The Cowboy's Soliloquy

Yogi was from Jellystone. How could I forget! Thanks Jarod.

Again, it's great to hear from you guys in the comments. Keeps me going. Here's this week's statistic.

Number of people that I've met on the trip so far: 129

So, yesterday I rode 95 miles. 95 miles on my bike.

The day before that I rode over a 9658 ft pass.

Wow! I mean, seriously, I've never done anything like that in my entire life. I felt like a super hero pulling two incredible days like that.

Of course, I took that to mean I was ready for another level of biking. This was the dawn of a new 80-90 mile-a-day era. A new Will Blank. A revolution. So the next day I got up before the birds sang, packed my stuff, did push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and dips and even had time to stop at the store for supplies. I was optimistic that I could hit another 90 mile day like it was nothing. Like it was butter.

But that just didn't happen. Around mile 30 all systems failed. I started to get a sharp pain in my right knee. The urge to sleep took over. I had to stop.

This type of situation presents the cross country biker with an interesting moral dilemma. Do you cheat and try to get a ride... or do you go as far as you can, despite the pain?

Both options kind of suck. On the one, you miss out on a whole day of riding. To some extremists, you might even lose the right to say that you rode across the country because your wheel didn't touch every square inch of the trail. Which, in a way, is kind of true. Once you cross the vehicular threshold and hop in the back of that pickup, it's over. Every time you tell someone you rode your bike across the country, you'll be lying, even if it's just a little bit.

The other option is to get behind schedule. This means you have to divide the mileage you didn't do that day over the days to come, which can be particularly oppressive if you already have long days planned out. It's also frustrating if you like to make sure that you end your days in a town or city as opposed to a county campground. Some of us like to have a shower at the end of the day.

So, having to choose between disgrace and inconvenience, I chose disgrace. I stuck my thumb out and waited.

Not too long after a man named JD pulled over on the shoulder. He had a thick Southern accent and a big black suburban. He was a character. One time, to demonstrate how close he was to a dangerous stunt in Vegas, he put his palm on the tip of my nose.

So, there I am in some stranger's car, hearing his story. What's interesting about this trip is that I'm put in a lot of situations where I'm forced to listen, whether I'm hitchhiking, being put up by a stranger, or simply walking down the street. Sometimes people tell me pretty personal stuff, too. JD let me in on some of the drama surrounding his adopted son, Shane.

Shane fits 18 of the 24 criteria that define a full-blown sociopath. As you can probably imagine, this made Shane an extremely difficult child to raise. If you told him not to touch a stove he would touch it until his hands bled. But that is really a side note.

The real story is with Shane's half brother, Tim. Tim was a beautiful young man, the kind of guy who was so silver-tongued he could convince anyone to do anything. When Tim and Shane finally met, it didn't take long for Tim to wrap Shane around his finger.

Tim would frequently show up at JD's house in a new car, always with a new uncle he had borrowed it from. One night, Tim tried to convince Shane to leave home and come with him to California. Shane declined. Tim was later arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of driving with a stolen vehicle. It turned out to be his 25th stolen vehicle on record.

Needless to say, JD didn't like Tim very much. He fought for years to protect Shane from Tim's influence, not to mention from his own self-destructive tendencies. Shane consistently defended Tim, though, and even convinced JD to sponsor him when he was put in a halfway house. Tim ended up abusing the sponsorship and disappeared for over a year.

Then one day JD got a phone call from Shane. Tim had been found dead. The hospital said he died of "heat stroke."

Heat stroke is extremely rare to non-existent in healthy, 28 year old males.

Tim was a regular coke user. Apparently cocaine tampers with the processes of the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that regulates body temperature (among other things). In some cases this can lead to what is classified by hospitals, perhaps to maintain patient dignity or simply to avoid legal intervention, as "heat stroke." Supposedly that explains why there is an unusual number of young people that have been treated for what is typically an elderly person's affliction.

So, Tim died and Shane was still difficult to raise. The family fought their whole lives to keep Shane in some kind of structured existence, but his sociopathic tendencies always broke down whatever they tried to build. I can't imagine what the past 40 years have been like for JD and his family.

The good news is that most sociopaths snap out of their craziness later in life. It's as though one day a synapse fires and they become relatively normal people. Despite having a failed marriage and a child of his own, supposedly Shane is a pretty wonderful guy now.

So the story ends happy.

This kind of stuff just blows me away. If I hadn't stopped to put my thumb out I wouldn't be telling you all this right now-- I'd be complaining about being behind schedule and having a bum knee.

Interesting People and Amazing Hospitality:

Rick, Kim, James and David Hunt
I stayed with these wonderful people just outside of Jackson, Wyoming. They are truly an impressive bunch. Rick works as an excavator and moonlights as a long distance biker, trailblazer, paraglider, hiker and all around sports enthusiast. He's broken more bones than he can count and even survived a moose attack. That's right, he was trampled by a moose. Kim is a marathon runner and PE teacher at the local elementary school. James and David both are avid bikers, skiiers and soccer players. And they're tough, too. A birthday party rarely goes by where David doesn't break a bone. They have a beautiful home in Wilson and are very warm, welcoming people. Hunt family, if you're reading, thank you!

I'd also like to thank Ellen Paisal, the woman who hooked me up with the Hunts and found me a place to stay. Thanks, Ellen!

Beverly and Gary
I met Beverly and Gary at a campground my second or third day out on the road. We had a nice conversation before parting ways. I didn't expect to see them again.

Then two days later I was riding down the 126 in Oregon and saw a man standing next to giant RV on the side of the road. It was Gary. He and Beverly offered to split a campsite with me at the heavenly Belknap Springs before my first big climb up McKenzie pass. When I got there, they fed me a delicious dinner, made me coffee and kept me company. They own a restaurant in Coos Bay, Oregon called the Pancake Mill which is supposedly a pretty great place.

Beverly is also genealogist and small business lecturer. It turns out Gary and Beverly's ancestors fought each other in the Civil War and that I lived on the same street (Channing street in Berkeley) that Beverly's great aunt lived on in the 1800s. Crazy.

They were great folks and pretty much the first people to show me some Amazing Hopitality. Thanks, Gary and Beverly, and I hope you're doing well!

Dave the Hillbilly Hitchhiker
This guy scared the shit out of me. I met him in Mitchell, Oregon, the day after all the Westbound bikers I met went on to finish the trail. He rolled into town alone, at night, with nothing on but a military backpack and some ragged clothes. He sat down at a table near my tent. Instead of being scared, though, I went right up to him and shook his hand. He turned out to be one of the weirdest, most interesting guys I've met yet. Here it goes.

Dave takes four months out of the year to hitchhike around the US. He takes nothing with him but a blanket and the clothes on his back. He has leathery skin and a receding hairline. He also has a warrant for his arrest in Kansas.

He told me that he met his wife hitchhiking. One day, while he was bumming for a ride in Michigan, she stopped her car and let him in. They got to talking. She proposed to him a few days later. Now they are married.

Dave used to live in New Orleans. He told me that once, during Mardi Gras, he held a port-o-potty upright so that his friend could have sex without fear of it tipping over. Besides that, he told me he used to drop a lot of acid. New Orleans was a great place, he told me.

To fund his hitchhiking adventures, Dave does odd jobs. He's worked in halfway houses, on Missions and on farms. One time he said he worked for a guy named John Stanko. Stanko was a white supremacist who apparently had written a book and had a fairly decent following. Everyone in the community hated Stanko, though, because he extorted and took advantage of other farmers. Dave stuck by him because he was one of the only people that showed him any kind of hospitality.

He told me that if I wanted to make real money in LA, I should install alarm systems in people's homes. Now I have an alternate career path if film fails me.

Dave has been spit on and had bottles thrown at him. He says he hitchhikes because he likes to wander.

I had a nightmare that I'd wake up and find him standing in my tent with a rusty pocket knife. I'd say: "How are you standing in my four foot tall tent?" Then he'd stab me.

Before I forget, here's the latest Roadkill Update:
Idaho: 41
Montana: 68
and Wyoming: 44

Ready for some Significant Things?

1. Colorado. Today. Baby.

2. It's getting cold. I keep finding ice on the outside of my tent.

3. I hung out with seven Navajo Indians the other night and a guy that looked and sang like Willie Nelson. We drank beer and sang songs on their porch. It was awesome.

4. AND they let me sleep on the floor of their motel room. I didn't have to camp! Sweet!

5. Jake started a blog. It's about trying to survive in LA: http://smashgrabpro.blogspot.com/. Check back in a week or so and he'll have some updates.

6. New section! It's called "This Week's Statistics"

This Week's Statistics
Total distance traveled: 364.7 miles
Average distance per day: 60.78 miles
Average speed: 10.54 mph
Max. speed: 39 mph

I have an update for you about Yellowstone coming up. Hope you're all doing well. Thanks for reading.