I arrived at my growing up homestead near Staunton, VA and thereby finished out my third-to-last leg two Sundays ago (July 19). The week before that had included so many moments that are crowding for space in my memory I can hardly believe it. Was there a couple in Richlands that invited me to sleep in their son's old bedroom, the walls pasted to the ceiling with Duke Basketball memorabilia? Did my Mom bring me a slice of peach pie in a tupperware container on my first night upon entering VA? Did Tom Graham and his two lovely daughters take me out to their farm to pick blackberries and feed their goats? Did I pass a fighting rooster farm, with a thousand blue plastic roosts perfectly aligned? Did I pedal across Annie Dillard's Tinker Creek? Did my dad join me on a ride through the hills south of Lexington? Did we gorge ourselves on wild raspberries?
I stayed with my parents in Harrisonburg for 4 days and then picked my friends up in Washington, DC to start our Shenandoah National Park traverse. Mel & Jess flew in from CO Springs. And Dan drove; he was moving to Manassas, VA anyway.
Dan brought his BOB trailer for gear, and I threw on the rear set of panniers that I'd jettisoned somewhere back in CO. Mel & Jess, with their racing bikes which couldn't take standard racks or trailers, nevertheless loaded as much gear as they could into their backpacks and onto Mel's seatpost rack. We were a motley crew.
We started with a classic loop through Albemarle County along the Tye River. Some very steep climbs. I kind of wanted to say, "welcome to VA; it's steep here," with that ride, but all it seemed to say to them was, "very pretty." We stayed in a cabin some family friends have rebuilt and baked pizzas on their grill. Then we rode North along the Skyline Drive, and stayed in another cabin near the halfway point. There we cooked some standard backpacking meal of instant rice and canned beans and freezer-whilted sliced peppers and canned chicken. The next day we descended from the ridgeline into Front Royal and rode Northwest to Middletown where a mutual friend of ours grew up. Greg's parents still live on the farm there and hosted us for the third evening. They turned on the water pump to their pool slide and fed us a garden-fresh meal and showed us around the farm. Ray even fired up his 20yr old Cat track loader and let each of us push a little bit of brush down the hill. Made us feel like real farmers. Marlene set us out on the porch as the evening closed and fed us pound cake and fresh fruit. Fireflies blinked on and off. It was very pleasant. The last day we rode the final bit into Manassas, where Dan's parents live. We had to sprint down a couple illegal miles of interstate 66 to connect our route, but got in safely. Mel & Jess flew out the next evening, which gave us enough time on Wednesday to explore a used bookstore and a tobacconist where they bought me an old-man pipe as a graduate school present.
Tomorrow Dan and I will start out toward the coast. He's riding with me for the last little bit. There are only 130mi to go. We'll divide that into 3 easy days. We'll arrive in Kilmarnock, VA, or more specifically the Easternmost tip of Windmill Point Road, sometime toward afternoon on Sunday, August 2. And then it'll be over.
July 30, 2009
July 13, 2009
From Coal Country
Over the last two days I definitively entered the big hills. Instead of the rollers of MO, IL and Western KY, whose amplitude rarely exceeded 100ft, these hills climb and descend 500-1000ft. And they're as steep as anything I've ascended on this trip yet. Yesterday I even began to read a very real rhythm into my riding. Went something like this: climb in my lowest gear at 5mph for 20min, stop and eat a snack near some big machinery parked at the top of the hill, descend at breakneck speed in 3min, roll through the holler and past the 5-6 houses planted there, swerve out of the way of a few dogs, wave at a toothless gentleman, begin climbing again. I repeated this 6 or 7 times.
I stayed last night in Hindman, KY (HIEND-man). I rolled into town a little after 4pm and began my usual search for a place to pitch my tent. I didn't see any churches as I pulled into town, so I stopped in at the local gas station and asked to borrow the yellow pages. She said she didn't carry those. I asked for a phone book, she handed me one. The listing of churches stretched on for several pages; it included all the churches in the whole county. Almost everyone here, it seems, goes to church, and I guess that most churches have an attendance under 20 people. I gave up trying to figure out if such-and-such church was in Hindman, or Emmalena, or Darfork, or Bulan, or Garner, or Mallie, or Rowdy, or Dice, or Dwarf, and I gave her back the yellow pages and asked if there were any churches in town. She told me she reckoned so. She pointed the way through downtown and told me I'd run across a couple. I biked that way, and stopped in at a big catholic-looking edifice. I peeped inside and heard the clinking of billiard balls in the basement. I walked into the frigid air conditioning and moved downstairs where I saw a big fellow with a huge head of hair playing a solitary game of pool. His hair was continuous from the crown of his head to the tip of his chin, long and shaggy. One might even think "hippie" at first glance, something certainly shocking for Eastern KY. I greeted him. He introduced himself as Seth. We talked a little while, and he invited me to stay in the church building. (It was actually an old Methodist building converted to a Baptist youth center.) In fact, he explained, he'd been sleeping there in the basement for the last week. He did that sometimes. He wasn't going to be there tonight, though, he said, because his mom was picking him up to take him back home. "Help yourself to whatever's in the fridge," he said. He had a gentle way of suggesting things that made it seem perfectly natural to bed down in the basement and help myself to whatever was in the fridge.
I took off to look for some groceries for dinner. Found a fruit and vegetable stand and went a little crazy. Picked up two sweet potatoes, two tomatoes, two peaches, three peppers, an onion, two squash, one zuchini. I don't know what I was thinking. Real whole plants are gold when you're mostly eating cheap processed foods, which I am.
I got back to the church and instead of cooking immediately, Seth and I sat down and began to talk literature. And I began to ask myself where did this very literate, very sensitive Kentuckian come from? I guess that was the wrong question really. The better question would have been where did I ever get the idea that Kentuckians are just hillbillies, and that hillbillies don't care about fine things? I sat there and put glue on the soles of my shoes and taped them up to repair some serious heel separation, and talked with Seth about the novel he's currently writing, which to me sounds like an incredibly subtle portrait of a Kentucky coal miner and his family falling into depression and corruption. We talked about poets we like and why. We got really animated about novelists, him about Cormac McCarthy and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, me about Melville and Dostoevsky. We talked about Kierkegaard and his impact on our faiths. He told me about a failed attempt not too long ago of walking across the United States. I enjoyed his company immensely.
Later, they had a Bible study in the room above while I chopped and cooked my quarts of vegetables. I ate them all, with a very little help from Seth, and even ate two chilidogs which I scrapped together from their fridge.
After their church service that night, two others came down to say hello and to invite me out for ice cream, a married couple, Cory and Jessica, and a bright-faced baby on Jessica's hip. They drove me to DQ where several others, including Seth, were sitting already eating various treats. Cory and Jessica are a young couple, 30 yrs old. They already have 4 children, the oldest 3 of which were at home with Grandma, or someone else responsible. Even though they're from this area of KY, they explained to me that they are really gypsies. They've lived all across the country in their few years together, from North Carolina to San Diego. Jessica had a concerned, motherly way of paying attention to my interests and needs, like so many of the women I know married to my good friends. She asked me lots of questions about myself and my trip thusfar. She whispered to me several times later that night that they could take me back to the church whenever I was ready, just let them know when. Cory had an easy and smart sense of humor, making fun of Seth and his passion for Kierkegaard in such a way that you weren't quite certain he wasn't actually making fun of himself. He talked about his own travels and his experience of fatherhood (he singlehandedly midwifed for his wife's 4th child, the bright-faced one on her hip) with self-effacing good-humor. And there was another fellow there on the other side of the table eating his ice cream and telling funny stories about his year living in Poland.
Kentucky? Kentucky of the rottweillers and surreptitious marijuana farmers and the no trespassing signs and the blank stares, where are you? I'm finding Kentucky looks different the closer I get up to its breathing, laughing face.
Tonight I'll be staying in Elkhorn City, on the KY side of the state line. Then I'll bike into VA, my last state of all, on Tuesday. Mom is planning to meet me that evening and take me out for dinner. Not too long after that I'll be pulling into Staunton, VA, sleeping in my childhood bed for a few days, then heading off with 3 good friends into the Shenandoah National Park, to ride north along the Skyline Drive. And then on to the coast.
I stayed last night in Hindman, KY (HIEND-man). I rolled into town a little after 4pm and began my usual search for a place to pitch my tent. I didn't see any churches as I pulled into town, so I stopped in at the local gas station and asked to borrow the yellow pages. She said she didn't carry those. I asked for a phone book, she handed me one. The listing of churches stretched on for several pages; it included all the churches in the whole county. Almost everyone here, it seems, goes to church, and I guess that most churches have an attendance under 20 people. I gave up trying to figure out if such-and-such church was in Hindman, or Emmalena, or Darfork, or Bulan, or Garner, or Mallie, or Rowdy, or Dice, or Dwarf, and I gave her back the yellow pages and asked if there were any churches in town. She told me she reckoned so. She pointed the way through downtown and told me I'd run across a couple. I biked that way, and stopped in at a big catholic-looking edifice. I peeped inside and heard the clinking of billiard balls in the basement. I walked into the frigid air conditioning and moved downstairs where I saw a big fellow with a huge head of hair playing a solitary game of pool. His hair was continuous from the crown of his head to the tip of his chin, long and shaggy. One might even think "hippie" at first glance, something certainly shocking for Eastern KY. I greeted him. He introduced himself as Seth. We talked a little while, and he invited me to stay in the church building. (It was actually an old Methodist building converted to a Baptist youth center.) In fact, he explained, he'd been sleeping there in the basement for the last week. He did that sometimes. He wasn't going to be there tonight, though, he said, because his mom was picking him up to take him back home. "Help yourself to whatever's in the fridge," he said. He had a gentle way of suggesting things that made it seem perfectly natural to bed down in the basement and help myself to whatever was in the fridge.
I took off to look for some groceries for dinner. Found a fruit and vegetable stand and went a little crazy. Picked up two sweet potatoes, two tomatoes, two peaches, three peppers, an onion, two squash, one zuchini. I don't know what I was thinking. Real whole plants are gold when you're mostly eating cheap processed foods, which I am.
I got back to the church and instead of cooking immediately, Seth and I sat down and began to talk literature. And I began to ask myself where did this very literate, very sensitive Kentuckian come from? I guess that was the wrong question really. The better question would have been where did I ever get the idea that Kentuckians are just hillbillies, and that hillbillies don't care about fine things? I sat there and put glue on the soles of my shoes and taped them up to repair some serious heel separation, and talked with Seth about the novel he's currently writing, which to me sounds like an incredibly subtle portrait of a Kentucky coal miner and his family falling into depression and corruption. We talked about poets we like and why. We got really animated about novelists, him about Cormac McCarthy and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, me about Melville and Dostoevsky. We talked about Kierkegaard and his impact on our faiths. He told me about a failed attempt not too long ago of walking across the United States. I enjoyed his company immensely.
Later, they had a Bible study in the room above while I chopped and cooked my quarts of vegetables. I ate them all, with a very little help from Seth, and even ate two chilidogs which I scrapped together from their fridge.
After their church service that night, two others came down to say hello and to invite me out for ice cream, a married couple, Cory and Jessica, and a bright-faced baby on Jessica's hip. They drove me to DQ where several others, including Seth, were sitting already eating various treats. Cory and Jessica are a young couple, 30 yrs old. They already have 4 children, the oldest 3 of which were at home with Grandma, or someone else responsible. Even though they're from this area of KY, they explained to me that they are really gypsies. They've lived all across the country in their few years together, from North Carolina to San Diego. Jessica had a concerned, motherly way of paying attention to my interests and needs, like so many of the women I know married to my good friends. She asked me lots of questions about myself and my trip thusfar. She whispered to me several times later that night that they could take me back to the church whenever I was ready, just let them know when. Cory had an easy and smart sense of humor, making fun of Seth and his passion for Kierkegaard in such a way that you weren't quite certain he wasn't actually making fun of himself. He talked about his own travels and his experience of fatherhood (he singlehandedly midwifed for his wife's 4th child, the bright-faced one on her hip) with self-effacing good-humor. And there was another fellow there on the other side of the table eating his ice cream and telling funny stories about his year living in Poland.
Kentucky? Kentucky of the rottweillers and surreptitious marijuana farmers and the no trespassing signs and the blank stares, where are you? I'm finding Kentucky looks different the closer I get up to its breathing, laughing face.
Tonight I'll be staying in Elkhorn City, on the KY side of the state line. Then I'll bike into VA, my last state of all, on Tuesday. Mom is planning to meet me that evening and take me out for dinner. Not too long after that I'll be pulling into Staunton, VA, sleeping in my childhood bed for a few days, then heading off with 3 good friends into the Shenandoah National Park, to ride north along the Skyline Drive. And then on to the coast.
July 7, 2009
Midway Through Kentucky
John Henry and I have made our way through Missouri and Illinois and a bit of Western Kentucky and we're now winding our way upward and ever deeper into Appalachia. And I'm getting nervous.
At the tail end of my Missouri ride two weeks ago, I was invited into the home of Jim and Cheryl Shollenberger. It was a really hot night, the night before I arrived in St. Louis to stay with my Aunt and Uncle, and I had knocked on a church door in Union to see about sleeping inside. After a few minutes of talking, Jim and I felt we'd each met a kindred spirit (separated by some 35 years). He's a quiet thoughtful sort of fellow. A teacher of music at a local college. A passionate student of Native American history and music. He invited me to his house that evening. Among many other things, he and Cheryl took me out for a great big pasta meal. Jim had 3 of his retired friends over for their regular Wednesday night game of Bridge. I remembered a little bit of Bridge from my time in Holland some years ago, but not much. Jim patiently explained a few hands to me, but I didn't ever risk actually playing with these fellows. They were good. I took some snacks and a cold beer downstairs and wrote in my journal and listened to a cd of tenor arias that Jim had wanted me to hear. He especially wanted me to hear Nessun Dorma, which was beautiful. I slept like a child in their guest bedroom. Early the next morning Cheryl and Jim cooked me a great big breakfast and sent me on my way.
The next day I got to Aunt Margaret's and Uncle Randy's (and Cousin Alex's) house before they had arrived home from a family reunion. They'd left a reclining chair and a fan plugged in out on their porch for me. I read for a few pleasant hours and napped for a few more.
I flew out the next morning for Kim & Jacob's 2nd wedding reception in VA. It was great to see family and friends again, and to get a little rest.
I flew back to St. Louis the following Tuesday, a week ago. The morning after, Alex drove me 100 miles around St. Louis, and dropped me off at a ferry along the Mississippi River. There was something very thrilling about crossing the mighty Mississippi on a creaking clanking ferry.
I biked that night to my Aunt Di's and Uncle Brent's in Carbondale, IL. There Uncle Brent and I sat for a while in his studio and talked about metalsmithing history and techniques. Raising, annealing, folding Damascus steel. He's an artist in the medium, a very fine artist. The pictures I found online don't compare to the experience of standing in front of one of his rustic figures. His recent sculptures are abstract, and they explore themes of spirituality, especially primitive spirituality, with simple, beautiful lines and gestures, spires, crescents, mounds. We walked around his backyard smithy which is entirely open to the air, the border between inside and outside is pretty undefined. I stumbled across a large piece of tapered, bent steel there on the ground, concealed by leafy detritus. I asked him if it was some tool of his he'd misplaced. No, he told me. It was his next piece. It was rusting and looked like it belonged there amidst the organic matter. In fact, this is what I like most about his sculptures. They're anything but modern. Their themes are very ancient. And he's made them in a very ancient way. Even the bases that he mounts his recent pieces on are handmade wooden structures fashioned by an adze he also made by hand.
Tod, their son, my cousin, who I've not seen in a decade or so, came for dinner. He is a world-traveler and a very good dog-trainer. I pressed him for some advice about mean dogs in Kentucky. He said be mean back. Get off you bike and be mean as hell. Most dogs, he said, if they've not been aggressively trained to the point of psychological breakdown, will back down, preferring their free foodbowls, to your costly calfs. I've been using that advice for the 3 or 4 mean dog encounters I've had in KY so far. It's working, but it leaves me shaking and pumped with adrenaline. I hope I don't run into multiple mean dogs at once. I've been looking for a bottle of pepper spray to replace the one that got stolen back in OR.
Aunt Di showed me the yard that was devastated by an "inland hurricane" almost 2 months ago. 100mph gusts of wind destroyed trees in a huge swath through that county. Their yard was hit bad. They've lived in that yard for over 30 years and many of the trees they planted themselves. It's a loss they're still grieving. Then we had dinner. My Aunt Di is no less of an artist than my Uncle Brent. She's practiced and perfected the art of hospitality. I ate a wonderful meal and immediately made myself at home without even thinking about it or having to be told to do so.
The next morning I pedaled out. In the following days across IL and the Western part of KY, I did a lot: I slept at the edge of the Ohio, hearing tugboats push whole continents of metal down the river all night long. I was offered and I gladly accepted a free breakfast at a bed-and-breakfast in whose lawn I pitched my tent. I was shown around a museum I stumbled across in Marion, KY by a big old lady who really didn't know much about the exhibits, but read the placcards just fine. She was very kind and gave me some cold water and talked for a while. I stayed for two nights at the famous biker's hostel in the tiny town of Sebree, KY, receiving warmth and grandparently kindness from Bob & Violet, the Baptist Preacher and his wife. I mused about all the signs I passed for "General" Baptist churches. (Somewhere else, I'm sure, there must be a bunch of "Particular" Baptist churches who split with them and who even now are bemoaning their brothers' and sisters' general gospel and general church van policies and way of singing generally on tune.) I jammed my calf unwittingly onto the teeth of my largest chainring while pretending to be mean as hell towards a very intimidating rottweiller. I didn't notice myself bleeding until the episode was over, so pumped full of adrenaline had I been. I stayed alone in a quiet little firehouse in Utica, KY. I stayed behind a convenience store near Madrid, KY, and was invited to dinner by the owners, then at dinner, they suggested driving me in to Leitchfield in the morning to see some murals at her workplace and to grab some things at Walmart.
And most of all, I've begun to get a little unnerved. Just like some of those desolate sections I pedaled through in Idaho, the countryside of Kentucky is beginning to take on an indifferent, even hostile character in my mind. This is odd, because of all of the hospitality I've received in this state. Very friendly people everywhere. But there are little symbols of hostility that I keep running across, little things that say, "you're not welcome here." The rare instance of an exceptionally mean off-leash dog. A house with several "No Trespassing" Signs on the front door of all places. An old fellow that passed me in his old car with his middle finger up and his teeth bared. A lot of stares.
A lot of this is in my head, perhaps could fall into the category of self-fulfilling prophecies. I hope to get over it.
I'll be on my way now. Need to find a place to stay.
At the tail end of my Missouri ride two weeks ago, I was invited into the home of Jim and Cheryl Shollenberger. It was a really hot night, the night before I arrived in St. Louis to stay with my Aunt and Uncle, and I had knocked on a church door in Union to see about sleeping inside. After a few minutes of talking, Jim and I felt we'd each met a kindred spirit (separated by some 35 years). He's a quiet thoughtful sort of fellow. A teacher of music at a local college. A passionate student of Native American history and music. He invited me to his house that evening. Among many other things, he and Cheryl took me out for a great big pasta meal. Jim had 3 of his retired friends over for their regular Wednesday night game of Bridge. I remembered a little bit of Bridge from my time in Holland some years ago, but not much. Jim patiently explained a few hands to me, but I didn't ever risk actually playing with these fellows. They were good. I took some snacks and a cold beer downstairs and wrote in my journal and listened to a cd of tenor arias that Jim had wanted me to hear. He especially wanted me to hear Nessun Dorma, which was beautiful. I slept like a child in their guest bedroom. Early the next morning Cheryl and Jim cooked me a great big breakfast and sent me on my way.
The next day I got to Aunt Margaret's and Uncle Randy's (and Cousin Alex's) house before they had arrived home from a family reunion. They'd left a reclining chair and a fan plugged in out on their porch for me. I read for a few pleasant hours and napped for a few more.
I flew out the next morning for Kim & Jacob's 2nd wedding reception in VA. It was great to see family and friends again, and to get a little rest.
I flew back to St. Louis the following Tuesday, a week ago. The morning after, Alex drove me 100 miles around St. Louis, and dropped me off at a ferry along the Mississippi River. There was something very thrilling about crossing the mighty Mississippi on a creaking clanking ferry.
I biked that night to my Aunt Di's and Uncle Brent's in Carbondale, IL. There Uncle Brent and I sat for a while in his studio and talked about metalsmithing history and techniques. Raising, annealing, folding Damascus steel. He's an artist in the medium, a very fine artist. The pictures I found online don't compare to the experience of standing in front of one of his rustic figures. His recent sculptures are abstract, and they explore themes of spirituality, especially primitive spirituality, with simple, beautiful lines and gestures, spires, crescents, mounds. We walked around his backyard smithy which is entirely open to the air, the border between inside and outside is pretty undefined. I stumbled across a large piece of tapered, bent steel there on the ground, concealed by leafy detritus. I asked him if it was some tool of his he'd misplaced. No, he told me. It was his next piece. It was rusting and looked like it belonged there amidst the organic matter. In fact, this is what I like most about his sculptures. They're anything but modern. Their themes are very ancient. And he's made them in a very ancient way. Even the bases that he mounts his recent pieces on are handmade wooden structures fashioned by an adze he also made by hand.
Tod, their son, my cousin, who I've not seen in a decade or so, came for dinner. He is a world-traveler and a very good dog-trainer. I pressed him for some advice about mean dogs in Kentucky. He said be mean back. Get off you bike and be mean as hell. Most dogs, he said, if they've not been aggressively trained to the point of psychological breakdown, will back down, preferring their free foodbowls, to your costly calfs. I've been using that advice for the 3 or 4 mean dog encounters I've had in KY so far. It's working, but it leaves me shaking and pumped with adrenaline. I hope I don't run into multiple mean dogs at once. I've been looking for a bottle of pepper spray to replace the one that got stolen back in OR.
Aunt Di showed me the yard that was devastated by an "inland hurricane" almost 2 months ago. 100mph gusts of wind destroyed trees in a huge swath through that county. Their yard was hit bad. They've lived in that yard for over 30 years and many of the trees they planted themselves. It's a loss they're still grieving. Then we had dinner. My Aunt Di is no less of an artist than my Uncle Brent. She's practiced and perfected the art of hospitality. I ate a wonderful meal and immediately made myself at home without even thinking about it or having to be told to do so.
The next morning I pedaled out. In the following days across IL and the Western part of KY, I did a lot: I slept at the edge of the Ohio, hearing tugboats push whole continents of metal down the river all night long. I was offered and I gladly accepted a free breakfast at a bed-and-breakfast in whose lawn I pitched my tent. I was shown around a museum I stumbled across in Marion, KY by a big old lady who really didn't know much about the exhibits, but read the placcards just fine. She was very kind and gave me some cold water and talked for a while. I stayed for two nights at the famous biker's hostel in the tiny town of Sebree, KY, receiving warmth and grandparently kindness from Bob & Violet, the Baptist Preacher and his wife. I mused about all the signs I passed for "General" Baptist churches. (Somewhere else, I'm sure, there must be a bunch of "Particular" Baptist churches who split with them and who even now are bemoaning their brothers' and sisters' general gospel and general church van policies and way of singing generally on tune.) I jammed my calf unwittingly onto the teeth of my largest chainring while pretending to be mean as hell towards a very intimidating rottweiller. I didn't notice myself bleeding until the episode was over, so pumped full of adrenaline had I been. I stayed alone in a quiet little firehouse in Utica, KY. I stayed behind a convenience store near Madrid, KY, and was invited to dinner by the owners, then at dinner, they suggested driving me in to Leitchfield in the morning to see some murals at her workplace and to grab some things at Walmart.
And most of all, I've begun to get a little unnerved. Just like some of those desolate sections I pedaled through in Idaho, the countryside of Kentucky is beginning to take on an indifferent, even hostile character in my mind. This is odd, because of all of the hospitality I've received in this state. Very friendly people everywhere. But there are little symbols of hostility that I keep running across, little things that say, "you're not welcome here." The rare instance of an exceptionally mean off-leash dog. A house with several "No Trespassing" Signs on the front door of all places. An old fellow that passed me in his old car with his middle finger up and his teeth bared. A lot of stares.
A lot of this is in my head, perhaps could fall into the category of self-fulfilling prophecies. I hope to get over it.
I'll be on my way now. Need to find a place to stay.
Ryan Gosciejew
Many people knew Ryan better than I did, but I want to remember what sticks in my mind.
Sometime in the early summer of 2007, Ryan and I speed hiked up to Barr Camp on the lower slopes of Pikes Peak. I was thinking of it as training for the REI race up the Peak later that summer, but I got the sense that Ryan was more interested in just getting out into the pines and up on the mountain slopes. And in hanging out. Ryan couldn't get enough of hanging out. He'd hang out with anyone; he wasn't snooty.
We hiked hard, both of us at our limit. When we got up to the camp, we sat down on the main cabin porch and Ryan patched up his blistered heel with duct tape or something. He was trying to break in a new pair of shoes. I hadn't heard him mention any pain as we were going up, so I was surprised to see that his heel was actually bleeding. While we sat there Ryan talked with Neal and Teresa, the caretakers of the camp, like he had known them all his life. He had this gift of talking. It was also a curse. On the way down, I just wanted to get some peace and quiet, so I tried to speed ahead. But Ryan kept up. He was sort of limping, but he didn't once mention his heel. We talked about everything from religion to music to mountain biking. The day was really perfect. Not too hot. Beautiful early summer foliage. Birds. By the time we had reached the bottom, I realized Ryan wasn't just babbling, he had a lot to say. I was learning something.
Once we got down, Ryan invited me up to his and Carrie's house for some juice. Driving back to his place, we must have passed 10 people that Ryan knew and waved at. The morning stretched into the afternoon. Hanging out with Ryan had a tendency to do that. He made some fresh juice in his juicer with carrots and apples. Honestly, it was the best juice I've had. He told me what it meant for him to practice veganism. He explained bits of the Grateful Dead poster hanging on his wall; it had something on it, some character, or some image from almost every one of their songs. He showed me some of his strange paintings. And some of our mutual friend Jason's strange photographs. He showed me pictures from a recent cave surveying trip. And his new recording equipment. He was getting pretty heavily into recording techniques right then, and was also a sometime drummer for West Side Bus Project, which was an impressive Manitou Springs band that unfortunately lasted less than a year.
Coming away from my first day of hanging out with Ryan, it struck me that he was terribly interested in me. I've never known someone who talked so much, but of whose interest in me I was so certain. He wanted to connect and he had his fingers in a million different things to connect about. Hanging out with him was a full experience.
When we finally had the race up the Peak (in late July?) Ryan talked all kinds of smack to me and the other competitors. He was one of the few that had run the official race in the previous year and he knew what he was doing. But Ryan had this way of mouthing off that instead of making you feel trod upon, just made you feel like he liked you. He had not trained very hard, and so I beat him up the mountain. At the top, all I could feel coming from Ryan was good cheer. He asked me all kinds of questions about how the race went. He was genuinely curious about my experience. Everything about his face and eyes said, "Man, that was a fun race." He'd brought several bottles of Guinness up to the top and he shared them around with several of us.
He was an official cave surveyor and rescuer. He was a jazz drummer. He was a lover of the old stuff, the Stones, the Dead, Dylan. He didn't get caught up in complaints like the rest of us at REI, he just worked hard. He smiled in such a broad way that his eyes went all squinty. He was frank. Everything about him, his strengths and his flaws, were endearing. He was an avid mountain biker, a one-time owner of the infamous Rick Merril Instigator. He loved being with people.
Ryan died two Saturdays ago. He was 28.
Sometime in the early summer of 2007, Ryan and I speed hiked up to Barr Camp on the lower slopes of Pikes Peak. I was thinking of it as training for the REI race up the Peak later that summer, but I got the sense that Ryan was more interested in just getting out into the pines and up on the mountain slopes. And in hanging out. Ryan couldn't get enough of hanging out. He'd hang out with anyone; he wasn't snooty.
We hiked hard, both of us at our limit. When we got up to the camp, we sat down on the main cabin porch and Ryan patched up his blistered heel with duct tape or something. He was trying to break in a new pair of shoes. I hadn't heard him mention any pain as we were going up, so I was surprised to see that his heel was actually bleeding. While we sat there Ryan talked with Neal and Teresa, the caretakers of the camp, like he had known them all his life. He had this gift of talking. It was also a curse. On the way down, I just wanted to get some peace and quiet, so I tried to speed ahead. But Ryan kept up. He was sort of limping, but he didn't once mention his heel. We talked about everything from religion to music to mountain biking. The day was really perfect. Not too hot. Beautiful early summer foliage. Birds. By the time we had reached the bottom, I realized Ryan wasn't just babbling, he had a lot to say. I was learning something.
Once we got down, Ryan invited me up to his and Carrie's house for some juice. Driving back to his place, we must have passed 10 people that Ryan knew and waved at. The morning stretched into the afternoon. Hanging out with Ryan had a tendency to do that. He made some fresh juice in his juicer with carrots and apples. Honestly, it was the best juice I've had. He told me what it meant for him to practice veganism. He explained bits of the Grateful Dead poster hanging on his wall; it had something on it, some character, or some image from almost every one of their songs. He showed me some of his strange paintings. And some of our mutual friend Jason's strange photographs. He showed me pictures from a recent cave surveying trip. And his new recording equipment. He was getting pretty heavily into recording techniques right then, and was also a sometime drummer for West Side Bus Project, which was an impressive Manitou Springs band that unfortunately lasted less than a year.
Coming away from my first day of hanging out with Ryan, it struck me that he was terribly interested in me. I've never known someone who talked so much, but of whose interest in me I was so certain. He wanted to connect and he had his fingers in a million different things to connect about. Hanging out with him was a full experience.
When we finally had the race up the Peak (in late July?) Ryan talked all kinds of smack to me and the other competitors. He was one of the few that had run the official race in the previous year and he knew what he was doing. But Ryan had this way of mouthing off that instead of making you feel trod upon, just made you feel like he liked you. He had not trained very hard, and so I beat him up the mountain. At the top, all I could feel coming from Ryan was good cheer. He asked me all kinds of questions about how the race went. He was genuinely curious about my experience. Everything about his face and eyes said, "Man, that was a fun race." He'd brought several bottles of Guinness up to the top and he shared them around with several of us.
He was an official cave surveyor and rescuer. He was a jazz drummer. He was a lover of the old stuff, the Stones, the Dead, Dylan. He didn't get caught up in complaints like the rest of us at REI, he just worked hard. He smiled in such a broad way that his eyes went all squinty. He was frank. Everything about him, his strengths and his flaws, were endearing. He was an avid mountain biker, a one-time owner of the infamous Rick Merril Instigator. He loved being with people.
Ryan died two Saturdays ago. He was 28.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
