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Forces conspired, today, to throw many obstacles in the path, from the first until the last. Those damned forces. Sounds a bit too dramatic... let's just say that the Wheels Of Progress were in need of a serious lube job. Life was moving at 79rpm, I was moving at 33 1/3 (quaint vinyl record reference). I seldom oversleep when it's migration day... but I do procrastinate, which is paid back severely before it's time to leave. Just the time for the faucet handles in the bath to need a quick fix, minutes before take off. And for the computer to awaken in "safe" mode. Another reason to dread the absence from my home for three days... the inevitable decay of things. If things ain't all together before leaving, I will get an anguished call not long after. Throws an interesting vibe of anticipation on the proceedings. House closed up, ignition on, I thought I was on schedule, until buttwipe neighbor had to pull alongside and whine about wrecking his car during the ice storm last Thursday. For God's Sake. Mr. Know-It-All hasn't figured out that ice is better to avoid by not playing in it. Well, his wife's paying for the car and insurance, and he's just gotta make appearances. Poor dingleberry. Judging from the trip, i've still got tweaking to do on the Miata fuel injection. I've been lucky that all of my fixes have been cheap ones, so far... but this high-idle thing has got to stop. I need some days off. CD release party for Dub side is coming up, as well as the Rock Marathon at the station... might have to sneak some time around then. With any luck, there might be sun... I've been looking at beach cams since I got in to work. Itchy. Fidgety. Craving surf and sand between my toes. I'll even settle for bare feet. I hold this truth to be self evident: Nothing is ever as good as you want it to be. .................................................................................................................................................................................................... Hostel Environment Day Fourteen: Prineville to Mitchell It's pretty well established, up to this point, that much of the inspiration for this marathon pedal-fest came from the beer bottle. And so it was. Something about sweat, exertion, slow hot climbs up hills I'd never have imagined in Virginia, arriving in unfamiliar places every night proved very conducive for prodigious intake. Something about the sociability of the draft... and its ability to bring unfamiliar faces and backgrounds to a common level. Oceans... white with foam. Hey, it's immortalized in hymns! The tour guides that the group followed were valuable little time-passers, full of bits of information about the terrain, history, geology and motivations that made each place unique, regardless of how mundane or desolate the scene. Like this segment of the ride. The further the road wound on, the drier and less hospitable the climate became. Leaving Prineville, Geode Capital of the World (thunder eggs, they call them... little bombs of rock coughed up by the volcanos, containing intense crystal formations), the terrain rose immediately and arduously. To the right of the highway, Ochoco Lake sank below us... a massive reservoir between the walls of the canyon. No shade from the sun, and a climb of two thousand feet the effort for the morning, sweat and a quick squirt from the waterbottles the only respite. It took a bit of rationalizing to figure why those who travelled from the lush east would make their stand in places as demanding and depressing as this barrenness. Gold. OK... now I understand. Western roads, more often than not, used rivers as their guide... following the line of least resistance up mountainsides. Here, too, it was found that precious metals paved the same track. And, the transplants just went nuts, when they found out. Arguably, I've never been a "money" person... it's necessary to get things done, and more is better than less. But the arrogance of those who want to rule their own kingdom with the Big Payoff, especially with vast expanses of land that didn't really belong to them, made sympathy for miners difficult. Risking everything for a big claim.... Wait a minute: I guess this is what the lottery is all about, now. Except, without the dysentery, hypothermia, and threat of annihilation from folks who didn't see your presence as welcome. The remains of cities in dust, empty except for the bleached skeletons that contained the violence, greed, lust and despair marked the puny scar man had left on the landscape. So this is manifest destiny. Eh? To this day, I will never breathe the scent of sage without thinking about this part of the west. Juniper berries, too. That's all that survives in places like these, for most of the year. The official scent of Mitchell, the stop for the day. Poor Mitchell... surviving in the bottom of a dry ravine.. that isn't dry, always. At least twice in recorded memory, nine-to-thirty foot walls of water have taken most of it away, caused by flash floods further up the range. Consequently, most of what remained was not significantly old. Or inhabited. There was some human influence, still... a little store among the empty buildings that had enough provisions to supplement what we carried to plan some lasagna for the evening. Not until Steve, Brian, Luke, Cor and I deposited two six packs down our necks quickly on the abandoned porch of the Tip Top Saloon... which hadn't served patrons for quite some time. Dudley made his eventual appearance, with accomodations at the Oregon "Hotel", and our first mail call of the trip. I was into green withdrawal. |
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