Getting Hitched

DON'T PANIC.

It is wonderful and liberating to travel without a car. It forces you to move through the world in a way which, though at times uncomfortable or inconvenient, is ultimately more rewarding. Those very inconveniences and discomforts thrust you out into raw, genuine experiences where self-reliance and openness to the unknown reward you in ways the directness of a car never can.

You also stop in places you would never think to stop a vehicle, and you can camp and explore, stop and start, circle around, speed up, slow down, move and stop moving in ways that a cumbersome half-ton of metal full of things you don't need just would not allow.

It's also a thrill to stop caring about fluctuations in gas prices and eventually stop even noticing those fluctuations. People look out for you and help you when you are on a bike; in a car (which isn't painted with fish or birds) you are an anonymous one of the moving masses getting shuttled from an unknown here to an unknown there.

Cars are a burden and bikes equal freedom. And that being said, I'll also say that we're definitely not above hitchhiking. We're also not below it, or next to it, or inside it. We do it, usually with no shame.

We do appreciate the elegance and purity of the totally unsupported bike trip. We've met people who would never think of "cheating" themselves by not cycling every meter of the Transamerica. But everyone draws their own boundaries, and this is not that kind of a trip for us. Here is a comprehensive guide to how motorists have helped us out:

1) Jason and Phoebe the Swift. Go back to an earlier blog to read about how we found Stefan a ride home to Seattle.

2) Columbia Falls to the Swan Highway. After staying a week with John and Denise, we went to breakfast with them on our departure day. The restaurant was south, they way we were headed, and somehow it is not nearly as rewarding to ride a road that you have already driven. It really loses its magic. So we decided to bring the bikes in the truck and head on our way. Storms were inbound after breakfast and with John and Denise's encouragement they drove us further along our way. Wendy liked the idea of staying out of the rain. I was grumpy and irritated, thinking 'What's the use of a bike trip if you have to rely on cars to keep you out of the rain? Where's the pride of being out in the elements? Are we not warriors?' and so on. It dumped and dumped and dumped by the time they dropped us off at a little sheltered porch to pack our gear and we waited out the weather. I was bummed about our first real hitch, but in the end, it provided us the time and shelter to get our bikes and gear back together after a week off the road, and even better, we were able to arrive that afternoon at the Flying Popcorn Ranch with plenty of time to meet and enjoy the wonderful space and inhabitants. And what self-respecting mother would let anyone's child head out into the rain when it was in her power to keep them warm and safe and healthy? Thanks, Denise and John!

3) Somewhere along Highway 83 to Highway 200. We left Seeley Lake along a road which several people told us was the most dangerous in Montana. A cyclist had been killed somewhere along here just this year. And with narrow shoulders and busy, fast, two-way traffic it's not surprising information. It was a Sunday afternoon as we started to descend from town, and as the road got narrower and wetter and twistier and busier, we had to pull over for sanity's sake. And having popped our hitching cherry just a few days before, the idea of asking for help certainly wasn't out of the question. So the thumbs came out and within 5 minutes a father and son stopped to pick us up. Everybody in Montana has a big pickup truck and our bikes, though heavily burdened with fresh veggies, fit snugly side by side in the back, and we fit snugly side by side in the back seat. They took us the ten miles or so down to Highway 200 which, though busier and faster, has deliciously wide shoulders. From there we biked happily in the rain, knowing that we were carrying our bodies and our souls in working order to Missoula.

4a) The biggie. West Yellowstone to Salt Lake City. By mid-August it was clear that we were smelling even more flowers than we had planned for. We wanted to spend as much time as possible riding in Southern Utah, and to fix a date where we could meet Adam. So it was an easy choice to take Don and Nancy's offer to drive us from Yelowstone to Salt Lake. It was a feat of Tetris fitting our bikes and theirs and all our gear into their sedan, but a roomy truck and ingenuity go a long way.

4b) Also the Biggie. Salt Lake City to Cedar City. Part two of our effort to meet Adam in Southern Utah and savor that part of the world . The Go Green Shuttle is a van service that tows a trailer for bikes an luggage! In addition to all the obvious reasons this is better than Greyhound, it has he added perk of not having to break our bikes down into boxes. A few hours of dozing and we were suddenly in a faraway land, so very different from the Montana of yesterweek. I missed seeing the transition between environments that is so sweet about bike touring, but all worries were laid aside as we plunged into Utah's wilds.

5) Hanksville to Lake Powell.

We sat with Adam in this almost-nothing junction of Hanksville. (Sorry, Hanksvillians, I'm sure there is more than "almost nothing" hidden in your town but I'm referring to our experience more than your habitat,) The market we counted on for our resupply was closed on Sunday, forcing us to either spend a night in the middle of nowhere or fill up on convenience store food for the next three days of remote facility-free cycling into the interior. I wanted to follow Adam north to Goblin Valley, and Wendy advocated against any route that would force us to backtrack through Hanksville. And while we pondered our next move, lightning storms threatened to kill us all. I took my usual tempt-the-fates-thinly-disguised-as-optimism stance of heading out into the weather ("Chances are we'll be killed by cars before lightning gets us") and Wendy took the preserve-the-bodies-for-future-earthly-adventures stance. Only Adam's fate was certain, that he had to head north by 3pm to catch his train out of Green River. In our moment of frustration and indecision, hitching was an option, but the drivers of every pickup-truck-hauling-a-speedboat-to-and-from-Lake-Powell seemed to fear us more that pity us. 3:30 was minutes away when we saw a pink Volkswagen van with the word COYOTE painted on the side. If ever there was a hitch out of Hanksville, this was it.

The Coyote Shuttle operates out of Moab and in this case was ferrying cars to the end of somebody's 10-day rafting trip. They were headed down to the reservoir and Christy, adventureminded saint that she is, was more than happy to load up us and all our stuff at the drop of a hat. We had time for a hasty goodbye to Adam (perfect for me--I can't stand long goodbyes, no matter how much I'm going to miss the other party) and we were whisked away, dry and astounded, down to Former Glen Canyon. We had the pleasure of seeing all this red sandstone alive with muddy waterfalls and impromptu rivers, and we were greeted at the reservoir by such an assault of wind that the interiors of the cars were sandblasted entirely in the few moments the doors were open. We couldn't imagine riding the twisty road in that wind, nor attempting to pitch the tent in such a gale, so we rode back with Christy and all the drivers, stuffed in the van, ten miles up the waterfally canyon to a snug little sheltered camping spot. A fun and happy hitch, and not the last of Christy and Coyote we'd see this summer...

6) Natural Bridges National Monument to Blanding. Best hitch ever. By the time we reached Natural Bridges, our aforementioned convenience store rations were quite thin. We had one day of food left and thirty hard miles over Comb Ridge to Blanding. But the allure of hiking in canyons full of geologic wonders and hidden petroglyphs and ruins was too much temptation, and we decided to take our chances. Some advice: Never count on hitching as part of an essential plan. It's pure hubris, and we all know where that leads. When, at the end of our day of hiking, we confidently ate the remainder of our food and stuck our thumbs out in the pouring rain at the park exit, we figured that out of the dozens and dozens of RVs in the park, there was plenty of goodwill and carrying capacity in left the park. Not so. We forgot to imagine that RVists might not want hairy wet hitchhikers and their muddy bikes to settle into their mobile living rooms. The only kind-looking folk were in vehicles far too small for our package. Or maybe they are the only ones who can say no in good conscience and don't have that guilty cornered look on their face (I do feel bad how hitchhiking puts people on the spot and forces them to reckon very quickly with their consciences and passengers and sense of adventure). Sunset was coming fast and as outbound traffic thinned to a trickle (as we imagined the flash floods and waterfalls were now doing in the canyons below) we were holding out for the one possible ride left in the park--the dreadlocked film crew we saw heading in to take pictures of the sunset. Film crews have vans, right? Dreads takes risks, right?

Well, the sun disappeared along with all our hopes. We felt rejected and cold, and above all ashamed for letting ourselves fall into a situation where we were going to have to beg for food. (Still, the ruins we discovered that afternoon were offsetting some of that dismay.) And as we prepared to go the to full campground to ask in the dark to share a campsite with somebody (we had some sympathetic people in mind already), a UPS truck came barreling into the park, on the wrong side of the road to avoid the visitor center, grazing our noses and panniers on what seemed like the most important delivery since the birth of the Iditarod. Five minutes later, on his way back out, in the complete dark now, we thumbed enthusiastically. He stopped! He was heading to Blanding even! He had an empty truck! But he told us that he wasn't allowed to pick up hitchhikers unless there was some sort of an emergency. His tone of voice suggested that almost any explanation would do, so when we told him we had run out of food he jumped out of the truck in a flash and in thirty seconds our bikes and gear were in the back, Wendy was in the jump seat, I was on the floor of the cab, and we were on our way! He was great company, very interested in our trip, and we enjoyed last-minute success of our near-failure. And it of course was a novelty to see yet again into the inner workings of UPS, rapidly becoming the official sponsor of our trip!

We arrived in Blanding at 9pm only to find the bikes locked in the truck and the lock jammed. But we all breathed a sigh of relief when some WD40 solved everything, and we were all off in the drizzle on our own two-wheeled vehicles to our respective dry cozy beds.

7) Canyonlands National Park, Needles District to Moab.

Highway 191 north of Blanding was wonderful, until after Monticello we caught up with all the fast busy trucking traffic heading north to Moab. We were so relieved to be off the highway when we turned left and rode an amazing road down through Indian Creek to get to Canyonlands, where we spent a few days. That spur was a commitment--all downhill on the only paved road, meaning a long uphill backtrack to get back on our way to Moab, a place we knew we had to ride hard to get to in time to enjoy it and to meet Pete and Michelle when they arrived. Faced with the choice of spending those few precious days riding a vicious highway or having a few days to enjoy Wendy's old stomping grounds and do some hiking, we opted to shoot for the latter. But remembering our near-sorry luck hitching at at park exit, we decided to start riding up out of Indian Creek and try a new technique of thumbing on the go. We would take any ride toward Moab, even if only back to 191. And once we hit the road it was a beautiful day and beautiful riding and the idea of cycling the whole way seemed like not such a bad idea after all.

Remember when I said that it's when you really need a hitch that you have the least chances? Well, when you least need one, they appear out of nowhere. We were less than a mile out of the park entrance, totally open to a full day's ride. When we saw a pickup approaching, we figured we'd still stick with the original plan, you know, let the universe decide your fate and all that, and flashed those dry thumbs without even stopping. When the truck disappeared over the first hill, we were both even a bit relieved to get to ride some more, and had already forgotten it when it came right back over the hill to come pick us up! It al happened so quickly and in minutes we went from riding the lonely roads to riding in the back seat with a retired nuclear engineer and Spanish/English high school teacher who dropped us off by lunchtime in the middle of downtown Moab. Poof.



8) Moab to Blanding II.

Pete and Michelle had only a week to ride with us, and we had only a week left of our trip. Following our previous trend of never backtracking, we had no qualms about arranging for the Coyote Shuttle (enter Christy again!) to lug the four of us and our bikes and our gear back down to Blanding, off the truck route, and perched on the edge of the country which would lead us through delightful backroads, past ancient petroglyphs and tombs and forts and homes on our way to Durango. It was an adventure in itself. Jesse picked us up in the stretched VW bus he built himself and busied our minds with stories of wind power and diesel turbos. We made a stop at a nutty homemade windmill and he dropped us off at a hidden granary we had discovered on the way up.

Enough detail about hitching. The purists can criticize us all they want, but the memory of the wild look of adventure in the eyes of a UPS driver is justification aplenty for us. Is it still a hitch if you pay for it? In the bike touring world, we think yes.