Tag: monterey

Learning Minimalism

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupe

Paso Robles is smaller than I expected. It’s probably not much more than a mile from the north end of town to the south. It’s a quaint little town, and very bicycle friendly. I get a cozy homecoming sensation when I see my hotel, anticipating a warm shower and soft bed.

The young fellow behind the desk checking me in has a name tag that says “James,” and it turns he’s a cyclist. “Where’d ya ride from?” James asks.

I tell him my route from today, and he smiles and nods. “I’ve done that ride several times, over and back in a day. It’s a great ride, isn’t it?”

Over and back in a day? That’s 150 miles, with steep climbing. This guy’s an animal. I’m tuckered out after doing just half the ride. I try to keep the wimp factor as low as possible when I reply. “Absolutely, a beautiful ride. I’ll bet it’s a sweet day going over and back in a day.”

“Yeah, we usually ride over in the morning, have lunch at Lucia, then ride back after lunch. Steep coming up the Nacimiento Road, eh?”

My eyebrows climb my forehead. “Steep doesn’t start to describe it! I thought I was gonna fall over a couple times.”

His laugh is full of enjoyable nostalgia, his eyes looking off into the distance, as memories of what were probably wonderful rides wash over his face. Looking back at me, he asks, “So, where ya riding tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s a really big day for me — I need to end up in Frazier Park.”

I watch the joy of pleasant memories drain from his face, replaced by the agony of remembered pain. “I did that ride once. Hardest day I ever spent on a bicycle. Hell spread out over 150 miles. The winds across the valley spend the day sucking the soul out of you. Then the climb at the end of the day drops the hammer of ultimate despair on any joy left in whatever shell remains.”

Uh, oh. I might have bitten off just a bit more than I can chew. James must have seen the look on my face, and tries to give me some encouragement. “But hey, maybe the winds won’t be bad for you, ya know? But either way, be sure and carry lots of water, because it’s a long way across that valley from here until you can fill your water bottles – something like 75 miles, right?”

I’m not really feeling any better. “Right. Thanks. Yeah, 75 miles.”

Falling back into his front desk persona, he continues, “You’re in room 327, Mr. Hanson. Be sure and let us know if we can get anything for you, and I hope you enjoy your stay with us. Oh, and good luck on your ride tomorrow!”

“Thanks, I appreciate that. Oh, one other thing. James, is there a way I can package up a few things and have you ship them for me?”

After a hot shower, I spread my stuff out on the bed. Sorting through it with more ruthlessness than I had back at home before I started the ride, I build a pile of “nice to have” items, ready to package up and ship back to Colorado. In the pile is my iPad, iPod, tiny speaker, Kindle, 700-lumen headlight, all the chargers associated with this electronic stuff, 4 of my tire tubes (leaving me still with 4), and a few other items. While I don’t put stuff on the scale, it seems to me that I’ve cut my weight in half.

When I packed for the trip, I wanted to stay under 20 pounds. I was able to do this while still including quite a few items that I might find handy. The iPad is only a couple pounds, the Kindle maybe a pound, the light a couple pounds. It all fit inside my 20 pound goal – why not take it?

My culture teaches that it’s good to have everything you might need. Having something is good, being without something is bad. When I was packing, my perspective was, “how much can I take, within my constraints?” Tonight, looking down at the gear spread out on the bed, I was asking myself, “how little do I need to survive?”

Minimalism. Simplicity.

Stuff adds up if you’re not careful. It builds up around you. Getting rid of stuff brings a cleansing sensation. Almost like “stuff” weighs down the soul. It happens to me when I clean stuff out of my house too: a liberating sense, a lightness, after I go through and give away or toss large swaths of stuff.

When I was younger, I was more focused on accumulating than on distributing and cleansing. Now, I find myself constantly reevaluating just how much stuff I want around me. How much clutter can I tolerate before it weighs on my soul? How much flotsam am I willing to wade through to see the world around me clearly? It keeps me from moving along the path. Each “thing” I accumulate attaches a string deep into my heart and soul, connecting me to the thing itself, making continued movement down the path difficult. An addiction to accumulation maybe? A cultural epidemic?

My extra flotsam on this bike ride is one tiny symptom, but it’s all around us. Look at how much of our life’s energy we put into “accumulating wealth.” We advertise how much wealth we’ve accumulated with the homes we live in, the cars we drive, and our pride in our continued pursuit of greater wealth.

But all our wealth weighs us down. It’s too much to try and haul up the steep hills of the back roads of life. Instead, we stay on the flat and busy expanse of the masses, where we don’t need to confront the tough climbs that might be encountered in the wilderness of discovering ourselves.

The sweetest moments in life lay waiting along the steep and winding backroads, hidden among difficult questions and tough issues. Finding them sometimes requires sorting through deep and honest introspection. But these steep and meandering backroads might be one of the best places in life to find glimpses of heaven, and to discover what that means to each of us.

Backlit Oak

Learning minimalism. Wasn’t this a common message among the great sages of the last few thousand years? Who was it that so wisely said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to find heaven?

🙂

That’s on my mind this evening, as I look with satisfaction at the pile of “stuff” I’m sending back home. The last thing I want is seven or eight extra pounds in my bag that might slow me down if I catch a little glimpse of heaven somewhere along the road.

Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.

A Steep Climb

“Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.”
~ Hermann Buhl

Reaching the detour route, I take a left onto Nacimiento Road, a forest service road that’s been paved. Crossing a cattle grate as I leave the highway, I begin a seven mile climb that combines heavenly views with hellacious climbing.

Big Sur CoastAs the climbing begins, I drop into my lowest possible gear, and I’ll rarely leave that gear for the next hour and 20 minutes. The steep climb is about 3000 feet in about seven miles – about 400 feet a mile, an average of 7 to 8 percent. Maybe only 4 to 5 percent in some places, balanced by many places at 11 to 12 percent, a couple places at 16 to 18 percent. The U.S. interstate highway system allows a maximum grade of 6 percent. A 7 to 8 percent grade on a highway is considered dangerous; 9 percent is rarely encountered anywhere.

Pedaling up an 11 to 12 percent grade is gut-wrenching, even without the extra touring weight on the bike. At 16 percent, it’s all I can do to keep moving. The climb slaps some of the swagger right out of me, and has me giving serious consideration to those “nice to have” items in my pack. Tomorrow I have a VERY long day of riding, with climbing at the end of the day. Just how “nice” are those extra ounces and pounds I have in my pack?

While pouring my focus into the work of climbing, I also need to keep a little attention aimed at the road ahead and behind. For most of the climb, it would be impossible for two cars to pass each other at speed. The road’s just too narrow. When two cars pass, one needs to pull over as far as they can, while the other passes slowly. The constant tight turns and switchbacks limit the opportunity for even that sort of passing.

Notwithstanding the steep grade and narrow road, the beauty of the ride up the west slope of the Coastal Range is hard to express. The views back down onto the coast as I climb are stunning. Time after time, the road makes a sharp switch out on a ledge that gives me a view either north or south along the rugged coastline that takes my breath away. At one point, I’m stopped and admiring the view, eating a banana, when a convertible sports car steams past me headed up the hill. The driver is one of the blonde Beautiful People, sitting so low in the seat she can barely see over the hood. She waves at me as she passes, exclaiming, “Isn’t this just so beautiful?!”

Big Sur Coast

Well, yes it is. From the top of this bicycle, with an unlimited view and the time to take it all in safely, it’s beautiful indeed.

In those spots where the road tucks back into the mountainside, the landscape changes suddenly to a deeply forested thicket with towering redwoods. The transition from the openness of the mountainside to the depth of the thickets is usually marked by a zone of smaller trees covered in hanging lichens.
The grade gets much easier toward the top, but the temperature has dropped dramatically. I stop several times to enjoy wide vistas with views that seem to go forever back down the mountains and across the Pacific, but the stops are short as the moist air cools me rapidly. At the top of the climb, the road is deep into a forest, the air itself is quite cool, and I’m chilling down even faster. I stop, put on my jacket, and take in some fluid and calories.

Descending is downright cold, and I’m shivering hard. After a few miles of descending through forest, the landscape changes quickly and the temperature climbs. In less than five miles, I’m in a dry, grassy savannah much like my home on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
Nacimiento Road transitions into Fort Hunter-Liggett as the descent flattens out. The traffic is still extremely light, and I can only imagine how light the traffic would be without the road closure back on the coast. A warm tailwind follows me out of the mountains, painting a big smile across on my face.
Winding my way through broad oak savannah, I marvel at the massive old valley oaks spread thinly across the plain. Giant spreading trees, some of them 600 years old, they have massive trunks and beautifully shaped crowns. I stop to enjoy the silence and beauty of the place, leaning my bike against the side of one of these old Ents, and my back against the other side.

Old Backlit OakThis old tree has called this grassy plain home for hundreds of years. Basking in the bright sun, soaking up nutrients from the ground, it’s grown to this nobility at a pace I can’t comprehend. It welcomes me under its shade, and I wonder what other folks looked like and sounded like who might have shared this shade in the past, over the hundreds of years that this old graybeard has been growing in this spot, quietly waiting for me.

I’m in Steinbeck country now, broad grassy pastures with scattered ancient trees. I imagine Samuel Hamilton jostling down the road toward me in a wagon, Lee sitting beside me in the shade. A small breeze whispers through the grass close to me as I lay against the old oak tree, a touch of sun making its way through the branches now and then to warm me, the sea of short prairie grass stretching out for several hundred yards between this tree and the next. Relaxation saturates my body as my mind brims with contentment. Soft savannah sounds fade into the distance as I doze up to the edge of a nap.

Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.

 

 

Big Sur Ents

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
~ Hermann Hesse, Wandering”

 

Highways through the RedwoodsAt about twenty miles south of Carmel, the highway dips back into the forest, pulling me through a magical transformation from a breezy open seafront ride to a quiet and still ride through massive redwoods that are hundreds of years old. The road weaves through lush forest studded with redwood giants for about ten miles, a mixture of state park lands and private property with a gentle and hushed quality.

I’m deeper into Big Sur country now, and the sense of remoteness surprises me. Thousands of cars must drive this road each day when it’s not closed, enjoying the scenery, buying food and fuel from the little general stores that dot the side of the road occasionally, eating in the quaint little bars and restaurants. Yet, the sense of remoteness remains.

There’s a mystique to the place. It feels wild and untamed. Towering redwoods line the road. The unique coastal climate creates a tropical lushness in the forest. My mood and mindset have changed as I’ve moved into and through the forest. I feel more relaxed, less scattered, more basic. I stop a couple of times next to large redwoods, lean against them, press my hand to the bark. Ancient trees have a wonderful energy. Their time horizon is beyond what we can imagine. Closing my eyes, I can imagine Ents talking in deep and slow voices…

I’m reminded of my grandfather and grandmother. He lived to be almost 100, she to 101. Sitting with them always wrapped me in a unique sense of time and significance. The world they were part of was much bigger and broader than mine. I hadn’t lived enough years yet to have such a broad world. Yet, while I sat with them, I could feel their world. The breadth of it would wrap around me and make me feel a small part of it while we sat together and I listened to their stories.

My world is getting more broad as the years tick past. The things that seemed so urgent and critical to me when my children were young seem less significant now. My perspective has evolved as my world has grown. I can only imagine what it must feel like to view the world with the wisdom earned as a hundred winters pass.

Big Sur Coastline

That’s why we need extended families. We need grandparents to help raise our children. Their perspective is more broad, and they’ve hopefully gained wisdom and understanding along the way. While their eyes may have started to dim, they see more clearly than is possible without the experience behind those eyes.

I miss those grandparents, and think of them as I rest my hand on the trunk of an ancient redwood. I imagine them quietly and patiently touching me back through that trunk, smiling, staring from a world too big for me to imagine.

Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.

 

Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.

 

 

The Beautiful People

“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”
~ Japanese Proverb

 

Carmel. Land of the Beautiful People. It’s cute and homey. Gives me a warm and comfortable feeling for the start of my adventure. After dinner I walk down to the beach to enjoy a beautiful sunset surrounded by all the Beautiful People. I call my brother Erik and wish him happy birthday. He thinks the trip is dangerous, and has been trying to talk me out of it for months. He’s got the worry gene too.

Carmel Beach at Sunset

 

I stand on the beach, talking to Erik, reassuring him that I’ll be fine. He tries one last desperate attempt to convince me to spend the time fishing with him instead, though he and I both know I won’t turn back at this point. What Erik probably doesn’t feel, though, is just how attractive that safe and comfortable alternative sounds to me right now, as I battle the little claws of doubt that have grown over the past couple of days.

Not that worry is a wholly bad thing. It can certainly help in the decision-making process, so long as it’s moderated. In the case of this trip, there are surely things I should worry about – crossing hundreds of miles of desert on a bicycle in the worst month of the year, for example – but should I let that worry keep me from a great adventure? Worry and fear are two sides of the same coin. They can paralyze us if we let them. Or we can turn them to our advantage, and use them as wise counselors, to be ushered from the room once their counsel is heard and understood.

The temptation is to usher fear and worry from the room as soon as possible, before we hear their wise counsel. The emotions that come with fear are uncomfortable. Sitting under a gnarled tree on the beach, bathed in a glorious sunset and a tiny breeze that’s salty and cool, I recognize the emotions that come along with fear, and I push them gently aside. Beneath those emotions is an adventure waiting for me, an adventure I’ve planned for and trained for. An adventure I wouldn’t miss for the world. An adventure filled with plenty of unknowns, some risks to to fear, and buckets full of real life.

I’m bathed in confidence and contentment as I walk back up to the Green Lantern Inn. Not cocky—just content that I sat with my fear, listened to it, absorbed it. Then turned and walked toward the adventure in front of me.

 

Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.

 

Flirting With The Force

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
~ T.S. Elliot

 

The automatic doors part for me as I push my bicycle across the threshold into the bright Monterey sunlight. The safety and protection of a controlled and modern world is in back of me, shrouded in low light and a quiet hum. The bright light of adventure lay in front of me.

A pretty young woman sits on a bench outside the terminal. We catch each other’s eye with small smiles a couple times. I think this is flirting, though I’m not very good at either recognizing it or executing it. I’m pretty logical, which drives me to want to analyze and evaluate things. With flirting, once you analyze it, the opportunity has passed.

There’s a process, an unspoken ritual, that’s wrapped around flirting. A little of this, a little of that, then maybe some of this over here. It’s all body language and vibe. For folks like me who rely a lot on logic and words, with an analytical bent, flirting is unknown and confusing territory. I suck at it.

The young woman rescues the situation (I suspect it’s usually the woman who must rescue any flirting situation if it’s to progress) by offering the first comment:

“Did you bring that bike on the airplane?” Continue reading “Flirting With The Force”

Monterey to Carmel

Tour of the West – Day 1

Arriving

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

-  Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert – Dune

Pulling into the airport in Monterey, I’m a little surprised to feel a touch of dread creeping into my mind. For the past couple of days, this rental car has become my “base camp” as I’ve traveled out here from Colorado. I expected to feel excited at this point – dropping off the one-way rental to begin my journey – but I feel a bit of reluctance to give up the security of the car.

Over the past couple hours of driving up California’s Central Valley, I’ve felt the hint of doubt tickling the back of my mind. I’ve driven a lot of miles to get here, and the many hours in the car have me wondering about whether I’m really up for backtracking those thousand-plus miles on a bicycle – most of the way by myself.

Am I nuts? What on earth makes me think I can do this at 57 years old?

I park the car, and start to rig up my bike for riding. Back in Colorado, I was careful to make sure everything fit. The only “extra” things I brought were the old jeans and t-shirt that I plan on throwing away at the airport. As I rig up the bike, though, I find a few “extra” things that ended up with me. My truck keys for example, that had been in my jeans pocket – not something I want to throw away.

I get stuff bundled up, and decide to move away from the car. I take all my gear and my bike with me to the Hertz counter, drop off the keys, and do my final arranging there in the airport – away from the security of the car. A quick stop at the men’s room, and I drop my jeans and t-shirt in the trash can.

That simple gesture – dropping those clothes in the trash can – seems to lift a weight from my shoulders. As-though I were releasing the last remaining connection with my security and connection to the journey that brought me to this point. Releasing that connection illuminates the place the fear had occupied, and allows me to look forward toward the journey now in front of me.

 

Departing

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

– T.S. Eliot

The automatic doors part for me as I walk out of the airport terminal to the sidewalk outside. It feels pretty right for me – releasing my connection to the past, turning, and walking into the sunlight of the future as the doorway opens for me.

At Monterey Airport - Mile 1 Still Ahead Of Me

I lean my bike against a post to take a picture of the bike at the beginning of the trip. I strike up a conversation with a young woman sitting on the bench, who offers to take a picture of me with the bike. My white and untanned legs shine brightly in the picture, but I feel pretty neat documenting this beginning point.

The young woman has come out to Carmel for a writers conference that lasts all week. Ironic, I think to myself. I hope to write about this trip when it’s over, and I start the trip with a conversation with a young writer who travels clear across the country to learn more about how to write.

I leave the airport, and immediately start a little climb. I’m surprised at the weight of the bike, and figure I’ll get used to it as the trip goes along. I feel little pangs and pings in my knees and hips as I climb, and worry about whether or not they’ll develop into real problems in the coming hundreds of miles.

Worry – it’s a deep black hole into which enjoyment of the present falls, never to be retrieved. I’ve learned this lesson throughout my life, and I think of it now as I feel the deep pang in my right knee each time I bear down on the pedal. I’ve always been the “designated worrier” in our family, but I’ve gotten better in recent years. I’ve come to realize that unless there’s something I can do to change the situation, then I need to focus on where I am. In this case, I’ve spent reasonable time getting myself in shape, and what I can do right now is gear down and take pressure off the knees. Take it easy, and put it out of my mind.

The hills are steeper than I expect them to be in the short jaunt over to Carmel. Are they really this steep, I wonder, or is the load on my bike that heavy? Climbing, after all, is where you most notice the extra weight when you tour on a bicycle. Have I brought too much with me?

Worry again.

Neil's Bike at Night 1 Lodging - The Green Lantern Inn

I crest the final climb, and begin the wonderful descent down into Carmel. In the short distance, I’ve climbed over 800 feet, and descend every one of those feet plus a few more. I wind my way through the quaint little tourist town of Carmel By The Sea, and find the Green Lantern Inn, where I have reservations for my first night. I put up my bike in my room, shower, change into walking-around clothes, and head to town for dinner.

I like Carmel. It’s surely the land of the Beautiful People, as they say, but it’s cute and homey, and gives me a warm and comfortable feeling for the start of my adventure. It’s Erik’s (my brother) birthday, and I call and wish him happy birthday. He’s not at all happy about me taking this trip, and has been trying to talk me out of it for months. He has the worry gene too, but much worse than me.

I stand on the beach after dinner, talking to Erik, reassuring him that I’ll be fine. After we hang up, I sit on the beach and think about Erik and I, and consider the difference in how the cancer of worry has manifested itself in our separate lives.

Not that worry is a wholly bad thing – it can certainly help in the decision-making process so long as it’s moderated. In the case of this trip, there are surely things I should worry about – crossing hundreds of miles of desert on a bicycle in the worst month of the year for example – but should I let that worry keep me from a great adventure?

That old Bene Gesserit litany on fear has stayed with me my whole life: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I can easily substitute the word “worry” for the word “fear”, and the litany would still apply. Makes sense after all – worry is just another form of fear. The difference in my mind is that worry is fear of something poorly defined and theoretical, and I usually have very little ability to sway the outcome of the object of my worry. Nothing healthy about that, is there?

Sunset, Sunrise

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.

– Christopher Reeve

I’ve lived in the middle of the country my whole life. Mountains and prairie, Ponderosa Pine and oceans of grassland and wheat, this is what home looks like to me. The ocean is a thing of grandeur and magic to me – a real novelty.

I enjoy the sunset on the beach at Carmel, walking around, taking pictures of people, taking pictures of the sunset over the ocean. There are folks out in the water surfing, and I see a couple guys trotting down toward the water.

Confession: I don’t like cold water. I can’t imagine what enjoyment a person could get out of swimming in cold water. This water is cold – way too cold to swim in as far as I’m concerned – yet folks are splashing out there on surfboards and acting like they’re enjoying themselves. It’s just plain crazy, since the best you can hope for is a little wave that might carry you 20 or 30 yards.

After taking some nice sunset pictures, I walk back to my room at the Green Lantern Inn, do a little writing and a little reading, and fall asleep, looking forward to tomorrow. They don’t serve breakfast until 7:00, and I have a short day, so I decide to sleep in until 6:00, and enjoy breakfast. Today marks the beginning of this journey, and the sunset I just enjoyed seems the perfect way to begin.

The Setting Sun to Begin A Journey