I like diners. I like the flow of them. I like ordering food and then having it show up. I like opening the menu and scanning over the usual - comforting in its repetition - to see if anything odd jumps out at me. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. What’s a huckleberry? (It’s like a blueberry but smaller) Why does this diner serve Elk? (Because it’s elk country) Is there a grilled cheese sandwich? Would they make one anyway? Can I guess the ethnicity of the person behind the counter? Are there enchiladas on the menu? Souvlaki? Whitefish? How’s the pie? I like ordering a diet coke and having the waitress say “Is Diet Pepsi OK?” (Yeah, it’s totally fine). I like watching the staff clean up and close around me. I’ve been in more diners than I can count, and I still look forward to each one.
Right now I’m in the Scoop-n-Steamer in Sumpter, OR, which is an old logging town that is desperately clinging to its logging roots. Every building is made of logs, and the bench I’m sitting in is made of solid wood. The motel owner warned me about some “motorcycle punks” that are roaming the town, and the diner closes at 6, or earlier if nobody shows up. The tater tots are amazing (hey, America: tots are better than fries. Seriously. Move on over) but the pie came out of a cold case (it’s OK, I forgive them). Some guy in fatigues just came in asking where he could buy an American flag, and a guy on a motorcycle wanted to rent the log cabin (he can’t, there’s a family staying there). Oh, and here comes the family from the cabin, wanting to eat. There’s a calendar next to me under the cash register turned to a picture of the arch in St. Louis.
This is apropos of nothing, but a few days back I signed up for a 10-day meditation course, and just yesterday I found out I was accepted. It runs in mid-October. They warned people in the welcome docs to practice being alone. I think I’ve got it covered.
You’ll notice I didn’t cover too many miles the last 2 days. I’m trying out something new tomorrow. I went over three peaks today, did over 3000 feet elevation gain. Sumpter is about 20 miles short of where I really wanted to stop for the day, but they had $20 beds, and Baker City just had motels. So I’m going to wake up at 5, get out by 6, and get to Baker City by 8, have breakfast, then get to the Oregon Trail interpretive center by 9 (trying not to die of dysentery as I ford the river with my oxen), and try to eventually set a record day for myself, at least 100 miles. I know I have it in me athletically, we’ll just see if I have the mental stamina to make it happen. I have to unroll my paper maps (remember those?) tonight and see what I’m likely to face east/north-east of Baker City. It looks like, if I hustle, I can get out of Oregon tomorrow, which would be pretty awesome. Oregon has been great but I feel like I’ve been here long enough to establish residency.
Are you ready for one more tortured biking-philosophy analogy? (Imagine me saying that in Hank Williams Jr.’s voice: ARE YOU READY FOR ONE MORE TORTURED BIKING-PHILOSOPHY ANALOGY??!?) One thing I’ve been struggling with is tracking change in elevation. You would think that you could just *look at the road*. But the surprising thing that I’ve learned is that that doesn’t really work. I’ve often looked at the road ahead of me and been convinced that I’m about to conquer a huge hill, only to sail right through it. At first I thought that was just a trick of the mind, but after 1100 miles what I’ve learned is that the eye doesn’t do a good job at all of detecting the change in elevation, rather only the *change in the change* in elevation. That is, when you see a hill ahead, it really means that you’re about to encounter a stretch of road that is more uphill than what you’re currently on. But if you’re plowing down a hill, that could mean that it’s just flat ahead, or even downhill, just less so. And same with going up: more than a few times I’ve been excited to get to what seemed like the top of a hill, only to discover that it’s just a little less steep. Which is demoralizing. Here’s the thing, though: life is like this, too. We’d like to think that we like things we like, and hate things we hate. But really, if you think about it, what we like is having more to like than what we had before, and what we hate is having new things to hate. If I made $100k last year, then making $100k this year is practically invisible. But if I made $20k, there’s a big ol’ downhill right ahead of me and I’m about to coast in the drops. I even went so far as to buy some fancy altimeters to try to tell what kind of progress I was making, and they work OK, but they only tell me the overall trend; they’re not so good at the minute-by-minute. In the end, the only reliable way I have of knowing whether I’m going uphill or down is to feel the push on every pedal stroke. The feet never lie; when it’s hard to pedal, it’s hard to pedal, and that’s that. And, again, life is like that. The only way to know what’s really going on *right now* is to check in with *right now*. Scanning the road ahead - on the bike or in life - doesn’t tell you as much as you might think it would. There’s now, and then there’s more now, and then there is nothing else.
Wrong state?
