Day -7 to Day Zero

We eat and breathe bike camp.

With only a stencil of what our next nine weeks will look like, or how they will operate (as a whole or in parts), we are eager volunteers- dreaming of an open road we trust will one day spread before us.

I sincerely doubt painting A frames through a long day of high winds and early summer heat in a dusty parking lot was what any of us had in mind when we volunteered ourselves for this adventure. Even less had we anticipated sanitizing the scores of Rubbermaid products, the water filtrates and tablecloths, the prolific waxing, scrubbing, stocking, unpacking, restocking, checking, sidestepping, and microcosmic managed bicycle boot camp.

We are not guides- we are vagabonds, retirees, intrepid dreamers, chasers, runaways, tourists, and explorers; each of us now posing as janitors, and circus masters.


The Routine:

-Wake at the crow call of dawn. The sun has already broke over the Eastern barn tops; my tent is starting to sweat.
-Walk barefoot through ankle grass down to the lakeside.
-Gaze wide minded at the mornings orange and crimson cloud cover.
-Pee across the ankle grass and wait for the breeze, the drizzle, the torrent, tornado warning, and clouds to break again; the five minute weather features of a Minnesota Summer.
-Stretch out my Thermaest Fatigue and rouse Bodichitta while I think of you.
-Check the scent retention of my poly-pro for that dead animal scent.
-Ride my spankin’ new Wind Horse though emerald fields of grain, past the rotting mill buildings, the shaggy weeds and rail crossings, through the quaint moments of early morning in the small town, down to the two dollar Maxwell House coffee shop gussied like my Great Aunt Amelia’s home (they are the only wi-fi station in town and rock Springsteen, The Cars, and Whitesnake from 7:30-4:30 everyday).
-Breakfast is a three-dollar bowl of Quaker Oats (about 2/3rd’s of a cup), a ramekin of brown sugar, another of raisins, a few drips of half/half, the streaming headlines, and I’m out the door.
-On through downtown Cannon Falls to Cycle America’s HQ. Giant “Corn Crawlers” parade down the street; these two story bowlegged fertilizing/shucker beasts rumble though town breaking conversation and asphalt as they go.
-This happens every morning for five days and I get the feeling it could happen for a lifetime is I were to open a PO box here in Cannon.