Cycling Through the West – Tuba City to Kayena

Bicycling in the West – Day 13 – Tuba City to Kayenta

 

 

 

“Time isn’t used, it’s experienced.”
~ Hopi Proverb

 

 

 

We’ve got an easy day ahead of us today – only 75 miles. Unless the wind is hard on us, we should get done in less than 8 hours. We take our time and enjoy breakfast, and meet some interesting folks as we’re walking out of Denny’s.

It’s a small group of folks – sounds like just 2 couples plus an extra person. They’ve got a truck with a trailer, and the trailer holds a couple of little Vespa-type scooters. The women ride the scooters along the highway, and the men follow along in the truck. When they get tired of “scooting”, the men pick them up and trailer the scooters. It’s a grand adventure for them. They’ve always wanted to take a trip like this along the highways of the Southwest. When they hit the high plains of Texas in a few days, they’ll just ride in the truck to avoid the heat.

I’m curious about why the little scooters rather than just everyone taking motorcycles? Well, a good part of the reason seems to be that the scooters are so much more fuel efficient. Plus, they’re cute. That’s important for sure…

These are really nice folks, and I enjoy chatting with them. The conversation also gives me a good deal to think about as Dave and I ride east along 160 into a sun that’s already risen.

On the one hand, it’s really neat that the scooter group decided to make this trip in a way that gets a couple of them out of the car, and into the wind and grit to experience the trail. But if you add up the fuel efficiency of 2 scooters and the truck pulling the trailer, I’m pretty sure the group as a whole isn’t getting very good mileage. Hey, but that’s OK – it’s still gotta be a lot better than the dang RV’s.

It’s admirable that the two women are so bent on getting more of the “real experience”. Obviously I’m going to think that’s a good idea, as riding my bicycle across the country is part of that same notion, right?

Yet there’s a part of me that wants to be critical of them. As soon as it gets too hot, they have the truck pick them up. Sounds like they only ride 3 or 4 hours a day, and make short days of it. And the whole Texas thing really bothers me – I’d dearly LOVE to put together a bicycle trip across the legendary Staked Plains of west Texas someday, to experience that place a little more like it was experienced by the great Comanches who ruled over the area for hundreds of years. Yet these folks are gonna pack up their scooters and ride in the AC at high speed across this great high plain.

Why is it so easy for us to fall into the sort of elitist criticism that I’m allowing to run through my mind this morning? Clearly, I think that because I’m riding a bicycle and carrying everything myself, without a vehicle following to pick me up, that this makes me and my trip more “valid” than the trip the scooter folks are taking. How dumb and silly is that?

There’s a commonality I should be celebrating, rather than picking apart the differences. We both had similar ideas, but we’re just implementing them differently. I find this to be particularly rampant amongst cyclists, though I suspect that with any activity or sport, the more you ascend into the “elite” of the sport or activity, the more you begin behaving in an elitist fashion.

Our current nature seems bent on finding dissonance. We seem to look for ways to highlight and promote imbalance.

Hozho. That’s a Navajo word that translates roughly into a state of perfect balance and harmony that people should pursue and maintain in life. I focus my mind on celebrating my commonality with these scooter folks, and the morning takes on a much better light.

We pass an RV that pulled off the road, apparently spending the night there on the side of the road. As we pass, we hear conversation in the RV, and smell bacon cooking. It’s been an hour or so since breakfast, and the bacon smells mighty fine. In Tonalea, there’s a C-Store, and even though we don’t really need it yet, we stop and fill water bottles and take in a few calories. It’s a long way between watering stops, and passing one by just wouldn’t be prudent…

I get a flat 10 or 15 miles east of Tonalea. I can’t find the cause of the flat as I feel inside the tire, and I had the same issue yesterday when I got a flat on this tire. Even though the tire only has about 1000 miles on it, I decide to put a new tire on. I’m amazed we haven’t had more flats with all the junk on the shoulder, and am grateful this is only my second, and it’s the first one I’ve had to change standing out in the hot sun.

Dave is waiting for me a couple miles up the road. He’s found a nice BBQ that a fella named Lawrence has set up along the road for lunchtime, but I think we’re both a bit too hot to want BBQ. We talk to Lawrence for a while though, and learn way more about his prostate and past surgeries than we really want to know. Clearly, Lawrence is a pretty lonely guy, and Dave and I both feel bad when we let him know we’ve got to be pushing on east if we’re gonna make it to Kayenta.

As I ride again, I realize how much I love these short days, as they free us up to stop and chat with guys like Lawrence during the day. High mileage on some days is nice, as it gives you a good sense of accomplishment, but some easy days with lots of time of lollygagging are nice as well.

Hozho.

Highway 160 crosses road 564 about 50 or 60 miles east of Tuba City, and at that intersection is a little c-store. While it’s hot today, it’s not dangerously hot – it gets up to about 100 at the hottest point. There’s shade in the front of the c-store, and Dave and I lean against the cool concrete block wall in the shade, and enjoy food and drink.Sharing the shade with us is a group of dogs. Dogs are ubiquitous as we’ve ridden along through the reservation, and most of them have a similar look to them. They look like they have herding dog roots – border collie or aussie maybe – but with a lot of other stuff mixed in.

The dogs watch us closely, hoping for a few snacks if we can’t finish everything. The don’t approach too closely – they just watch. We oblige, and drop a few scraps their way.

We finish our day in Kayenta late in the afternoon, feeling plenty of Hozho. We’ve had a tailwind nearly all day long. While the road’s been really rough and crappy in a few places, it’s been smooth and nice more than it’s been crappy. Here at the very end of the day, the wind has come around more from the south than the west, so we’re hoping for a shift back to the west for our ride tomorrow.

We stay at the Best Western Wetherill Inn, which is just a mile north of highway 160. Right next door to the motel is a great little diner where they serve a chicken-fried steak that’s truly a work of art.

Nothing says Hozho like a slab of pan-fried chicken-fried steak, balanced perfectly with mashed potatoes, and brought into divine harmony with perfect gravy…

“Wisdom comes only when you stop looking for it and start living the life the Creator intended for you.”
  ~ Hopi Proverb