Pedaling Pilgrim Blog Home

I wasn’t sure if I’d post for this in transit period, but I’ve got some things to share.

On Saturday, Aug. 1, I was scheduled to pick up the U-Haul in Cedar Falls to pack up my daughter Caroline’s stuff. We got to the rental place when they opened to discover they had no truck for us. Apparently, though I had reservations and confirmation, nothing with U-Haul is truly confirmed until the traffic department assigns a truck and phones you. Thankfully, after a 20ish minute wait on hold, the polite traffic guy told me he could confirm a truck… for the next afternoon. I had built a day contingency into this loading step, so it wasn’t a big deal, but it meant another anxious night of waiting to actually get things moving along and my contingency (one of only a few in this whole travel plan) was gone. Caroline asked me if I had an iron packed in bike bags, as this surely won’t be the last wrinkle to iron out in my master plan. Due to the weight and shortage of space, I have no iron and won’t abide further wrinkles.

We did get the truck on Sunday afternoon and had a short and sweaty workout getting things loaded.

We strapped everything in, including our trusty steeds so they can ride upright and secure in the truck. This more or less looks exactly like I thought it would, so perfect plan back in action.

On Monday morning, we hit the road just after 6am. Christin rode with me in the truck while Caroline drafted behind in the Rogue.

It was a beautiful morning when we left Cedar Falls, IA: calm and quiet on open road. The truck felt a little loose in the handling, it doesn’t have any luxuries like cruise control, and the seat sits quite upright and feels a like riding on a beach ball, but all was good. A few hours in, the wind started to pick up from the south. A few hours more, and I was bounced around by some appreciable gusts. Then the wind blew a steady 20+ MPH with gusts in the 30’s. This was hours 2-6 behind the wheel. At some point there was a constant whistling from the passenger door that went on for a few hours; then Christin realized her window was partially open; she turned the manual crank to roll up the window and stopped the noise; we laughed at our stupidity. Christin checked the weather report… looked like wind all day, shifting from northerly to southerly later: this seemed like a spurious prediction by sensationalist weatherman.

Christin left me sometime in the afternoon to take a turn driving with Caroline. As we went from Iowa to Minnesota to South Dakota, the wind did actually turn 180 degrees. In addition it intensified in both continuous force and gust strength. Sensational weather reports held true. Now, there was a loud and continuous whistling at the driver’s side door, and the window was tightly cranked up. When we hit Wyoming, the overhead sign read “CURRENT WIND GUSTS 40+ MPH”. I keep the steering while at a 20 degree turn into the wind, and then had to react to the periodic blasts, which also intensified the whistles at my left ear. This went on for 3-4 hours.

In addition to the thrill of trying to keep the big box on wheels in my lane at a consistent speed (65-75 MPH constituted consistency at this point), the wind also seemed to be blowing gas out of the tank. In the morning, I made it over 4 hours on 3/4 tank of gas; now I couldn’t quite get 3 hours on a full tank. This meant I had several opportunities to stop, pour $125 into the tank, and steel myself to resume the onslaught against the wind. Through the day, I put over 100 gallons in for the 878 mile journey (you do the math on the MPG; and the morning tank was much more efficient than later in the day).

13 stressful hours behind the wheel found us stopping for the night in Sheridan, WY. For the final hour, I had one remedy in mind to set my mind straight: Mexican food. Thankfully, Christin knows me so well, she had already predicted this to Caroline, and they had directions on the phone before we even pulled up to the hotel. La Herradura did not disappoint: I had a burrito as big as my head, and I met two lovely twins named margarita.

This morning, we set off for another 13 hour drive. What a difference a day makes: the morning was again calm and the world seemed largely unpopulated as we hit I-90 in Wyoming. We drove for several hours with only two or three cars in sight, and the wind was completely absent.

In the morning there was a slight haze of forest fire smoke. As we travelled west, the haze increased; at some point in western Montana I could start to smell it. The weather maps, and even Google Maps instruction said our route was likely to be affected by forest fires.

However, the smoke never really got much worse. There was a constant haze, and the typical beauty of the mountainous landscape was muted by a decreased visibility, but the air did not seem hazardous, and it wasn’t alarming anyone when we stopped for food and fuel. When I rode with Geeto and Mark in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, conditions were 10X worse. Much of today’s drive paralleled our planned bike route, so I was pleased to think that God has favored our route. So, for parents, spouses, siblings or anyone else out there who may be worried about forest fires… you should rest easy; it seems our timing may be just right.

The only real stress in the driving today came around Spokane. This was the only real city we saw in two days; it had a six lane highway for 10 miles either side of town. It seemed the highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Barreling along in my big box on wheels through Spokane rush hour was no fun, but a veritable dream after the prior day’s abuse.

As we were leaving Spokane, the haze was probably the heaviest we saw all day, but it no longer smelled like forest fire. All I could smell was butter. Then Christin reached down to her feet for a snack and wondered why the floor was wet. Wait, not “wet”, but “greasy”. Ah, great I thought. Does glycol or Freon smell like butter? At 161,607 miles, something was bound to spring free on this box on wheels. Then Christin discovered the now empty Kerrygold butter container that I put in our bag of snacks instead of the cooler. I bought this for the AirBNB in Iowa and I just couldn’t leave it behind as it was only slightly used. I also couldn’t leave behind the 6-pack of craft beer that I didn’t manage to drink. And the truth is, the tiny cooler we have couldn’t fit the butter AND the full 6-pack, so sacrifices had to be made; and the overnight low in Wyoming was 44 degrees F – surely the butter would remain solid enough to make it another day. I apologized and said to Christin that I learned my lesson and I wouldn’t do THAT again; she said, “I doubt it.” Like I’m some sort of habitual butter abuser? Like I’ve done this plenty of times and this is the first I’ve gotten caught? I understand her being upset, but now the floor mat looks better than if we Armor All’d it; and the cab smells like the movie theater lobby! I may just do this to our cars when I get home.

I’ve been thinking about some different highway songs for the playlist today. But, as Bob Weir passed away earlier this year and Mark Lecy is a fan, I thought this seemed like a good fit as I’m now really gone: Gonesville.

Tomorrow it’s a mere 5 hours to Corvallis to finish off the move. Nothing like 31 hours behind the wheel to prepare for 3,700 miles on the bike. I’ll post again in a day or two.