Cross-country bike trip (cont.)
T
Friday the 13th of June. On I-84 E. of
Burley ID, I fix my first flat tire.
Tires. No, I didn’t carry a spare. I don’t even know how I might have except, maybe for wearing one over my shoulder like a bandoleer. Some bikers use tires with Kevlar beads which can be folded and stowed, but mine had normal steel wire beads which must not be bent. But, no matter; I didn’t need a spare, anyway. Biker friends have told me that some who have made the transcontinental ride themselves say it is impossible to get across the country on just two tires. I didn’t know that. Really, I expected my tires to last the whole way. Following Greg’s example, I have been riding on Vittoria Randonneur Cross tires for the past several years. I buy two sets a year, and each set lasts 5,000-6,000 miles. You can imagine how disappointed I was to find the tread on my rear tire worn through to the Kevlar reinforcing layer by the time we got to Wyoming. At Casper, 1200 miles into the trip, I rotated my tires, putting the worn back tire on the front and the new-looking front tire on the rear. I fully expected to buy a new tire somewhere in the Midwest at the rate of wear I was seeing. Of course, all the weight on the bike was over the rear tire; I had no front panniers to distribute the load. When I got to Springfield IL for our Fourth of July break, the tire I rotated to the rear in Casper still looked pretty good. But I thought it would be prudent to put a new tire there, just in case. So my host, Charlie, drove me into town to the R&M Cyclery (see Dedication) where I asked for the sturdiest they had in a 700mmX28mm size. After I turned down the popular Gatorskin tire because it was too flimsy, the clerk brought out a redoubtable Schwalbe that looked tough enough to excel in a trans-African motocross. Back at Charlie’s house, we tried to put it on. It was so thick and stiff that it took the two of us to hold the sidewalls on the rim. And, when I finally got it pumped full of air and on the bike, the big tread rubbed the frame, stopping the wheel from turning. It was too late to return the impossible Schwalbe to R&M. I put the old Vittoria back on the bike and rode off for my rendezvous with Greg. That old tire got a tad bare over the two weeks it took us to get to Cape Henry, and a little red Kevlar was showing through when we dipped our front wheels in the Atlantic. But it lasted all the way. Greg’s tires would have made it, too, but he bought a new one on the day before we finished because he had to ride an additional day to meet his brother in North Carolina (see Brothers).
We did have four flat tires on the journey, though—all on my rear tire. The first, along I-84 in Idaho, was caused by a bit of reinforcing wire from the treads that fall off truck tires (see Hazards). The second, near Casper WY was likely from the same cause. The third was mechanic’s error; I pinched the tube when I rotated the tires in Casper. The last came at then end of our grueling ride over “them hills around Lewellen” (see Climbs) to Ogalalla NE. That was it. Greg had no flats at all. In fact, he’s never had a flat tire on any of his long-distance tours. I wish I knew why.
Trains. One of the unexpected pleasures of the trip was trainwatching, especially in the West. I made the discovery as we rode past two long Union Pacific trains on a siding between Burley and Pocatello ID. There were probably more than 200 boxcars in the trains, all of them covered in graffiti. I had seen such things before, of course, but never so much so close. About 10% of the “tags” were breathtaking in their design. Most were merely conventional, and a few were so gross in their simplicity that I could actually read them—I remember an “Eric” that looked to be scrawled in a first-grader’s initial attempt at cursive. But I loved the intricate designs. I think I may have an innate weakness for them. During the year I taught in London as an exchange professor, I became almost obsessed with the Lindisfarne Gospel and the Book of Kells, two ornate manuscripts from the 7th and 8th centuries in Britain and Ireland. Each manuscript has “carpet” pages which are entirely devoted to ornate designs, much like those on Islamic prayer-rugs. The books also featured extravagantly embellished initial letters and page margins, often using stylized birds and serpents to create complex interlocking designs. Some of the best “tags” on those UP trains inspired the same awe as the two medieval manuscripts. Oddly, I know less about the modern genre than I know about medieval monastic arts.
As we rode towards the border of Wyoming and Nebraska we began to see coal trains, hundreds of them, making their way from the Wyoming coal fields to their destinations in other parts of the country. These were lo-o-ong trains. I counted cars on four of them and found they had around 135 cars each. Unlike the UP trains we saw earlier, there was a striking lack of graffiti. The attraction of the coal trains was their length and number. They would come, a few minutes apart; eastbound, they were loaded with coal; westbound, they were empty. The full ones usually had four engines pulling and one at the rear, pushing. We guessed they let the rookie engineers sit in the pushers. It was hard to believe the number of those trains and to imagine the enormous scale of the coal mines that fill them each day. Trains were bound for New Jersey, Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Missouri—almost any state east of Wyoming you can name. The tracks paralleled our road most of the way across Nebraska. One night we stayed in North Platte, which boasts the largest rail yard in the world, used mostly for switching those coal trains. We were really a bit relieved when we turned away from the mainline and its constant din of railway engines and horns.
We did have four flat tires on the journey, though—all on my rear tire. The first, along I-84 in Idaho, was caused by a bit of reinforcing wire from the treads that fall off truck tires (see Hazards). The second, near Casper WY was likely from the same cause. The third was mechanic’s error; I pinched the tube when I rotated the tires in Casper. The last came at then end of our grueling ride over “them hills around Lewellen” (see Climbs) to Ogalalla NE. That was it. Greg had no flats at all. In fact, he’s never had a flat tire on any of his long-distance tours. I wish I knew why.
Trains. One of the unexpected pleasures of the trip was trainwatching, especially in the West. I made the discovery as we rode past two long Union Pacific trains on a siding between Burley and Pocatello ID. There were probably more than 200 boxcars in the trains, all of them covered in graffiti. I had seen such things before, of course, but never so much so close. About 10% of the “tags” were breathtaking in their design. Most were merely conventional, and a few were so gross in their simplicity that I could actually read them—I remember an “Eric” that looked to be scrawled in a first-grader’s initial attempt at cursive. But I loved the intricate designs. I think I may have an innate weakness for them. During the year I taught in London as an exchange professor, I became almost obsessed with the Lindisfarne Gospel and the Book of Kells, two ornate manuscripts from the 7th and 8th centuries in Britain and Ireland. Each manuscript has “carpet” pages which are entirely devoted to ornate designs, much like those on Islamic prayer-rugs. The books also featured extravagantly embellished initial letters and page margins, often using stylized birds and serpents to create complex interlocking designs. Some of the best “tags” on those UP trains inspired the same awe as the two medieval manuscripts. Oddly, I know less about the modern genre than I know about medieval monastic arts.
As we rode towards the border of Wyoming and Nebraska we began to see coal trains, hundreds of them, making their way from the Wyoming coal fields to their destinations in other parts of the country. These were lo-o-ong trains. I counted cars on four of them and found they had around 135 cars each. Unlike the UP trains we saw earlier, there was a striking lack of graffiti. The attraction of the coal trains was their length and number. They would come, a few minutes apart; eastbound, they were loaded with coal; westbound, they were empty. The full ones usually had four engines pulling and one at the rear, pushing. We guessed they let the rookie engineers sit in the pushers. It was hard to believe the number of those trains and to imagine the enormous scale of the coal mines that fill them each day. Trains were bound for New Jersey, Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Missouri—almost any state east of Wyoming you can name. The tracks paralleled our road most of the way across Nebraska. One night we stayed in North Platte, which boasts the largest rail yard in the world, used mostly for switching those coal trains. We were really a bit relieved when we turned away from the mainline and its constant din of railway engines and horns.
U
Unlawful Excursions. See Cities and Virginia.
V
Vernacular. People usually asked where we were going and where we’d come from. When we told them their reactions were occasionally entertaining. A waiter in an Athens OH Pizza Hut found that we’d started on the coast of Oregon and went into a frenzy of astonishment. “Get out!” he shouted. Then stomping five giant steps away, turned on his heel and again yelled “Get out!” Then he fell, in four crazy lurches, to the back wall, wailing “Get out!” This continued for another two or three iterations until I felt we should rise from our booth and leave. Finally he calmed down, wheedled some more information about our trip, and brought us our pizza. Most fun of all was a convenience store clerk in Newport News VA. When she discovered that we had pedaled all the way from Oregon, she jumped back and, with arms akimbo, shrieked “Don’t play with me!” I was so taken aback that I wasn’t sure I’d heard what she said, so I asked her to please repeat. She obliged—with all the gusto of her first take.
I had expected to hear many odd usages along the way, but there is really only one to report. But it so perfect an example of a Mark Twain Americanism that it alone is worth the trip. On the second day out, as we were riding in light rain from Springfield OR up the Cascades to Belknap Springs, we stopped for lunch at the Finn Rock Café, a homey little place right on the rushing McKenzie River. A fellow at the bar was eager for some conversation. A rafting guide on the McKenzie who takes tourists for a 10-mile boat ride downriver, he was temporarily unemployed because the river was running too high and fast from the snowmelt. I asked him if it wasn’t difficult to make money at that sort of outdoor work because it rains so much in Oregon. Just then a patch of blue opened in the sky above us. I commented that it looked encouraging; the clouds were breaking up and the rest of the day would be sunny and fine. Our friend laughed and pointed to the patch of blue: “We call them sucker holes,” he said. “People see them and sign up for a raft trip. They pay their money and it starts to rain again.” Now sucker holes is a highly serviceable metaphor in a consumer culture like ours. What else is “Going Out of Business!” or “Giant George Washington Birthday Sale!” or “$750-billion Exonomic Fix”? I’ll bet a day hasn’t gone by since June 4 that I haven’t thought of sucker holes.
Virginia. Of the eleven states we passed through on our way to Virginia Beach, only one gets an entry of its own. You may justly wonder why I play favorites. Virginia is my “favorite” because it is the only one to qualify as a genuine Commonwealth of Horrors. You know how hard it was for us to get out of Richmond and how we narrowly escaped arrest for our unlawful excursion on I-95 (see Cities). You were surely shocked to learn how difficult it is to get a reasonably accurate answer to any question about roads in Virginia (see Misinformation). You probably brushed away tears at the account of my “death” in Newport News from the horrible heat and humidity and rejoiced, I am certain, at my “resurrection” (see Life and Death). It remains for me to relate the events of our last day—the 46th riding day and 50th overall—so you can appreciate the solid claim Virginia has to its special recognition.
The day started well with a gourmand feast at the best motel breakfast counter of the trip. The sky was sunny and we were in a bright mood, entirely ready to end our long adventure. We had put in a lot of time the day before arranging to get across the bay from Hampton to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. We hadn’t thought it would be difficult. When we looked at Virginia’s official bike map in Green Valley, it showed the Hampton Roads Bridge and Tunnel to be a bike route. (Hampton Roads is the name of the strait that connects Chesapeake Bay with the James River.) But when Greg stopped in Newport News to buy a new tire, the bike shop owner told us that we couldn’t just ride across by ourselves. He said the state Department of Transportation (VDOT) required bikers to be carried across by a special truck that had to be expressly ordered. Greg spent hours that afternoon and evening arranging for our conveyance. He checked with the VDOT and the Highway Patrol and discovered that a private towing firm in Norfolk did all the conveying, and that we had to do all the arranging with them. So Greg did. He called and made sure we’d be picked up when we called about 7:00 a.m. when we got to the pick-up spot. Then he called the VDOT (and the Highway Patrol, too, I think) to double-check the arrangements with them. Everything was foursquare. We were to be picked up at the beginning of the Bridge and Tunnel. We were a little uneasy that the only road to that place was I-64. We knew it was generally illegal to be on the interstate, but figured this was an exception because it was an official bike route and, we were relieved to discover, the on-ramp did not have a sign prohibiting bicycles, etc. So off we went, pedaling merrily down the capacious shoulder of I-64 to meet our wrecker at the bridge. Greg was far ahead when a white VDOT truck, horn blaring and yellow lights flashing, pulled up behind me. The driver motioned me to stop, then leapt from his truck in his white coveralls and yellow hard hat, rushed to the bike and planted a red highway cone in front of me. “Stay right there!” he yelled, “The Highway Patrol is on the way!” By the time the State Police car arrived Greg had come back and was trying to explain to the VDOT official what we had done and why we thought it was OK. I think the guy was deaf. In any event, the highway patrolman became our focus. He didn’t want to hear anything from us, especially any justification concerning maps and signs and phone calls to his own agency. He was adamant: “It is illegal to ride a bike on my interstate.” (his emphasis) It was no trouble at all to choke back the response that he was just the protector of our interstate. By this time we were in our do-not-rot-in-jail mode. After a while, the officer decided that the degradation ceremony had run its course. He said he understood how we could have been misdirected; he’d got plenty of misinformation on his cross-country motorcycle rides. He also said we could get to our tow truck by riding city streets to the Mallory Exit of the interstate. He even tried to give us directions. Relieved to have avoided arrest, we pedaled off the interstate by way of the on-ramp and set about finding the Mallory Exit—which we did, after a couple of wrong turns and several conversations with local pedestrians. At the Mallory Street Exit we could see what appeared to be a maintenance yard down by the interstate. Greg figured we could call from there and that it would be a good place to meet our tow truck. We were not halfway down the ramp before an orange-clad man came racing out of a little barn, waving his arms and screaming. As we got closer we could discern his words, “Get out!” “Illegal!” After a couple of minutes he calmed down enough to listen to our story—that we were to meet our tow truck here, etc. Agent Orange said he’d been there eighteen years and he’d never seen or heard of wreckers hauling bicyclists and, moreover, if a tow truck were to haul us across it would have to be from up on Mallory Street. So, back up the hill we went to Mallory Street where we found a Hardee’s hamburger joint and began to call our rescuers from its parking lot. Greg first called the towing company we’d made the arrangements with, but the man who answered said they didn’t transport bikers anymore because of the high cost of liability insurance. Greg then called the VDOT which, at that dark moment, hadn’t the foggiest about anything. Greg then phoned the contact person the VDOT had given him the night before. The contact turned out to be a bit addled and just couldn’t grasp where we were, where we wanted to go, by what tunnel or bridge and, getting to the bottom line, admitted he couldn’t do anything about it, anyway. By this time we were drowning in a sump of dejection. It didn’t seem possible to get across the water to Cape Henry. After a minute or so of heroic attitude adjustment, we agreed that we just needed to find somebody to haul us across Hampton Roads on our own, and we decided to start by borrowing a phone book from Hardee’s. As we turned to enter the restaurant, a large man carry a fresh cup of coffee came out the door. Almost reflexively, Greg asked him if he knew anybody who could take us across. He asked where we were going and, when he heard us say Cape Henry, he allowed that he was going right there, right away, and we should just load our bikes on his truck. Our angel was John. He was a 61 year-old retired electrician now re-employed by the power company, a resident of Yorktown, a father of three grown daughters, a husband to a good wife who does not love the outdoors as much as he does but who does genealogy on her Scottish ancestors, a conservative Republican who would reluctantly vote for McCain, and, as you can infer, a friendly and loquacious companion. He had some work to do for the Army at Ft. Story, where Cape Henry is located. He said security was tough at Ft. Story so we should ride through the gates by ourselves. He wasn’t just whistling Dixie, as we discovered. We answered all the security guard’s questions, watched as he scanned our picture IDs, and signed the forms as requested. When we got on our bikes to ride the mile-and-a-half up the road to Cape Henry, the guard told Greg he couldn’t ride his bike. Why? Because he did not wear a helmet. The base commander is very insistent that bikers wear helmets, the guard said. So Greg asked if he could leave his bike at the gatehouse and walk in. Not possible, said the guard. The base commander is adamantly about enforcing the rule against leaving personal effects unattended on the base. Then Greg asked if he could move his bike twenty feet and leave it leaning against the outside of the base’s permeter fence. No rule against that, said the guard. So we set off for Cape Henry, Greg jogging shirtless down the road
I had expected to hear many odd usages along the way, but there is really only one to report. But it so perfect an example of a Mark Twain Americanism that it alone is worth the trip. On the second day out, as we were riding in light rain from Springfield OR up the Cascades to Belknap Springs, we stopped for lunch at the Finn Rock Café, a homey little place right on the rushing McKenzie River. A fellow at the bar was eager for some conversation. A rafting guide on the McKenzie who takes tourists for a 10-mile boat ride downriver, he was temporarily unemployed because the river was running too high and fast from the snowmelt. I asked him if it wasn’t difficult to make money at that sort of outdoor work because it rains so much in Oregon. Just then a patch of blue opened in the sky above us. I commented that it looked encouraging; the clouds were breaking up and the rest of the day would be sunny and fine. Our friend laughed and pointed to the patch of blue: “We call them sucker holes,” he said. “People see them and sign up for a raft trip. They pay their money and it starts to rain again.” Now sucker holes is a highly serviceable metaphor in a consumer culture like ours. What else is “Going Out of Business!” or “Giant George Washington Birthday Sale!” or “$750-billion Exonomic Fix”? I’ll bet a day hasn’t gone by since June 4 that I haven’t thought of sucker holes.
Virginia. Of the eleven states we passed through on our way to Virginia Beach, only one gets an entry of its own. You may justly wonder why I play favorites. Virginia is my “favorite” because it is the only one to qualify as a genuine Commonwealth of Horrors. You know how hard it was for us to get out of Richmond and how we narrowly escaped arrest for our unlawful excursion on I-95 (see Cities). You were surely shocked to learn how difficult it is to get a reasonably accurate answer to any question about roads in Virginia (see Misinformation). You probably brushed away tears at the account of my “death” in Newport News from the horrible heat and humidity and rejoiced, I am certain, at my “resurrection” (see Life and Death). It remains for me to relate the events of our last day—the 46th riding day and 50th overall—so you can appreciate the solid claim Virginia has to its special recognition.
The day started well with a gourmand feast at the best motel breakfast counter of the trip. The sky was sunny and we were in a bright mood, entirely ready to end our long adventure. We had put in a lot of time the day before arranging to get across the bay from Hampton to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. We hadn’t thought it would be difficult. When we looked at Virginia’s official bike map in Green Valley, it showed the Hampton Roads Bridge and Tunnel to be a bike route. (Hampton Roads is the name of the strait that connects Chesapeake Bay with the James River.) But when Greg stopped in Newport News to buy a new tire, the bike shop owner told us that we couldn’t just ride across by ourselves. He said the state Department of Transportation (VDOT) required bikers to be carried across by a special truck that had to be expressly ordered. Greg spent hours that afternoon and evening arranging for our conveyance. He checked with the VDOT and the Highway Patrol and discovered that a private towing firm in Norfolk did all the conveying, and that we had to do all the arranging with them. So Greg did. He called and made sure we’d be picked up when we called about 7:00 a.m. when we got to the pick-up spot. Then he called the VDOT (and the Highway Patrol, too, I think) to double-check the arrangements with them. Everything was foursquare. We were to be picked up at the beginning of the Bridge and Tunnel. We were a little uneasy that the only road to that place was I-64. We knew it was generally illegal to be on the interstate, but figured this was an exception because it was an official bike route and, we were relieved to discover, the on-ramp did not have a sign prohibiting bicycles, etc. So off we went, pedaling merrily down the capacious shoulder of I-64 to meet our wrecker at the bridge. Greg was far ahead when a white VDOT truck, horn blaring and yellow lights flashing, pulled up behind me. The driver motioned me to stop, then leapt from his truck in his white coveralls and yellow hard hat, rushed to the bike and planted a red highway cone in front of me. “Stay right there!” he yelled, “The Highway Patrol is on the way!” By the time the State Police car arrived Greg had come back and was trying to explain to the VDOT official what we had done and why we thought it was OK. I think the guy was deaf. In any event, the highway patrolman became our focus. He didn’t want to hear anything from us, especially any justification concerning maps and signs and phone calls to his own agency. He was adamant: “It is illegal to ride a bike on my interstate.” (his emphasis) It was no trouble at all to choke back the response that he was just the protector of our interstate. By this time we were in our do-not-rot-in-jail mode. After a while, the officer decided that the degradation ceremony had run its course. He said he understood how we could have been misdirected; he’d got plenty of misinformation on his cross-country motorcycle rides. He also said we could get to our tow truck by riding city streets to the Mallory Exit of the interstate. He even tried to give us directions. Relieved to have avoided arrest, we pedaled off the interstate by way of the on-ramp and set about finding the Mallory Exit—which we did, after a couple of wrong turns and several conversations with local pedestrians. At the Mallory Street Exit we could see what appeared to be a maintenance yard down by the interstate. Greg figured we could call from there and that it would be a good place to meet our tow truck. We were not halfway down the ramp before an orange-clad man came racing out of a little barn, waving his arms and screaming. As we got closer we could discern his words, “Get out!” “Illegal!” After a couple of minutes he calmed down enough to listen to our story—that we were to meet our tow truck here, etc. Agent Orange said he’d been there eighteen years and he’d never seen or heard of wreckers hauling bicyclists and, moreover, if a tow truck were to haul us across it would have to be from up on Mallory Street. So, back up the hill we went to Mallory Street where we found a Hardee’s hamburger joint and began to call our rescuers from its parking lot. Greg first called the towing company we’d made the arrangements with, but the man who answered said they didn’t transport bikers anymore because of the high cost of liability insurance. Greg then called the VDOT which, at that dark moment, hadn’t the foggiest about anything. Greg then phoned the contact person the VDOT had given him the night before. The contact turned out to be a bit addled and just couldn’t grasp where we were, where we wanted to go, by what tunnel or bridge and, getting to the bottom line, admitted he couldn’t do anything about it, anyway. By this time we were drowning in a sump of dejection. It didn’t seem possible to get across the water to Cape Henry. After a minute or so of heroic attitude adjustment, we agreed that we just needed to find somebody to haul us across Hampton Roads on our own, and we decided to start by borrowing a phone book from Hardee’s. As we turned to enter the restaurant, a large man carry a fresh cup of coffee came out the door. Almost reflexively, Greg asked him if he knew anybody who could take us across. He asked where we were going and, when he heard us say Cape Henry, he allowed that he was going right there, right away, and we should just load our bikes on his truck. Our angel was John. He was a 61 year-old retired electrician now re-employed by the power company, a resident of Yorktown, a father of three grown daughters, a husband to a good wife who does not love the outdoors as much as he does but who does genealogy on her Scottish ancestors, a conservative Republican who would reluctantly vote for McCain, and, as you can infer, a friendly and loquacious companion. He had some work to do for the Army at Ft. Story, where Cape Henry is located. He said security was tough at Ft. Story so we should ride through the gates by ourselves. He wasn’t just whistling Dixie, as we discovered. We answered all the security guard’s questions, watched as he scanned our picture IDs, and signed the forms as requested. When we got on our bikes to ride the mile-and-a-half up the road to Cape Henry, the guard told Greg he couldn’t ride his bike. Why? Because he did not wear a helmet. The base commander is very insistent that bikers wear helmets, the guard said. So Greg asked if he could leave his bike at the gatehouse and walk in. Not possible, said the guard. The base commander is adamantly about enforcing the rule against leaving personal effects unattended on the base. Then Greg asked if he could move his bike twenty feet and leave it leaning against the outside of the base’s permeter fence. No rule against that, said the guard. So we set off for Cape Henry, Greg jogging shirtless down the road
July 22. We are at Cape Henry at last. But
who cares?
as I pedaled alongside. We got to Cape Henry without incident, walked out to the beach, took some pictures, and then repaired to the PX across the road for some Gatorade and souvenirs. After jogging and pedaling back to the gatehouse, we still had to find an ocean to dip our front wheels in, a ritual Greg was keen on. We found a beach access a short distance away, did the dips while a Quebecois couple snapped our pictures, and were schlepping our bikes back across the deep sand when Greg remembered he’d left his souvenirs on the shelf at the PX. So we parted company there, Greg to lean his bike against the fence and jog back to the Cape while I ventured on alone to Virginia Beach and my rendezvous with brother Rich. Greg and I exchanged vague assurances that we’d meet for lunch in downtown Virginia Beach, but, since it was a strange place to us, the arrangement lacked critical detail. Virginia Beach turned out to be like every other town in the state—full of aggressively misinformed people. I couldn’t find the street on which the Ocean Front Public Library was located. That was where Rich and I agreed to meet at 1:00 p.m. Three times I had to ask directions. The first group of locals sent me two miles south where the city obviously ended, so I pedaled back to the city center and asked another couple of locals. They sent me 3 ½ miles north to an intersection I had seen on the way into town and knew was not the one I sought. So back into town I rode. In the downtown area I stopped for a light and asked a city worker, stopped for a left turn signal, for directions to the library. He pointed to the cross street in our intersection. “That’s it,” he said. It was. A few blocks down it stood the library, not as imposing as it appeared in the photo on its website, but a welcome sight, nonetheless. The walkways and portico were clotted with homeless people, so I decided to leave my bike, with all my worldly possessions packed on it, against the wall as near to the main door as possible. There were bike racks out by the street that ran by the side of the building, but there was only one old bike in them and the setting looked too vulnerable for my comfort. So, leaving the bike in that relatively secure spot near the door, I went into the library to write some notes on their computer. After about fifteen minutes I was confronted by a security guard who asked me if it was my bike leaning against the wall of the library. It was a rhetorical question. I was the only person in the place decked out in black lycra shorts and an outlandishly loud jersey. The guard said it’s illegal to lean a bike against the building and, if I didn’t move it to the bike rack immediately, it would be towed away. “TOWED!” I cried. “They’re going to TOW my bike away?” “Well, they may not actually tow it but they will haul it away,” the guard said. Gad! I moved my bike after the guard assured me it would be safe. When Rich arrive it was still there, undisturbed.
That was Virginia—just one outrage and frustration after another. For all Greg and I know, the whole state is riddled with authoritarianism, bureaucratism, and error, with only a couple of angels for leavening. In my experience it is a Commonwealth of Horrors, my brother and his town of Clarksville excepted, of course.
(To read entries in W, X,Y, Z, and Afterword, click on "Older Posts" below.)
That was Virginia—just one outrage and frustration after another. For all Greg and I know, the whole state is riddled with authoritarianism, bureaucratism, and error, with only a couple of angels for leavening. In my experience it is a Commonwealth of Horrors, my brother and his town of Clarksville excepted, of course.
(To read entries in W, X,Y, Z, and Afterword, click on "Older Posts" below.)
I am so pleased to know that more folks will get a chance to follow this wonderful tale of the old geezer on his adventures.
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