A Mapless Journey

9/12/2007

Day five of Zen.

The night of day four I decided I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. I had been taking Zen on routes that I normally ride but I wanted to explore some new territory with him.

Day five....

I hauled my body out of bed once again thinking "What kind of pain I can inflict on Zen today?" Skinny Racer Boy came to mind, he knows his routes, who better to call for a "perfect ride".

Zen awakens from the dead and finds me sitting in the kitchen on the phone with paper and pen in hand and computer to the side. He listens and realizes I am preparing another day of torture.

Zen grabs a cup of coffee and sits down all the time watching me write down one road after another and scanning the computer. He hears me say, "What road again?" over and over again. I repeated routes back to Skinny Racer Boy making sure I had them correct. Then SRB started spouting out different roads messing around and changing already prepared routes. Before you know it I had about four possible planned for the day. The look of horror in Zen's face was priceless. Here I sat with hand written routes and having no clue which one I would take of the four.

You must understand, Zen doesn't work this way nor does he like to. He is a typical Type-A personality, planner, timer, etc. Although I too am Type-A I like to do things on the spur of the moment and much less rigid.

This was pre-breakfast and Zen doesn't operate well without food so I thought that look of fear would be taken care of once his stomach was filled. I was wrong. He continued to watch me write four different map less routes. Yes I said MAP LESS! I then made copies so Zen could have a "map" too.

I am not a fool, I did look at a real map on the computer to see if the coincided with the hand written "maps". I finished and said done! We are going to Wisconsin today. Zen said cool and then asked if I had been there before. I said nope. :) He then said do we know where we are going? I responded "Nope!" :) That look of horror reappeared. Oh it was going to be a beautiful day indeed!

Now, I didn't only not know where we were going on the bike ride, I didn't know how to get to the town where we were going to start the ride. At least Google could help me with that one. I was excited. I love little "journeys".

Zen goes downstairs to dress and I quickly packed the car in my PJ's. He comes upstairs to find me still not dressed to ride but in shock that the car was packed and ready to go. Even Scarlet was in the car. His mouth dropped! I quickly got dressed and we were off.

I get just to the outskirts of town and pulled out a hand written map to direct us to our destination. I handed it to Zen and he rolls his eyes. I told him to shut up and read. Yes a beautiful day indeed.

We somehow arrived in Alma Wisconsin. The bluffs were all around. It was beautiful. The wind was only slightly blowing and the sun was out. It was perfect riding weather.

We both had to go to the bathroom before we got on the bike. We entered the small town cafe and was immediately drowned with eyes all around. We must have looked like aliens in our lycra. With such great land all around had they really never seen a cyclist?

We got a good chuckle out of the cafe incident and hit the road. Well before we hit the road Zen was adamant that we were supposed to go the other direction, I knew otherwise, at least I had hoped. The journey had just begun. :D

Down the road we go. We knew we were in for some pain. You don't ride in and out of the bluffs without pain but I just didn't realize how quickly the pain would begin. We made it maybe a 10th of a mile down the road and I see a truck turn left, I witnessed it going straight UP a hill. I thought to myself, "Please God don't let that be our road." Sure enough, I stuck out my arm and we turned left. I heard a murmur behind me "Ah man this is gonna hurt!" Poor poor Zen. (As if Mountain Boy had ANY right to talk about pain after what he did to me in July. )

We turn and head up the hill at a nice speed of stall. I hadn't gone climbing since July, I knew I was in trouble. I had to prove to MT Boy that I hadn't lost my touch. I started pedaling with Zen behind. I don't know how far I had gone but I was losing it. I thought all the time Zen was right behind so I yelled out STOPPING!!! I stopped and hung my body over my handlebars then I stood up and turned around. I was alone. Where was Zen?

All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind, did he fall, did he have a heart attack, did he get a flat. I debated turning around to go find him but I REALLY did NOT want to go back down, so I waited and waited and waited. I started getting worried but around the bend he came. Mtb was out of the saddle and "walked" right by saying, "What's wrong Pinky, got a problem?" What a BRAT!

We crested that hill and once we both got our breath back we started cracking up. Yes a beautiful day indeed!

Shortly after the cute little flat we had to go back down. I was warned that there might be some gravel to descend on. I really down played this gravel descent in my mind until I saw it. It wasn't gravel nor was it sand. It was a steep descent of freshly graded sand and gravel. Mountain Boy got a bit cocky because he knew he was going to kick my ass here. I don't like descending and I really don't like riding on sand or gravel on a flat let alone this curving steep descent.

We started down. It wasn't long before Zen was out of my sight. I started to panic and I stopped, then rode, then stopped, then rode. I didn't know what to do. He decided to wait for me and when he saw me he saw that I was off my bike walking it. He yelled at me to get back on the bike and ride. My stubborn self told him where to go but I eventually obeyed. He told me to ride faster and that would help with controlling my bike. I decided to leave one foot unclipped so if I fell I was a least prepared. I also knew if I fell it would be a "soft" landing.

I met Zen at the bottom. It was a T-intersection. My head was all over the place. Here we were, we had climbed a steep hill and descended a sandy one and there was one big problem, my "map" didn't have a T-intersection! What do I do? I refused to go back up and I didn't know which way to go so I settled on going left. Zen yells back at me "Which way girlie"? I answered "Left!" with a muttered "I think". He looks down at his map and said, "There isn't a T-intersection so are you sure?" The BRAT was already ahead of me. I shouldn't have given him a map. He knew I had NO CLUE where we were going. BRAT! I looked at him with confidence saying we needed to go left, I was positive it was left. He just gave me a look with an added cocky comment "Please try to steer us away from sandy roads will ya?" BRAT! (as if I knew what we were going to be riding on, he knew that too!)

I started to ride after him and then I was hit with the realization of what we were in for, we had no map and were lost in the middle of nowhere WI. A huge burst of laughter came out of me. Before I knew it I had spewed Gatorade all over my shoes, my handle bars and out my nose. Brat witnessed this and just about fell off his bike.

The journey had just begun. We continued on my route, which was correct by the way, and had a blast. One oddity though, we got stuck in a time warp. We went past the town of "Tell" about six times. What's up with that? At this time I don't think I had ever laughed so hard.

The ride continued with a slight panic of losing daylight. What else is new, Zen was riding with me. There was only some debate to where we were going. More so a debate which way would be the fastest. Zen was completely happy taking the "flat" route back, I on the other hand wanted to climb. So guess which way we went. My way of course. I was the one with the "MAP"!

We wiggled and waggled our way through the bluffs of WI and took the flat road along the Mississippi. It was a great pace line road. We each took our pull into the wonderful head winds and ended back at our original destination, Alma, WI.

One more trip into the cafe bathroom and we packed up. I started the car but couldn't drive. I went into hysterics. I have never had a better ride in my life!

Moral of the story, one does not need a map to get around, one just needs Gatorade!

Thanks dude for trusting in me.