“Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. Which dog wins? The one I feed the most.”
~Â Comanche elder
All eyes turn toward me as I walk into the breakfast room at the trucker’s motel in Lebec. My spandex shorts and bright yellow windbreaker standing out like a ballerina in a rodeo arena. Ignoring the stares, I grab a plateful of calories and plop myself down in a seat. The good buddies in the room decide I’m not that interesting after all.
I smile as I think about the scene from Star Wars:
“These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.â€
“Move along.â€
When Obi-wan did it in the movie, it seemed like magic. But I think it’s just part of being human. If you accept a certain viewpoint or perspective as good, right and factual, and exude this into the space around you with confidence, then the folks around you seem to catch what you’re exuding. Sounds kind of New-Age-y, but it really seems to be how we work.
I think back to the fella who gave me a lift past the bad section of road yesterday. He absolutely accepted as fact the complete fiction that his media masters had been pouring into his brain every day. If they say it’s fair and balanced, then it must be, right? If they say I should be outraged, then I should be.
A room full of truckers in flannel shirts and dirty ball caps look at this odd duck walk into the room. He’s wearing a do-rag on his head, spandex shorts, and a bright windbreaker. He’s greatly outnumbered, perfect fodder for some early-morning harassing. Instead, the truckers all shrug their shoulders and go on about their business, accepting me without comment. All because I believe I belong there.
Be the Force…
My imagined Jedi powers have no ability to warm me in the pre-dawn chill. I find myself dilly-dallying in the warmth of the convenience store. I know I’ve got a descent first thing this morning, and I’m not looking forward to the chill and the wind.
It’s 35 degrees outside and a bitter wind blows through the pass. With full water bottles and pockets full of food, I’m grateful for the little bit of work that a half mile of climbing offers to reach the high-point of the pass. Warmed just a little, a blast of cold wind coming over the pass slaps me in the face, and I start an ice-cold descent.
I’m shivering hard as I pass through the little town of Gorman, which is one of the oldest continuously used roadside rest stops in California, dating to way before the time of cars and highways. This route was heavily used by Native American Tataviam people for centuries before the Spanish entered the area. Apparently the town is built on the site of the Tataviam village of Kulshra’jek.
I’m fascinated by roads and their history. Roads are the arteries that weave a civilization together. The settlements that spring up, evolve, and fade along those arteries are, in many ways, the definition of the civilization. As the traffic along a trading path grows, it becomes wider, and pretty soon it’s called a road. Technology enables machines that travel the roads, so the roads have to be improved and paved. Pretty soon, you’ve got a web of roads and highways used by millions, and a few of those are evolutions of a little dirt path once used by traders in the area.
Our lives are like that. Who we are is defined by the paths we’ve chosen in life. Some of those paths get reinvented and improved as we travel them; while others fall into disrepair as we abandon them. It’s nice to occasionally find the time to look back across a path well-traveled, see the changes our path has wrought in us, and the changes we’ve left behind us along the path.
There are some things in life that bring a deep “joy smile†to our faces. A baby’s smile when he sees his mother’s face. A lover who sees her beau after a long absence. Maybe an elephant standing at the edge of a cool lake on a hot day, spraying water on himself and feeling the refreshing coolness. A dog who’s found something particularly aromatic to roll around in, coming to his feet, shaking off and smiling at his new perfume.
For a cyclist, a gentle downhill grade with a tailwind creates that smile. Once I’m past the bitter cold and aching fingers of the first half hour of the day, that smile splits my face from ear to ear as I soak up a wonderful tailwind flying down a gentle grade toward Palmdale.
After a few miles I come to an accident in the clean-up process. There’s a line of cars waiting to get by, but it looks like they’re going to be there a while. I glide up to the front along the shoulder, and the patrolman waves me through. Now, life is getting downright magnificent! Until he opens that lane up, I’ve got zero traffic coming behind me. I grab the biggest gear I can find, and fly down the road as hard as I can.
The scenery around me transforms rapidly from the moderately wooded mountain pass around Frazier Park into the edge of a world with very little water. By the time I cross Highway 14 and make my way into Lancaster, there’s no doubt I’ve arrived in the desert.
Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.
