“While liquor tastes much better on the streets.” – NOFX
I found myself laying on wet grass next to an impromptu fire not more than 50 yards from the road. Every time a car drove by I felt like we were a bunch of hobos waiting for the next train to come through the yard. Or at least the next hand out. The only thing we lacked was a barrel for our fire. I guess we were one barrel poorer than hobos.
Between the four of us, we had a half a bag of Funyons, 3 beers, 3 cliff bars, 2/3 a bottle of Tequila and some peanut butter crackers. Seeing that half our group refused to eat Funyons and doesn’t drink. KC and I were left to consume the Funyons, Tequila and beer on our own. We agreed to save a couple of beers for breakfast.
The conversation quickly turned to politics as the Tequila began to haze the hunger and the pain. Come 9:30, we had solved the world’s problems and I hobbled off to bed. My bed of course was located in a gravel pull off on the side of the road.
As mornings do, ours broke. Not surprisingly, everything was still wet. I crawled out of my nylon cave and slowly began the tedious process of trying to pack everything back up while somehow drying it and keeping the few things that were dry, well, dry. Pretty soon I had my stuff strewn along the side of the road using road signs and reflectors to hang my tent fly and clothes. It was to no avail, everything was wet when I packed it away.
Unlike my companions, hunger does not a good bedfellow make and I was awake and ready to ride well before any of them were stirring. Once it became obvious that I might starve to death, I hobbled over and woke everyone up. Once awake, we got moving pretty quickly. Breaking camp doesn’t take very long when you don’t have to break fast.
As I mentioned, we were a bit below the spring and KC and I remembered the summit being just beyond.
We reached the spring and everyone but myself filled up water bottles. And then we trucked on up to the top. Of course, we were elated to be done climbing and anxious to drop down to the flat into Montpelier. We took some photos of our victorious ascent, strapped on some more clothes for the impending cold that would come with the descent and off we went.
As I’ve mentioned, memories don’t always serve for accuracy and we soon found ourselves climbing again. Realizing that we had hit a false summit was akin to what I assume it would be like for someone to beat the living shit out of you and when you are almost to die, they kick you in the balls and then when that is just about to wear off, they go Lorena on you.
We did make it to the top and we did enjoy the jaunt down off the summit.
I tend to do things wrong. A great example is my choice of bikes. When people are rocking 6″ trail bikes, I’ll show up on a rigid singlespeed. Touring is no different. I like to pull trailers across three states using but one gear. It’s simple, gives you an excuse to walk hills and makes people take a second look. The biggest down side to the one gear is when you are on the flats keeping up with the group can be a pretty monumental effort. As they nonchalantly click a lever to switch gears, I’m stuck spinning at a higher and higher cadence.
Once down the hill, the miles into Montpelier are flat. I quickly found myself having a hard time keeping up as the group drifted farther and farther out of site. Luckily they waited for me.
These last miles stretched as far as the eye could see and we still couldn’t see our destination. At was at this point that I found my thoughts wandering to places that didn’t necessarily make sense. In the throws of having no sugar in my blood, being dehydrated and essentially feeling as close to starving as I had in a long time, I found myself romanticizing the times when hunger was a given. People knew the look of sullen sorrow on the face of the man on the curb unable to find a bight to eat.
My thoughts wandered around that idea until the sign telling us that Montpelier was 5 miles off. At this point my thoughts turned to keeping the pedals turning. I knew we were moving forward but it sure didn’t seem like it. We could see the town but it didn’t seem to get any closer.
And then we starved to death. This is being written by my proxy who found my notes in the chest pocket of the jacket I was wearing. My body was found on the side of the road.
We made it to Montpelier. Anyone who has ridden into this small Idaho town knows that you come into town and make a right turn. The first thing you notice is the giant ramp you are going to have to climb. Once over the ramp, you notice that there isn’t anything open. Panic slowly began to creep into my mind as we passed building after building with nothing open or available to eat. Calming myself by continuing to pedal, we reach the T at the edge of town and bingo, Adventure’s First Stop.
We all crashed into the Maverick, trailers flying in all directions. Soon there was a yard sale of shit as we dug for our wallets and ranhobbled into the store to purchase sustenance. The choice of food was varied but all was high in calories and we all ended up with a couple liters of soda. I somehow ended up with Frito flavor twists and a can of bean dip. Fuck it, that combination tasted pretty damn awesome. Mike had snagged a maple bar which threw me into a nostalgic trance and I ranhobbled back into purchase two for myself. The entire time remembering going to Albertson’s with my dad to get maple bars on Saturdays when he was home.
I could only eat one.
We all agreed that this was a great appetizer stop but we needed a meal. The only restaurant in town was Subway. We made our way there and once again crashed our trailers into their parking lot and begged for food. Once we had satisfied our need for food, we pulled everything out of the trailers and let the sun that was beating down on us dry out last night’s storm.
KC, whose black lung had only worsened over night, had made arrangements with his little brother to retrieve his carcass in Montpelier. He left us sitting on the picnic table outside Subway wondering if we would be able to move, let alone make it to Jackson. He waved and they drove away.
