Rolling Away

Still no camera, wordy post. It is what it is.

And there I was again: My boss escorted me to the property bounds of Camp Mendocino. As we walked over the bridge, she was solemn and silent. She didn't want to see me go and was trying to be stern about it. I hardly wanted to see myself go, but there comes a time when you have to realize it just isn't working. So I started this ride  the same way I start every other ride, I pulled my right leg over my Brooks saddle and pressed down the first pedal stroke and I was off into the Jackson State Forest.

Broke, homeless, alone, unemployed once more. The third time in a year now. All I could think about was the failures that have encroached on me in the "normal people" world. I turned onto Road 1000 (the East West road sometimes called Three Chop Road that connects Fort Bragg all the way to Wilits) when the rain started. It was a gentle drizzle at first that gently floated past the giant redwood trees. The thought of the job I just left was ringing in the back of my head as the rain picked up and I continued further down the logging roads, painting my Cross-Check muddy brown. I hopped over some barricades of closed roads, where active logging was taking place; being Sunday all that was left was barren stretches of downed trees. It was looking over these wet expanses of fallen timber that I stopped watching the road and BANG, my fully loaded rear wheel slammed into a divet. It was pretty obvious that it was a flat. This was not what I needed. I begrudgingly changed the muddy tire and got back on the bike.

My GPS miles clicked down as I approached Fort Bragg. The road was now on a continual roll downwards. I feared losing traction and faceplanting in the mud so I pulled the brakes gently around bends. The mud let out to hardpack then to concrete at a logging maintenance plant. I turned the corner, slammed into another pothole and looked down. Flat number two. This was it. This was the end. The rain was now steady. I was still 8 miles from civilization. Highway 20 was not even recognizable on my radar. I was lost and gone. I tried patching my first tube, to no avail. The rain wouldn't let me win. Everything I owned was soaked now. I laid in the mud and looked at the rain fall down through the skinny redwood pine leaves. What was left for me? How much more could I take? I stared at the sky for a long while. I didn't know what to do, where to go. Would I really be defeated by a busted tube and rain?

No. I got up and put in the extra effort and patched my tube. And I was off once more. It wasn't much longer and I was back on the Noyo River, bending around Camp One. Civilization was near. Once again the road switched to hardpack then back to concrete once more. This was the private logging road I took in to Camp One two weeks earlier and I was back in the other direction. Once in Fort Bragg, it was a phone call to my parents and a check of my email. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I was going, and I suppose that's all that counted at that point. Feeling inspired to go in the right direction I headed south down toward Mendocino with more daylight left.

(to be continued)