February 27, 2016
I Want to See What This Urinal Cake Business is All About
Under a layer of thin overcast we ride the back streets of Uvalde. Clean old houses become the insurance agencies and drugstores of downtown and then run-down old houses with sagging porches and peeling paint and crap filling the yards. Dogs and cats wander free. A truck rests next to the curb on the slumped mass of four slashed tires. For the last three or four days we were in places like Bulverde and Boerne and Bandera where eighty or ninety percent of the residents were white and many of them were wealthy. In Uvalde three-quarters of the people are Hispanic and many of them are poor. The shifting faces of America that have in many ways defined this trip are on the move again.
Soon we run out of side streets. All that's left is U.S. Highway 90. And in this case that's the literal truth. Before setting out from Florida we knew Kristen had to be back in Los Angeles for work near the end of March. What we didn't find out until just a few weeks ago is that she also has to return to Portland for several days starting next week. The most logical place for her to leave the road is Van Horn, where Highway 90 runs into Interstate 10. There she can catch a bus to the airport in El Paso and fly back to the Northwest. What the trip home means is that Kristen's ride across the country is less than a week away from ending. Staying in Van Horn and waiting for her to return isn't an option, because by then there wouldn't be enough time left to reach the coast.
In the weeks since we learned about all of this I've offered to head back to Portland with Kristen more times than I can remember. In each case she has said no, that although she'll miss me and wishes she could keep riding, she thinks I should continue on toward the west. Her only request is that I don't end up in California until she has a chance to be there to pick me up. Although I'd bag out on this trip for my wife without hesitation, part of me is also content to push on. Twice in the last three years I've set out to cross America from coast to coast and twice I've failed. In 2013 it was a case of winter weather that decided it wasn't going to give into spring that stopped me. Last summer it was the death of my dog. I don't know how many more chances I'll get to do this kind of trip. Nothing in the future is guaranteed, no matter how much I might want it. And so now I look at the stretches of road between here and the Pacific and see not just an adventure but also a challenge. I have to get to San Diego. I have to.
But we're not getting to any of these far-off places today. We left late from Uvalde and take a lot of breaks in the first couple of hours on the road. And in fact there's incentive to grab-ass around in the early part of the day, because we know the wind will grow stronger and give us more of a push later on. In the times when we aren't standing alongside the highway we pedal over the dry depression of the Nueces River and hills that are low and rolling and sparse. When I see a Border Patrol checkpoint coming up on the opposite side of the highway I say to Kristen that I'm going to stop and tell the agents she has illegal weapons hidden in her panniers just to see what happens.
It seems like half the time we're doing something other than riding. At one of these breaks Kristen pulls out of her pannier a vacuum-sealed sleeve of tuna bought at the gas station back in town. She then squirts into the sleeve a couple of packets of mayonnaise and relish that came with it. Just the thought of this is enough to make me retch a little. The whole ensemble comes with crackers, but also a mint. I guess it's because the contents of all those packets put together make your breath smell so awful afterward that no one wants to be around you. Kristen says the mint tastes the way she imagines a urinal cake would taste. I don't ask how she knows anything about that.
So I ask her to give me the mint. I want to see what this urinal cake business is all about. It seems unlikely anyone would do something like that on purpose or even by accident. I tear open the shiny blue wrapper, and – good god damn, the mint looks like a tiny little urinal cake. It's striking, uncanny, kind of unnerving. Then I give it a sniff. Yep – half floral, half chemical, just like a urinal cake.
"Wasn't I right?!" Kristen says with delight.
"You were totally right."
And then I pop the thing into my mouth. For the sake of scientific discovery, really. Yet for all of its urinal cake-like appearance and urinal cake-like smell it tastes to me just like a normal mint. I don't spit it out. I kind of like it. And as I roll the thing over in my mouth with my tongue I realize that what might be going on instead is that I already have a well-developed taste for urinal cakes.
We pack up quickly and move on.
But I don't spit out the mint.
Just down the road I yell out to Kristen with the thickest Scottish accent I can muster, "I'm going to climb the Grampians using only urinal cakes as sustenance!"
We've only done about fifteen of four hundred miles on this highway and already my grip on reality is slipping.
There's enough traffic to annoy but not enough to distract from the country spread out around us. I watch butterflies try to land on the vibrant purple wildflowers that grow in the low points of the land where water collects, but the wind gusts force them to go around and attempt another approach. A train whistle blows from the south and I hear the clacking of wheels on rails, but the hundreds of acres of thick mesquite and creosote that stand between us make the train impossible to see. We pass the tall metal gates that guard gravel driveways leading to distant ranches. Their names are listed on large metal signs above the gates: South Sweet River, Double N, Machete. I decide that if I ever end up with some land out here I'll put all of those together and call it the Sweet Double Machete Ranch.
We stop for lunch in Brackettville in the early afternoon. Inside the Subway I watch a guy get out of his car, walk toward the closest garbage can, then throw the plastic bottle in his hand toward the opening of the can. He misses. And without a second look or a hint of hesitation he walks away on a mouth-breathing mission to buy garbage food with plastic wrappers he can fling out the car window eight miles down the highway.
That's the height of both the excitement and drama in Brackettville on this Saturday afternoon.
The sign at the edge of town that lists upcoming cities and the number of miles it'll take to reach them includes places in Mexico. The big blue Adopt a Highway signs that appear every two miles start to have listed as their sponsors local U.S. Border Patrol posts. The Rio Grande and the border it forms are close at hand.
The land tells the same story. Beyond Brackettville the rolling hills of the morning grow shorter and shorter and the road trends subtly more down that up. In the long, straight, flat sections the heat shimmer rising up off the pavement makes it look as if Kristen is riding in a state of levitation half a mile ahead of me. With the wind blowing strong on our left-rear quarter and little reason to stop and hang out alongside the highway we crank hard and steady and watch the mileage left between us and Del Rio grow ever smaller.
On days like this where I spend so much time in the saddle my relationship with the road surface starts to take on human qualities. When Val Verde County greets me with smooth pavement that feels like riding on the wings of angels after banging over rough chipseal all day it makes me want to profess my love for its road works department with songs and prose and sonnets. When the chipseal returns half a mile later I curse that department's very existence. And when the smoothness appears again at the top of the next hill I plead ignorance, beg for their forgiveness, and make sure every spit ball lands in the grass beyond the road's edge.
At 40,000 people, Del Rio is by far the largest city, town, or village we'll pass through in the next week, but we stop only for sodas. It welcomes us with decaying mobile homes, barking dogs, drive-through liquor stores, wind-blown clouds of dirt, and so many auto repair places I lose count. Where the main highways meet it's McDonald's, Subway, and chain gas stations. Beyond, potholed side streets take us past modest one-story homes with kids playing soccer in yards where unmowed yellow-green grass and weeds and bare dirt all fight for space. The Whataburger, the Domino's, the Walmart, and half a dozen chain motels and new car dealerships mark the way out of town. I'm sure there's good heart and soul to be found in Del Rio, but with tired legs and asses and thin patience we're not the people meant to uncover it today.
We crank hard to try and reach a campground located near the Amistad Reservoir a few miles north of town. To the west the sun burns a brilliant orange, crossing the horizon behind several lines of distant mountains whose jagged peaks stand black in stark relief against the blazing sky. It takes a moment to realize that I'm looking out at Mexico.
We roll into the camping loop just before dark. But because it's all primitive sites with no electrical or water hookups the place is deserted, even late on Saturday evening, even on what to us feels like a perfect night to sleep outdoors. It means we're able to cook rice and beans and eat them in peace, lit by the glow of a bicycle headlight. In the distance the highway chugs as it does. Above us the sparkle of the stars mix with the flashing navigation lights of Border Patrol aircraft on the lookout for drug runners and people smugglers.
Today's ride: 81 miles (130 km)
Total: 1,821 miles (2,931 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |