Not “No room at the inn” – No inn at all! But she was pregnant!
I got to a town called Whitney Point, NY, expecting to find a motel there ... after all, the name was writ large on the map. Wrong. Some older teens at an A&W stand or the like concurred that there was a motel about 8 miles further, but forgot to tell me to turn right at the corner. I went about 8 miles, straight ahead, on my planned route, and thought maybe I misread my gauge or the kids were a little off. It was getting rather dark, and rather cold too. A small VW stopped, on the other side of the road. They’d passed me and circled back. It seems the driver’s brother (and the brother’s girlfriend) had ridden cross-country the year before and recounted all the helpful people they met, so he thought he’d return the favor. He did not use the term “pay it forward” but that’s what he was doing.
He knew the area some and said there was no motel the way I was going. It was back the other way, contradicting what I understood.
He turned the car around and went ahead, returning within 20 minutes, while I had resumed riding. He had spoken with the woman who runs the gas station/Qwik Stop ahead, in Richford, who confirmed that there was no motel anywhere close. Then he threw me a Gatorade. He told the woman ahead to look for an old man cyclist coming in and asked for a drink to take back to me. She gave it, no charge.
By now it was quite dark, I was quite tired (but, fortunately, going downhill for a few miles), my toes were truly numb from the cold, and I needed to “be there” in a hurry.
The woman acknowledged there were no places to stay. I got a hot chocolate, but I was shivering so much and my hands were shaking so much that she had to carry it to the booth where I would sit. I had to have 2 hot chocolates to warm up. At this booth was a 19-yar old woman, pregnant – maybe 8 months. She was the niece of the station manager lady, or about to be, if the manager married her uncle.
I also ate a sandwich and then had an ice cream bar. The manager would not take money for anything but the ice cream bar.
After much discussion, it was agreed that the best course for me was to set up my camping gear in the gazebo at the nearby town park, but I waited a while and asked everyone who came in if they could, or knew someone else who could put me up for the night. (The nearest police station was 5 or 6 miles away, and I was not about to ride in the dark, and up and down hills too.) Finally, the pregnant one said she had a spare bed, but she needed to ask her boyfriend, 47 years old, if he minded, and he wasn’t coming to pick her up until near 11pm. (It seemed clear to me that he was not the father.) I waited. He was OK with it. We put the bike in a storage shed at the gas station and piled into his car, arriving well into the boonies at a small wooden structure. Mom-to-be cleared off a space under which was a mattress, and gave me a sheet and a lovely comforter. Her pretty cat and its kitten joined me for a while. The place had electricity and running water, but no working tub or shower. The floors were bare. It was clearly home-built and was nowhere near done.
We had coffee in the morning, then drove back to the Qwik-Stop. After heating a burrito or something like it in a microwave, I set out. I learned later that Richford was the birthplace of John D. Rockefeller, who clearly never looked back.
Here were people with little more than subsistence level income, making do on what few of us could deal with, who opened their hearts to someone in need. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Why a Bike Ride?
Summer of 2009:
More adventure. The plan: Ride from St. Louis, MO to Upper Saddle River, NJ, via Ann Arbor (to visit my brother), then across Ontario and thru Buffalo to Hobart College (Geneva, NY), then south to the Delaware River, which I'd follow into NJ and continue southeast to home. From Ann Arbor, it is the reverse of the route I took across America 2 years ago.
With a meeting to attend in St.L., it seemed a good idea to ride back.
St.L. departure date: 6/15. Estimated distance: about 1,150 miles, or one-third my Cross-America trip. Theoretically, the wind would be at my back. The hope: a 100-miles-a-day average and 12 days in the saddle. Total elapsed time: dependent upon weather and equipment outages.
My son says it will be dry every night and drenching during the day, the other side of the road will be smooth whereas I'll ride in under-construction rubble, the wind will be in my face, and all roads will be uphill. With my luck, could happen.
No official money-raising, but if you want to contribute, the trip ain't cheap.
I will make the blog entries at sporadic points, with fuller descriptions at trip's end.
Summer of 2007:
It was a personal challenge, short and simple. I needed to prove to myself that this 70-year old man wasn't over the hill yet.
So, while I was at it, I appealed to 4 different constituencies to pledge financial support for my ride. The consitituencies do not overlap in any way. I raised money for:
The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, of which I was the President (2006-8): (http://www.ethicalfocus.org/). ECS is a caring humanist community that believes in deed, not creed, as expressed in social action.
Upper Saddle River, my home town, in support of all the volunteer services: the Fire Department; the Ambulance Corps; the Rescue Squad.
The Interact Club, at the Bergen Academies (a county high school with competitive admissions, where I am a substitute teacher). The club helps the hungry and homeless, and also pays the fare for children from the 3rd world to come to the US for medical treatment.
And last but not least (they are all equal in my mind), I hoped to kindle the giving for my alma mater, Hobart College, so we could present them with a sizable class gift in June, 2008, at our 50th reunion.
So you now have both the real reason ... and the good reasons.
And while I was at it, I wanted to try to show up those who said I wouldn't make it on the (ambitious) schedule I set for myself. I didn't, making an average of only 81 miles per day, when riding. I was done in by the steeps, the weight I carried, some bike problems, headwinds and afternoon thunderstorms. Color me humbled.
And now that the ride is over, I slake my need to write by adding occasional longer-view essays based upon the experience.
To summarize the trip, I covered 3,467 miles, solo. My route ran from home, in Upper Saddle River, in northeastern NJ, to Buffalo, across Ontario, then through Michigan to Wisconsin, across Minnesota, Nebraska, and into Colorado at the northeastern corner. I went southwest from there to Denver, then south to Albuquerque, and due west to L.A., across the Mojave Desert.
I lost approximately 4 days to weather, 3 days to visits en route with my brother in Michigan and my oldest son in Denver, and about 3 days to various bike issues. That leaves 39 days for being in the saddle. Never had a leg issue. Ate like a pig and lost weight.
A great experience. Read on.
Bob
More adventure. The plan: Ride from St. Louis, MO to Upper Saddle River, NJ, via Ann Arbor (to visit my brother), then across Ontario and thru Buffalo to Hobart College (Geneva, NY), then south to the Delaware River, which I'd follow into NJ and continue southeast to home. From Ann Arbor, it is the reverse of the route I took across America 2 years ago.
With a meeting to attend in St.L., it seemed a good idea to ride back.
St.L. departure date: 6/15. Estimated distance: about 1,150 miles, or one-third my Cross-America trip. Theoretically, the wind would be at my back. The hope: a 100-miles-a-day average and 12 days in the saddle. Total elapsed time: dependent upon weather and equipment outages.
My son says it will be dry every night and drenching during the day, the other side of the road will be smooth whereas I'll ride in under-construction rubble, the wind will be in my face, and all roads will be uphill. With my luck, could happen.
No official money-raising, but if you want to contribute, the trip ain't cheap.
I will make the blog entries at sporadic points, with fuller descriptions at trip's end.
Summer of 2007:
It was a personal challenge, short and simple. I needed to prove to myself that this 70-year old man wasn't over the hill yet.
So, while I was at it, I appealed to 4 different constituencies to pledge financial support for my ride. The consitituencies do not overlap in any way. I raised money for:
The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, of which I was the President (2006-8): (http://www.ethicalfocus.org/). ECS is a caring humanist community that believes in deed, not creed, as expressed in social action.
Upper Saddle River, my home town, in support of all the volunteer services: the Fire Department; the Ambulance Corps; the Rescue Squad.
The Interact Club, at the Bergen Academies (a county high school with competitive admissions, where I am a substitute teacher). The club helps the hungry and homeless, and also pays the fare for children from the 3rd world to come to the US for medical treatment.
And last but not least (they are all equal in my mind), I hoped to kindle the giving for my alma mater, Hobart College, so we could present them with a sizable class gift in June, 2008, at our 50th reunion.
So you now have both the real reason ... and the good reasons.
And while I was at it, I wanted to try to show up those who said I wouldn't make it on the (ambitious) schedule I set for myself. I didn't, making an average of only 81 miles per day, when riding. I was done in by the steeps, the weight I carried, some bike problems, headwinds and afternoon thunderstorms. Color me humbled.
And now that the ride is over, I slake my need to write by adding occasional longer-view essays based upon the experience.
To summarize the trip, I covered 3,467 miles, solo. My route ran from home, in Upper Saddle River, in northeastern NJ, to Buffalo, across Ontario, then through Michigan to Wisconsin, across Minnesota, Nebraska, and into Colorado at the northeastern corner. I went southwest from there to Denver, then south to Albuquerque, and due west to L.A., across the Mojave Desert.
I lost approximately 4 days to weather, 3 days to visits en route with my brother in Michigan and my oldest son in Denver, and about 3 days to various bike issues. That leaves 39 days for being in the saddle. Never had a leg issue. Ate like a pig and lost weight.
A great experience. Read on.
Bob
Friday, September 7, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment