FOREWORD:
Oh, my faithful entourage of literary friends!!! I have heard your wheedling. Liz has been a bad little blogger. It would appear that I vanished from the face of the internet somewhere in Montana. But! That is not so! I really did make it the whole way! I just…got very bad at documenting it. You know the feeling of every day minutiae not being important enough to report? Well, this trip spoiled me. The most fantastical things were in front of my nose every minute of every day; Mountains! Rivers! Waterfalls! Alex Pearlman! Yes, the world was golden and magical.
The return to real life was staggering, I was without my bicycle for an exceptionally long time (I count any period longer than a day as “exceptionally long”). Mostly…I lay. On couches! In bed! Heck, the floor works too! The stagnancy of being a normal person was unbearable. I would go to sleep in Naples—and wake up in Naples. This whole living-in-one-place deal had become quite stale.
And so my thoughts returned to the summer, to the mountains and the trees and the crushery. Well. Mostly the crushery. I do not pretend to be Ernest Hemingway. Or maybe I do. SO. My dearest darling-est compatriots. I will post the final adventures of the first-ever Bike the US for MS Northern Tier, in a few parts….because if I leave it for one post it will be like 20 pages long. Here’s number one:
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It appears that I am getting worse at this as time goes on. What can I say, my lovely reader friends? I am in Washingon. I rode my bicycle to Washington! My little knees are stiff and there are hammocks all over the place. Sometimes, writing is a difficult concession. But! I do it for you, my babies!
Anyway. I have had a few adventures in the past week. Let’s recount them as chronologically as my addled brain possibly can. Mrow.
ST. MARY’S
The story of St. Mary’s (or, the journey to Glacier National Park) is also the story of Cut Bank—you see, Cut Bank was insane. I mentioned that Savannah and I crushed all day in a semi-tailwind to arrive in Cut Bank at a gloriously early juncture—BUT! The keenest of readers will remember that the wind got its undies into a bunch later that afternoon, and proceeded to howl through the night. Oh, wind. We couldn’t even get my tent set up. We tried everything—piling bags in the corners, weighing it down with boulders—my most intelligent efforts were for naught!
NOTE: the rocks were my most cerebral attempt at tent stability. I think I am a caveman at heart.
Anyway. We decided to sleep inside (good ol’ Uncle Kev sweet-talked the camp manager into allowing it) because the Emerald Palace simply would not survive the typhoon wailing through the valley. She’s at the end of her rope, for god sakes! I had to have a little pity—she’s done well, considering her pedigree. I threw my sleeping bag into a corner and listened to the toothy shrieks of the wind late into the night.
When we (Kathryn, Cassie, Kevin, B-Weasel, Uncle Kev, the other Liz, and myself) all awoke inside the next morning, there was a common confusion—the wind hadn’t taken off yet. In fact, it looked like he’d kicked off his shoes and socks and was waiting to be served with coffee and desserts in the parlor. Oh, that ingrate. He was screaming due west, directly into our noses, at gusts of over 30mph. We ate at a little diner on the main street, postponing what would be the most elaborate sufferfest of the No’Tier to date—but we couldn’t hide forever. No, it was time to dance with destiny! So we finished our deeply discounted breakfast burritos and slurped up the groundy bottoms of our coffees, and set out.
My chivalrous determination died quickly. Oh my gosh, it was impossible! I could go only twelve miles per our at the most ardent behest of my now-disgustingly huge quadriceps. I’m talking, head down, hands clenched in the drops, really pushing—twelve. And we had sixty-five miles to cover. Dear God.
After about two hours, we reached the first rest stop—ragged and filled with desparation. We had covered barely twenty miles. “We’ll reach Glacier around—oh, maybe midnight!” I joked, and then remembered that at our current pace, that estimation bordered on reality.
“Okay,” I announced to all those at the rest stop, “The Liz Gerrity train is leaving the station and will be chugging along at a consistent 10mph. If anyone would like to board, now is the time.”
There were a few takers, Kathryn, Leigh, and maybe someone else but I sort of forget what was really going on at that point because I was so traumatized. Everyone fell off of my train! Everyone! I decided to throw my stupid body to the wolves. Boom! I tucked down and pushed. Soon, I’d caught the SAS. “Jump on, little biscuit!” I genuinely feared for her safety—the wind was so strong, it was blowing her little tiny body all over the road. We crossed an overpass, and I genuinely thought the cross breeze might send her into orbit. Hot damn,.
After much soul-crushing agony, we’d passed two-thirds of our comrades, and reached Brownsville. We had a cross-tailwind for about two seconds—I hit 34 without pedaling. We pulled in at a gas station to attend to our particulars. I turned the handle on the ladies’ room door, and an older woman ran up, waving her hands—“Wait! that’s for women!” The vein in her temple pulsed like a chipmunk through a boa constrictor.
“I AM A WOMAN! I HAVE BOOBS AND EVERYTHING!” I shouted. She frowned and slunked back. “All the boys wear the earrings these days,” she mumbled.
After SAS and I had refueled, we set out once again against the terrible ire of the wind. The noise is the worst part, I think, it gushes across the flaps of your ears and makes coherent thought impossible. I saw Scott in the distance, and dropped Savannah in pursuit. Not intentionally, of course, I just feel this intense need to chase people and things. It’s awful! I’m like a greyhound!
After evading several angry campers (they drive like hell! Really! I am tiny, and you are huge. Have a little heart, you recreational demons) We reached the second stop, not really sweating because the clouds were beginning to spit on us, adding insult to injury, I must say. Leigh and I departed, and soon realized that we’d be adding a 20-ish mile climb onto our 40 miles of unreal headwind. Oh, joy.
But really! Not sarcasm! Oh, joy! It was beautiful! The Rockies! We were riding through the dang Rocky Mountains, for the love of Moses! I almost don’t believe that it happened. We chugged along admirably, the two of us, screaming things like “HOLY CAMINO!” and “OH, UISHQUEBAH-BAH!” during the more laborious sections of the climb..
Our efforts were rewarded with, by far, the most fun either of us have ever had on a bike—the downhill was spectacular, and wound around the edges of the mountain for almost five miles. We cruised above forty without burning a single calorie. Blamo!
That descent brought us into Glacier National Park—the Glacier National Park. We were here. We pulled into a resort-style lodge to get something to eat, but I couldn’t afford anything on the menu, so I headed off to camp in poverty-stricken shame. I couldn’t even afford the Cheeseburger! Augh! Starvation tickled my belly at camp.
I took especial care to hammer down the Emerald Palace that evening; I recall because there were inklings of storms of the horizons and I hate being damp. I threaded three stakes (stolen, aquired, and otherwise borrowed) through each anchor-spot. If this tent blew away, I could do no more for it.
The next day, we’d be trucking through Glacier, over Logan pass. There was some sort of rule about bikers being through before eleven—where, exactly, we were supposed to reach was unclear. We set our alarms for five-forty five A.M. and tried to sleep.
