The last 30 miles into South Bend went by with no surprises and I met my host, Dave Matthews at Cambodian Thai for dinner. He took me to Notre Dame to check out the campus and I walked around while he went to go watch his friends ballroom dance. I found the campus "grotto". It was filled with hundreds of candles and while I was there, several people came by to light a candle and place it amongst the others; I sat quietly and reflected on days gone by. Dave came and picked me up and we went back to his house, I was tired and I promptly went to sleep on his couch. The next morning I drew a map from my tiny computer’s internet directions and left around 9 am for Pokagen State Park. About 10 miles down the road, a detour in the road forced me to take another route into Elkhart. I wound my way around the detour route until I reached what I thought was Elkhart and stopped at the first place that looked like it had breakfast.
As I pulled into the parking lot, a man was coming out of the building, approached me and unloaded a barrage of questions like, "where are you heading? where did you start your trip? how many miles a day do you ride??" I had decided a while back that I would answer anyone's questions without annoyance, no matter how obvious the answer, as this was probably the 100th time. When his barrage ended, he told me that I should come in for a free adjustment, so I hand wrote directions; it turns out that Michael was a chiropractor and he was very interested in knowing everything about bike touring. Unfortunately, I got lost along the way to his business so instead I just wandered around Elkhart looking for a decent place to eat. I found a Subway franchise, not the best option, but I knew what to expect. I ate my sandwich, and called Michael to tell him that I wasn't going to make it. I let him know how much I appreciated his offer; he asked me which road I was taking out of town. He told me that he ordered me a sandwich, which would have been nice, but I had already eaten.
I left Subway and made it about a mile down the road, where I stopped at a red light and looked over to the left. I noticed a blue Suburban truck rolling it’s window down, it was Michael! He leaned towards his open passenger window and said, "I thought I would just track you down and give you an adjustment on the spot." I couldn't believe that he would take the time out of his day to do that. At the next block I pulled off the road and he had me cross my arms in front of my chest and he picked me up. My spine cracked all the way down to my lower back and I felt a huge relief. He told me that his father and grandfather thought that my bike trip was a wonderful thing.
He then handed me some rolled up bundle and I looked down; it was a wad of cash, I had no idea how much money was in my hand but it didn't matter. Michael told me that most people don't take the time to slow down and appreciate how beautiful this world is. He exclaimed, "just look around us!" I agreed and kindly accepted his donation to my cause. Tears welled up in my eyes as he got back in his truck and drove off. I spent a total of about twenty minutes with the man but I will never forget how his kindness affected me in such a positive way. It turned out to be over $100!
A very natural yet all-consuming smile appeared on my face. I realized that I really did not need anyone else to be happy in each and every moment of my life. From my studies of Buddhism, I learned of the "thousand fold, all-knowing smile". The smile now made sense, it did not leave my face for the rest of the ride that day; in fact, it finds itself planted on my face when I least expect it. There had been hundreds of smiles that had washed across my face since the beginning of my journey and this moment added to the mystic feeling that I was experiencing. Later on in the day, I made it to Pokagen State Park and bought a bottle of wine from the store just a mile from the entrance. There wasn't a single person camping that night, it was very beneficial to be camping on a Wednesday. The park lies along the Eastern Shore of Snow Lake so I wandered around until I found the shoreline.
I was very happy about accidentally finding this spot because there was a small private dock to sit on. It was a part of the group campground/ cabin area which consisted of beautiful stone structures, volley ball area, firepits, and the dock. I sat on the dock in the lake, ate part of a loaf of bread that I bought from Mennonites, sipped on my wine and skinny dipped in the calm lake water all while watching the sun set in the August sky. I spent as much time naked as I could as it was exhilarating.
I returned to my campsite and prepared my couscous dinner at the bench next to my tent. It was very dark by now and I noticed some lightly flickering lights up in the trees. I stopped what I was doing and paid full attention to the trees; these little glowing orbs reminded me of spirits dancing around me. They left tracers behind them as they flickered out and disappeared. The entire day was magic, all because of a detour that led me to Elkhart. I felt looked over by my guardian angels.
It is hard to really describe mile after mile of middle America farmland while traveling by bicycle except that the towns seem to blend into each other and some areas seem to have more dogs that chase after you, especially in Michigan. The biggest difference that I see is that the corn farmers proudly display which company they chose to genetically modify their seed crops by staking signs at the end of the rows. It looked similar to political battles, and it began to really sicken me.
It is hard to fathom the sheer volume of corn that we produce in this country and 99.9% of it is grown for livestock. Much of the livestock is kept in tight quarters in row housing and to keep them from getting sick from the inevitable wounds from other animals, they are given antibiotics. So these sick animals are fed genetically modified corn that we spray or crop dust with millions of tons of pesticides every year. In these corn-growing areas, many people, organic farms and communities may be exposed to these chemicals through runoff into local streams, contaminating our water ways. Most of the meat readily available that we as Americans eat is what I was raised on and what so many people continue to consume every day. I have put a stop to my consumption of meat if I don't know where it came from, I still think that we as human beings were meant to eat meat AND vegetables in moderate quantities but for the sake of the environment, my body and for local farmers I have chosen to eat locally as much as I can and I encourage you all to do so. DISCLAIMER: I ate meat of all types on this trip because that is what I HAD to do in some situations in order to get enough protein and the thousands of calories that I needed every day. I have since stopped eating meat that I don't know where it comes from. That is all I will say about this subject, my rant is done. So I made my way through Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. With all the corn, soybeans and near dog-maulings, at least I didn't have to go through Detroit. Riding to Toledo was very easy and I met up with Adrienne, my next couchsurfing host, at the restaurant that she worked at. I got directions from her to go back to her parents house after her shift was over and I rode there in the dark. When I arrived, her parents were sitting on the front porch smoking cigarettes.
I leaned my bike against their garage door and they invited me in. As I entered the house, there was a huge dog, like one hundred pounds huge and he wasn't very happy to see me. I basically avoided trying to pet him, until I felt like Adrienne's parents were comfortable with me staying in their house. Her mom didn't say much and kind of leered at me for a while, the dad was a little more talkative, but all in all it was very creepy. To make matters worse, Adrienne decided that she would leave the house to go over to her friends house and she sort bleated out, "too bad you don't have a car, then you could come to my friends' house". I had never met a couchsurfing host like this. She got a bad review.
I was miffed by the whole thing, and I decided that I would make the best of it. The giant dog stopped growling as we watched some TV drama series and he eventually rolled on his back for me to pet his belly and that is when the mom decided to talk to me. She had some sort of stomach disease that made her existence somewhat miserable, so I excused her less than cordial behavior because of that. When I was in Chicago, someone told me that Toledo was the sex slave capital of the U.S. and I was told this again in Indiana. Not that I thought that her parents were going to tie me up and lock me in their basement, but the whole energy of Toledo was just kind of off. Sorry Toledo, I'm sure there is some redeeming quality.
I was reminded of a disturbing thing that happened to me before I even got to Ohio: I was riding along the highway minding my own business when something caught my eye in the shoulder, it was stuck between some weeds and lying in the gravel, I swear it was a fully erect penis. I didn't stop to see if it was real, but I remembered the warning I was given about going to Toledo. Then, about 10 miles or so down the road, I saw something shiny. It was a pocket knife that someone had probably tossed out the window; I didn't stop to see if that was real either, or if they were somehow related. Toledo turned out to be very uneventful and in the morning I headed to the Main Post Office where my reading glasses were waiting for me to come pick them up. When I walked in the door, and asked the postal worker about my general delivery, they said, "I'm sorry there is nothing here for Gary Evans" I made them double check but it was not there. I was kind of upset with my friend who claimed that he sent them, then I got over it just as quickly and laughed about it. These expensive prescription glasses were lost on the third day of my bike trip, and I had to squint every time I wanted to read anything.
I figured that this was another test and some day I might reunite with the glasses. It kind of reminded me of a Disney Cartoon, where a crate arrives at someone's doorstep that has been all over the world and has all of the stamps on the outside proving to everyone where it had been. In my case, the glasses were stuffed in a red package with teddy bears printed on the outside of it, kind of hard to miss. I called my buddy Ian and he said, "yes i sent it about ten days ago". I decided to just continue on, so I stopped at a gas station to look at a map and then photocopied a few pages out of it. It was extremely windy that day, so I just kept my head down and pushed on through. I stopped at a little town called Oak Harbor to buy some zinc cough drops because my throat was feeling a little scratchy, and to air up my tires. I aired up too much and caused a flat tire, this is why you should always keep a spare inner tube or two and a patch kit. I fixed my tire and continued on and made it to the windy shores of Lake Erie at Port Clinton.
I was assuming that I could cross over the several miles wide muddy inlet into Sandusky via route 2 or the old bridge next to it but I became very aware of the illegality of doing such a thing by all of the signs posted, plus they destroyed the old bridge and the locals now used it as a fishing dock. There was a gas station at my end of the Highway 2 Bridge so I asked if there was another way into Sandusky by bicycle but there wasn't unless I wanted to backtrack another 50 miles around the inlet to get to the other side.
I went outside and contemplated my situation, a man who was inside overheard my conversation with the cashier and he offered to take me across in his truck. These are the kinds of things that restored my faith in this country, it is this kindness that many people have in them to help someone out who is in obvious need. He dropped me off and told me that Cedar Point was just a few miles away and they have the tallest, fastest rollercoasters in the world. Given the windy day, and my lack of energy, I just wanted to find a place to sleep that night. I remembered back in Montana that a biker told me that I could camp at fire stations. So, I started looking for one. I found the central fire station, and luckily one of the garage doors was left open so I knocked on doors that led to the inner portions of the station and waited patiently until finally someone noticed that I was there. He fetched the captain for me and he said that it wasn't legal for them to have someone stay over night, but as he put it, "If I wanted to set up my tent, I could camp in the backyard of Firestation #3".
I pedaled over to the other fire station and met the fire fighters working there. They were so nice, showed me the station and they even let me take a shower and fill my water bottles. One of the firefighters asked about my trip and I told them some stories about what had happened to me so far; in exchange he told me what it is like to be a firefighter. It sounded pretty good, four days on, three off and the pay is good, plus you are really just sitting around the station taking care of the equipment, eating, showering, sleeping. The down side to that career in it is the danger of battling a huge blaze and potentially being killed. I was starving by the time I had my tent set up in the backyard of the station so I went across the street to eat at a pizza buffet, I needed at least 5,000 calories. It was like being in heaven for $6.99. I loaded plate after plate while people were watching me in disbelief. "Middle Americans" that go to Cedar Point were some of the most obnoxious people I have ever seen. Totally out of control: sunburnt, loud, rude to their spouses and sloppy, it made me feel like I was waiting in line at a Walmart so that I could buy a cheaply made toaster oven and bag of candy probably both made in China. As I left, I decided that I would not try to go to Cedar Point to see the rollercoasters but instead investigate the Sandusky water park motels, these were basically budget motels that had small water parks attached to them, some even had bowling alleys and arcades inside.
Everything was bigger and faster in this crazy Ohio town. For some reason I was set on finding a pinball machine in one of these mini theme park inn's. I didn't find a pinball machine anywhere, and I walked all over, so instead I smoked a little bit of the crumbly remnants of pot that I had and bought a 24 oz. can of Miller Light from the bowling alley motel and played a game of Big Buck Hunter. I retired to my tent around 11pm that night thinking about the randomness of life, and about how I ended up in Sandusky. One goal on the trip was to live on $20 or less, every day and to try and spend no money if possible. Money was dwindling fast as I wasn't working. The ride out of town was very foggy and nearly windless. I rode along the south shore of Lake Erie most of the way to Cleveland, and it was beautiful to see the water through the trees and between the mansions that seemingly didn't belong there. Where was all the wealth from? Many of them were boarded up. The farther I travelled East, the older the structures became, probably from "old money". The closer I got to Cleveland, the larger the homes became but I couldn't care anymore, as I was on a great journey just speeding past homes at about twenty miles per hour the whole time.
To my surprise I arrived in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood at about noon, travelling a distance of about fifty miles in just the morning. I called Dan, the friend of Chicagoan, Jaimey. Luckily, he got off from his window tinting job early and was home drinking Sparks (a highly caffeinated malt beverage). My first thought was, "this guy reminds me of my Portland and Seattle friends, drinking malt beverages in the middle of the day". He told me to make myself at home and I grabbed a beer.
We then decided to go get some food so he drove me over to a famous eatery called "Melt" for some fancy, large grilled cheese sandwiches and powerfully strong Long Island Iced Teas to wash them down with. It took me about ten minutes to devour everything on my plate, Dan couldn't believe his eyes; he had never witnessed anybody finish the whole enormous sandwich and gigantic side of slaw and massive serving of fries. This, for me, was normal for the insane amount of physical activity I did every day. We bought some malt beer for the road, Sparks, and decided that we would go to the waterfront park called Whiskey Island. There was an abandoned Art Deco style Coast Guard Lighthouse that had been vandalized over the years, so we hopped the fence and climbed inside. We shimmied ourselves up the rotting spiral steps to the lookout which was littered with beer and paraphernalia. We went one step further and pushed open the roof hatch, climbing on the roof of the tower. We opened our cans of Sparks and drank them; we had the best view of downtown and the marina from up there, I felt like I was on top of the world….or at least a rotting lighthouse. Dan's friend, Hannah came walking down the dock towards the lighthouse carrying a fishing pole with her. We climbed back down to meet her and sit at the end of the dock to cast for fish. The idea was great but there was an slight issue with this: her fishing pole didn't have a hook on it, so she tied a piece of bark to it. In fact, she loves fish and has never used a hook to cast with, it had more to do with the experience of casting the fishing pole out into the water that she was after, I was extremely amused with the situation. I had no interest in imaginary fishing so I found three similarly sized rocks to juggle, instead. Another friend of Dan, Katie was having a party in an area call Fremont (pronounced Tree-mont) so we dressed up and headed to one of the bars near the party for some food and a few games of Connect Four. I again felt like I was in Portland, there was a similar culture here, or maybe it was just the group of people I was hanging out with: Dan, Angie, Mitch, Christian, Hannah and many of their friends arrived later at the party that night between games of beer pong and petting the tarantula that one of Katie's roommates kept in an aquarium in his room.
At the party, I met an accident prone bike messenger who had previously broken his arm and leg amongst other parts of his body who was in awe of what I was doing, this wasn't the first “bicycle guy” that showed me so much respect even though I don't consider myself a bike enthusiast, I don't wear the funny small hats, I preferred an actual protective helmet. We left late and I slept on Dan's couch that night. The next morning Dan was up late and we went to a vintage toy store that had just opened. I bought a new set of juggling balls and we laughed at all of the funny stuff in there; Dan bought a plastic pig keychain that blows a bubble of brown shit out of its butt when you squeeze it. We went to the East Coast Style deli and I ordered the most robust hoagie that they had there, the Weightlifter weighing in at over a pound of deli meat. It was basically an array of various deli meats stacked high and all of the onions, slaw, mustard and tomatoes on top.
We brought our sandwiches back to our lighthouse dock via bicycles and watched the airshow, it was Labor Day Weekend after all, and you have to love the American pastime of watching fast jets, helicopters and biplanes burning tons of fuel in to the atmosphere, and what better place to do it than the Midwest shores of Lake Erie. Dan had to go help his brother move a pool table so he dropped me back at his place and I hung out with his roommate, Angie.
Angie and I went to an art show that her friend was showing work at; another friend of hers was the proprietor of this unique space. The gallery sold vintage motorcycles and paintings, and they must have done well because there was only one motorbike left for sell. We wandered across the street to another gallery that had painted skateboard decks and sponsored by Red Bull, so I helped myself to a couple of the tasty little energy drinks.
We met up with some of Angie's friends at a nearby bar that was in the full swing of Karaoke Night and I couldn't resist singing. I sang the Otis Redding song, "Sitting on the Dock". I really felt that if I had a theme song for the trip, this would be it. That line, "two thousand miles I've roamed just to make this dock my home" really resonated with me. We bar hopped a couple of times and finally met up with Dan late in the night.
Another late morning/afternoon came and I went to the Giant Eagle grocery store and used some food stamp money to buy bacon, peanut butter, bread, bananas and cooked up the bacon. Dan was magically awake from the smell and we both tried to see straight, our hangovers were in full effect. It was volleyball day, so we went to meet up with his friends at Whiskey Island. Dan drove me around Cleveland and I saw some of the Architecture there including a Frank Gehry structure on the East Side of the city. We stopped by a second hand store and I bought a shirt for a $1.54. We picked up more Sparks and went back to the house. I met two of Dan's brothers and one of them showed me some juggling tricks. Christian came by and we rode our bikes over to Whiskey Island with booze in hand. It was a whole lot of spontaneous, drunken, sandy fun.
We went back as it got dark and partied with the brothers late into the night again, but I went to sleep when the beer pong started again. Apparently, they were playing Jenga ten feet away from me, screaming, but I didn't move or wake up for anything. The next morning was rough for the brothers; they were a bit green in the face, people were sleeping on the floor, couch, bean bag chair. We re-energized with a few hits of pot and left to go play some baseball at the park. I bought some cheap vodka and orange juice, and a cantaloupe. We named our team The Melons; they had no left handed gloves so I was basically just batting and drinking a whole lot until I decided to just use a right handed glove and stay out in right field. We were warned of rain, and the forecast was right because it started to pour out of nowhere, and it came down hard. We stopped the game in the eighth inning and packed up. Hannah suggested that we go swimming in Lake Erie, I was the only one interested so we went together. We found a random rocky "beach", walked across the rocks barefoot until we found a decent area to get in the water.
It was amazing to be in water while the rain was pouring down on us, we both felt free and spontaneous, living in the moment. I practically grew up in the water, on O’ahu, Hawaii, so this was a nice treat. We talked about religion, she was a devout Christian and I was a multi-faith, spiritual person. We were able to have a very intelligent conversation about God without getting upset at all. After floating around in the water/rain for about a half hour, we walked back to her car and she dropped me off at Dan's house. I was planning on leaving the next day but I was actually a little concerned about the amount of rain that was falling. I checked the weather report and there was no sign of it letting up for at least a few days. At this point in my journey, I had gone off-route so many times that I decided that instead of heading towards Buffalo, I would go to Pittsburgh to visit my friends' sister, Margaret. I was painfully aware of my shrinking bank account and I decided that I would take a bus 100 miles to The Pitt.
I scrambled to find a bike box, and found one at a nearby bike shop. I was kind of hoping that someone would be so kind as to drive me the 100 miles there but no one had the time or desire. Hannah changed her mind several times until I had no time left but to just break the bike down for the first time since I left Washington State and rush down to the Greyhound station with Dan's help.
I took the last bus out of town and they nearly didn't let me on the bus because I had so many separate bags with me, so I pulled out the emergency rope that I carried with me and also used that for the first time and wound it around all of my bags until it was one heaping pile of fabric and string, they then let me on. Part of my decision was based on how much money and time that I had left and I figured that I needed to speed things up a bit and get to the East Coast.