pedadidact

2010 March 5 - Day 20
Sol Duc Campground > Bear Creek Campground
Distance Biked: 25 miles

If nothing else was certain, by this point I had learned an early start was necessary to cover twenty-five or thirty-five miles and still have time to scout and set a campground, gather water, and cook before cold and dark clamped down. Granted, getting up early in the winter means leaving the fond caresses of one's sleeping bag for the icicle fingers of a frigid morning. Not withstanding, I was now more loathe to lose the best riding hours and to fight sunset each day looking for camp than to suffer cold for an hour. And so it was that I woke before dawn to pray and read scriptures (inside of my sleeping bag) before baring my sunrise grimace into the duties of the day.



Despite the immense frustration and pain of uncloathed hands - for I still had no gloves, making fingers too numb to be dexterous and too sensitive to be forceful - I managed to break and be off within an hour of stepping out. The initial pull of the bicycle was marked by pronounced difficulty, to the point that I questioned whether the brakes had shifted and were rubbing the rims. Or was it a fender scraping the tire? Perhaps the trailer axles had become clogged with mud? All tests came back negative so that I was forced to conclude my legs had merely gone on strike for the morning.

To make matters worse, while peeling off my rain jacket the bicycle toppled, disconnecting the mirror and sending it down the shoulder. This escaped my notice until some way down the road. With the bark of an Ahab or Captain Thompson, I spun the helm to port, emotionally convinced a mutiny was afloat on my brig. A hunt ensued for the thankless deserter. To think, the mirror of all mates! One with whom I related eye to eye and of which I saw so much in common. Such untuned behavior might be expected of the Japanese bell, to take one knock and fly off the handle, as it were. Never had it entered my estimations that a mirror could be so egotistically absorbed, looking only upon his own person! From whom did he acquire such manners of self interest? When at last I found him skulking in the gutter, he was a wet and sorry sight. Truly, I would have been more angry had he not stared back at me in such a - dare I say - familiar way; almost as if, in him I saw something of myself. Such is the nature of compassion.

But really, that instant I was struck with an awareness of how silly this angst was. Huffing and becoming discouraged over nothing at all! What should it matter if I was slow and sore? I am healthy and blessed with limbs, laden with food and freedoms! A moment of prayer was held for God to impart more grace, the stuff of common life which oils normal activities giving freedom and freshness to every movement. Grace which must have helped Paul's old, educated hands bind tent cloth with pride; which must have helped Jesus bend low to the burdens of his trade as a twenty-five year-old blue collar man.


Gathering water from Sol Duc

Six miles on, at a table beside the Sol Duc river I quickly prepared breakfast and repacked. A certain laxity towards the mouth of a fuel canister resulted in the bottle spitting nearly its whole contents onto my gear. Thankfully all of it was in water-tight bags; but the loss of a week's fuel was still sharp. It might have been worse, though; I could have been tossing lit matches over my shoulder as I rode.

Regardless of these and other early setbacks I was striking good time by noon, with twenty-three miles already down. At mile-marker 211 I called a friend and chatted for a bit. Several messages were also left on my phone. These I listened to several times as much for society as to decipher words through badly garbled interference. Out of the electrical storm I was able to extract that a dear friend was doing very well, Spring-time in her soul, as she said, thereby pulling back the clouds over my own area for a bit.



Not six miles farther and I came to Bear Creek, population ten, nine of which were likely camped in RVs for the weekend. The adjoining ground is public land and free-use for up to seven days. This was a great boon and not a bad location, either. Relatively private sites surrounded by firs. To the south and beneath a steep ravine, the Sol Duc river stretches her arms to yawn past. So fine a place it was, I decided, that its banks would do for reading several more chapters of Two Years. The passage had just come where Dana recounts of a man whose unusual misfortunes and quirks had landed him in the most remote places and circumstances,

His is one of those cases which is more numerous than those suppose who have never lived anywhere but in their own homes, have never walked but in one line from their cradle to their graves. We must come down from our heights and leave our straight paths to visit the byways and low places of life if we would learn truths by strong contrasts, and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought among our fellow creatures by accident, hardship, or vice.

To this I did concur, being now confronted in my journey with many such characters. Wild Bill in Port Angeles, Jim and the blaggart Dave in Elwha; Jonathan who bought me rice and Adam who giddily offered pot and beer in Sequim Bay; figures I might not have crossed in the ordinary stripe of Oceanside life.



After setting camp in order I lay in for an evening of late reading with Vos. I soon found, however, more interest in examining a long line of our alphabet's final consonant. To be sure, none tucks a bed more comfortably than ones mother, except for a good old book and no deadlines.

"Good night, Mary Ellen."
"Good night, John Boy."
"Good night, Geerhardus."