Hoping for a Tail Wind

Plan your work. Work your plan.

Picture it. Heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. 70 mile days. State Park no turn away policy. Campsite, then day use area. At the end of the day, I’m floating in the Green River. It’s cooler than cool Andre Benjamin… yup: ice cold. Like anti-inflammatory for my legs and sit bones level ice cold. It’s PROBABLY the cleanest I’ve been in two days and ACTUALLY my forth time getting watered today and DEFINITELY the least shit-laden of those waterings. I said it, I meant it. Poop. Crap. Fecals. Doo doo. Let me recount the ways:

Rail trail to restaurant to remote sleep had me real confident about plans around 10pm last night. Now it’s 1am and my how the mighty have fallen. We are now the vagrants. Fragranced. One of those middle of the night rude awakenings I usually get paid for and while this isn’t a firefighter thing (yet) I should have seen it coming. Motherfucking sprinklers. Getting me every time I tell ya. Garden sprinklers, not the indoor kind – so no, still not a firefighter thing. A through middle of the night soaking right about now is what it is though. Funk soul brother. I am out mostly naked in the darkness putting my rain fly up in it. Check it out now. Like some tragic moonlit dance. I envy Chad for camping on the high ground and staying dry, then he gets his dose of it at 2am, I hear him yelling across the park, “what the fuck!” I could and or should have said something to him an hour ago I suppose. “Wouldn’t” or “didn’t” wins. If there’s winners or losers anymore. I stay fetal in my fecal cocoon of a sleeping bag, trying to find some sort of stinky peace.

Morning finally breaks a soaked and chilled night and we’ve relocated to the nearby community center. I copped 2 hours of shuteye. Straight banked it. Now I’m brewing up a cup of that coarse ground. The DPW worker opening up the restrooms, after hearing our tale, proceeds to inform us that we got doused with “reclaimed” water, nearly straight from the sewage plant. “Poop water” he calls it. I’m calling him Pete. Poop Water Pete. Yum. We’re hanging at the picnic tables, trying to dry out and looking like some real hoboes. Smelling like them too. It’s quite a site I’m sure. I sip my coffee and fart.

For two days now, we’ve been told of some massive bike ride. Seattle to Portland or something. 8,000 people. Some start riding at 2am. Cascades bike club or something. It’s a lot of people. We’re rolling out of Yelm Washington being most definitely mistaken for one those 8,000. People look at us in stores and are like “oh yeah, the bikers”. Whispers and stank eyes abound. “Bikers”. It’s just Saturday yo. Either way. Some are down with them. I am a firm maybe. There’s a marked and noticeably increased fuck police presence, we’re basically undercover stank homeless bums disguised as weekend wheel warriors. Definitely. Just unsure on who the good guys and bad guys are anymore and so we just roll out. Covered in the local smell of local poop, even the dogs don’t notice us on our way through town. We pass a few dogs. And then a few cops. And then a few cyclists. I realize I mistook what I thought was gonna be an 8,000 person critical mass style bike mob for what I’d actually a bunch of scattered middle aged men in Lycra. Oh well. They’re cool enough and not in my way. Mostly they pass and give me puzzled looks. Maybe judging me for whatever norm I don’t adhere to or insecurity assist I won’t be providing them. They pass by and their profiles pop up on my ride with gps bike computer r2d2 thingie. Cute. Bye bye bicyclists. I’m going with the dogs being the good guys.

I ride right past Mount rainier. Eat a juicy peach. That means something slightly different nowadays. It probably has a new third meaning by now too. Butt. Both. To the pit. All of the above.

We ignore a sign telling us we can’t continue even this it feels like a right of way. Some might call this illegal. I call it energy efficient. Down to a single track and then it’s poop in the water number two on the day. Fjording through a little water ain’t a thing but I don’t know how deep this is so i give it a whirl and pedal my way through it. Seaweed and muck on much of the spokes so I suspect this might be the least amount of poop and the least amount on me. Some consolation.

Lots of hills and heat and trucks. Hills are cool. Let’s talk about planning instead. I recently talked about not planning these rides. So now let’s do the other. I planned the living shit out of this one. Chad thanks me on day one and day two. And today. So yeah. Daily planned routes for the first time ever. We shall see. Many times a plan goes to shit. Damon seems to love this style of touring and he put me on to the bike computer. So here’s the basic ridewithgps set up for us, known as Tone and Chad’s Pacific Northwest Adventure.

I get that cute triangle traffic sign with the downhill truck and “8% grade” on it and the warm and fuzzies kick in where it counts. Screams is the word I’m gonna use. This road then screams downhills, winding and looping back and uh, whoa again it winds and loops back – fast as all hell. One of the more exhilarating 35-40mph episodes in my vida loca. Feeling all sorts of trippy oxygen rich kinda ecstatic (Mike Tyson voice) winding down and bam – sucky Saturday in America slaps me: migrant workers busting ass on one side and yard and garage sales galore on the other. The two won’t even exchange glances. It’s always. And again I don’t know who’s team I’m on or who’s right or wrong. Strange days indeed. Glad I’m living a retired-esque life. Or is it retarded-esque? Offended yet? Remember it, write it down, take a picture… IDGAF!

Now we’re on a goddamn horse trail. It’s not maintained. I don’t even know if it’s gonna get us back to a road or dump us on some private farm. And there it is: final shit water of the day. Horse shit. This is just horse shit. Literally. It requires the removal of my shoes and yes — walking my feet and bike clear through the other side in this murky crap.

I succeed with only marginal stank-grime-fecal-foot; I walk up the hill and turn the corner, still walking my bike — I lean against my bike to pop my left sock and then left shoe back on. Right sock and —- pop pop pop. They shootin! Oh snap. The crackle of gunfire. I pop on my right shoe and pedal the fuck on. Hoping Chad didn’t just get shot gunned for our trespassing. I look back a few moments later and he’s behind me again and we tear through this tall grass mixed with manure, then some gravel, then a gate, then back on the road. Gunfire still going off in the distance. Always in some shit. Just various degrees.

That shit creek was the terminus of another short trail and so we’re back fighting for our lives on the road another 10 miles or so. Late Saturday means unique traffic situations, it’s not all too bad and we finally land at another state park. They are full. We remind and/or inform them of the no turn away policy. They cease acting like there’s no room and take my doll hairs. Pay sews. You rows. No yens. Or yinz. Penthouse tent pop up. Shower. Snacks. The aforementioned dip in the crispy cool river. I think you see where this is going. I haven’t slept for more than 2 hours in a few days and I dive into the worlds tiniest tent, passin out upon entr…. Zzzzz zzzzz.