bugs and birds coming down.

White’s Ferry makes for a nice little late morning stop. Shade and a store and a ferry that is shut down. It either costs 50¢ to cross it or Curtis Jackson owns the dock across the way in Virginia. Lots of a other cyclists out today. Most look like day riders. They’ll likely be in beds and air conditioning tonight. I smell like river water and sweat. I can’t even taste the iodine in the well water anymore. Wait. Hold up, there’s an actual bathroom with plumbing next to this store!! With water?? What a treat this is going to be!!

Fuck you it’s fucking locked. Water sources have not recovered yet.

The natural high of naturally being in the natural world returns quickly and I’m right back where I was at in the last leg of my 3,000 mile romp with Damon just a few months back. I could ride forever. Responsibility be dammed. Never mind that I literally just purchased another piece of property last week. Nor that I’ve got that whole career version of a winning lottery ticket back home. Speaking of which, it’s hottern hell out here and midday is upon us. I’ve got dust all over my face and it’s time to find a swimming spot. Easy to do along this trail. Afterward, I put up my hammock between to shady trees along the bank. Swaying in the breeze I clear my mind by thinking of all the things I’m not doing right now. I’m not checking emails. I’m not performing CPR. I’m not responding to texts. I’m not fixing a broken toilet. I’m not on a ladder with a chainsaw outside of a commercial garage engulfed in flames. I’m not even riding my bicycle right now. None of those things. There’s so much I’m not doing. I’m proudly in a present partnership with procrastination.

Eventually, we find ourselves pushing on in the heat. Damn near 100° right now. Probably hotter. We pass the intersection with the Appalachian Trail at Harper’s Ferry and head to to a campground two more miles up. Huckleberry Hill. I am immediately back in the river. It’s feels great. I even bring soap and clean up. I pop up the palace with the intention of heading back into Harper’s Ferry for dinner. And to find out what secrets went down with John Brown. One house seems to have things figured out.

Fast forward two light bike miles in reverse; then a walk across a bridge into West Virginia. I shit you not we just sat down on the patio of this small restaurant a minute earlier and now it’s pouring. Cats and dogs. Lions and tigers. And bears, oh my. Luckily, we’re undercover, without Dre, Snoop or the pigs. That’s not true, I’m ordering pork shanks. Prawns also. Mere appetizers before I devour a burger covered in bacon and blue cheese. The calories are replenished and the storm passes. All at once. I waddle back over the river into Maryland. We cruise back into camp and I b-line to the inside of my tent. Partly because of mosquitos everywhere, partly because of exhaustion and inflammation everywhere. I’m out before the sun sets.

A little under a year. The other side of the rona. Here I am. Once again Phife. I am just through Georgetown and out of DC — back on the Chesapeake & Ohio Trail. All of the C&O’s marvelous non-motorized, George Washington historied-glory up in my face after 9 hours of driving. Driving which involved not one but two accidentally-visited states.

It feels good to be back. This time is definitely this time. I’m pretty sure I’m not caught up in a time loop. It’s late evening instead of late morning as I pass Seven Locks. Same place. Same direction. Different time. Different perspective. I think about just copy and pasting the 2020 version of the blog entry just to see who paying attention enough to comment. Crickets. Maybe I’ll post that Michael Jackson popcorn meme graphic when no one comments on this entry. Back in the now, I hear crickets. And right now I’m baring witness to amazing sunset on our banks-of-the-Potomac campsite. Right now right now it’s actually frogs, not crickets. Right now right now right now and it’s probably cicadas. Hey. It ain’t sirens. It all sounds like vacation to me.

Rewind just a bit ago and a National Park Services volunteer is informing us that the Swain Lock hiker/biker site has no potable water. Plumbing problem. He’s rocking a super exuberant “I’m vaccinated” pin. Like this pin, for all its smiley face and science, is an extension of this survive covid and die of dehydration equation. I can’t take my eyes off it. I’m suddenly realizing that I’m equally likely to mock and likely to covet this god forsaken pin of his. The universe is telling me something. It’s a real crossroads in my life. I listen as he tells us about whatever and whatever and whatever. Chad and Kara take feigned interest and are digesting details. All I can do is tango dance with my conflict about this fucking pin.

Butt.

I’m just fucking around for effect. All that shit is bullshit man. I sac up and get through my feels and bid our friendly volunteer adieu and — my my my what a campsite, Johnny Gil!! 180 seconds later… We’re taking a dip in the Potomac and it is a cherry on top of what is a short riding day at the end of a long day dedicated to remote drop into DC. I reminisce about back in the day, way back when, back before we started pedaling. Back like three hours ago. You know, a throwback. I find this one star review on Google and it tells me all I need to know about my near future. About where I’m going in life. And, specifically what won’t be there with me, at least for the next week or so:

We eat our respective dinners. I grabbed a falafel back in Georgetown, in the before times. Before we started riding. It’s yum. We watch Sports, and you should too.

Fireflies are the only fly on my tent tonight. It’s still dumb out hot at 9pm. I’m in a brand new Fly Creek tent. It’s dope. Big Agnes should pay me for saying that; my shit ain’t for sale here. It’s comfy. It’s got a good couple storage spots. Most importantly it fits inside my pannier. I prefer that over rack top. I’m thinking too much about it so now I’m writing about it. I’m about to pass out. And then I do.