The Fastest Growing Religion

Twelve children once crawled through this house and under the table, shooting marbles and getting splinters.

They ran around the yard, shooting bb guns and playing with their dolls.

Some were too young to play, they laid in their cribs drooling a little.

Others had stick wars, sometimes they bled.

On Saturdays some played soccer. On Sundays they all went to Church.

Probably not much different from what the kids were doing in my neighborhood, but then again, I am not sure.

Life in the small towns of Utah wanted to be elusive. I came in with my own stereotypes about Mormon culture. Multiple wives with multiple children. Strange things happening behind flaking wooden doors. Truth is that I did get creeped out a little bit, but I was not able to tell wether it was from my preconceived notions, the desolate and expansive landscape, or if the locals out here were actually giving us the third degree. One Truth is for certain however. And that is that when Rush's wheel went 4 spokes out of true who came riding down the road but a Mormon couple and their Saturday cycling crew. With matter-of-factness the man told us to follow along, that they were headed back to his house, just ten miles from here, and that he could help us out. Well, 3 showers later we were sitting at their dining room table with leftover spaghetti, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and fresh popcorn. Already Rush's bike had undergone a complete overhaul and we had been invited to see live music at a pizza joint down the road.

This is not to say that I agree with or even care about the beliefs that Joseph Smith cultivated, but I guess I sit here and realize that it does not matter. We were in need, they provided an answer, and we left, on smooth rides with full bellies, and appreciation for those who had been the butt of our (or rather my own) jokes for most of the state.

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas

Pass Go. We pooled our resources and played a one dollar round on the penny slots at MGM Grand. The game ended before we learned what to do.

Don't look down. The sidewalks beneath your feet are covered in business cards for call girls.

Look Professional. Times are tough when your entire city's backbone is built on gambling and the consequent spending of surplus cash, especially when you are a cook at the diner.

Get Married. Vegas gives out steak diners and casino cash for those committed ones. Not married? Just head down the street to the chapel and then cash in. You just might break even.

When all else fails, listen to Billy Joel. There is a bar in New York, the one on the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Blvd., that looks like a scene from somewhere in Little Italy. Weird right. Anyway, it appears to be this great little pizza joint with brick ovens and a cozy atmosphere and Billy Joel plays there. Well not really Billy Joel, actually he looked nothing like Billy Joel but he could sing though, pretty well if you ask me. Such a good singer in fact that he had a dozen middle aged blonde women wearing tight blue jeans and tight black sweaters swooning over his sing a long classic version of Piano Man. Working the crowd with his dancing fingers and occasionally flexed forearms he scanned the bar to reel in further his captive audience for the final chorus. Shit..., I thought we he caught me smiling and singing along, ... I'm busted, no longer just a passive observer. If I wasn't already broke and borrowing money from my girlfriend I would have said fuck it and gone in and bought shots for my friends and I, and one for the Piano Man too, the good salesmen that he was. But I was broke, thankfully, and our hotel, a quite and dark - slot machine free resting place, was just a couple of blocks away.

A Mirage...?

Death Valley, CA

Ok, so just imagine this woman wading aimlessly around the shallow end of the pool. She does not lift her head high enough to make eye contact with you and is murmuring what sounds like cryptic Latin prayers. The sun here can really make you delirious and I was rather confused at what was happening. I would have said that she was just another crazy European tourist, angry at herself for choosing to visit the hottest place on the planet in the summer, of course she would have some things to say to the big guy. But then again, that afternoon did give way to Elspeth's stolen ukulele and the complete seizure of Rush's bottom bracket.

At the Doorstep of Death (Valley)

En Route to Panamint Springs, CA

We woke up early for this one. Temperatures here were reaching 110 by noon so we would set the alarm for some time around 4 and as long as I was not the one who set it then we would hit the road soon after for a pre-dawn start. I had a bad, or good depending, habit of hitting the snooze so quickly that Rush or Elspeth would not even stir, at times for an hour or more. Nice for the extra zzzz's, that wonderful state of early morning lucid dreaming, but not so great for escaping the heat.

The downhill to follow this pass was itself something out of a dream state, a desolate and winding road that cut its way back and forth through the arid mountain landscape. It finally flattened out just a few miles away from Ballarat Road, which lead to the Ballarat ghost town and former hangout of the Manson Family.

High Heat, Low Humidity

From Ridgecrest to Trona, CA

Danny Devito visited Trona and was so inspired by its odd nature that he made a movie about it called Just Add Water, adding itself to the list of others filmed in the area such as Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Planet of the Apes. The town is a result of a potash mine and processing plant and is a community of largely boarded up homes where the high school football team apparently plays on a dirt field (thanks Wikipedia...). We arrived there on our bikes at twilight and it smelled as if the whole town was cooking meth in their living rooms. Minus the gas station we stopped at, we did not see a soul. That night, as the purple evening shade gave way to the glowing green factory lights we set up camp in the middle of town. The processing plant across the street clanked and smoked, creaked and rattled as we pitched our tents on a concrete slab underneath a picnic area awning. The factory, it seemed, was this giant, self propelled machine that needed a community of laborers around just to sweep the floor and grease the hinges.

Hard Times

Lake Isabella, CA

Do not worry. This guy is not stranded on the side of the road and he is far from helpless. He is waiting for his welfare eligibility to begin in Colorado. Until then he is roaming the land doing all he can to prevent himself from having to work while he raises his family. When I met him here he was staying down the road next to a river on some beautiful BLM land, just kickin' it, killing time until the big Rainbow gathering. Here's 3 bucks for the road homie, and take a hit for me when you get there will ya.

The Sierras

When we finally scaled our first steep section into the Sierras we found ourselves in a totally different environment. I had only known these mountains through a week long stay in Yosemite, which is quite possibly the most pure and euphoric memory I have. A little different to the south, the landscape on the southern end was one of Joshua Trees scattered across bare rock mountains, smattered with sickly homesteads. I imagined them all to be spooky religious communes that fell apart when it was realized that they chose the least sustainable environment possible, one that was useful for nothing more than the isolation that would allow them to be as strange as they wanted. That, or the occasional income from renting their compound to a B grade massacre movie... I don't know. I was picturing the eyes of creepy little kids staring through the venetian blinds, their backs hunched over, knees resting on the foam now showing yellow through the worn brown couch. The most colorful part of their morning, watching our spandex wardrobes putt slowly across the dusty expanse. Yup, the South end of the Sierras much different from the flowing falls of Bridal Veil with ole' John Muir shining his majestic wand of comfort ore' your cozy campfire...

The Central Valley, part III

From Blackwell's Corner to Wasco, CA

So we were told that somewhere around 70% of our nation's produce comes from the Central Valley in California. And we also heard that in some places there is as much as a quarter mile or more of top soil that once ran wild with Jack Rabbits - that is until they were cornered and beaten by prospecting farmers armed with baseball bats... yeesh. What we saw were groves of almond, pistachio, and orange trees, fields of garlic, artichoke, carrots, and onions in a landscape with concrete walled rivers, made up of diverted mountain water from far and farther away. Tumbleweed walls clothed the barbwire barriers that kept passers by from the latino workforce, laboring in the endless groves.

Thanks California, for providing me with the strawberries I had on my cereal for breakfast, the orange I had for lunch, and the almonds I had for a snack, I appreciate it...

The Central Valley, part II

Cholame, CA

So night number one in the Central Valley was spent at a rather magical place. It was the first of many experiences to come that consisted of picking a dot on the map for our end of the day arrival and the dot turns out to not really be a dot but rather where some cartographers hand slipped and landed, pen down. "Cholame," we said, "...yeah, we will make there tonight." Well, after peddling for a considerable number of miles that day, with our energy rations running low and the image of the BEWARE OF RATTLE SNAKES sign still stuck in our head we were relieved to see the ubiquitous, rectangular green sign for... Cholame! That little green beacon turned to a silly joke though after reading the Population 109 section. We had no intention of staying in a hotel or anything like that but at least give us a gas station where we could get cold water and fantasize about Heath Bars or even the possibility of grass to sleep on or a tree to sleep under. Nope, no amenities, just a town we could shoot a marble across.

When I say no amenities I am not being entirely truthful however. There did appear to be a functional building and it was right across the street from our little green rectangle. The Jack Ranch Cafe was situated in the center of a rather large parking lot with a railed fence left to determine what was parking and what was not. Rush went inside and spoke with the manager/cook/bartender/dishwasher and he came out with great news. We could hang out in a side room until they closed and then we could pitch our tents out back in the small patch of grass that appeared an oasis in the wash of beige. With that we were happy and each orderd something cold to sip on. Rush and I milkshakes and Elspeth a Rootbeer Float.

Post cold treats we retreated to our exclusive side room. The first thing you noticed was the almost life size James Dean cut out leaning against the wall in the corner of the room. Then as you panned around the rest of the space you saw posters for all his movies as well as paintings of him with other famous actors and musicians that had also died their own premature, tragic death. With minor surface scratching we found out that not 1000 yards down the road was where Mr. Dean had flipped his Porsche and ended his young life.

Later on, when it was time for our already famous rice and beans, we set up our camping stove out in the parking lot, next to a monument that had been sculpted by a mourning Japanese artist. The sun sank in the sky and it was soon dark, minus the lights that had been recessed around the base of the sculpture. A couple came by not long after and talked of a James Dean apparition that frequents this highway. They were just out for an evening cruise and sometimes stopped here. Not knowing where they had come from or where they were going they left, but were soon replaced by semis that seemed to take refuge in the big parking lot that is Cholame.

The Jack Ranch neon soon went dim and the nice man who granted us our overnight privilege locked up and said goodnight. We were still full from diner but decided to check the dumpster for french fries or hush puppies but to no avail. We then retired to our grass patch, setting up and diving in our tents as fast as we could before they inflated with mosquitoes. That night we slept with the dinosaur hum of the tractor trailers, sounding as if they were nestled right next to us, as in fact they were. Falling into sleep I got a slight chill up my spine when I thought of the denim legs and leather clad torso of a ghostly James Dean walking that dark and lonely road, he too, searching for respite in the neon signs of The Jack Ranch Cafe.

Into the Central Valley, part I

Cambria to Blackwell's Corner, CA

After heading south along the scenic HWY 1 for the first few days of our trip we held a sense of nervous anticipation for our embarkation east. For the first time we would start to make ground towards the other ocean and out into, what was at least true for all three of us, the great unknown. The Pacific Ocean, though filled with some pretty tough biking terrain, offered a sense of comfort. In the constant flow of water and the semi methodical placement of towns we could rest assure that we might end up high or dry, but not both. Once we turned off onto HWY 46 out of Cambria there was an almost instant feeling of vastness that the interior owns in such a different way than the ocean. Maybe it is because I do not know the ocean in the same light that the sailor type might but it is also because I have spent just enough time in the middle of nowhere to be reminded of the feeling.

That first night, perched underneath a tree high on the hillside that seemed to be the apex of the coastal range, we could still make out the ceaseless horizon of the ocean. We knew that it would be quite sometime before we would run into sister Atlantic but after several days of getting into shape on the winding and windy cliffs we were all just fine with that.

Smokestacks, Seals, and Ships, oh my!

Moss Landing, CA

We had seen these two smokestacks coming for miles and as we rode further and further into their reality my eyes could not stop scanning the landscape for something to contrast them. Including the ominous in the landscape became a serious bone for me to chew on during the countless hours spent thinking while on the bike. I did not want the documentation of this trip to be about an America made up merely of contradictions and environmental eyesores. I did not however want to pass up the moment when seals and smokestacks got to share the same frame...

Homes from a Homeless Lens

HWY 1, California

So I am not positive where my interest in the domesticscape originated from. Perhaps it arose due to my itinerant existence as of late or maybe it comes from a general fondness of architecture and its place within the land. Either way, I ended up with a wide range of these scenes from all across our country. It is true that some of my favorite experiences during this summer's bicycle ride were when we would roll into a town or development of some sort. It was then when we could relax a bit, cruise a little slower, and peer into the lives of those who inhabited each settlement, asking myself, "How did someone get so lucky as to live right there, with all that amazingness..." or similarly, "Why the hell would anyone ever chose to live there, don't they know what else is out there..."

But what do I know? I am still homeless and sometimes anyplace is better than nowhere.