The Rodeo

A subtle breeze flowed with the hours, following our six-wheeled caravan's procession between the pastures. Strands of wheat brushed on the warmth of the air in waves and folds, heeding the wind. A line of black cows ambled in the patches of grass of an enclosed hillside, staring blankly on our moving figures with dark, fixed eyes as we went. Watching us, their heads shifted in intervals like a clock's ticking hand. Adam put his thumb and finger to his mouth and sent a great whistle piercing through the open silence. The cows roused from their reverie and started, only a few at first, plodding alongside the fence. Then followed the group with young calves hinged to swaying tails and heels of their cows.

We reached a pale town called McIntosh and decided to stop for the day. The main street of it broke from the highway, harboring a lonely shop with a rickety screen door and a faded post office amid a line of nondescript building faces. Beside these was a playground park and a blue water tower standing high on its four narrow metal legs, the only thing breaking the surface of the one story town. We rolled our bikes into the park and settled down by a covered picnic table.

Christie went off down the street for a walk to more closely examine things. I dug hastily through one of my panniers for my stove, ready to boil some ramen for dinner and then set up on the table.

Christie returned carrying a grocery bag in one hand. She sat down across from me and gave me a peculiar look.

“That's not a very substantial meal,” she said, removing a box of cheese crackers from the bag. She broke open the box and slid it over the table toward me.

“Did you name your bike yet?” she asked.

I told her it was called Yakul. “It's from a movie.”

“We both just got around to naming ours. It's weird the things people name. We met a family who was living in an RV and they'd given it a name.”

“I've been investigating what it is that makes people do it,” Adam said, sitting down and leaning forward, “So far, it seems to me that once an object acquires a meaning and purpose from somebody, more so than it can have in and of itself, once that's happened, it gets a name. The people with the RV named it Puff. Apparently their kid had named it.”

“So what do you call yours?” I wondered.

Christie pointed and looked toward their bikes, leaning on a near tree, “Mine's Ontwa. Adam's is named Jenny.”

“Like Forrest Gump's boat, if you've seen it,” Adam said, nodding.

“And what's Ontwa mean?”

“There's actually a story behind that,” Christie started. “So a while ago when we were riding through Minnesota we came by a street that was Christina Road. Christina's my full name. And then the next street was Adam Street (or maybe Road?). But that's crazy, right? The next street after that even was Juneau Street. Juneau is the name of our dog in Connecticut, so obviously this was destiny or something. I told Adam that whatever the name of the next street was we would have to name our first kid. But it might have been a mistake, because the next street was Ontwa Road. I decided it would be a better idea to just name my bike Ontwa, so I did that instead.”

Christie disappeared over a hill ahead, coffee-saturated blood pumping in her veins, and Adam pushed as best he could to keep up. I fell behind them both, keeping a slow morning pace, distracted from time by the eloquent folds of land on either side of me. The road bent around a hillside and, slowly, a town of substantial size relative to those we'd seen recently was revealed in the distance. Coming into it, I found Christie and Adam in the packed parking lot of a gas station, waving me down as I approached.

“I told you she does that, didn't I,” Adam said in reference to Christie's morning energy, “And do you see all this?” They were both looking on the bustle of vehicles bouncing around on the lot and the road.

Looking down the length of the main street which ran along the station's side I saw parked cars lined on left and right, pick-ups and cars filling the designated diagonal spaces and spilling onto lawns and everywhere else not actively prohibited. A yellow sheet of paper taped up in the gas station window explained the cause with a bold-faced headline, “Lemmon Boss Cowman Rodeo! Friday, Saturday, Sunday.” We were at the local hub, the densest town a hundred miles out, and on the primary occasion of the year: rural life jubilee for western times past.

We went into the station and bought some food to eat for lunch. I came out after them and we pedaled down the street to find a table. Instead we discovered the origin of all the weekend's hubbub. 

A full public block, framed on all sides by haphazardly strewn vehicles, was occupied with the celebration. White pavilions were propped up over lines of plastic tables. Everywhere were mustached men under ten-gallon hats with plaid cotton shirts tucked neatly into iron-pressed Wranglers. Neither stitch nor crease was out of place. Each was bound up by his leather belt and great gleaming buckle, jogging among the jumbled crowd with paper plate and pop in hand, or else standing tall with thumbs hooked on his pocket brims, surveying the crowd with soft eyes and lips curled in a smile of deep approval, polished boots planted wide and firmly in the grass. The women beamed with warmth at each other, their faces shining, scrutinizing each others' skirts and elaborately jeweled collared shirts, the permed or straightened hair meticulously done up. Children bounced around inside a giant inflated castle. They were perfect replicas of their parents and wore the same costumes.

Everyone gathered with their neighbors hoping to preserve a culture that had been stripped and made virtually obsolete by modernity. In their way they meant to glorify the dead cowboy, revive the settler, the trailblazing American past, and honor the tradition of the hardy Western nudge. But behind the simple facade lay an unintended mockery. Their visions were unconsciously distorted by what had become of the place, the country. They were each a glorified image following after a fairy tale born of movies; cosmetic imitations of a somber and rugged past reality. They celebrated themselves, their own unsoiled, over-civilized lives, making an innocent show of an idolized fantasy.

They were excited. Murmurs floated about between the tables describing what was expected of the wild rodeo to come in the evening. Men in bright shirts and leather chaps would lasso from horseback, rope and tie the calves, or strive for the most seconds spent tightly gripping the strap atop an aggravated bull or a bronco's back. They were proud, simple, honest, and pleased with the pomp and daring of it, even if it were diluted of the utility which had made it great. I couldn't begrudge them anything.

It was only early afternoon when we'd finished our meal. Adam and Christie stayed for the show to see the lingering fragments of the West. I knew there remained riding to do that day so I bid them goodbye, leaving them to celebrate with the people. Further solitary distance laid ahead.


Photograph albums: 1, 2,  3, and #4.

The Plains

A panorama of divine blue shown over a terrestrial pool, issuing a pale imitation of the scattered light and greater hues above it from its lesser body. Westward the water broadened. In its limited scope, it mimicked the infinite image of deep, pure sky, this lesser half complimenting its twin. The reflected symmetry was softly divided by a distant arboreal horizon, unifying forded east to coming west.

Now on the blank prairie a rare tree stood, robust, overlooking its company of grass-laden hills and beloved neighboring window lake. A subtle breeze folded through the open, pulling ripples across the lake's crystalline surface, brushing between the twiddling leaves of the tree. The limber bows were galvanized into a tendril dance of vivid, mystic motions. It waved as I passed.

A pheasant, in brilliant coat to match the prismatic season erupted from the green depths of the roadside and clucked away, flapping its wings violently on the quiet air, descending, then fading beneath the strands of grass at a distance, safe from my threat. On a pond, a terrorized mother duck bugled her warning, pressed and ushered on her startled ducklings, all who scooted forward with spurts across the surface toward a shroud of yellow-gray reeds and tall green leaves sprouting up round the water's edge, thrusting a quivering trail behind them in their paddle-foot retreat.

The hills grew in height as I approached the Missouri. It snaked a path between the green, waving lands, swollen and raised by northern flood rains, distributing the eroded soils of agriculture southward. At Mobridge I crossed the river and followed west into further open prairies and bounding hills, all vacant but for the purple and yellow kaleidoscope of wildflowers sprouting from the wild grasses. A trailing length of wire fence paralleled the roadside, and an occasional distant, solitary unit of reservation housing stood on the plain, a dirt drive bending over the land from each.

Distance and duration between towns increased. I was entering what was once the Western frontier, and it was evident by the names of the towns (Little Eagle, Thunder Hawk, White Butte) and also in the tangible feeling of an absence in the land. The towns Bison, and then Buffalo passed by, both dull and forgotten, the surrounding lands all vacant of their namesake. These empty hills were meant for the bison to roam, slowly walking, massive, brown faces and beards dipped to the ground, gnashing blades of grass in rows of teeth; a collection of broad shoulders, chests, forelegs, and heads draped with matted fur; bald sinewy bodies and rears in spring shedding the last tethers of fur from winter; cloven hooves dug into the soil beneath the great weight; wild horns bending from the skulls' opposite hemispheres to the burning sun; a fluid unit of life flowing, undulating over the slopes; literal behemoths plowing the land, pausing occasionally, throwing themselves with a great rumble on a barren patch and rolling in the dust, great clouds billowing to the sky; the vast body spreading and multiplying, dispensing seeds and perpetuating the prairie and enduring the annual, disparate shifts in climate; docile, black eyes looking patiently on a frozen white landscape, penetrating arrows of wind flowing over and around the phalanx; curling drifts sculpt round the solid matriarchal ring, they themselves a bulwark against the frigid months, unwintered young shivering in the sheltered core; insulating beards and locks grown thick and long on their bodies in the designated season, gathering lengths of frost to them as they stand stalwart, patient, wind-blazoned, or trudging through the barren expanse; steam rising from the nostrils, staring on white space, preserving their lives, strong, resolute, beyond humility or pride. I see their absence, an invisible scar of a once richer west spent.

Plains undulated to every distance, rolling, rolling with brushing wind. The tops of silos and a water tower on the horizon laid along the length of road, peaking above the grassy waves. Old wooden buildings, weathered by centuries and faded, grew toward me and I came to a gas station, a propped up pickup shedding its parts in the oily garage. The prairies here were all designated reservations. A few native men hung out in front of the shop window in greasy t-shirts, shooting the breeze on their midday work break. I went into the station, bought some chips and refilled my water, the next town being thirty miles off and without a guarantee there'd be a station there. I had to keep better stock of my supplies now.

I threw my leg over top of my bike, kicked my foot into its strap cage, and started pedaling off the lot. Squinting down the street the way I'd come from I saw two odd shifting dots on the roadside. I stood and waited, with excitement growing, and decided it had to be two far off people on packed bikes riding through these same afternoon plains toward town. Once they'd come closer to the station I distinguished clearly a guy and girl, hauling along on white bikes with four saddle bags each strapped to the sides. They wore black spandex shorts and matching riding jerseys, helmets strapped on, crowing their heads, and every exposed inch of skin colored brown by so many cycles of the sun. These were clean adventurers in all the vestments of their trade. Everything between the two matched. They coasted across from the street's far shoulder, hopped up the curb and squeezed on their brakes to a stop on the sidewalk beside me, meeting my big smile and wide eyes with great smiles and eyes of their own.

Through an exchange and brief talk we told each other of our separate origins, routes, and destinations and I came to know them each as Adam and Christie. They were pausing here at the station for lunch. Christie unhooked a pannier from her bike, “You want to come hang out for a bit?” I grabbed my chips, followed into the store's meager deli, and we each took seats in the folding chairs at the solitary square table.

Christie unbuckled the pannier she was carrying and removed a bag of tortillas, placing two on the table. Adam tore neat corners from two mayonnaise packets, and then drew a winding white line over each of the tortillas middles with finesse gained only from routine. Christie carved the top off a tuna can and spooned dollops over the mayo. Adam waited with eager eyes and then trickled almonds and cranberries on top of it all from a clear plastic bag. “It's kind of like having chicken salad,” he explained while he rolled his up, grinning in response to my quizzical look. “Anyway, we've experimented and rotated meals quite a bit by now, and this just never seems to get old.” Everyone really does develop their own unique patterns.

They'd been out since January, crossing bitter New Mexican colds under the freeze and blizzards of the southern Rockies. Across they'd gone through Kansas and Missouri flats, the bayou Louisianan coasts, bridging the Mississippi, Florida panhandle, pointing noses north to Maine, stretching themselves across the east in the flourishing green spring, then bending route west, and rolling out a similar path to what I'd done since Ohio. Come mid-October they hoped to have hit at least a piece of every state on the way to a continental finish in Washington state. “Then once we get there we'll take off on a Pacific ferry from Seattle for Alaska, and spend a few days riding round Anchorage,” pulling a full-circle in the seasons before one final jump to the island paradises in Hawaii, completing their self-propelled circumnavigation of the country.

“What's been your favorite state in all your travels?” Christie asked me for comparison.

“South Dakota,” I responded instinctively. “Maybe it's just because I'm here now, and it's most rich to me since it's most recent, but I love every part of this land. The barren wilds of the Badlands to the fields and fields of crops. It gets me and I get it. What about you?”

“We liked Wisconsin a lot. It's all trees and hills, beautiful, all picturesque, and the most kind people and positive experiences, I think. Plus we had nice weather the whole time. It was just simple and beautiful riding through there.”

I started thinking about where we were now in all this land, how, out of the immense length and breadth of it, in our slow paces we crossed ways here. A great expanse of thousands and thousands of miles behind us and now we sat, in the midst of months with months yet to follow, and so many unseen things lying beyond the fielded horizon.

I looked out on the peaceable plains, and I wondered why I'd said that this place, of it all, was my favorite. Maybe this was still home? but no, that was limited to the ways of nostalgia and reminiscence now. It didn't harbor that feeling for me anymore. If it had once fully possessed that position, those days were old and gone to me. Its people and soil were known to me and pleasing, its scent and sight satisfying to my discontented depths. Its substance was integrated with me more so than the substance of any other save one: Arizona. That raw state of infinite canyons, the points of the San Francisco peaks, the towering pines there, the transitory Flagstaff streets, the three mesas and their prophetic tribes: all these own the same perfection I find in Dakota's stalks of corn, the pristine stillness of the Black Hills in winter, a copper sun on the primordial Badlands, or quartzite columns on the Split Rock Creek. All of these, in thought and presence, comforted and placated me. Both put me in a reverence still (and always would), but were these those things which defined for me home?

My past and childhood, a strangely nomadic modern American life, which was defined by a chain of migrations, my parents and sister and I tossing each year between the various states and regions during my most impressionable age, instilled in me a grand appreciation for the beauty that is perpetual change. My home has exceeded the boundaries of states. It be only this country, America, having held me all my life, who has served me as home. Her parts had cradled and grown me in her arms, turning me over in her many fingered hands, bringing me up to intimately know the textures of her various touch. Only America as a whole, herself, may claim what her individual parts cannot. She alone is my land and my home; she alone, my bed and my rest.

My new friends were going west along the same road as me, the only road, and so we went on together for the next couple days' ride. There was a warmth in their company and the brightness in their eyes. They had a well of perfectly measured friendliness that begged to be drawn from. We all wanted to take the country, so we did.




Photograph albums: 1, 2,  3, and #4. Just click those numbers and enjoy! Off to Mexico for a week, then more posts.