Day 66: Long Haul Truckers

Siemen and I had split a carton of chocolate milk the night before, and half of it still sat there in the morning, tempting me toward a swig before breakfast. I thought better of it — barely. Out of town the road forked, and I stuck with the ACA maps even though both options seemed to land in the same place. Wrong call, as usual; they took me up and over hills I didn’t need. The route likes to duck onto quieter roads whenever it can, though honestly I never minded a bit of traffic if the shoulder was wide enough to disappear into.

Terry and I rode together most of the morning into New Meadows, where we ducked out of the sun for iced fruit smoothies. He warned me not to drink mine too fast, already nursing his own brain freeze. I ignored him, naturally, and had my skull in my hands seconds later while the cold detonated behind my eyes. Wim rolled in not long after looking as wrecked as I felt — Cambridge, the day’s original target, was starting to look like a fantasy for all of us except Jessica, who was somehow having the day of her life and fully intended to make it there regardless.

Another climb, another descent, and the saddle sores announced themselves properly on the approach to Council. Baby powder wasn’t cutting it, so Terry offered me his rash cream, which he swore by — mixed with the powder it set into a kind of paste that tore skin with every pedal stroke. Complete agony. I sat at a gas station in Council looking thoroughly sorry for myself while the others pushed on, Jessica presumably already halfway to Cambridge by then. A change of shorts fixed what medicine couldn’t, and I found I had another twenty-five miles left in me after all.

Wim soaks his hat to combat the heat.

Do we have another 25 miles in us?

We’d barely set off again when a black cloud built itself up ahead, lightning already touching down somewhere out on the plain. Siemen flatted, which — for once — worked in our favor: by the time the tyre was fixed the storm had drifted east out of our path, and we rode on beneath a sunset that burned behind the town like the whole place was on fire. I went straight for a motel room, split with Wim, desperate for a real shower while Terry and Siemen pitched camp instead. I lasted about five seconds of television before the eighty-four miles of the day — sores, smoothies, storm and all — caught up with me entirely, the total nudging past thirty-seven hundred without my really noticing.

Storm brewing.

Storm and a sunset.