Vivid Details

The Illinois plains were riddled with the spires and fires of the oil industry like some hostile, alien city. Refinery plants covered the soil in every direction. Above was a gray sky, the haze of the industry mixing with a sad troposphere. I pulled along with the cars, on down the road. Huge cylindrical tanks of the gasoline stood like sentries among networks of pipes and pyres, all of it set behind a high chain-link fence.

Figuring the way out, a way to escape finally from every last industrial remnant of the cities I'd thought were already left behind, was a convoluted labor. Streets meandered, waved and wound about without any obvious purpose. A couple outskirt towns passed by and, inevitably, from daily the westward push, every fragment of condensed civilization disappeared in the distance behind. Turning up ahead was the vast great stretch I'd been ready and set for mentally for days. Its first true pieces were there extrapolated before me.

The Midwest: that meager label we've given to such a tremendous expanse of domesticated prairie, a title too succinct and nondescript to accurately tell of any part of what it is beyond location. Contents and context, left by this name so obscured and undefined, leaves the actual idea of it open and empty, a space to be filled with a search and a discovery of intimacy with a place. A shallow and general impression of it can be gained easily enough from images of its endlessly repeating plants, all tucked away in columns and rows, but the specifics in between them keep more illusive. True understanding and appreciation of its details comes only from a simple desire to nakedly experience what beats through those hidden veins of our America's fertile cradle of a heart, the will to see the seeds of our society and how their deep and precious roots have grown. It is a vast land whose immensity lies in its breadth rather than a height and a climb. It is marginalized, all too often forgotten or ignored; the transition between the Eastern woods and Western dry. But that description, too, sells it short, defining it in relation to other things of only equal value, when it is something which is self-defined with a greatness of its own proclaimed in its every inch.

Now onset the far reaching ride through the land free of obstructions, filled only by open visibility to the long, flat circular horizon. A two-lane, sun faded, cracked up highway stretched out over the flat expanse, sided left and right with rank and file newborn corn sprouts, sucking fresh life from the sun who's pure face attended them maternally in her blue bonnet sky.

Every farm homestead was a consummate rural tableaux. Curving away from the county highway, wild grass grows in a thin margin between the two deep ruts, worn into packed dirt over the years by the truck which sits in front of a peeling, white garage. This maybe leans a bit to the left to match the barn which is propped up and fading into time in the far corner of the neatly mowed backyard. White lace curtains hang limp in the front window of the centerpiece white house. Its heavy wooden door (with an old brass knob in it that rattles just a little, but locks just fine) sits ajar in the heated day behind a loose screen to keep the houseflies out. A red tractor with tires just switched out for the new season and a baler hitched on back rests in front of the two squat grain silos at the house's west side. Inside them, a few tattered, stray corn ears remain from last year's harvest, hardened and dried through winter's freeze. The border fence of oaks and ashes bunches it all together and separates home from work - as best as possible, anyway.

At the evening end of another repeat day, my eyes searched about for camp, patiently at first, but with an earnestness that grew as the surrounding naked openness continued to hinder. For lack of cover, I couldn't find anywhere to settle and the light was dimming in the west. At the driveway of a house I stopped and looked around. A car and a truck sat resting before the garage. I pulled my bicycle halfway up the drive, laid it over to keep it visible from the doorway, and walked up to the house. When I came to the little porch and stairs I noticed two short, brown and black spotted gray dogs sleeping underneath it. The nearest to me awoke to the sound of my footsteps, blinked tiredly, then recognizing me, her little body began to erupt with violent barks. This startled her sister, who followed a similar progression into fitful barking. I quietly tried to talk them down and sooth them as they followed me around the house to the side door. I knocked on the metal frame of the screen. After a minute a man opened it up and, mostly ignoring the dogs, asked me what he could help me with.

I told him I was traveling a long distance and moved myself to the side so he could see my bike laying on its side in his driveway. “Normally I'd camp somewhere off in the woods, but in the Midwest, as you know, there's obviously not a lot of discrete places to do that. So I was wondering if it'd be possible for me to set up my tent somewhere in your yard for the night. I hadn't noticed that you had dogs, though,” I said as they continued to bark at my feet.

“I guess you don't like dogs around?”

“Oh, I don't mind them, it's just whether they mind me or not. I've noticed dogs don't usually like bikes.”

“They won't keep you up, so I wouldn't worry much about that. And yeah, I think that'd be alright with me.”

He had no preference for where I should put my tent and went back inside. A wire fence lined the yard, serving as a barrier between grass and corn fields. On the yard's southern side, a broad oak tree grew, with an old tire swing dangling down on a rope from a middle bough. I got all set up under this branch umbrella and put together my stove to cook the mac and cheese I'd got from a grocery in the last town. The dogs, once they'd seen me settle in, ceased their barking just like he'd said, and so they went back to their rest under the front stoop.

Six thirty and I awoke as the first thin, pale traces of light were streaming out from the eastern horizon onto the radial clouds. I wavered groggily inside my tent, with eyes half open, sitting up in my sleeping bag waiting for the bottom dregs of sleep to drain from my tired head.

Started boiling some water for cooking up breakfast and the first dog I'd met the night before snooped by, sniffing around my tent, with her muzzle sweeping the dewy grass. I dropped a brick of noodles into the pot to cook and the dog's ears suddenly perked, her head snapped upward with eyes intense toward the road, then she shot off. I looked over to see what she'd run off to. At a power pole's base she stopped her rush, planted her four paws out firm into the weeds, pointed eyes up and got to barking. A big old raccoon was fleeing quickly up the trunk and sat down on the cross beam upon reaching the top, its ring tail hanging off behind and mask eyes glaring down at the dog past its paws, as they gripped the beam. The dog's sister jumped up from under the stoop and came charging soon as she caught what happened, and rendezvoused in the ditch, joining in with her own vigorous barking like it was she who'd treed the raccoon. They went on like this for a bit over ten minutes.

Eventually they lost patience and went off wandering, but they each kept a keen eye on the power pole. I started lapping up breakfast. Once all had been clear for a while, the raccoon shimmied down the pole, face first. The dogs watched and then charged full speed onto it with all fury when it had reached the thick weeds at the bottom. They chased the raccoon around, fighting it back and forth in a circle with vicious growling and a flurry of snarls between them. It tried to retreat from the dogs back up the power pole, but one of the dogs jumped and caught its left hind leg in her teeth. She gripped tight and tore the raccoon down with all her weight while the other one went at its right side. Downed, biting, and clawing at the dogs, the raccoon tried up the pole again and got pulled off by whatever they could get grip of with their jaws. It tried once more and then got bit hard between its stomach and left hind leg by the more ferocious of the two dogs, but finally, laboriously, it broke free from the canine's teeth, and managed to climb outside their short reach. With a severe limp in the left leg, it slowly ascended the trunk to its perch at the pole top. Tired and defeated it stayed there this time even after the dogs had left. The raccoon's energy flagged entirely, its motions ceased and it no longer breathed. It remained, still at the top of the power pole and I went off for my morning ride with an excitement and a slight tinge of homesickness wisping away.

Solemn Wave Goodbye

Forests gradually shed their density, making way for a different kind of production than the mechanistic manufacture we found in Detroit. As the trees folded away, out came fields of newborn crops, sprouting up in their neatly tucked tilled lines of ripe soil. Justin and I had left the highways and were riding west along the asphalt backstreets invisible to our map. The road bent northward and began winding about, and to our dismay the pavement dissipated into gravel. Afternoon heat was setting on and we stopped to decide if we were lost. I was happy enough still. The temperature continued to climb, but our ride led us along in shelter beneath tunnels of trees. Simple country cabins named by their hand-painted house numbers punctuated the roadsides. For backyard pools there were instead lakes, round and still like flip-top mirrors reflecting a placid blue face.

We followed the gravel road until it spilled onto a two-lane highway. Seeking an escape from the tickling sun, we both sat down in the shade of some roadside trees. I watched the occasional traffic go by. Motorcycles puttered through frequently enough to indicate a town wasn't too far off. Justin looked worn. Draining the last sips of his water supply he said that his knee was being a bother and asked me if I minded staying a while longer. Shaded from the heat, we sat mostly silent for twenty or thirty minutes, absorbing a midday solace.

Stopped to take some photographs as the sun bent behind a tiled horizon of clouds. Laying out a radial hand, the sun's bright fingers climbed through the sky overhead. Justin sat down and made some phone calls home and I went across the street to wait. When he'd finished we kept on, but again after just a couple more miles he pulled off and sat down in a patch of grass by the entrance gate to a neighborhood. I brought my bike up over the curb, laid it down beside his, and sat down to wait for him to rest up.

Justin rubbed his knee and then stared down at the grass, pulling at a few blades with his fingers. “Alright. So, there's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and I think it's time to tell you,” he started.

“You gonna quit?” I asked. He looked up into my eyes to gauge my expression.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, lowering his eyes and again pulling out blades of grass. “I've been thinking about it, and I just feel really content with how far I've gone. I mean not a lot of people can really say that they've done what I've done already on this trip, you know?”

“What about your knee? Is it really bad?”

“Yeah. That's part of it, too, but I didn't want to keep complaining about it.”

A car pulled out of the neighborhood entrance and stopped by the curb next to us. A lady got out carrying two sports drinks in her hands and came up to us, “I drove past you two a little ways back and thought to myself 'I bet they could use a cold drink!'”

Smiling brightly she handed us the drinks and then asked where we were both from and where we were going. So many people had asked us these same questions before. The response had nearly become an involuntary recitation, but this time was different. First I told her what we had planned to do when we began the trip and then Justin went on saying to her what he'd just told me. I realized that she was the only person who would ever receive this answer. She'd stumbled into the middle of a situation that held more significance to us than any other since we'd pedaled away from our front doors.

Justin had already figured everything out. We stopped the next day in Jackson, which he knew had both a bus station and a shipping company. In the late afternoon we checked into a cheap hotel room on the outskirts of town. At the desk the lady told us the first floor was full so we unloaded our bikes and pulled everything up the stairs to our room the room in the corner of one of the buildings. Immediately we flopped onto our beds and turned on the TV. Justin walked across the room to the air conditioner and turned the dial to its coldest setting, then took a shower before we began to list every way we needed to celebrate before finally parting ways.

Both of us had been looking forward to being in the heart of Chicago for our first taste of deep-dish pizza, but we found there was a restaurant serving it about five miles away from the hotel. On our bikes, freed now from the weight of our bags, we rushed through the streets as the day began to cool. In the dimly lit restaurant we waited a few minutes before we were seated at a little round table and ordered the four-topping stuffed pizza and beers. Half an hour later when it was cooked and delivered to us, we were overwhelmed with cheese-drenched, golden-baked goodness, more than either of us could ever have hoped for. It was like swimming in savoriness.

A belly full of half a pizza and two beers each made the return ride more difficult, but back in the room we were splayed on our beds again. Justin began making calls to his family to decide what his bus ticket's destination should read. He said he didn't want to return to South Carolina, but his family elsewhere couldn't pick him up if he were arriving in two days. His plans were getting frustrated and so was he.

There were some cigars in our bags that had been designated for smoking at the high summits of each mountain pass we crossed in our adventure. With two of them and a lighter we went downstairs and stepped outside, seeing an orange sun fall toward western America beyond the tips of the pine trees. A group of people were sitting outside their rooms nearby in plastic chairs, drinking, and making a bunch of noise. I sat down on the parking lot curb and lit my cigar, and passed the lighter to Justin. The yellow lamps around the parking lot sprung to life, calling on the company of every gnat and moth to bounce about their tungsten faces. I watched as they gathered and flitted about, trying to imagine the chilly air of an alpine peak. Someone behind us began yelling at his kid.

Justin pressed the end of his just lit cigar into the asphalt. “I don't want to smoke this here. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna go back upstairs. This is just wrong,” he sighed as he stood up, sounding a little disgusted. I soon put mine out and followed his path up.

I awoke, my head resting on a soft pillow, staring up at the white popcorn ceiling from a mattress covered by blanket and sheet after uninterrupted sleep. I didn't want to move. Checkout would be at eleven. Eventually we went out to the lobby for breakfast and got a few bowls of cereal. We were alone in the room and I switched the TV over to cartoons, and then went over to make myself a waffle.

Justin's available time was shrinking. Later he called Michelle, a cousin in Ohio, in a last effort to see if she could get him from the bus station in Akron. She was working until the late afternoon, but said it might just be easier if she drove to Jackson to pick him up with her dad's truck. With these words all of Justin's worries washed away.

After we'd gotten all our things together and triple-checked the room for any left behinds, we returned the room keys and rode downtown to a combined ice cream and donut shop to wait out the evening. Hours passed and outside the sunlight began to fade. With my eyes on the dimming clouds behind the window, I wondered whether I should leave. There was no hotel room for me to return to and we were in a city with no place to camp. As I began to gather my things, Justin saw Michelle drive into the parking lot. He grabbed his phone off the table, jumped up from his chair with an excited smile across his face and rushed outside to greet her. I followed him out.

In four hours Michelle had covered the last couple of weeks of our ride. Justin became effusive with joy at her sight. He was ready to go home. They talked a while and I listened, feeling a little outcast. It already felt like our paths had diverged. Justin peeled all the bags from his bicycle, put them in the rear seats of the truck, and then we loaded both bicycles into the truck bed. Michelle said she'd drive me west of town so I didn't have to search out a place to camp in the dark.

Her engine started with a rumble and we sped off into the street toward the last bits of sun. Beside an open field that lay behind an industrial park we came to a stop and unloaded my bike. Justin and Michelle got out and we exchanged hugs. There wasn't much to say to each other but a simple goodbye for now and a genuine wish of good luck in our separate ways. The time that we had spent traveling through eastern America hadn't been cut short. It had been happily completed. There was nothing to add or take away.

Michelle returned to the truck. Justin raised his hand in a solemn wave and then turned away, stepping into the passenger side door and shutting it behind him. The engine started back up and I watched them drive away slowly down the street and turn.

I pulled my bike into the tall grass and set up my tent. The field waved in the gently rolling wind. I rolled a cigarette and watched the gray sheet of clouds forming above. Only my journey laid ahead.

View trip album #2 on my Facebook.

Visions of the Past

Our bikes came to a halt in awe of a field of small yellow flowers laying drenched in the suspended sunlight. We were riding roads unmarked on our map of Ohio. The road system was a grid, so there was no worry of becoming lost. We went west, parallel to the highway – away from all of the traffic and anxiety – riding instead amongst a silence broken only by the subtle wavering hum of wind against the eardrums.

A flurry of red winged blackbirds, nestling quietly in the long grass was roused in a flurry, unintentionally startled by us as we passed. The hills were effectively gone now, the lingering few being inconsequential in the scope of the flat farmland stretching out in all directions. This was the first of the Midwest. A humble farmhouse and its rickety barn, its silos and trucks or tractor adorned the roadside marking each transition from one plot of land to the next, and a dark line of trees stood mediating the boundary between crops. The sky was bright blue overhead.

Ahead of us I saw our road was coming to an end with the next intersection, and we would have to decide between taking the left or the right to find the next street leading west. In our pause Justin pulled out a water bottle to take a swig. I looked down the road to the right and saw two dirty blond heads bobbing up and down, a couple kids on bicycles coming toward us.

The one in front was the smaller, maybe five years old. His face was smudged with dirt and he was draped in a pair of dirty, tattered overalls. He carried a large white jug in his left hand with the few fingers he could spare while gripping onto the handlebars.

His brother followed. He was a bit taller, overalls faded and worn to the same pale blue as his brother's, probably having been handed down from a yet older dirty blond head. The white cloth handlebar tape was mostly stripped from his old orange road bike. His seat was too high and the bicycle was too big so he rode standing erect on its aluminum pedals with his little dusty bare feet.

They rode by slowly, perpendicular to us. Forgetting their bicycles, their destination, forgetting time and place, and forgetting their expressions their identical faces stared back at us as we stood over our bicycles and bags. Mouths open and eyes empty, they struggled alike to register what it was they saw before them. I was equivalently overwhelmed at the sight of their pure, unconscious possession of countryside childhood and waved to them as they passed in front of us. They were pulled suddenly away from their confusion, became suddenly conscious of the clicking from their freewheels and remembered where they were. They both returned to pedaling, and, shyly, they waved back.

When they were a bit down the road Justin looked at me, exasperated, and proclaimed, “I want to be them!"

We followed after, a short way behind. The boys had pulled off and dropped their bikes on the left side of the road. The little one was running, almost dancing, through the wheat field, waving the big white jug side to side in his hand held high toward his father who was stepping down from the lofty seat of a tractor. Once closer, I saw his father prop the little boy up on his shoulders and walk through the field while talking to another man, his son's arms hugging tight the straw hat on his head. The older brother was up in the tractor seat with his hands around the steering wheel. He put out his right hand to us and waved once again, proud of his position and grinning brightly from the honored seat.

Across the horizon in the distance the figure of a horse drew a buggy northward. It turned and began down the road we were on, coming toward us in the left half of its lane. I could distinguish a small brown horse with a loose vertical white stripe along the length of its face leading an uncovered old wooden carriage. In the seat sat three young girls. Holding the horse's leather reins was the oldest, wearing a dress of deep magenta. A thinly striped bonnet covered her dark hair, with its rippled brim shading her brown eyes from the noon sun. Sitting beside her was a slightly younger girl who had two tight, long, brown braids running down the front of her dress from behind each ear. A third littler girl sat at their feet. All three struggled between looking at us and looking anywhere else.

Present day had fallen out from beneath me and I was gone into a time so long passed we couldn't comprehend each other. It was here before me laid out not as a reenactment, but as their approach to reality, the functional past voluntarily lived out in the current. Time seemed to progressively slow in the lessening distance between us. In the moment we passed, they politely waved, their expressions still suspended in indecision, still unsure what to think or how to look. This got the attention of a little sandy blond girl sitting on the back who poked her head up from behind them. This littlest, seeing us as we went by, turned around to face us, then plopped down, her pale blue dress and little feet dangling over the back edge of the carriage. The dreamlike sense of fantasy escaped me in a smile I could no longer contain. She didn't wave, but her unabashed eyes, so full of gravity and insatiable wonder, followed us precisely, and curiously, seeking the timeless comprehension we all were seeking, following our figures at least as long as I could watch them in the distance from the corner of my own wondering eye. The clop-clop of the horses hooves began to slowly fade behind, and a fresh breeze rolled over the fields, bending the strands of wheat. Silence curled up around us once again as the eternal sun slowly drifted through the sky.