220 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
220 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Tue Jan 8 09:47:16 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: Part 8 of CAA #2
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The First 100 Miles
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#8 in the second online CAA series
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by
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Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
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Port Townsend, WA
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October 15, 1986
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It has begun at last.
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The bike sits quietly blinking beside the half-finished wing of a
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homebuilt aircraft. Batman the Manx sits blinking in the doorway, I'm swilling
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Millstone coffee from my stainless steel traveling mug, and Maggie's out there
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in our hosts' kitchen, conjuring a sorbet to go with dinner. Those are the
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headlines. We are on the road.
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It began as it always does: poignant farewells, final tweakings, long
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discussions over maps. The ferry to Seattle seemed different this time; we
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hugged on the stern as Bainbridge Island faded into the fog -- Bainbridge, our
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home for the last month, our home perhaps someday again. A quiet kiss, breath
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clouds white in the gray mist, bikes the focus of commuter curiosity. Yes, I
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can feel it... we're finally on the road.
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First stop: Bothell. Seattle passed smoothly, the Burke Gilman Trail
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simplifying what would otherwise have been a 33-mile ordeal of city riding.
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Whispering past joggers, catching glimpses of urgent racers, swerving to miss
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the occasional stray toddler, we made our way through the colors of early fall
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to Traveling Software. This was to be our official send-off, an event that
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would draw not only five TV crews but GEnie's own Steve Haracznak -- director
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of Public Relations. When you become a living caricature of technology's
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potential, apparently, the industry takes notice.
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Dinner. Exuberant tale-swapping. Big plans. Debugging till 2.
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Fitful sleep on the floor; awakening bleary to the humming of corporate
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America. "There's somebody sleeping in there," came whispers from the hall;
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then we emerged, blinking in the fluorescents, stumbling to the coffeepot and
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greeting the first reporter and hour and a half early. "I am the amazing
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Winnebiko," said the bike, "do you have any questions before we head south?"
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Four hours of media. CNN's Roger Gadley arrived and joined the local
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crews standing about with cameras perched like electronic parrots on their
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shoulders. Visitors included GEnie user B.CALDWELL, who has been following
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these columns and had to see if this bike was for real. Traveling Software's
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Mark Eppley stood with Steve and looked on with a sort of subdued glee -- for
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the message that would go out over the airwaves was that of radical new
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freedoms that could be gained through portable computers and
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telecommunications. I rode through the Computing Across America banner to
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scattered cheers, did the show and tell countless times, and then was off --
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this time for real -- northbound with Maggie astern and the unknown ahead.
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Northbound. In October. In Washington. Logical, eh? Actually, this is
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a sort of shakedown, a minor loop around the Puget Sound area that will give us
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one last brief chance to fix things in the Bainbridge Island shop before
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scurrying south with winter's blast at our backs. But we're moving, and that's
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what matters; cold wet weather can only deepen our appreciation of what lies
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ahead.
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We slept in Everett that night, wrestling the bikes past leg- climbing
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squirrels and up right-angle steps into the apartment of a friend from
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Traveling Software. Already the differences: the human kaleidoscope twisting
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with our wheels and revealing lifestyles unimaginable with every layover. I
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remember now, and Maggie's seeing it too: the journey's stability lies in
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variety, and change is the very essence of what at first seems chaotic.
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Activate all receptors; set information bandwidth to maximum. LIFE has
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resumed.
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Cold fog, long hill, down past the gravel pit, flashers ablaze, hands
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burning numb, teeth clenched in that violent grinning grimace of exuberant
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pain. Living! Mukilteo ferry purring into the soup, the twice-crashed
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Cathlamet bearing its cargo of us and coffee holding gloved hands on the voyage
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to Whidbey Island. The day crisp and beautiful, parking panting bodies in
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spicy autumn leaves to crunch Washington apples, Maggie learning to scream her
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way up the rougher grades to mask the pain. Voices tiny in each other's ears
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through 2- meter radio, the Osprey nest, the encounters -- everywhere the
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encounters. Normal foods made robust through hunger, the finest seasoning of
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all. Hazy scenery passing like wide-bandwidth video, the pumping of
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polypro-clad legs driving the sweet whisper of chain and tire. And through it
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all the inaudible hum of processors, snagging thoughts like passing butterflies
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in their delicate electronic web as my fingers tickle the handlebars. Ah.
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It's really happening.
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It was on yet another ferry that we met Bob: enroute to Port Townsend,
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preparing to seek the hostel at Fort Worden. "I just dropped my son off at the
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airport in Vancouver," he said, "he's off to go trekking in Nepal." A moment's
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hesitation, then a friendly grin. "His room's empty, if you'd like a place to
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spend the night... say, that console looks like it belongs in an airplane..."
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Over a day later we're still here, comfortable with our new friends as we
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engage in the basic barter of this lifestyle: snippets of our lives for a
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taste of theirs. We all emerge richer, each feeling that he or she has gained
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the most. This is human commerce at its finest, and everybody profits except
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the IRS.
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By morning, we'll be southbound (after a flight over the Olympic Mountains
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in Bob's Grumman). No further north this year, no more senseless flirtation
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with the grim misery of those coastal rains everybody warns us about.
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Somewhere out there is a warm winter sun, only a couple hundred thousand pedal
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cranks away...
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The familiar is fading. The nomadic life -- seeming as much my essence as
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the sweat that sustains it -- has begun. I smell it.
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-- Steve
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