Big Stripey Bags

October 22, 2014

Packing like a slacker

Dear little friends,

In the rarefied air of Portland bike and general coolness microclimate, our age, fitness, clothing, and gear are pretty much like the campfire’s smoke when the marshmallow falls off the stick. Translation: jarring, not cool, but definitely piquant.

Bruce has now returned from his stint cleaning out his dad’s house in Minnesota, along with a lot of that which got cleaned out from his dad’s house in Minnesota. What was the biggest surprise in the truck, you ask? That’s easy, little friends. It was the cast iron clawfoot tub. In a previous post I talked a bit about stuff but mostly didn’t want to talk about stuff because stuff is a topic much discussed in our house and it is as tiresome a topic to me as it is to you, especially when it’s not my stuff being discussed.

There, hiding behind his feet at the right, the elusive wild clawfoot.

I’m coming around on the clawfoot tub though, in Bruce’s shared imaginings there is a dreamy but not-Cialis-commercial vision of an outdoor hot tub with hosed-in hot water, or, a sauna with a clawfoot tub freezing-cold plunge right outside the door for when you really want to feel alive. We saw a movie from New Zealand called “Boy” which was a delightful flick, you should watch it on Kanopy. A very brief scene has two children scrubbing off in an outdoor clawfoot tub with a small fire under it to heat the water, which after the initial cannibal soup reaction makes you think, “Oh yeah, I want to try that out in the backyard”. The clawfoot tub of potential is safely ensconced in the garage for the present, that distraction shelved, and now some serious packing can begin.

There's something very exciting about putting your bike into a box, however ugly. The box, I mean.

Gear piles have only multiplied since the last photos posted but they seem manageable. I had me some dithering about sandals and Clif bars but a little wise coaching from my friend Kat got me out of that endless loop. I spent a day taping the boxes I had to make to accommodate our Bike Fridays and they look somewhat structurally sound if not elegant. If some hipster at the airport wants to sneer at our bike boxes I look forward to that because I will also be checking in the ultimately hip luggage: a big stripey bag.

Yes, that’s right, a big stripey bag. Sometimes known as “Big Colorful Bags” or "Ghanian Samsonite", the ones that all over the developing world are carrying textiles, cotton, silk, firewood, rice hulls, bananas, cooking pots, peanuts, baby ducklings, fertilizer, and used flip flops as we speak. They are big, they are colorful, and they can carry anything. If I had a bigger one than the one I have I would have folded up my Bike Friday into it but instead it’s carrying all the crap I can’t fit in my carryon pannier and handlebar bag.

Big Stripey Bag and it's slightly smaller brother who will probably get left behind.

Many’s the time my feet rested on a big stripey bag because a fellow bus passenger thumped it down onto the floor below my bus seat. Every evening in Luang Prabang, Laos the tuk-tuks arrive laden with big stripey bags full of the stuff they sell at the night market, the silks and the fake silks and the silver and the fake silver and other wondrous tourist goods get hauled day in and day out to the market and hauled back home again at 10 pm sharp. Commerce would grind to a halt without them.

Here’s the thing about an “open jaws” ticket, where you fly into one city and out of another: There isn’t going to be any luggage or bike boxes stored at a hotel because you ain’t coming back there and so the boxes and bags are going to be ditched or gifted at the undisclosed location where the bikes get unpacked. Our homely boxes and slumming bags will hopefully be repurposed by somebody who will be glad to have them, if they haven’t been shredded between the Portland, San Francisco, Seoul or Yangon airports. That’s the risk you take when you are an uncool budget bike traveler.

And because you aren’t carrying a clawfoot tub with you in one of those panniers you just pulled out of the big stripey bag, you are as free as a bird, and you just wheel down the street and leave your baggage behind.

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