Hoping for a Tail Wind

My watch is being wrist-swapped on the daily to mitigate the hard sun lines that come from living outside. It’s only taken four days to completely forget which wrist it’s on at any given time or day. So while speeding along at 20mph, I’ve got a 50/50 chance of finding out the time. I somehow always guess wrong. These self-sabotaging brain fucks eventually come around to metaphorically ride alongside the physical demands my inflamed corpse is enduring. For some reason, my University at Buffalo classes in calculus comes to mind – specifically whether there’s a value of infinity as it is approached by the ohm frequency. Mmm. Math. I must be going crazy.

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Time travel way back to when I was sleeping like a champ. Last night. So. I’m sleeping like a champ. Then the rain stops, the sun comes up and I’m making coffee on the jet boil for the first time this year. Hell yeah. Uno dos tres. We rip out of the campsite with a tailwind from the ghost of Dewitt Clinton. Locks on locks on locks. History lessons later. Or just read Wikipedia please. But we’re moving along in what I’m referring to the as the matrix formation. Keanu references aside, if you understand my second calculus let it pour over in all that math nerdy goodness. Please and thank you.

Fun fact I must’ve missed: all roads lead to Rome. Who knew?! And also, I really did think Rome was built in a day, but now I’m being told I’ve been lied to – much like the lies my teacher told me about the American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party. And also also, for some strange obnoxious reason my foreign friend keeps saying “when in Rome…”. What the fuck Daniel? I secretly start questioning if maybe he’s really French. Or Russian? Whatever that would mean. I dunno. Either way we’re taking one of the roads (out of apparently every road in existence) to Rome but it’s actually an off road path the whole stretch. So what does that really tell us about cliches? We take a well earned midday break for coffee, food and electrical outlets at a place suggested by some guy driving around with his pickup tailboard down. Later he’d pop up on the other side of town yelling at us out of his truck asking how our lunch was. Weird. Nice. But weird. Lunch was meh, btw.

The trail continues out of Rome to Utica, but beyond that we’re headed back onto Route 5 for the second time. 23 fucking straight miles of it. Shit shows ensue. Enormous metallic robots come whizzing by us; they have all sorts of space issues. An all out assault on all four of our lives from truckers and trailers and motorcycles – all taking different levels of care for our life and personal safety. Several of them don’t give me my six fucking feet and I’m ready to start a pandemic riot over it. But the extreme heat has cooled and we still have a wonderful tailwind so we suck it up and bust ass across multiple lanes and highway interchanges, finally finding refuge at a Walmart. I grab some tire levers for Damon. He fills up some water for us. Judging by all the social distance arrows on the floor, I’m fairly fucking certain that my planned revolution would have succeeded here.

A little more death dodging and we arrive into Little Falls, NY. It’s labeled as a city. It’s gorgeous. And it charms the shit out of us. We see ice cream. We stop. We get ice cream. They even have vegan ice cream for Damon. And fucking pistacho. I love pistacho ice cream. I get some all over my face and shirt, while receiving an impromptu tour of historical facts on the area from a cute redhead who’s running things at the now converted old stone mill. She’s really on top of her shit. There’s an annual garlic festival here in September: “eat, stink and be merry.” Stinking like garlic would probably be an improvement on my current smell.

After the ice cream we slowly roll a few more miles to the Herkimer House. We decide to set up camp here. It’s fantastic. Daniel pulls out a machete, so I chop wood. We light a fire to keeps the bugs out. I get my campsite mixology on and whip up some ginger honey rum cocktails, when I pass it to Daniel, I look over to see him swing and chop open his packet of gourmet Himalayan lentils with the machete. Yesterday it was linguine Alfredo or something. I annoint him the Gordon Ramsey of herkimer house. For shits and giggles, I point to the dried pistacho drips on my shirt and yell at Chad about how these ice creams stains are mine and how possession is nine tenths of the law and so he better back the fuck off. Chad – who is a high school English teacher – just stares at me blankly, my passion for a good old weird time clearly going over his head. That, or being on summer vacation means he’s tuned out my childish antics. You can decide for yourself. After some chatting and eating and a drink and almost 80 miles today, I am ready to check out of the waking world well before total darkness. I lay down and between the trees above my tent I make out the Big Dipper in the evening sky. Happy face emoji.

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The ground beneath my feet

I know was made for me

There is no any one place where I belong

My spirit’s meant to be free

And soon now everyone will see

Life was made for us to be what we wanna be

Gil Scott-Heron, It’s Your World

The day begins at the crack of dumpster duty. Daniel is convinced that the dumpster truck guy was being quieter for us – he was apparently emptying dumpsters much more aggressively around town for the last hour. I’m using the term “town” loosely here. But BAM. I’m up before the sun. My body hurts. Partly tight. Partly sore. I pack up, take a crap somewhere that shall remain unspecified, fill my thermos with gas station “high octane” coffee and we set out to burn more rubber on what is a gorgeous non-motorized trail.

Well fuck ain’t going this gone to shit.

Immediately beyond our vagrancy campsite, the trail has a gap and it joins a state road. That thing filled with enormous and loud speeding metal death machines. But but but but but wait it gets worse!

Miles later the canal literally becomes grass. And more miles later the canal itself becomes filled in. At one point – miles later) the residents of whatever town this is used the spacial remains to make a little downstairs flower garden out of the Erie Canal. Oh how cute. The reason my city ever even became a city and one of the initial causes of its complete decline now gets to be somebody’s petunias. History class later. Really though, the flowery town was kinda cool for a hamlet or something. And there are still some great sections of the canal in all it’s original glory.

As we come into the greater Syracuse area, the canal has vanished, Beau Fleuve-style. It’s almost comforting in a weird, kill-you-slowly sort of way. We’re seeking for calories and sanctuary from the sun when out of nowhere Chad’s rear cassette and hub attempt bike tour suicide.

Chad walks a couple miles to catch us under an umbrella on the Wegmans cafe market. Chad is despondent. I’ve been there. It’s a feeling that your entire tour is done and you’re headed to some train or bus station to defeatedly go back home. Fucking failure. I tell him we will figure it out one way another. He wants to eat. We all do. We pack our fuel tanks with calories and nutrients from all sorts of fresh produce and I tell him I’ll take a look. Yup. I pull the wheel off, the cassette loosely flies off and ball bearings pour out of his hub. This is not a field operation He needs a bike shop. I find one a few miles away. Suddenly and without warning, a masked-up senior couple exactly 6 feet away offers to give him ride!! Score one for humanity if you’re keeping track at home. Call it phase three magic; both Cuomo and Trump can suck it!! Chad locks up his one wheeled bike, grabs his wheel and jumps into their little Honda. Damon and Daniel and I head for a hilly stretch into downtown Syracuse; fingers crossed that our 4th wheel can continue.

Syracuse looks a lot like Buffalo, if Buffalo had been a European city that was bombed into smithereens during world war 2 and then rebuilt in some boring way. Starring Robert Moses as all of Nazi Germany. Maybe Syracuse is the London of Buffalo? (BTW, that last usage of Buffalo is plural). Syracuse did keep their one way streets, way to go. I notice that both cities appear to love cute little public murals a little more than public welfare. Not that I dislike murals. But how about both?

Me and the two D’s find a little downtown park to unwind and take a midday nap. We’ve got 50 miles in and we’ve got time. Daniel buys some rum. Damon smokes a joint. I head over to the firefighter memorial park to think and come back to our rendezvous point moments before Chad pulls up on two wheels!! I cheer. Damon cheers. Hilariously, Daniel – in his thick Argentinian-Italian accent – yells out to him: “get a job”!

Our foursome back intact, we head East to get back on the canal trail. Suddenly, I’m solo. I’m navigating this leg, why are we so separated? Damon lagged way back on some hills. Chad and Daniel zoomed ahead and missed the trailhead. I’m feeling like Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in Spaceballs. I think to myself “keep firing, assholes”.

We inevitably rely on our cellular technology and regroup. We hit a lovely stretch of the Canal Trail and by 630pm we’ve secured a campsite at Green Lakes State Park. $20 later and we have water, land and showers. There’s even a plug in the bathroom. Four fucking stars, fan fucking tasting. We’re exhausted. Daniel is offering rum, Damon is offering weed. Chad sums it up best. “I’m so tired that I probably only have about five minutes of consciousness to alter.” I shower. I eat. I clean the trail dust out of my drive chain, climb in the tent and pass out right as the rain comes in at sunset.

It’s maybe a 20 minute nap. Even Hammer would say proper.

We decide to get up, get out and get something as 1400 hours comes around. The skies are overcast and the heat is down a few degrees. Nice.

No more than 10 minutes in and it’s fucking pouring. Thunder. Lightning. The whole thing called weather has gone to shit. We take refuge from the storm, Flea and Anthony Kiedis style.

I want to average 70 miles a day and we’re at 27 for the day. My mind wonders back to tornadoes on the Northern Tier. After an hour or so we get moving under light rain.

Just a couple miles in and Damon’s crank and pedal have come loose. My wrench won’t fit in there so I do my best with a leatherman. That doesn’t do it.

Fuck mechanical issues like Rick James on Eddie Murphy’s couch.

After a second tightening, we get some cell service. I google “bicycle”. There’s one a few miles away and they close in 20 minutes. In yet another “port”, Fairport. Let’s go! An hour later and we are set, thanks to the fine folks at RV&E. The plan is to rendezvous with Daniel and Chad further up the canal. Maybe it’s a private helicopter. I don’t know. We gotta make up some miles.

Damon and I pound this shit out like prison rapists. The trail is muddy and a little slippery but we roll through Palmyra with no sign of the Mormon tablets. We arrive into Newark NY and decide that the covered picnic table area with the water supply and the power outlet will be our home for the night. Right on the canal and right on cue, the rain comes back in. But we’re also now a foursome. Chad and Daniel bring fresh energy and cold beer. We crack jokes, talk about passed trips and plan to wake up early. I jump in the tent and crash instantly.