45 – A Mistake We Won't Make Again - Travels with Walter

July 13, 2015

45 – A Mistake We Won't Make Again

We want to stick around the house another another day to rest, to check out all the little details of the place, and to flip through some of the thousands of books about subjects we never would have figured there'd have entire books written about. But there's no veterinarian in Kempton so we have to keep moving.

And we want to get to the next town with a vet as soon as possible. In part for Walter, but also for everyone's sake because of the crazy weather day that waits for us. The terrifying forecast goes like this: Partly sunny. Showers and thunderstorms early in the morning, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms late in the morning. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Some thunderstorms may be severe late in the afternoon. Locally heavy rainfall possible. Highs around 90. Highest heat index readings 104 to 109 in the afternoon. South winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent. Beautiful. We're pedaling again by 6:15.

Not far from town we drop off the Northern Tier route. We won't see it again until we reach Western Washington some time in September. We don't have a route planned out to get us into Pontiac because we don't need one. Instead we just follow a road until it turns from pavement to gravel, then turn ninety degrees in whatever direction will get us closer to the south or the west until we hit pavement again. When it's gravel we ride slow. When the blacktop returns we speed along at an easy twelve miles per hour.

Even though it's early, the air feels cool, the sun hides behind a layer of clouds, and the roads run all but flat, my shirt is soaked through less than ten miles from Kempton. Then we walk into a mini-mart where the air conditioning blasts on its high setting. As we walk the aisles my wet shirt sticks to my back and I start to shiver. Summer in the Midwest has arrived.

So too has a furious thunderstorm. We knew it was coming toward us when we checked the weather back at the gas station, but it looked far enough away that we could make it the last twelve miles to Pontiac before the madness arrived. In the end, it takes only three or four miles for us to realize how fast it's moving and how wrong we were. Rumbles of thunder roll down the prairie toward us. Bolts of lightning of white and yellow and orange charge into the ground only a few miles away. It's so dark just to the north of us that the auto-focus feature on my camera can't figure out where to aim itself.

Our survival instinct switches on. We stop in front of the first farmhouse we find, then walk the bikes up the driveway and knock on the door. No one's home. There's a covered porch, but it's open to the direction from which the storm is coming and won't give much protection. It seems like we'll have to try something else. But as I'm standing near the back of the house I feel the temperature drop five degrees in an instant and feel a gust of wind push me back on my heels. There's no time left for asking permission or looking for another option. We have to find shelter this instant.

And in a grand stroke of luck we do. When Kristen runs to the door of the huge metal-sided garage on the far side of the driveway and turns the door handle it twists all the way to the right and the door swings open in front of us. Waves of relief wash over our bodies, form into smiles on our faces, and turn into sighs that shoot out of our mouths.

Ten seconds after we pull the bikes in through the doorway and park them near stacks of tools and an idle combine, rain starts to tear sideways across the sky. Lightning explodes in a flash right above the farm, and the booms of thunder follow a split second later. It goes on like that for ten minutes: flash-boom, flash-boom, flash-boom. The rain falls with such force on the metal roof that we have to yell at each other to talk, even though we stand shoulder to shoulder. I've been through a lot of thunderstorms while cycle-touring, but never anything like this. It's terrifying — although not as terrifying as knowing that we were a few minutes or a couple of locked doors away from finding ourselves stuck out in the middle of it. It's a mistake we'll learn from. It's a mistake we won't make again.

Fifteen minutes after it started, the fury has thundered and hurried its way to the south and the farm returns to calm. The wind blows a little harder and the last drops of rain fall onto the soaked earth, but other than that it's like the storm that threatened to demolish us never happened.

At the vet's office, Walter does so much better having a thermometer stuck up his butthole than Kristen or I ever would. For his trouble we learn that there's some bad bacteria churning around his insides, but no serious issues beyond that. We get some medication to kick out the bad stuff, a probiotic to keep the good bacteria around, and some specialized food to keep his stomach calm until balance sorts itself out. To help him along, we make a plan to spend the next few days riding early when it's cool and stopping around mid-day to give him all afternoon and evening and night to rest and eat and build back up his strength. After that we'll be off the road for a week taking a break of our own. The hope is that by the time we start riding again all three of us will be ready for our long charge to the west.

"No distinction between head and shoulder."

By the time we step out of the vet's office the skies to the west are blue and cloudless. It's also blazing hot and so humid that the palms of my hands turn slick in an instant. To avoid the heat and let Walter sleep, we ride a few miles into Pontiac, check into a motel, and don't even go so far as to look out the window for the next four hours. By early evening it's ninety-one degrees and the heat index sits at 113. It's a perfect day to do whatever we can to avoid riding a bicycle.

For a guy born and raised in the relative calm of the Pacific Northwest the warnings posted all at the same time by the National Weather Service are sobering: Tornado Watch, Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Areal Flood Warning, Flash Flood Watch, Heat Advisory. But life goes on as normal all around us. There's the dude who drives a golf cart to the mini-mart to grab some beer, blasting awful rap music the whole way. Everyone we see in and around that mini-mart carries at least thirty percent more weight than they should, even the kids. And when I look around the outside of the motel I realize we might be the only ones staying here who aren't Hispanic and who don't live here on a semi-permanent basis — although in true American style, every car in the parking lot is still nicer than mine.

The late evening sky becomes a chaotic palette of color and texture. To the south it's pale pinks and purples and the subtle blue of clear skies. To the east it's dark blue like a deep bruise. And to the north and the west it's thin lines of bright orange running straight into an angry gray mass of thunderstorms so thick they look depthless. I'd take a picture of it, but the moisture in the air that wraps around me like a blanket turns the lens of my camera foggy within six seconds of stepping outside.

Today's ride: 26 miles (42 km)
Total: 1,811 miles (2,915 km)

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