By: Jacob 

   We woke up to flurries outside the town of Lincoln, MT.  Our streak of big clear Montana skies was broken by the slushy accumulation on top of the endless fences sprawling along the countryside.  These fences are the only thing larger than the skies in this country, sprawling out like the suburbs of Los Angeles, in their own subtly insidious manner. 

       We have enjoyed the luxury of camping on the side of the road for a good 3000 miles, and have now found ourselves caged in by fences all around us.  Finding a campsite can become an ordeal for tired bodies hosting a healthy respect for Montanan property rights.  Our efforts to avoid any conflicts over the matter has reached hours of exhaustive post-sunset riding.

     Our time in Lincoln was uneventful except for the conversation with a crystal miner/logger in a tired old trucker café.  Every time he mentioned crystals his eyes lit up as if they were gems transferring the entire light spectrum wherever they looked. And his smile shone with the brilliance of freshly polished opals.  He proudly plopped down a small bag of crystals he just found pokin’ around in the last two weeks. He told us how he’s been in the area for over 13 years before he found his salvation searching through old mine tailin’s to uncover the undiscovered treasures of semi-precious rocks of insignificant monetary value.  He don’t give a hoot if they ain’t worth nothin’ to nobody but himself, but he’s sure pleased as a peach to find a quartz crystal that’s been around since the dinosaurs.  His enthusiasm practically had me trading in my bike for a pick and shovel.  After receiving the last glitter of his presence, he offered us one of them small crystals in the bag if we like as we headed out the door.

      This was to be our first continental divide crossing in the United States, one of about 29 to come, weather permitting.   We approached with little comfort as the voice of the waitress settled in our stomachs claiming they were to expect two-three feet of snow.  In fact, it settled in my stomach about as well as the corned beef hash and biscuits n’ gravy, which seemed to contort my bowels into shapes unintended by nature outside of a truck stop.  The elevation profile of the divide crossing on the map looked nearly vertical, and the narrative claiming that the super steep 4.4 mile uphill might warrant a longer, but more reasonable detour. 

      The hill starts out with a vengeance, rutted by four wheelers that plowed the path into narrow channels. Stripped even further by the erosion of time, washing the dirt down, leaving behind loose rocks and unearthed roots to complicate our ascent.  Snow was falling lightly, melting into the developing streams gurgling down our trail. 

      As we began to rise in elevation, the snow began sticking more and more, decorating the trees with a light frosting and accenting the landscape with a touch of Jack Frost who molested the furious yellow leaves into depressed foliage drooping with the weight of the snow.  Streams spilled onto the trail, flooding it with icy patches and muddy bogs that would reach its grimy hands into our bike’s components like a monkey wrench.  The pulleys on our rear derailleur would instantly seize after being splashed by the slushy water.

       We struggled up the hills, watching our bike computers fluctuate between 0 and 2 miles per hour.  Cautiously cycling up, delicately balancing our weight to avoid the rear tire from spinning out and forcing us to re-mount our ride.  The second I step down, the cleats on my shoes get caked with snow making it difficult to re-clip into the pedals.  Only through a precarious maneuver involving hitting my shoes against the frame while simultaneously pedaling the bike to keep momentum was I able to get going again.  Most cyclists have experienced the difficulty of getting their feet into rat-traps or clip-ins on a real steep incline, it can be quite frustrating. 

     After a good two and a half hours, we reached the top of the divide.  We tallied a grand total of 4.5 miles for about 3 hours of the most laborious cycling we’ve ever encountered.  In light of victory, we took some quick snapshots to document the insanity of the event and see a huge storm brewing on the horizon, with the wind headed straight towards us.  Fearing the 2-3 feet of snow predicted and the total loss of sensation in my feet, we quickly descended.  We still had two more divide crossings to cover before we could refill our dwindling food supplies in Helena, MT.  It was surely not going to be an easy go.       

 When we arrived in Whitefish, the  post office was overflowing with gifts, so many in fact, that we could barely fit them on our bikes to ride away.  Spurred by the joy of chocolate cookies, goji berries and bike parts, l decided to fufill my promise to Mr. Murph and post a mail drop list. So here it is, in slightly primitive form 

Our pace is too random to accurately predict our whereabouts, but we will keep it up dated, and the address should remain valid. 

if you are inspired to send us things, you should address them as follows:

 General Delivery 

 Hold for (Reciepient’s Legal Name) (Address listed below) 

oh — and even though it spoils the surprise — you need to tell us you are sending something, so we go to the post office. 

We are currently in Montana 

  We are about 4 days from Butte,

         Weather affects the future pace.

wyoming 

colorado 

, Steamboat Spgs, CO 80487 

new mexico 

165, Abiquiu, NM 87510  6358 Main St, Cuba, NM 87013 

, Grants, NM 87020  MM 56 N HWY 60 pie town NM 8727  

Have a lot of difficulty using this public computer with all of it’s user restrictions.  Was able to modify a few pictures to give you a view of our path through Montana, until I can ge the gallery updated.

By Jacob:   

    I am not a very mathematical person. In grade school I used to loathe the endless stream of quadratic equations we were supposed to float on each night for homework. As an academic at UCSC, I did my very best to avoid the river of numbers in the science degrees and opted for a much less traveled route of liberal arts, breaching into the absurd with a bachelor’s degree in Subculture Studies.
   I have acquired a newfound interest in numbers, inspired by my omnipotent companion, the CatEye Enduro 8. My fixation on the computer, has at times, and to no avail, forced me to close its eyes with a piece of tape. It seems determined and quite adept at ruling my life.
   If we’ve run out of food and are 15 miles from town, there is no way that I can satisfy my appetite unless the computer decided to manipulate the odometer reading 15 miles. Climbing a “super steep 4.4 mile hill” my exhaustion will find no rest until the Cateye says that we in fact achieved those precious miles. And so, when the computer is gracious enough to grant me the miles that bring about a genuine change in my quality of life, I am ever so appreciative. My reverence is sometimes displayed with a picture of the computer when it grants me various milestones, other times it has been displayed by a triumphant exclamation lost to the wilderness.
   These numbers that I have spent so much time avoiding in my life, are now essentially, controlling it. I watch the numbers with keen interest, eager for them to tell me something. Am I finally nearing the summit of the pass? Are we entering a new state? I don’t think that I’ve ever operated on the illusion that I was in control of the beast, especially considering that I wasn’t even able to command it to display miles per hour while I helplessly watched myself traveling by rate of kilometers, earlier in this journey.
   I believe my relationship with the Cateye has evolved into a relatively agreeable situation. I look for signs of communication above and beyond it’s normal LCD display. There are moments when It is trying to tell me something, and I believe it occurs within the patterns. Milestones to be noticed, whether it is 1000.0 miles, or a flush of numbers 1234.5. These are the times when the computer has a message, but it is up to me to pay attention to it.
   As if I was on a losing streak in a poker game, I was eagerly awaiting the flush. I missed every one so far, and I was only about 6 miles away from 3456.7 miles. I was sure that this was going to be a victorious moment. We were enjoying the view about a mile from the summit of one particularly arduous 6.6 mile hill. I asked my companions to remind me to check out my computer in 6 miles so that I wouldn’t miss out on my moment of triumph. They feigned some degree of deference in my request but clearly did not share the same passion in the pattern of numbers. I thought to myself that they must not have enjoyed math when they were younger.
   We were headed to Seely Lake and covered some of the most amazing wilderness. We turned off of wide logging roads and onto overgrown single-track, bivouacking our bikes through tall grass and sporadic shrubbery. Winding along creeks and mountainsides. Some sections afforded a relaxing ride, like a breeze through the countryside, while others commanded a very technical and exhaustive approach as we maneuvered our way around large boulders, down big drops, and up steep rocky terrain. There were times when we even managed to enjoy the company of our oversized downhill tires, that slowed us down exponentially. 

   After cresting the 6+ mile hill, we saw behind us an incredible valley spanning into the horizon, framed by the Rocky Mountains on all sides. We could almost see where we began our ride earlier that morning and marveled at the exquisite transformation of perspective. In front of us, lay another valley of equal splendor, ripping and twisting its way along the earth and into the unknown. I relished the thought that later that evening, I will be sitting at camp and will be able to see the ridge we came down, forgetting about the valley we passed and thinking about the one ahead.
   The descent was a rough ATV trail, deeply rutted and heavily overgrown with Pine trees. It hugged the mountainside tightly in some places and spilled itself down the hill in others, where landslides broke the intimacy of the path and hill. There remained a vague imprint of the vehicles that passed through the area decades ago. Two faint lines, at best, split down the middle by a constant array of newly formed trees. The descent required you to change lanes, depending on the terrain, pulling your bike into the right lane if the trees grew too heavy on the left. Or you might have to zigzag your way in between the two if the drops were a bit to large for a long touring bike.
   The branches would lash at your arms and hands as you flew past them, as if they were exclaiming how hard they had to work to get where they were, and that they were not going to let some fool bicyclists break any of their branches. The experience was far too exhilarating to pay attention to my bike computer, whose odometer was winding it’s way towards the “flush.” Any glance down at the machine would certainly break the concentration and send you crashing to the ground. We swept down that valley like water that finally broke the dam that had held it back all those years. When you are bike touring, you do not take downhills lightly, they are like freedom, redeeming your extensive efforts of climbing to the top of the pass. I kept coming up on the tail of the other two and stopping briefly enough so I could enjoy the hill at full speed.
   With confidence, I took the hill as if I wasn’t on a fully-loaded Xtracycle. My fork would bottom out and violently rub the tire against my fender. After a decent hit, I’d shake my head to restore some clarity to the trail and keep maneuvering myself in between the two lanes. While I was paying attention to the gnarled roots jetting out from the surface, the loose boulders on the trail, and the tree lashing out at me, my computer was slowly winding it’s way up. It was probably at 3456.6 by now.
   The trees were offering an increasingly narrow path, whipping at me with rising force. I could feel them beginning to tug at me, sensing their anger that I was so carelessly drifting through their world. Suddenly, a branch reached out and savagely took hold of my super wide handlebar, pulling the wheel sharply to the left, stopping the motion of the bike, and propelling me into the air.
   I landed on my head, a surge of pain flushed through my spine and neck, celebrated briefly by an array of stars in my vision. I could almost see myself from above, helplessly grinding my way through the loose rocks, as if a wave took ahold of me and was spinning me in’s currents with unrelenting fury. When I watched the head-sized chunks of granite come inches from my face, I could only help but think of one thing: that I was glad to have my helmet on.
   I was released from the torments of motion and gravity as quickly as I was succumbed to them. My head felt fine, thanks to the helmet. The surge of pain found its way out of my spine, and hoping that it was not merely adrenaline induced opioids easing my suffering, I got up. My knee had a horrible gash in it. The kind where part of it looks like hamburger meat and the other part looks like a pathetic flap of skin, exposing the white fatty underside. I attempted to wipe off some of the blood but found it futile. My right middle finger felt like it had been ripped out of it’s socket and replaced at an odd angle, rendering it useless. I groaned and moaned to help alleviate my pain through some sort of vocal release, but found it of no use.

   When you are thirty miles from any signs of civilization and your friends are a thousand feet below you, there is little help that can be offered. I did my best to pick up my bike and limp our way along the path, where I could soon whine with an audience to hear. I couldn’t pull my rear brake because of my finger, which made the downhill a little trickier and my front fork was blown, forcing me to lean forward a couple more inches.

   As I began the painful descent, I looked at my Cateye for some reassurance. I had completely forgotten about the pattern of numbers that I was so eagerly expecting. The odometer read 3456.8. The agony swelled. I had missed the moment again. It won’t happen for another 1000+ miles. I was furious. Then I became slightly paranoid, heading the words of Kurt Cobaine, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.” Was the computer upset that I was neglecting it? Was this a sign or some form of communication from the omnipotent icon on my bicycle. I couldn’t tell whether it was merely hysteria inducing these paranoid delusions or not. It just seemed too coincidental.
   Before I even put a band-aid un my leg. I made sure to apply a fresh strip of tape, covering the LCD screen

 By: Jacob 

    The hospitality of Whitefish, MT helps restore one’s virtuous sense of humanity.  One of the most beautiful railroad towns I’ve ever encountered, coupled with a healthy reverence for the outdoors (not to mention some amazing coffee) gives this place a very welcoming character. 

     SealLine was kind enough to send me new dry bags to an outdoor store called The White Room.  Kyle & Tim held my attention for a while as we talked about adventures, etc.  Ran into a girl named Hillary, who was lively and exciting, bursting with conversation. I ran into her an hour or so later at the local coffee store where she claimed that I wasn’t going to have to pay for anything while I was there.  As a token of truth, I was handed a giant chocolate cookie and ushered to fill up my cup. 

       Goat and Sean arrived, saw the smile on my face and gave me a look of concern, as if they were worried I had drank too much coffee. Hillary stepped over and invited us to stay at her house and drew up directions, then tried to influence us to take her car, hang out on her couches, take showers, and come back later for the music.  We attempted to decipher her comment in regards to the shower.  We did not want to drive to her house, nor did we want to ride for 30 minutes to take a shower and ride back.  All of us knew we needed to take a shower, but were quite unsure of the specific urgency. After being kicked out of an Ecafe in Banff because we smelled bad, we were more sensitive to our social presence.  And so…the conclusion was that she was just being kind and understanding of travellin’ folk and we did not rush to take a shower. 

     After a late night of beating Sean at pool (Truth be told: I am HORRIBLE at the game, but always manage to win when Sean scratches on the 8 ball) and listening to some good ol’ twangy soft rock cover music. We made our journey to Hillary’s distant house, arriving long after she had gone to bed.  A note welcomed us to make the home our own, and mentioned that she would not be there when we woke up. 

     We enjoyed the luxuries of having running water and a full selection of cooking utensils.  We lounged on the couch and listened to music and we took the well-needed shower. Her presence in the house seemed impossible, incongruous at best.  It was one of the creepiest residences I’ve ever encountered. 

       Out in the middle of back roads Montana.  A two bedroom house overwhelmed by an unkempt lawn and chain link fence sat sourly, like a cow pie drying in the tall grass.  Paint past peeling on walls scoured by the elements draped loosely over the structure.  Door frames were unaligned and despite being a beautifully sunny day, very little light found its way inside.  To sum things up, it looked like a nice quaint little house for a chainsaw massacre.  We couldn’t bring ourselves to believe that our young 5’ tall benefactor had it in her.  And we got the feeling that she rarely spent much time there as we biked back into town. 

      We met Annie, who had bike-toured across the states and invited us to stay at her place on the lake.  She checked in with her housemate and sent us to her humble abode.  We arrived to find a humungous St. Bernard bellowing a most disheartening bark worthy of a creature its size.  “I hope you’ve eaten already, little puppy.” I said cautiously, easing myself behind my bike to possibly delay the pain the dog was ready to inflict. 

   “Oh don’t worry about him, he’s all bark.” The owner claimed.  I noticed that his head was bigger than my waist and the owner did not answer my question.  A tint of fear remained that maybe he was tired of spending so much money on dog food and considered couchsurfers worthy supper for his little pooch. 

           A bike traveler learns to fear those beasts that can appear out of nowhere.  You might be idling along admiring a quaint country cottage until you hear a soft pitter patter of pawsteps quickly engage into a fierce roar as it begins the chase, defending its property.  Even rather small dogs are able to jump out in such a way to cause a good amount of fright. 

     Our bikes found a suitable parking place and we entered a beautiful 3 story house overlooking a nearby golf course and lake.  A dozen people were hanging out, eager to hear about our trip and ensure that we had something to drink.  Before we could even finish our first, we felt like we were at home, in the company of old friends.  The kindness of the people we met that evening was nothing short of magical. 

    The girl Annie who originally invited us over was not even there.  During our stay, we saw her a few times, for very brief moments.  After we got our bikes fixed up we hung around for the rest of the day, with the entire house to ourselves. The only two people living there were busy working, all day and out all night.  We conspired to take over their house, reside in the bottom floor just to see how long we could before they even noticed.  

     We planned to depart on Monday, but a few last minute bike repairs kept us in town until quite late.  We put downhill tires on our bikes for better traction.  My drivetrain was blown after the first 3300 miles and needed a new cassette and gears.  Somehow Sean and Goat managed to get off with just a new chain and cassette.  Our monster tires were too wide and rubbed against the chain. Goat tinkered away with it, took away a gear and offset the cassette enough to barely allow it clearance. I was now riding a mean, 7 speed downhill machine…across the country? 

      I wish I could say the tuned up bike felt like a million bucks, but with the new knobby downhill tires, it felt like an exercise bike set to the tune of Jazzercise 8.  Even on smooth, flat pavement it required an overwhelming amount of force to get the wheels turning. I would estimate that on a surface I normally would go 15 mph easy, I was struggling to reach 9 or 10.  

     After re-supplying at the grocery store we were considering whether we should get as far out of town as possible, or wait until morning.  Our decision was easy after James enticed us to camp out on his property.  The man oozed kindness from his every being. He lived in a small cabin and taught PE to elementary kids a few days a week and worked on authoring a book the rest of the time.  Beautiful drawings were hanging around the room intended for his story.  

     “You guys need anything for your trip?” He asked gently. 

     “Actually, the one thing that we’ve needed has been a spatula.” I replied, somewhat lost in my thoughts. 

      Without hesitation he gave us a beautifully handcrafted spatula that he had made out of beech wood. 

      After chatting late into the night, we set up our campsite under a beautiful star-filled sky. 

      As the sun was making it’s appearance, so were the neighborhood dogs, who insisted on barking until we got up, as if we were sleeping on the exact place they wanted to lay among the 15 acres of property they owned.  We enjoyed making a meal on a real stove, with cast-iron pans.  Graciously received the pile of books he left for us on his table and hit the trail. 

        Towns like Whitefish are real difficult to leave. The generosity and hospitality of everybody we met was far above any reasonable expectation.  It’s incredible what a difference a little kindness can make in a traveler’s world.  We’ve been blessed countless times by folks who go out of their way to help us out.  If we were to mention kind gestures of the folks we meet along the way, there would be no room in the travelogue for anything else.  I go to sleep at night, thinking that my day was just like the movie Waking Life, where the main character meets people who all live by a different philosophy of life.  Everybody has some amazing stories and experiences to share, you just have to be in a position to actually listen to what they say.  It is amazing to have the opportunity to listen. 

By Sean:

    If lumber still commands a reasonably lucrative position in the world economy twenty years from now the town of Sparwood in southern B.C. might be revitalized by the harvesting of the tree farms planted by the lumber companies of yesterday. As it is today, the self proclaimed ‘Gateway to B.C.’ relies heavily on the assumption that small populations of other nearby towns feel the urge to escape their habitats on the weekends and since gasoline costs nearly five dollars a gallon, the nearer attractions prove more magnetic. Several old buildings in Sparwood display colorful murals depicting the history and contemporary life of the town, but what really sets Sparwood apart from any other small town, is its possession of the ‘worlds largest truck’. The dump truck is a virtual juggernaut painted bright green to impress an eco-friendly facade; it could pulverize several acres of thick forest under its massive six ton wheels into Turkish coffee sized grounds while adroitly maneuvering around a depression era film actress in a three minute Foxtrot. In the shadow of this retired beast the bike trio ate a heavy meal of chicken, sausage, eggs, and dozens of tiny salt packages swiped from the unsuspecting family food stand. Strong gusts of wind ripped through the valley between the dump truck and the visitor center, and sure enough, it being a Sunday, loads of Canadian tourists were timidly disembarking from cozy air-conditioned caravans and snapping photos of the main attraction with their digi-cams. Casually strutting over to inspect our bikes the Sunday drivers would exclaim, “Beautiful day for a bike ride” while the wind ravaged the patience of the cook, who sat with his body poised to deflect the breezy onslaught from extinguishing the stove flame. Still the pot lid would occasionally be blown ten feet away, and at one point the wind turned a dramatic 180 degrees and hurled into the air the tin-foil stove shield. The tin foil wrapped around the face of an unsuspecting cyclist lounging in what had been considered up-wind -it was like witnessing a drunk staggering toward a rest room  with his hand outstretched for the handle and abruptly twisting his head and projectile vomiting into a the solemn face of a kid who’s dog just died. His serene mood of literary meditation was completely shattered by the unexpected metallic mask imposing itself between him and his Zen in violent censorship.
            Having devoured lunch, we briefed ourselves on the logistics of the days trail, but much to our dismay the map -of off road trails- called for the use of the major highway for a good twenty miles. This did not go over well with the group, yet hope came in the form of a small path named Coal Creek which appeared to parallel the highway the entire way to our next destination of Fernie. It was not clear why the map would dare taunt bicyclists with this alternative to the congested route of smog and noise. It injured our proud dirt craving egos to be denied information on this intriguing route, without question we would pursue this unstated challenge. Just as we were preparing to leave town Goat noticed that his rear tire was flat. While repairing the tire he found that a piece of his xtracycle tubing had snapped. Playing it safe, Goat opted to ride on the highway to avoid compounding more damage to his rig; it was up to Jacob and me to explore this intriguing Coal Creek trail.
               At Shadow Mountain camp, where the map had shown the trail to start, a man stepped out of a small building and directed us to the ‘Coal Discovery’ trail. Similar enough in name, and bearing a sign of warning ‘use at your own risk’ before its steep ascent up a dusty road, Coal Discovery promised be a real technical challenge for those fixated on avoiding the smooth paved land of motorists. Coal Discovery provided the full intensity of autumn color; Aspen tree tops bearing crisp turmeric gold leaves, small shrubbery of cured tobacco and tall wheat kernels speckled with rose hip vines dancing together in the breeze, nonetheless the trail welcomed us to its own special kind of hell. Composed of narrow single track, the trail had no flat areas just a dramatic roller coaster ride over sharp rocks, knotted stumps, tangled roots, and soft mud. On over half of the uphill climbs there was almost no chance of maintaining tire traction on the sandy ground, forcing the cyclist to dismount, slip backwards, or awkwardly fall sideways and then push his hundred and twenty pound rig the rest of the way. This bike hauling presented an irritating problem for me; as my pedals are fixed with rubber cages, it is necessary to angle my toes a specific way to reattach the pedal properly to my foot -otherwise the rubber cages will dig into the ground and prevent me from achieving any momentum at all. Ideally one desires just a few feet of smooth surface to muster the coordination to slip both feet into their cages; I never encountered such conditions on the trail, it was like trying to paddle on a surfboard when the frequency of breakers allowed calm water every other ten seconds.
                Coal Discovery had several markers pointing the not so obvious direction of its trail sections. Wrapped around the wood post of one such marker was a derelict bike frame crushed so compactly it may have once experienced the wrath of Sparwood’s Jolly green juggernaught. It was an ominous sign, and mixed as it were with the fresh memory of Goat’s busted xtracycle I felt a profound desire to surrender my sense of adventure to my escalating anxiety over my bike’s fragility. Still Jacob and I continued sluggishly down the scenic route. Of the most notable obstacles there was a sheer five foot vertical waterfall over slippery rocks where one had to virtually pick up the bicycle and hurl it with all available strength over the obstruction. We managed to travel five kilometers in almost an hour, at the end of which I felt completely drained of all energy and will power. Eventually we left the Coal Discovery Trail, though not through any conscious effort on our part; we could not find the remaining trail sections. The sun had already dipped behind towering hills, and we ventured onto the dreaded highway, coasting a good twenty miles an hour along the smooth asphalt.
              Jacob and I didn’t meet up with Goat until the next morning in Fernie. It was to be the first night that the bike trio would be split apart, and although it didn’t rain -we would have been miserable since each of us carried different parts of the tent-, we were all irritable and grumpy the next morning from not experiencing an evening meal.
         Early the next morning, we reconvened in a hip coffee joint in Downtown Fernie. From surround sound speakers busted hypnotic beats of Medeski Martin & Wood and Fela Kuti, Goat and I sucked down complementary packets of jam and honey while Jacob funneled a supersized brew down his throat. Some locals pulled up chairs to our table, and we elicited from them a recommendation for a good welder who would work on Goats bike. It was God’s day of leisure, the town save this brew shop wasn’t burning any oil, it could have been construed that we were searching for a pagan/atheist who snubbed his nose at both God and the spirit of town conformity. Yet one of the guys obliged us with relevant information, “There’s some real interesting hillbilly folk in town, an old man and his son with a small shop in a tin hut behind their house. They’d probably be willing to help you out if you didn’t push the matter, but just be yourselves”. I followed Goat on this promising lead to the man’s doorstep. Immediately upon knocking the sound of a dog disturbed from its napping erupted and set us on edge. The old man came out, took his time puzzling over Goat’s request while inspecting the unusual xtracycle design. This wrinkly faced man put his dog on a leash and took the xtracycle into his grand alchemists lair cluttered with all sorts of marvelous metal debris, large bolted chains hanging from the ceiling, where thousands of knick-knacks provoked my curiosity. We shielded our eyes from the brilliant blue glow, then the man lifted his welding mask and pronounced the wreck rehabilitated. He told us his name was John, that he had been a blacksmith since 1948 and had emigrated from Czechoslovakia. He had also spent the entirety of World War two traveling around the Mediterranean; he had been in Tunisia and the Ural Mountains but wouldn’t elaborate on what kind of operations he had been involved with. Fascinated by this walking time machine, I would have felt content to hear stories from him all day, yet sadly his dog had bitten hold of my head lamp and as I yanked it from his jaws I discovered the batteries missing. I made a big fuss combing the yard fearing that the dog had swallowed all three of those toxic cylinders. Luckily they were all recovered, and the pains of hunger -we still hadn’t eaten anything substantial- forced us to depart from our benevolent brother John.     
              On the side of highway three in a town called Elko, several buildings surround busy gas pumps displaying ‘For rent’ signs around the recently applied stucco exterior. Coffee bubbled delightfully in the help yourself cauldron in a small hall dividing the town grocery store from the shabby relic of the town diner. The diner itself was no longer operational, but one could still enjoy coffee at the tables or pick up a family sized package of fireworks displayed in cellophane wrapped cardboard. The grocery store stocked meager food rations, and had an overabundance of alcoholic beverages.
         An old balding man sat as if in an easy chair in his own home, in the center of the diner, his back to the transistor squeal of a local radio station switching over programs, his eyes registering the combination of warming air temperature and white fluffy filament crowding out the blue in the sky. He must have peeked not disinterestedly at our oddly designed bicycles, for he welcomed us into his nook with an enthusiastic “A little Frost on your bikes this morning, boys?” He continued with a hint of disappointment in his tone, about how this was the coldest day yet since the beginning of summer. “Minus five! Minus five at my place right now. Today it’s raining in Calgary, and we’ll have a chance of rain here tomorrow, with a high temperature of six. Six! When its six degrees and its raining that translates to snow”.  It was damn exciting to hear the dismal predictions of a local who must have developed an instinctual sense of atmospheric conditions like a man in possession of multiple mercury filled lungs. Later on the same day in the rural setting of Grasmere, I would be offered a similar overview on the inevitable dramatic seasonal change. Behind the counter of a general store -selling bait, fishing licenses and Hollywood videos- the caretaker smoked his cigarette chatting with a customer. “It’s getting cold out, eh” he daringly accused as I slammed a giant container of ice cream on the check out counter that I intended to eat, with the aid of Goat, in one sitting. “Do you think it’ll rain soon?” gesturing to the fibrous clouds weaving a heavy coat around the sun. He took a brief glimpse out his window with a skeptical grimace, nodded his head, drew deeply on his cigarette; “No, it’s just going to get cold, so cold that when you go to sleep, you’ll freeze”. The attendant sort of paused before and let linger the words ‘you’ll freeze’ to ensure that the haunting revelation would not be lost on my youthful naïveté, then he pulled his lips wide up to his hair line in an amused grin and made me promise that there wouldn’t be any fighting outside over the ice cream. I tried to refrain from feeling demoralized by the grim forecasts proffered by the wise elder company, yet the more frozen-milk-fat-solids that I ingested, the more my teeth chattered, and this nervous reflex served to elate my anxieties of a mammoth powder keg ready to explode and bombard my bike with icy shrapnel.
             The man sipping coffee in Elko called himself Tiny. Presumably an early riser, he had already unsuccessfully searched the local dumps for building materials, returned to his house to discover to his horror that his yard was frosty, and decided to spend the morning in a warm familiar social setting. The biggest decision of his day -a Monday- was whether to walk over to the coffee machine and fill his cup half way, or to return home. Eventually Tiny joined an even older man in conversation. He was in his early eighties and had emigrated from Europe in 1931. Skin hung from his hunched neck, and when he spoke, his lips betrayed that they were only mouthing syllables for a sinister inhabitant lodged deep within his throat. I thought there must have been a bull frog pulling on strings making this man’s puppet mouth move, while it contrived and uttered the stories of boyhood mischief that sounded unbefitting of this old man of reserved appearance. If he currently held a job it must have been as a sort of P.R. representative of the General store, or possibly the entire entity of Elko. I never found out his name, just the fact that he, like our altruistic welder, was born in Czechoslovakia.  Both Tiny and the P.R. man were well versed in Reality television programming; they expressed frustrations with pseudo-celebrity children milking fame through familial association like the daughter of the gangster John Gotti. Apparently in an episode of this Gotti’s life, her son expressed in a consecutive line of expletives that he would not be attending school that day.                                    
     Discussion of this episode sent the two old timers back to the days when they had cleverly devised school-ditching tactics -they reproached the Gotti son for being so idiotically straight forward in admitting his intent. The eighty year old P.R. man had not only ditched school several times a week, but succeeded in cleaning out an aloof general store manager of his stock of bubble gum and pocket knives. “They must have thought they were making a killing of a business on those devices, cause they never smarted up to fixing the cracks in the display-case” Laughed the P.R. man. Another favorite past-time had been shooting up beer bottles with a slingshot. “Sometimes I would smash hundreds of those expensive bottles with the glass stoppers the railroads would leave behind.” the P.R. man paused to be relieved by Tiny, “yeah, if only I had saved a hundred or so of them bottles, I’d be rich enough to not have to talk to you”. As morning threatened to transition to Mid-day, the gentle session of nostalgia declined, till the old timers began describing the combined horrors of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl farming conditions of southern Saskatchewan. “At that time, a woman had a tavern set up, and some miners would continually urinate on the back wall after each night of heavy drinking. The woman set up an electrified metal plate at the base of the wall, and when those delinquents went to relieve themselves they’d receive the unexpected shock, and run through the streets with pants hanging down to ankles screaming that they’d been bit by a critter.”
      Finally, the P.R. man filled in some gaps in the life of Goat’s savior, John the welder; “quite recently John sold some land that he had bought up near the coal mines for something like 1.2 million (Canadian) dollars; yeah the man’s been making out pretty well for himself these days”.  This detail really skimmed the cream from the murky surface, not only did this John live humbly, show a desire to help people in need, and live with a shack of magic tricks, but the old coot was rich beyond belief, in short, he was my new hero.
        At the end of the day, we finally managed to get the hell out of Canadia. As the border crossing came into sight I drew a sigh of relief, for here I was about to reenter the nation where beer, cheese and meat were cheap, where it was virtuous to plead ignorance, where national security held priority over everything, and where private property was passionately enforced through rusty wire fences and threatening signs. Judging the reactions of the two dazed border guards, we might have been works of fiction approaching the port Rooseville, which never sees much traffic. They asked us what weapons we were carrying and guffawed obscenely after learning that all we had were pocket knives. “How you boys manage to be alive’s beyond me,” yelled the officer of domestic security. They offered us a detailed description of a park in Eureka where we’d be able to camp illegally and probably not be hassled, also insisting that “we not inform whoever picked us up where we received the information”. They waved us through the gates, and for a split second I had the splendid sensation of being ‘back at home’, even though it was just Montana.