A letter to a friend on Monday, July 13, a full thirteen months after the events documented:
Anne,
Monday, today, is my final sweet summer day before school begins. It ramps up nicely, with me teaching summer school to wonderful little fifth graders for the next three weeks, then moves to full throttle. Summer school is fun; the kids really want to learn, and we have a lot of laughs.
I looked on a NE map and I was mistaken when I said that we rode through Thedford. We, instead, took the northernmost route, starting at Rushville. Between Rushville and Cody was the first leg of our journey and a day that will live in infamy:).
Saturday, June 8, 2014
It actually started the night before and continued the next day, all day.
The bus dropped the group of about thirty riders at the Rushville stop as the sun was moving toward the western horizon. There was two or three hours of light left in the sky, enough to get acquainted with Rushville, population 856. Ah, to be in Nebraska. To be home.
Towns like Rushville dot the plains of Nebraska. They're hardy places with hardy, salt-of-the-earth folks who make a living by farming, ranching or servicing these two groups. With industrial farming, bergs such as Rushville are becoming smaller, less useful. All over the Great Plains, the Rushvilles of the world fight to stay alive as their youth go to college never to return. What used to take ten men is now done by one perched atop an outlandishly large piece of farm equipment that, aside from its color, looks as out of place as an ice cube in Hades. Or by a rancher who has forsaken his steed, and rounds the cattle up astride a quad. Like the rest of the world, Nebraska is changing at the speed of technology. Its onslaught cannot be quieted by nostalgia; it grinds up memories as well as it plows the earth.
I bike the streets, seeing the empty stores and homes and feel a pang of regret that I was born in an age so wondrous yet so unforgiving. Nebraska is about small town life; that is its heritage, its lifeblood. But the towns are evaporating like puddles on a sunny day. I shudder to think what this stretch of earth might hold in another twenty years.
The locals have put those thoughts aside - this is their moment in the sun. There are 500 hungry and thirsty bikers in town for one night. There is money to be made, maybe enough to buy seed for next season's planting. That's the hope, at least. Locals from 5 to 90 years are out, peddling food, drinks, souvenirs and sundry. It's a perfect evening if you are the type who enjoys getting to know new people and their rare, isolated culture. The locals could not be more cordial, and their kindness is rewarded with handsome sums of money. Everyone is happy.
I wake up in my tent at about two in the morning. A soft rain is falling. It makes a pitter-patter on the tent's nylon roofing. I fall back to sleep not knowing this is a harbinger.
By five, the rain is coming down in sheets. I sidle to the center of the tent as the water permeates the nylon, creating pools in the corners. I only want to stay warm and dry; a 70-mile ride is only hours away. The rains continue to pound the tent and the winds have picked up enough so that the little structure is swaying from side to side.
I awake disoriented and chilled, hearing movement about the campground. The telltale sounds of zippers being pulled and bike chains being spun tells me that its past time to prepare for the day's ride. In the center of my nylon world I hike up my biking shorts, slip into my warmest shirt, put on my helmet and then begin to take apart temporary headquarters. I push the sleeping bag into its tiny nylon case. It's soaked, which does not bode well for tonight's sleeping arrangements. In the center of the tent, I am a flurry of activity, trying to get everything in its proper place and ready to be sent by truck to tonight's staging town. But so many things hold the rains that are still pouring down. Water cannot be avoided; it's like trying to avoid germs in a third grade room in January.
Finally, I step out, garbage bag over my head, and roll up the tent. The campground - which is Rushville's football field - is nearly deserted. Just an hour ago there were been hundreds of tents, but riders want to set off since waiting out the rains is futile. The word is out that the skies are angry and last night was just a warning shot.
I put my suitcase of personal effects into the Ryder transport truck in two wild sprints. The garbage bag is pulled up just enough so that my eyes can find the quickest path. I also wear a Wal*Mart rain poncho, which cost less than a McDonald's breakfast, but today is ever more useful.
I get going late and already too cold to be anywhere near comfort. I have eighty miles to my destination, and the thing that will not escape my thoughts is "How can I possibly do this? How can I ride eighty miles fighting a dogged Mother Nature, both rain and bone-chilling temperatures my foil."
And so I pedal with grit and heart.
I'm riding with a small group just behind the peloton, when the first hailstorm transmogrified from pellet-sized into ice cubes raining from the sky. We dump our bikes on the shoulder and run into a ditch (which was running as hard as the sky was pouring, but at that point more water was the least of our concerns), huddled together and place our hands over our bike-helmeted heads. The venting on the helmets is just wide enough to allow the solid water missiles to make impact with our heads. The resulting collisions are excruciating. I try bending my head lower, which then exposes my neck to the pummeling. That pain bites more. So I settle, like my fellow riders into a sitting fetal position, waiting for a letup. Lightning cracks so close to us that I see the sun a few times. The ensuing roar is louder than the Black Sabbath concert I went to some twenty-five years ago, the concert that will go down as the single worst assault I have ever placed on my ears. That advertisement for hearing aids, disguised as a rock concert, was so defeaning that I had to yell for "Nachos with extra jalepenos!" in faraway concessions that were not even in the arena area but rather in the linking hallways. Jet engines had not a thing on Black Sabbath when it came to ear-splitting tympanic membrane destroying decibels.
That happened twice. And at some point, Merriman, to be exact, about 20 miles from Cody, I pull into a restaurant, shivering like an excited Chihuahua, lips a frightening shade of blue, and call it a day. I take the SAG wagon the final twenty, with no shame.
The good people of Cody open up their small high school (complete with old-fashioned blackboards), their arms, to us, which is a godsend. A warm sleep after riding in a driving rainstorm and temperatures that never went north of 55 degrees is more than generous. It is salvation from easily half of us dropping out of the race due to hypothermia.
Being wise beyond my years for a moment, I lay claim to the Principal's office. I am very familiar with Principals' offices from my days as a student in Scottsbluff, Nebraska (spankings with a paddle were acceptable, even encouraged). I even get to meet him, a nice guy (not like I remembered principals). I'm not the only person who takes up residence there, but my one-night roommate and I have room aplenty. Not everyone can claim that. Most riders found nooks and crannies for sleeping in the Science Lab, the wood shop or the English classroom, where they are arranged not unlike sardines post-canning.
About twenty percent of the group dropped out on that first brutal day.
Thank you, people of Cody, I couldn't have made it without you. I would have numbered among the first-day casualties.
And that was my reintroduction to the Sandhills, which I had not seen since I was in my teens. We got along swimmingly after a rocky first date.
