One pair of shoes lost, one Nalgene bottle busted, one sense of adventure slightly dented and dismantled: the essential spirit and substance of my ride today. These are my thoughts as the chill air creeps into a poorly erected tent on a sloping ground. And silence. Silence of the mind. Nothing-to-do-ness. The sounds of automobiles intermittent, not regular; a dog barking somewhere, lost in space; crickets, etc.; the mad chatter of frogs. These are the sounds of rural North Carolina. Altogether peaceful and lulling. And yet, I’m wary. I’m not completely comfortable. Perhaps because this is my first night alone in a tent, all over again. Perhaps because I have stated reasons for wanting to do this but then have little interest in doing what I say I want to do, or accomplish. Does that make sense? I should stop this nonsense. The thing will come of itself at the end of the journey, not before. And if it doesn’t? Well, that question must wait. It can only be answered then, at the appointed time, as with all things. Day by day, hour by hour, pedal stroke by pedal stroke.

I chatted briefly with a kid at a gas station, in the community of Seminole. I was standing outside by my rig when he walked over to me and asked about my trip, about which I explained, pointing out that I carry certain things in my trailer, and other certain things in my panniers, which he referred to as “saddle bags.” He then went on to explain that he rides horses, and sometimes he and a buddy would pack their saddle bags and go off on short camping expeditions with provisions of food; and beer, whiskey or both. “Nothing like Brokeback Mountain, though,” he says as he stands there, a cigarette dangling from his fingers by his side, cowboy boots on his feet. He gave me a handshake and wished me well on my trip before driving off with what was presumably his brother and mother. I hopped back on my bike and continued on to find a place to camp for the night. The conversation, handshake, and well wishes were nice gestures, I thought.

In the past I used to poo-poo the encouragement of others (with regard to me), but I always felt my life to be easy, and so the encouragement unnecessary. This life now, so far, isn’t so easy.

Leaving.

A bagel and an espresso, and them I’m off. ‘Tis a strange sensation when I think about it; it’s been so long since the last time I began this routine, or so it seems. The issue here, of course is the thinking about it. Although, when I think, “It’s just a bike ride,” there settles over me a great calm. And a clarity of mind and purpose. This is just a bike ride. And a beautiful day for it at that. Taut, blue sky overhead speckled with bits of wispy cloud. Crisp, cool, dry weather with a bit more wind than is preferable. Yet here I am in this state of sublime calm and sustained nervousness. Do I contradict myself? I could sit in this cafe forever.

There are things in life which sometimes become missed. But there is always something else to take its place. I go now.

My train was not to depart from Columbia’s Amtrak station until 2 a.m. This unfortunately is the only available departure time for trains from Columbia to Savannah. In Savannah I had a four hour layover before departing for Charleston at 8 a.m. I was to arrive in Charleston around ten.

I had to be out of the motel by 11 a.m. There was time to kill, and a lot of it. This was probably not the most thrilling day of my life. Mainly it consisted of walking, sitting, sitting, walking, pushing my bike… Much time was spent at cafes. A ramen shop for dinner late. Leaving the ramen shop with still more time to kill I thought I might make a visit to The Whig, North America’s Greatest Dive Bar (this is according to their website). The reviews for it are pretty outstanding, actually, so it seemed a … the necessary place to grab a drink while still in town.

Pushing my bike up Gervais St. from out of nowhere, like a specter, swoops down Terrence, a rather sparkling, spectacularly ebullient character. He was just like the Christmas tree on the state house lawn: sparkling with myriad lights, his words fizzing like champagne, crackling like pop rocks. He was curious about my bike and trailer. It’s always a pleasure answering questions about my trip to those curious. So much better than the mute-mouthed stares I receive from the majority. Anyway, after answering Terrence about what I was about he excitedly went on to regale me with his ideas for cycling up and down the east coast—an item he wished to check off his bucket list. He thought this might take him a couple years, to which I told him likely not unless he was planning on making a lifestyle out of it. He seemed to think cycling across the country would take the same, so I really don’t think he had a strong grasp of time and distance in general. At the end of our little chat he wished me luck, and told me to stay safe and blessed. Often when on the road it takes very little to lift one’s attitude. Most often a kind phrase such as in this case is all that’s needed. I’ll never see him again, most likely, but that little phrase of his will always be remembered.

The Whig was only another couple of blocks up the street, and shortly after my interaction with Terrence I was locking my bike and trailer up to a railing just outside. The bar itself is located in the basement of a building. Whether it was a hotel or an office building I couldn’t say; I hardly cared, really. All I remember now was that it was a rather large concrete edifice on a street corner.

Walking inside I was greeted by a smallish, dimly lit, not-quite-yet-crowded-but-on-its-way space. It effused an aura similar to that of the basement of The Brewer’s Art and The Ottobar combined. A series of booths lined one wall nearby, and there were some tables scattered about the middle of the floor. The bar was a short way off, opposite the entrance. Way off in one corner, through a doorway, there was what looked like someone’s living room. Quite clearly it was not but, sitting at the bar as I then was, peering through the crowd, through the doorway, the room being significantly brighter than the rest of the venue and painted a putrid shade of blue-green, I felt as though I was looking into someone’s living room, but a room that was a separate reality, that was occupied by people doing things in a realm completely isolated from the one I was in. I had the sense that I was watching a movie, or had gained voyeuristic entrance into someone else’s private world. That doorway was a portal. But only that doorway, only that room, and as soon as I looked away I was brought back to the here and now. I was seated at a bar staring at an array of small animal skulls mounted to the wall over a display of bottles of various liquors and liqueurs, all surrounding a sabertooth tiger skull, the centerpiece there. Someone had attached tiny antlers to these skulls which looked like they may have come from a possum or raccoon. But perhaps they were skulls from the rare, and, some might say, mythical Jackalope. Next to a spiral staircase which appeared to go nowhere, disappearing as it was into the ceiling, was a stuffed bobcat carrying a ferret in its jaws, and a pigeon in a black cage. The whole space was suffused by an orange-red light, like a thousand lava lamps going at once. It was a bit like being in a secularist’s most pleasurable version of hell. The only pain wrought by the alcohol and that special person you mistakenly went home with on a night. Perhaps all that was missing were women dressed up as demons prodding at people with candy pitchforks. That I imagine is what the old businessman, slumping over a drink at the bar, his bald pate reflecting the orange light like it was a light bulb itself, was dreaming of. Sitting there, sipping my beer, watching him, the only question that came to my mind was, “How has he not yet fallen off his stool,” and, “will he?”

At the bar I struck up conversation with a guy—I don’t ever bother getting names usually, or I don’t write them down and consequently forget them. As is normal we talked about my trip. Guy casually told me how he had ridden his motorcycle from here, up through Maine, to Alaska and back. It took him two months to cover the 14,000 miles. Said he has a friend who did an equally wild thing by walking from San Francisco to Jacksonville. It seems strange to me that one never hears about these people until he’s off doing the same sort of thing himself. I mean, the only exposure I had to this world was via internet forums and blogs. I don’t actually know anyone, besides my friend Doug, who’s traveled in this way, and Doug’s trips were more feats of endurance than travel.

At any rate, I was off to the Amtrak station after my few beers and tacos. It’s just a small, rectangular building down a dark street. Easy enough to find despite the poor lighting, I guess. I was approached by another old guy. This one originally from the Catskills, but had been living outside of Columbia for the last twenty years. He was on his way to Florida to visit his father for his 92nd birthday this January the 7th. Fantastic. Says he’s still sharp, at least for a 92 year old, even if he isn’t very mobile anymore. Dude-man must have smoked half a pack of cigarettes while we were standing outside shooting the shit. He’s 68 and said he’d been smoking since college. Sounded like it too. I’m surprised he has any throat left. I really loved the glasses he was wearing. These enormous rectangular, metal-framed pieces. Looked like they must have come out of the 60’s or 70’s. Perhaps that was even when he acquired them. We talked for a while, on and off, about nothing in particular. Just chewed the fat like. Normally I hate pointless conversation, small talk, but he had quite an enjoyable presence to him, for the most part. Eventually though, there was no more nothing to talk about, so I went to the bathroom and he started up with a women in the seat next to him.

At last the train arrived, and once I transported my bike and trailer to the far end with the rest of the luggage and got my self settled into my seat the woman next to me, who I may or may not have woken up, decided she just had to talk, so I spent the next twenty minutes conversing with her about my trip and God knows what else. She was impressed by the trip, but then everybody is. To me it’s just riding a bike while towing a bunch of crap behind me, getting frustrated and cursing every so often. There’s nothing particularly momentous or monumental about it. Eventually she shut up and let me nod off for the rest of the ride to Savannah. Amen.

My first day in Columbia was also my first time setting foot inside a Waffle House. I was back there the following evening too; after the debacle of the day I really was not in the mood to hide in the bathroom with my camp stove cooking lentils.

I thought it a very smart move building a Waffle House in the parking lot of a motel, or a motel in the parking lot of a Waffle House, though likely the former rather than the latter, because, obviously…

Creeping slowly back to the motel with my bicycle I noticed some poor, grease streaked sucker in a black leather jacket lying next to his moped in the parking lot, a mis-arranged pile of tools at his side. Clearly something was amiss. Walking back across the parking lot to the Waffle House after my shower, the moped was parked elsewhere, presumably repaired, the guy in the leather jacket nowhere to be seen.

Sitting down at the bar I noticed the same couple that was there the previous night was still there. In the same booth. I wondered whether they had left, or if they lived there full time, paying rent for the booth, taking showers at the motel. When one has to go to work the other stays. When the other person has to go to work that person stays. If they both have to work God help Waffle House if someone is in their booth when they return. Not a bad deal, really, though the benches don’t give you much room to stretch out. I noticed too it was right next to the coffee maker—sneakily convenient.

The woman looked like an older Peggy Bundy, though with white hair instead of red, her pasty face like a heavily kneaded ball of dough sprinkled with flour, wearing lipstick of a vivid scarlet, and a sequined, sheer, white moo-moo over black stretch pants and black crocs (versatile footwear if there ever was any). Her husband looked a lot like this fellow from a mail and date service center next to the coffee roastery I used to work at in Annapolis. The same bristly, white mustache and frown on his face, like the whole world outside was repulsive and unworthy of his notice; like the coffee was bad (it certainly was not); like life was bad, and pointless in general; like there was really no reason at all to even get out of bed; like life was so full of drudgery and unhappiness that he’d just as soon be dead because when everything is registered in the same dull shade of grey every day what difference does it make. That’s Pat. This guy was Pat. He was also wearing a five panel camo hat with a slightly cheeky sideways cock to it, either out of laziness, apathy, or a sense of humor that I didn’t think that he had. Both he and his wife looked like characters out of a John Waters film. Desperate Living specifically comes to mind.

A man, the man, the one who was tinkering with his moped earlier in the parking lot came in and sat two stools down from me. He and an employee across the bar began talking about food costs. How many pieces of bacon go on a sandwich, how much cheese, ham, pecans, sauce, whatever it is. Typical corporate, managerial worries. I’m not sure why these two are conversing about it though. I suppose if that’s something being strictly tracked in coordination with shifts worked by specific individuals, one could easily be in trouble, if not fired, for being too liberal with an ingredient—one way of keeping prices so low, in addition to using very low quality ingredients. After exhausting this topic (this took very little time) they switched to debating time of employment, with one bragging of having been with Waffle House for twelve years, while the guy next to me, whose moped still won’t start I noticed, states, with some pride I might add, that he’s been with Waffle House, though not this particular Waffle House, for seventeen years. His voice is scratchy and dry, like he’s been sucking on the end the exhaust pipe of that moped of his for too long. I’m not sure what to think of that: his time at Waffle House. He clearly does not make enough even to purchase a bike that runs, and looks like the only shower he gets is when he’s outside in the pouring rain trying to get it to start. But it feeds him, and obviously, like so many other people, he doesn’t know any better about food and nutrition, and he is presumably able to pay for a place to flop, has no ambitions beyond what’s in front of him, and seems to genuinely like the people he works with. Who am I to judge? I bet if he laid off the cigarettes for a year he could afford a new moped though.

I was just finishing up my meal when Peg waltzes over to the jukebox to rock the house for us all. Country music it is! I finished up at a fortuitous moment.

Now, I mentioned in my previous post that I was to formulate a plan with which I would proceed with the rest of my trip. It goes as such. Because I was such a short distance from Charleston, and because the cost of a train ticket from Columbia to Washington D.C. cost nearly the same as one from Columbia to Savannah (a required layover), to Charleston, and then to Washington, I decided I would pay a visit to Charleston instead of heading directly home where I would rest up and take care of the business of replacing certain parts that need and/or want replacing on my bicycle. Needless to say I am now in Maryland, where I am from, and have been for some time (a month, to be specific). I plan on taking a train back to Columbia in March, picking up where I left off. There is still, perhaps, some for me to write about: my time, and impressions of Charleston for one, the train trip, etc. Once I get through all that it may be some time before another blog post appears (not that they show up with much regularity, even with me being “home” and working minimal hours anyway).