27 – Something Called a Cheese Hug - Travels with Walter

June 25, 2015

27 – Something Called a Cheese Hug

After eleven hours of the most wonderful sleep I wake up to low clouds stuck to the tops of the hills that surround us. A bald eagle sits on a low branch in a tree straight across the river from our tent. There are no car engines or train horns to be heard. It's morning in a deep canyon in Northern Pennsylvania, like mornings in this canyon have been happening for the thousands of years that passed before we showed up.

There's no obvious human footprint out here apart from the trail we ride on. We rumble over short wooden bridges that cross the little streams that empty into Pine Creek. We see one other guy on a bike who rides past in the opposite direction. Otherwise we're alone. It gives us the space to spend time with our thoughts, to spit sunflower seed shells at each other while riding, and to invent and then perfect something called a cheese hug.

Kristen likes rail trails because they're easy to ride on, free of cars, and can bring you closer to nature than it's possible to get on highways or even back roads. Walter likes rail trails because they mean that several times a day he gets to hop out of his trailer and run alongside me until his energy reserves run out and he slows to walking speed. I like rail trails, but only when they take me to places I couldn't otherwise get on a bike, or when they help keep me from being run over by a dump truck. When they just run parallel to quiet country roads I start to lose my mind. The Pine Creek trail turns out to work for all three of us. It has a lot of remote stretches, it's easy riding, and Walter wiggles with excitement whenever we tell him it's time to go outside and run.

In certain stretches I hear a chorus of extended croaking from dozens of frogs hidden away on both sides of the creek — the creek that at this point looks more like a river. When I look down I see deer standing in the water eating grass from the banks. Up to my left it's deer crunching their way up the steep hill as they look for the perfect bush to gnaw on. And yet even out in the middle of what feels like nowhere, in places where only a handful of people pass on most days of the year, we still see sprawling lawns mowed with expert precision and care stretching away from the trail toward the hills. I wonder if this is what retirement looks like out here.

At one point we're passed by a family of Mennonites. There's mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, and at least six kids, all on bicycles, all dressed in the way they always do: checkered shirts tucked into blue jeans with black suspenders for the men, long dresses of blue or pink with white hats for the women. Kristen has been talking about shaving her hair short some time after this trip is over. I tell her that if she goes too short I might have to grow one of the rough-looking mustache-less beards that so many of the Mennonites wear to balance it out.

At a consistent nine miles per hour we pedal by trout fishermen ass-deep in the cold creek, casting and reeling and unconcerned with the lonely wives that wait for them back at home. In one of the small towns along the trail we see a restaurant with a sign board out front that reads Smoking Permitted in big block letters. We ride easy and free with no idea where we'll end up tonight. We're just out here. This is just our Thursday. This is just our life.

At a stop for lunch and another cheese hug we hear a series of shotgun blasts crack out and then funnel their way up through the valley behind us.

"I wonder if they ever reach a point when they've killed so many animals that the fun wears off," I ask Kristen.

She just gives a short, dismissive laugh and says, "Never."

Our day is trestles, marshes, ice cream cones, and stern-faced day riders on hybrid bikes who aren't having any fun out here at all, this is only for exercise thank you very much, so please don't wave at me or try to say hello. In typical rail trail fashion, I start to zone out during the last five or six miles from the consistent scenery, the unchanging surface, and the complete lack of danger.

A mile from the end our day shifts from low gear to high. While I check to see what kind of camping we might find down the road, Kristen looks at the weather and sees a huge line of rain showers headed straight for us. It's bad news because the only place we might be able to set up the tent nearby is a state park, but it'll take twenty-five miles through the pouring rain to get there. Then we find a cheap motel that's just eight miles off. We have our marching orders. We bolt.

We pedal as hard as we can through the town of Avis, where everyone gives us the kind of mouth-open stare that tells us cycle-tourists don't come this way too much. Then we charge down an empty road along the banks of the Susquehanna River. When we see Road Closed signs blocking our path we speed past them and cross over a bridge still under repair. At many points trees arch over the road and protect us from the rain, and when the trees fade we're surrounded on all sides by a sea of corn. But with the force of the rain growing greater and greater we focus more on the road ahead and the motel that glows like a warm, dry beacon of hope at its end.

I open the door to our room and feel a wave of a smell best described as urinal cake wash over me. It's a space not much bigger than my bedroom as a kid. There's one piece of art on the wall: a framed picture of London Bridge that's also a jigsaw puzzle. The bathroom has soap and toilet paper dispensers like what you'd find in the shitter at a diner, and the floor is covered not in tile or linoleum but carpet. If I'm being honest, I love it. I'm forever amazed by the bizarre details of rural American motel rooms. If I had to create a coffee table book, that's the subject I'd choose. As long as I don't catch a virus from the bedding or step in a sticky spot when walking toward the bathroom, it's all part of the adventure.

We refuel on pizza and a lone cold beer, but all is not right with Team Hawthorne. Kristen is worried about what the roads ahead will be like, both for hills and traffic. She's uncomfortable with the fact that we don't know where we might be camping in the days ahead. And even though we spend almost as much time resting as we do riding during the day, she still feels like our days are too long.

I don't know what to tell her. That's what bike touring is when you choose to ride across a continent. Sometimes the roads aren't great, sometimes you don't know where you're staying, and you can't get from one far-off coast to the other riding thirty-five miles a day unless you like waking up to a snow-covered tent by the time you reach the West. The last thing I want is to feel like I'm dragging her across the country. Most of the time I don't. But this is not one of those days.

Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 944 miles (1,519 km)

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