11: Admin Day

This is it; Day1.

That’s Day 1 on the Crossroads calendar. To my way of thinking, it should be Day 0, so here is our first terminological conflict.

In my mind, the experience begins with the first downward thrust of the pedals and that won’t happen until tomorrow but the first day of actually getting together is today. It’s like that endless religious debate over whether Sunday or Monday is the first day of the week – but we don’t want to tread that path today.

It’s a fresh and early Saturday morning when I leave Burbank, after a pleasant evening spent with friends Mitch, Claudia and daughter Ella - who will no doubt, become a film star in the near future. The cool moistness of the air is refreshing after the burning desert of just two days ago.

There’s a Starbucks within half a mile and I can feel the attraction. It’s like a magnet, pulling me against my will. I have to go there. It’s not my fault. It does not make me a bad person. Whoever invented these places sprinkled a dose of black magic over every one and I can’t pass by.

Is it the coffee? Is it the food? Is it the music – and I do like a touch of Frankie or Deano, I have to admit – or is it my small successes in the constant battle to get the servers to accept ‘medium’ I place of ‘grande’ and thereby placate my sense of linguistic failure? Don’t know, don’t care. Let’s just say I like the roast.

Los Angeles being the intense, endless freeway that it is, causes my hair to go white and takes three weeks off my life by the time I reach El Segundo. People in every state in America think that people in every other state can’t drive, but this is one place where they have at least some excuse.

Indians and Italians are perhaps the worst drivers in the world – or maybe Arabs, since they have everything to gain by dying and don’t seem to worry if they do – but Americans don’t win any medals for it. Traveling at the speed limit in the left-most lane and then swerving suddenly across all five to reach an exit 100 yards ahead is no way to drive. I, of course, am the greatest driver in the known universe and there ends the discussion.

It’s 9.30am by the time I reach the Courtyard Marriott and find Tracy outfitting the Ryder luggage truck. Tracy hasn’t chaged at all – still brunette, still short haired and still just as huggable. Rick appears immediately, but is less huggable. Both make hints, as subtle as a flying mallet about my ideas on carb loading (carbonated, not carbohydrates) and I have decided to get them both wasted in a scummy bar at some point.

My bike’s assembled and waiting but there’s no point collecting it until after check-in, but there’s the first obstacle. It’s early and the only room available thus far is one dedicated to handicapped and a burst of altruism for my wheelchair-bound white-on-blue fellow man makes me reluctant to take it. Besides - a shower fixed at four feet above bath level is about as inviting as taking a dump between guide rails.

Nothing’s happening and I want something, anything, to occur. Nothing is acceptable only if it’ll be that way all day or at least for a specific period because then I can substitute something of my choice. Nothingness for an indeterminate length of time reminds me of being a kid on a day when we’re going to the seaside and having to get up much too early and wait and wait and wait until the grown-ups get themselves organized. Really, at fifty-two, I’m done with waiting for grown-ups.

The pool’s blue and inviting but it’s too chilly to undress and, anyway, I can’t swim. Don’t ask why, without expecting a long and sadly involved story of school bullies and dunkings, just accept it and realize that there’s little I can do about it before breakfast. Oh sure, I could splash around at the shallow end but then some young girl with blond hair, blue eyes and perfect California teeth would dive in over my head and do 30 lengths at the speed of sound and I’d feel inadequate.

Breakfast seems like a good idea but I can’t face the chain restaurants around the hotel. There’ll be enough of them in the coming months and today demands something better. It’s like a man’s last drink before the gallows – the ‘One For The Road’, of which no one except me knows the origin. (Think – Tower of London, prisoner of the crown, execution and the subsequent road to Heaven).

Despite driving a couple of miles in either direction, the best place I can find is an IHOP near another Starbucks. Yes, it’s a chain, but I’m hungry so I give up thoughts of a local diner with Greek-daughter waitresses in white skirts and starched hats and give my name to the girl at the desk.

The food passing by astounds me. Even after all this time, I can’t understand how Americans can eat so much and think it all normal. It’s entirely the opposite extreme to England, where it would be seen as extravagant to ask for a second egg and sheer gluttony to suggest a third. Don’t even think about adding hashed browns, a fried steak the size of a frisbee and a stack of three pancakes.

Oh well, it’s horses for courses as they say - which probably has some relevance to acceptance of different cultures. So, with a mental sigh, I browse the menu, order a meal the size of a banquet and then go to Starbucks and consume enough caffeine to kill a horse.

10: Frame Pump

I’m in Palm Springs. The ride begins in a few days and I still need a frame pump.

I really only want the small rubber insert that fits in the end of my existing Blackburn pump but seven bike shops in a row haven't sold them, so the only option is to replace the pump. If there’s one indication that society is going down the toilet, this is it; for want of a fifty-cent part, I have to discard a thirty-dollar item.

The Palm Springs Cyclery is a good bike shop. I’ve been to it many times in the past and my last frame pump came from here. What could be easier than returning to the scene of the crime, as they say?

I enter the shop and a bright individual – let’s call him Eric – calls out, “What’s up dude?”

I’m in the right place. This isn’t the Trek shop in South Tampa, after all. Here follows a summary of the conversation...

“I need the valve insert for a frame pump for a road bike. Any chance?"

He shakes his head, grinning. "New pump is the way to go man."

No surprise. I follow Eric to an accessory stand, loaded with what I’ve come to despise; CO2 injector systems.

“No, no – a frame pump.”
“This is it. Fits right on the frame. Pumps your tires.”
“These are CO2 injectors.”
“Right.” He smiles brightly. “Gets you 100 -110 PSI. Just what you need for a road bike.”
“But each use needs a new cartridge.”
“One per flat, is all. You need to carry a few, just in case.”
“I’m riding 6,000 miles.”
“Dude…” It’s the wow factor.
“Any suggestions?”
“Try getting less flats.”

I want to correct him and say, “Fewer flats,” but now is not the time to be pedantic. I also want to point out that my control over flat-getting is minimal at best.

There’s a pause whilst I pretend to look at the injectors, wondering whether to actually buy one, but that would be like hedging my bets on the whole atheism thing and going to church.

"What about when I run out?”
“You can get ‘em anywhere. Any gas station.”
“And when I’m in the desert, 10 miles from a gas station and it’s 120 degrees?”
“Most of these are manual too.” He sounds defensive.
“They're tiny. What kind of pressure could I get from something this size?”
“About 60 PSI.”
“But didn’t we just agree that I need 100.”
“Well, 60 would get you home.”
“All 6,000 miles?”
“Right, right…” Eric nods, holding his chin, thoughtfully. “I guess you need a frame pump.”
“That’s why I’m here...”
“We don’t carry ‘em.”
“Why not?”
“No demand.”

09: Hiking

Palm Springs: Went there. Hiked. Left.

Ditto Joshua Tree:

Hiking is like smoking; no good, secondhand.

You have to be the one doing it to give a damn about how hard the day is, or how spectacular the view looks. Accounts of endlessly trudging sandy washes or fighting near-vertical climbs to distant clumps of palm trees belong in the watching-paint-dry category.

Maybe if you were mauled by a mountain lion or lost your honor to a particularly insistent sheep, then you’d have something to brag about in the pub. Otherwise, it’s just another got-the-tee-shirt story about sun and rocks and blisters - and who really cares about that?

A trainspotter, in England, is someone who’ll get up in all weathers and several hours before dawn and travel a very long way to stand on a railway bridge or a station platform. He’ll do all this to wait for the passing of a particular engine, and then note its number down in a little book.

It has become used as a derogatory term.

For example, I might start a conversation about hiking and think I am enthralling you with vivid descriptions of the intense brightness, the waves of heat from ashen rocks and the pain in my feet when I stand still to take a piss, because my socks have dug into my heel and begun to feel like sandpaper.

You’d be polite and listen as I continued about the constant fear of losing my footing on the downhill trek, about dizziness and running out of water and about there being no shade whatever to hide in an area where it regularly reaches 120 Fahrenheit.

You’d be bored, but still say nothing, when I tell you of the intense pleasure from reaching the summit at the end of a long climb or finding an unexpected picnic table in the depths of nowhere. You may be even laugh at the imagined sight of my constantly-in-motion cap, with the peek always turned towards the sun to get whatever shade it can.

But eventually you would have had enough.

Waiting for a small pause, you’d comment, with a degree of sarcasm that could be scraped off the wall, “Trainspotter.”

Even other hikers get bored. You might think they’re listening, but they’re not. At best, they’re wondering when your diatribe will cease so they can top your stories of misadventure with better ones of their own.

It’s not the hiking that’s interesting about hiking, it’s the other stuff; the attempted mugging, the food poisoning incident, the one night stand from the sleazy bar down the street – that sort of thing.

Palm Springs had Lyon’s hangout for old timers and Joshua Tree had its Saloon, a put-together-by-accident western bar, where they played karaoke to bikers and bulbous chicks on Wednesday nights. In neither place did I get robbed or poisoned and I didn’t even want to get laid, so nothing worthy of note occurred on this hiking trip.

The Crossroads Café could get a small mention, but drinking wine with outdoorsy folk and trying to look unlike someone who’s spent the last two years finding excuses to avoid the gym, doesn’t rate many points on the scorecard of life.

Oh, err - if you are in England and like collecting train numbers from, ahem, special engines, at early hours of the morning, please don’t think I attribute anything negative to the activity. Hah hah hah.

I told you this wouldn’t be a travelogue…

08: English Grille

Obviously, my mind is not what it was, for I must have forgotten pertinent facts about the décor of drinking establishments in my homeland. Lyon’s English Grille, however, reminded me of all of them.

Stained glass windows lined the hallway, polished suits of armor stood in corners, portraits of the royal family and Winston Churchill adorned every wall and Toby jugs sat behind the bar. The sight of so many familiar items almost brought a lump to my throat but, to see them all in one place felt unreal.

You’re also unlikely to find a singing pianist in an English restaurant, belting out Broadway musical favorites to a backing tape and occasionally accompanied by a weight-challenged female vocalist.

The best you might do for musical entertainment might be Radio Two from a trannie behind the counter of a local greasy café, or a pub rock band on a Saturday night.

American restaurants leave English service in the dust, always, although the English Grille strives to confuse. Perhaps it’s all in the name of authenticity.

Imagine the following scenario…

With the help of reading glasses and a borrowed magnifying glass, you finally make a choice from the ornate Gothic script and tell the bartender what you’d like. Thinking that you have ordered a meal and drinks, you sit back and wait.

Your drink will arrive.

Food orders have to be made to a waitress. All the bartender has done is to call one. Your meal has not been ordered. It would be useful if this was communicated, but…

Unaware of the situation, you will wait for perhaps a half an hour and at least another drink before inquiring, from the bartender, where your food is. She will go in search of the waitress, who will shake her head, and that’s when the whole tale of confused disorder will come to light.

Should the kitchen still be open, this is the time for them to apologize, for you to have a good laugh and get a drink on the house to put things right. Or drive to McDonald’s for a Big Mac and a DWI on the way back.

Never have I seen so many walking sticks outside of a shop, nor so many gray and white-haired folks folded into armchairs. It was easy to believe, as several chunky glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon narrowed my consciousness, that I had stumbled into the dining room of the local old people’s home.

Are You Being Served came to mind often as the servers referred to the owner as old Mr. Lyons and the manager as young Mr. Lyons. I kept looking around worrying that either a blue-rinsed Molly Sugden would appear or perhaps a mincing waiter might approach and exclaim gleefully, “I’m free.”

I have often wondered what goes through the minds of old people when they exhibit signs of starting to leave this planet, but that’s probably like wondering what a baby is thinking at the age of one.

Twice, a gentleman sitting alone in the corner would meander across the red carpet with his stick, in a direction that might have been towards the toilets. He’d get half way then appear to forget his mission and stray tangentially to end up next to me, like a moth drawn to the light. Confused, he’d shuffle his feet, bump against the bar and tap my stool as if he really didn’t expect either to be there.

“Old Mr. Robbins is loose again,” I heard the crumpled bartender whisper to the manager the first time he did it, waving furiously across the room until a cute young thing of around sixty came to guide him back.

Despite customer-catching duties and confused service, food was fast and over-filling. Isn’t that the most important thing when you’re preparing for a six thousand mile bike ride?

A most interesting place. I went there three times.

07: Hotel California

Seven-Eleven convenience stores got their name from their once unique business hours, when they opened from 7.00am until 11.00pm in an era when business had not yet learned to cater to the convenience of the masses.

Motel 6 called themselves after their first nightly rate. Hasn’t anyone told them that’s just a tad out of date? Aren’t there any standards controlling that? I’m considering going there and demanding a room for six bucks just to see what they say.

Palm Springs hotels, if they followed the trend, should be called Hilton-two-fifty or Comfort-Inn-Varies-According-To-Who-Checks-You-In. I don’t go to those…

Motel-Fifty-Nine-Ninety-Five-But-It-Really-Depends stands at the end of town past the point where the street lights end. I found it by accident several years ago and I’ve been finding by non-accident ever since. Wish they could just remember me so we don’t have to go through the lets-negotiate-the-rate fiasco.

There’s HBO, a noisy air conditioner that sounds like an ice cream van and vaguely reminds me of my childhood in England every time the compressor starts up, and the lingering smell of cleaning fluid.

A room is a room is a room. I’ll be spending the next 4 months in places just like it, except that there’ll be a bike in the corner.

Now, my stomach is forcing me to investigate (again) that worryingly authentic English Grille down the block….

06: Flying

Flying is wonderful.

I have not changed my mind about flying but, occasionally, the odds favor the unlikely. Statistics is not an exact science.

Meda picked me up, which had the double bonus of a pre-airport beer in MacDinton’s and no worries about being left to rot by a non-arriving cab.

A friendly and helpful girl got me through the self-service check-in machine, there was no line at security, no waits and no delays. My hand luggage contained no shampoo, the plane was there, I boarded last and it took off on time.

The flight suffered little turbulence and no incidents that made me wish for a parachute.

Apart from wishing the plane had video screens to watch the movie without twisting into a position that made the cheap headphones fall out of one ear, I spent the time happily watching Ink Heart and dozing, or recalling the multiple farewell lunches from work.

I even got a smile at Starbucks during the one-hour layover at Houston.

05: Airports

Flying is evil.

I hate it.

Consider this: after the waiting-for-cab trauma, check-in lines, baggage restrictions, delays and paying through the nose for anything that might be classed as an extra, the only part of the experience in the least bit interesting are the two times when you might die in a giant fireball.

Is that good? Does that make you want to rush out and buy a ticket somewhere?

The worst part is the airport.

Tampa is OK, as airports go. That isn’t saying much, since all airports are vast anti-rooms to Purgatory, but Tampa makes up for its passable acceptability with access roads evidently designed by a highly-strung, drug-crazed teenager, prone to ADD.

It’s impossible to drive there without a substantial degree of luck. Terrified, because you think you’re about to miss the only entrance, you will take an inviting but wrongly signed road which requires veering left across 4 lanes of similarly panicked traffic. You will then find yourself on the endless causeway to St Petersburg, which is long enough to run out of gas.

Despite glossy ads and colorful TV commercials playing borrowed hospital music to persuade you how friendly they are, airlines generally display all the caring of abattoir owners. Just one small interaction with the check-in clerk when anything awry occurs is enough to show that their reason for existence is to provide as little as possible.

No, you can’t take that as hand luggage.

No, you won’t get a meal.

No, you won’t get a seat assignment because we oversold the flight and will shortly be bouncing people from it so you have until the end of time to see if we will let you on.

No, you cannot occupy an exit row because you’re too short, too wide, too old or too stupid to follow meaningless instructions and open the door when the plane goes down in the ocean.

If they could clip your ears and ship you off in a cardboard box, they would.

I have arrived to find that my seat assignment, made online weeks earlier, was no more than a request. The seat has always been unavailable and I should have called ahead to beg for something better. Since I did not, I must now stare at the bulkhead for seven hours, squeezed into the center row between two over-sized people whose middles meet in my lap.

Alternatively, I could voluntarily decline that privilege and wait until midnight to go standby on a succession of connecting flights that will get me to my destination in three days. My luggage is not expected to join me for the foreseeable future. Have a nice day.

Let’s not forget security. The TSA is the general name for otherwise unemployable down-and-outs of America, who are squeezed into dark blue trousers several times too small, given an inappropriate degree of authority and allowed to loiter by the metal detectors.

Shouting about last night’s game and grinning inanely into the air, their one skill is to detect the presence of hair shampoo or nail clippers in your carry-on bag. This is presumably via telepathy, since their eyes rarely focus on the garish pictures of your underwear sliding by, unnoticed by anyone except fellow passengers.

Either of these highly dangerous items might be used to take over the plane should you develop unexpectedly resourceful terrorist tendencies mid-flight. I have accidentally taken knives, scissors and the like, but Head and Shoulders gets me every time.

Like shit slithering downhill, this attitude of customer-is-there-to-be-taunted continues with the commercial operations.

A small coffee and sandwich in an airport Starbucks – served by a head-scarved Middle-Eastern girl who speaks no English – will cost the entire contents of your wallet. Forget about a meal in a restaurant with real plates and silverware, unless you’re prepared to accept a lien on your house.

At check-in, they impress upon you how important it is to be at the gate 30 minutes before take off, usually in a tone suggesting that any tardiness will see you tied to the undercarriage and dragged down the runway.

Mindful of the time, you decline the last drink, the last coffee or properly browsing magazines and go directly there, but then they keep you waiting and waiting and waiting. Just when you can feel your eyelids crumbling to dust, they reveal that there is no aircraft.

“It had technical problems in Philadelphia,” the PA admits in a whispered crackle. Perhaps if the announcer held the phone to her head instead of upside down at arm’s length like a Star Trek communicator, her voice might rise to the level of discernable. If you’re lucky, people close to the desk will relay the message.

Technical problems? What does that mean? The toilet won’t flush - or the engine might fall off? I want to know exactly what’s wrong with it, not a vagary, then I can decide how much I want to worry.

On a scale of one to ten, a non flushing toilet causes very little aggravation; about a three, I would say. Not so the other, which I’d be tempted to call a full ten, unless it occurred when stationary, on the ground and devoid of passengers and crew, in which case it gets downgraded to an eight.

If they actually give an anticipated time, measurable by standard clocks and you foolishly accept this and go in search of refreshment, the plane will arrive moments later and immediately take off again, without you.

Anyway, don’t think me negative. I just wanted to share my opinion of airports before tomorrow’s flight to Los Angeles just in case, on the oddest of odd chances, the occasion is better than a foretaste of hell.