Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1. No, I haven't used my tent and sleeping bag yet, not for their ordinary purpose,
anyway, and yes, I could probably ship them home now and save myself a little weight
on the back of the bike. But they're earning their keep. As anyone who has suffered from
acid reflux will tell you, you should sleep at an incline, with your head and chest higher
than your stomach, so the offending acid has to fight gravity, in the manner of salmon
swimming upstream to spawn. To effect this, each night I've been shoving my tent and
sleeping bag under the mattress. It helps. I sleep through the night without coughing.
2. No, I don't wear headphones to listen to music when I'm riding. Now and then, on
a quiet road, especially when I'm climbing, I'll turn on some music on the iPhone moun-
ted on my handlebars—usually the Beatles or my current favorite country music singer,
Trisha Yearwood—to keep me company uphill. But you need to be able to hear cars ap-
proaching behind you, and anyway, when you're outdoors it seems silly to shut out the
outdoors. I do find myself singing to myself. Perhaps someone out there has a theory for
why certain songs repeat themselves in your head in certain situations, as if your brain
were equipped with its own idiosyncratic playlist. For whatever reason—maybe because
the beats conform to my pedal strokes—the same tunes repeat themselves and have been
accompanying me up hills for more than two thousand miles: “Hang On, Sloopy,” “Ja-
maica Farewell” (that's the Harry Belafonte classic in which he has to leave a little girl in
Kingston town), and a Mozart horn concerto (I forget which one). I have no explanation
for the seeming randomness of this.
3. Yes, I've been chased by a few dogs. No harm done (to dog or man). I don't carry
mace or onion spray or any of the other weapons I've been advised to keep handy. My
strategy? I adopted one reader's advice and, shaking a finger at the barking pursuer, I
declare firmly: “Go home!” Seems to work.
4. People ask what I'm reading as though I've got a lot of lonely hours to pass at night.
I wish I could say I was reading a lot, but I'm not. I try to keep up with the
Times
,
and wherever I am I enjoy reading the local paper. But in the evenings I'm generally too
tired to do much besides eat dinner and check in on
SportsCenter
. I did finish
Comedy in
a Minor Key
, a short, gripping Holocaust novel about a couple who hide a Jew in their
home and must dispose of his body when he dies, by the Dutch writer Hans Keilson, who
died himself recently at a hundred and one.
5. So many people have asked about the specifics of my route that I herewith offer a
day-by-day log of where I've been. (I haven't indicated rest days. Mileage figures are ac-
cording to my odometer, and yes, a handful of times I accepted rides in pickups—to get
