The rain picked up intensity as I thrashed out of my sleeping bag and stuffed it in its drybag as quickly as possible. I had somehow kicked off my shorts during the night, but before I even bothered to pull them back on, I walked over to my bike in my rain jacket and underwear and tore into my food stash like a half-starved raven. I pulled out a mashed package of Grandma's Cookies and shoved the whole mass into my mouth. The I opened a package of almonds and inhaled those, followed by infuriatingly well-wrapped cheese snacks and handfuls of Sour Patch Kids. I can't remember ever feeling so hungry in all my life. It was almost an out-of-body experience, with the repressed civilized side of myself standing aside, somewhat bemused and somewhat horrified as she watched my hands involuntarily tear through mass quantities of junk food. A full-on feeding frenzy.
I had only traveled about eight miles from what felt like an extraordinarily remote campsite when I began to see car after car parked along the road. At first I thought, "Makes sense; it's the fourth of July weekend." But the cars went on for miles. Bumper to bumper. No campers. No campsites. Just cars. Many had made poor parallel parking maneuvers and ended up 10 or 20 feet down the embankment. Then I started to see the painted school buses. And the crowds of people huddled in cotton quilts, sleeping in the grass as the rain pelted down, and the half-collapsed Wal-mart tents, and the piles of garbage bags, and the extracted car seats, and the shelters made out of bed sheets and the red-eyed, dreadlocked 20-somethings walking their mangy dogs at 7:30 a.m. I stopped one of the dog-walkers and, pretty much expecting the answer, asked him what in the world was going on.
"Duuuude," he droned in a half-stoned, half-excited whisper. "Don't you know? It's the Rainbow Gathering, man. Like 10,000 people are all here together. It's amazing."
The guy's demeanor was right out of a bad movie about the '60s. I just smiled. There was trash everywhere. Unconscious people were sprawled in the mud. Rotten garbage cars had been driven off cliffs. The entire thing was horrifying. How could this guy not see that? But he didn't appear to see much of anything. He just looked at me with his glazed-over eyes and grinned.
Anyway, I was happy to put the Rainbow Gathering behind me and begin the long descent into the fog-shrouded valley that encircled Cuba. Clumps of clouds draped the pine-covered hillsides in a way that made me feel homesick for Juneau. Of all the places on the route that could resemble my rainforest home, I never expected to find one in New Mexico.
Despite my obnoxious breakfast and equally huge second breakfast at the Cuba Subway, I tapped into the food supply right away. My appetite was out of control. I considered that a good thing. I had obviously ridden the previous day on a serious calorie deficit, and was trying to recover from illness, but I was still confounded by where all that food might even be going. I calculated a rough calorie estimate and came up with 3,800, which seemed unreal as it was only 10 a.m. But I wasn't trying to follow any kind of weight loss plan at the time, so I didn't really care.
The laundromat was packed on a Friday afternoon, with crowds of children weaving through the halls as their parents folded clothing and leaned against rumbling machines. All faces looked up as the white girl in bike tights walked inside, holding a red water bladder. A Native American man in his 70s who had no teeth and was at least six inches shorter than me approached. "I'm wondering if there's a place in here where I can fill up my water?" I asked.
"Sure," the man said through a big, gaping grin. He pointed to a bathroom in the corner. "You can get water in there. But we have pop machine, too. You can get a cold Coke; it's much better." He directed me over to the Coke machine and started fishing around in his pocket, pulling out a handful of coins.
"Oh no," I said. "I can buy my own soda."
"It's no problem!" he said, and made a move to put his own coins in the slot as I whipped out my wallet and showed him a dollar.
"No, I have cash. I want to buy a soda," I said.
He nodded and smiled. "Where you coming from today?"
"Cuba," I said. "I'm going to Grants."
He shook his head. "No, that's too far. You go to (I forget the name of the town). I have a son there. You stay with him."
"It's really OK," I said. "I know I can make it to Grants."
He laughed. "So you're Super Bike Woman! Fine, OK, that's good."
Other people put down their folding and walked up to ask me more questions about my trip. The children giggled and one girl handed me a piece of paper she had been coloring. So much for unfriendliness on the reservation.
I reached Grants by sunset, just as spectacular thunderstorms raged to the south. 155 miles in 13 hours with a leisurely breakfast stop, one day after feeling as sick as I've ever felt on a bike. Grants felt like a huge victory, and I celebrated with Pizza Hut, full-on laundry at the laundromat, and a full hour of doing nothing but watching CNN. (On the Divide, any time that's not spent biking, eating or sleeping feels like a waste. But that was the day after Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska, and I had been seriously deprived of current events and political gossip.)
Life was good again.
I pedaled out of Grants in an unexpected bubble of strong emotion. I'm not even sure where it came from. Many people have asked me at what point of the race did I realize that I could finish it, and the exact moment has been hard for me to pinpoint. Sometimes I think Montana. Sometimes I think 65 miles from the end. But, after further reflection, I think that was the moment. Pedaling along Route 66 out of Grants, New Mexico. I realized that I had only 400 miles left to pedal. Just three more days if things went well. And that realization filled me with everything from elation to strong doubt. Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded to God, the Universe, the Powers that Be, my own inner strength, anyone and anything that might be listening: "Please be with me. Please stay with me. Please help me get through this."
I rolled into town at 2 p.m. and strolled triumphantly into the Pie-O-Neer cafe. A guitarist and base player strummed mellow country songs in one corner as a handful of people listened from tables and snacked on burly pieces of scrumptious-looking pie. Before I could announce myself and ask if they got my message, a woman rushed up to me and wrapped her arms around me in a gigantic hug. "You made it!" she exclaimed. "I can't believe you made it!"
"I made it," I smiled.
The guitarist in the country band was just finishing up a song. "We did not think you were going to get here in time," he said. "After all the rain last night, I thought that road would be soup."
"Actually, it wasn't so bad," I said.
He smiled and shook his head. "Well, congratulations. That's some amazing riding."
The woman nodded. "And, I have to say, you're the cleanest and best-dressed person in this race."
I laughed. "Really?" I looked down at my outfit. I had a big chainring grease stain on the front of my jersey, and my baggy shorts were rumpled and dusty.
"When Matt Lee got here, he was covered in mud, red eyes - he looked half-dead," the woman said. "He just fell in the door, mumbling, 'I need food.' He really looked like death. I thought, 'That can't be healthy.'"
I laughed again. I was about to give her my "Here in mid-pack we have more fun" speech when she pulled me over to a table and sat me down. "What do you want?" she said. "We don't have a lot on the menu, but I can see what I can cook up."
The first thing that came into my head was salad, so I asked for it. She told me they didn't have salad, but she had a bunch of veggies in the fridge and she could whip one up. She offered me a spinach quesadilla and tomato vegetable soup, and I enthusiastically ordered it all. Fresh food! Real, fresh food! I was so giddy that I completely forgot about the pie.
I devoured the healthiest and tastiest meal I had consumed in three weeks as the country band played an impressive set of original music. The woman brought me new Pepsis as fast as I could knock them back. She directed me into the kitchen so I could fill up my water and choose from a spread of pies. I chose coconut cream. "Good choice," she told me. "That one won an award from a big food magazine last month."
I inflated the tire to about 25 psi and decided that was good enough, but when I started riding, air started to spit out again. I swore out loud. I did not want to have to change the tube, which on my bike involves undoing the brake caliper and generally takes me long enough that I would undoubtedly end up underneath the back storm. The air stream stopped quickly and I decided to stop and pump one more time. As I kneeled in a puddle atop a road had been innundated with rain only minutes before, I looked up and noticed a full rainbow draped over the heart of the storm, and all around it was an incredible ceiling of phosphorescent red light, a reflection of the sunset that burned through a thin clearning to the west. Streaks of lightning continued their violent dance beneath the rainbow stage. It was so breathtaking that I even through the dark fog of the stress I was feeling, I knew I was witnessing a moment of powerful beauty. Beauty more powerful than fear. I pumped a few shots of air into the tube, and it seemed to hold. I got back on the bike and continued approaching a vibrant curtain of color and lightning that filled the entire sky. "Be brave," I chanted. "Be strong."
I pedaled a few more miles until the road seemed dry again - a small patch of land that hadn't been pummeled by storms - and began setting up my camp. After weathering that horrific storm, and having found the courage to power through it without breaking down and cowering in a ditch, I felt a surge of confidence that can't be duplicated by any other kind of success. And as I laid down beneath a near-full moon revealed by a new clearing in the clouds, I realized that this was the answer to that ever-present question: "Why do you do this?" Why does someone like me - who doesn't possess any remarkable athletic talent, and who isn't all that competitive, and who still harbors plenty of fears about things remote and lonely and wild - why do I participate in incredibly difficult, expensive, time-consuming, admittedly dangerous ultraendurance races when I might find more success and fewer challenges in more reasonable endeavors? And that moment, in the Gila forest, perfectly framed the reason:
Physical fitness is fleeting. Strength is forever.
Absolutely, stunningly amazing. Both your story, and the sky in your photos. I've never seen anything like it! Nature is incredible. Your determination gets you through all sorts of dangerous adventures, and I get to read all about it from the safety of my air-conditioned office. I hope you turn this story into another book!
ReplyDeleteWow! You remembered that after experiencing it and took those glorious pictures. What a joy to read your writing. This 77 year old stage 4 breast cancer patient will be inspired to keep on riding.
ReplyDeletedonbiker
Remarkable story and Stunning pictures.
ReplyDeleteThanks a bunch.
"Beauty more powerful than fear. I pumped a few shots of air into the tube, and it seemed to hold. I got back on the bike and continued approaching a vibrant curtain of color and lightning that filled the entire sky. "Be brave," I chanted. "Be strong." "
ReplyDeleteI read these lines and the hair stood up on my neck. Not because of electricity in the air, but because of your powerful emotional imagery. Jill charging her and Nature's dragons. Conquering both, at least on that day dusk.
Ride on, girl.
You are Jill Homer: Super-Bike Woman! You Rock Jill!
ReplyDeleteAmazing stuff!
Amen
ReplyDeleteBefore you get all smug and full of yourself with regards to the stoner hippies, I'd like to remind you that the previous day YOU were talking to cows. ;)
ReplyDelete"Get high on life," and they couldn't see the hypocrisy of it all? Very rarely do I feel like a bike snob, but I wanted to yell back and tell these people to get a bike, and try going somewhere - somewhere real, not somewhere cooked up by the hippy bureaucracy as a magical Mecca and artificially enhanced by chemicals."
ReplyDeleteSuch true words... Have really been enjoying your recap Jill!
Holy wow, Jill. Amazing. Stunning. Glorious. This is one heck of a piece, both the writing and the photography.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this. I just love your way of placing me right there in the dirt and hunger with you.
ReplyDeleteWow, what an amazing recollection of your adventure. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAwesome pictures - you are amazing - scared to death and still you are taking such beautiful pictures. What a challenge and you, of course, made it through all of this. What an experience for you and thanks for sharing it with all of us.
ReplyDeleteThat red light is CRAZY! But crazy beautiful, yes. I loved this post, Jill, and am so glad to hear stories of human kindness. You do possess quite remarkable athletic talent, by the way - you should remember that.
ReplyDeleteYour best post about the ride yet. Gripping and inspiring with stunning pictures. Well done.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos, as always. I've ridden the Cuba to Grants road route and it was enjoyable to ride it again through your story.
ReplyDelete"....At this point, I just need calories and water. Please. I'm good for it, I swear. I have lots of cash. My name is Jill Homer."
ReplyDeleteYou said everything you possibly could there...great tale, great pics.
"Physical fitness is fleeting, Strength is forever"
ReplyDeleteMade me think of my friend Jeff and Susan Nelson and anyone fighting cancer.
Inspiring, Jill.
Oh by the way, I noticed the airconditioning unit on top of that bus of "hippies" getting away from the "world"
Jim
The people out on the Divide who just give wholeheartedly - they're so touching. They remind me what humanity is supposed to me. I'm so glad those people came along for you at all the moments when you most needed them. Someone's looking out for you!
ReplyDeleteI love your blog. I check it every day to find a new story ... whether it stems from your day hikes in Juneau of the race. I really think you are brave. You inpsire me.
ReplyDeleteThis post makes me miss Northern NM all the more. Thanks for all the wonderful pics and your story of the ride. So well-written!
ReplyDeleteThis is so great - thanks so much for sharing your journey.
ReplyDeleteWow, what an amazing recollection of your adventure.
ReplyDelete___________________
Smarry
Payday loans Today
Hey Jill,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. You put words to something that I have struggled to for so long - "Fitness is fleeting. Strength is forever."
I've been riding the Divide Route in sections over the past few years; Some with friends and strangers, and a decent amount solo. I'll pick up at the New Mexico boarder next summer to finish it off.
In the dark hours alone on the trail I've often entertained the same questions of why do I do this, what drives me, all those things.... and you summed it up so well.
One question about the writing - do you keep notes as you go, or pull it from memory when you return?
Thanks again for sharing
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