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We skipped lunch, that day, on our way to Westport. Ben was tired and Route 101 didn’t offer us any diners and the road had changed into more or less what people complained about when they spoke to us of riding a bicycle on Route 101: it was cramped, traffic-laden, hot, and very hilly. In fact: I would be lying if I didn’t say: we were hit squarely across the buttocks by Route 101, which wound its way up to a small set of stoplights and dumped us beaten and bruised onto Route 1, which immediately dipped down across a river and pointed us straight at a mountain, and then continued to paddled us all the way to Westport.

The first set of climbs on Route 101 was obnoxious; the second winding six mile climb after we turned up Route 1 was somewhat inspiring — we tackled the hill with as much speed as Lance Armstrong might have had during his final stages of Chemotherapy. But then, somewhere before Rockport (which was a town on all our maps and on all the signs but did not, as far as we could tell, exist) we hit our third winding four-digit climb of the day. Unexpected. Unprepared. Unbelievable. Maybe it was because Ben couldn’t sleep the night before, or maybe it was the realization that perhaps God did exist (as that He was mocking Ben relentlessly), but whatever the cause: Ben was beaten. For the first time in the history of our long relationship, he said:

“I need to stop. I’m tired.”

At first I thought he was joking; making a little funny-ha-ha; trying to encourage me to ride a little harder and pedal a little faster; trying to tell me to stop being such a baby-powdered pansy. So I ignored him and his taunts and lowered my head and kicked it up a notch. But not long after he said again:

“Let’s stop here.”

And he pulled off to the side of a switchback and sat down on the gravel; I handed him an energy bar and watched him silently. This was a Ben I had not seen before. His eyes expressed the confusion that we both felt: what was wrong with him? How could Ben be tired? Ben was never tired. I was the one who should be tired; I was the one who asked him to stop; I begged for mercy and complained loudly of my discomforts and flailed my arms about wildly when I did not get my way. Ben just kept going; he was the Energizer Bunny for goodness sake.

After a time, we continued solemnly up the hill and towards the ocean, counting the miles and the rotations of the pedals, and the distances between the towns along the way. But one town eluded us entirely. First we were approaching it, and then we were past it and continuing towards Westport.

“Did you see Rockport?” I asked.

“There is no Rockport.”

There was a Westport. We could see it along the winding hills and cliffs hugging the Pacific Ocean and trying to push its way above the fog. We stopped at the very first campsite we came to just as soon as we had manifested ourselves out of the forest and arrived at the ocean. And that the campsite only cost six dollars made us happy. It didn’t make us feel better or any less hungry, but it did make us happy. What we needed then was a short ride into Westport and a restaurant where we could sit down and order homemade and fresh cooked food. What we needed was to roll back into camp, full and fat, and go to sleep peacefully listening to the sound of ocean surf. What we needed was to forget about all the riding we had done and all the hills we had climbed and all the sweat we had expunged and all the stink from our bodies and the dampness of our camping gear. What we needed was luxury, peace, food, and a bit of post-prandial to get our legs back under us and put California back in her place.

O, how unsatisfied we were!

DAMON: Today we went from outside of Arcata from Four …

BEN: Myers.

DAMON: Myers. I don’t know where we were last night. [laughing]

BEN: Feels like two days ago.

DAMON: We were at …

BEN: Myers Flat.

DAMON: Myers Flat! We went to Westport-ish, about two miles outside of town, in fact: the farthest campsite outside of town and the campsite with the least amount of services outside of town. [laughing while Ben mutters incomprehensibly.] Ben is delirious and physically incapacitated, inasmuch as he cannot separate the two bowls that we must eat with. But let me tell you a bit of our saga: at about 4 o’clock, maybe 3:30, we were someplace near the end of Route 101. Our goal was to come here to Westport because Westport was on the map and Westport had a star. We were going to camp here and go into town and have a luscious meal — a tourist’s meal, even. So we got here and we were exhausted because it’s thirty miles off of Route 101 down on Route 1 and, basically, it’s like a Tour de France stage where you climb straight up and then you go down and then you think you’re there but you go straight back up again. It did break out spirits for a while; we were horrified. Ben is still horrified. [laughing] He’s hunched over the ground cursing and trying with all his might to separate the two bowls. Anyhow, so we got here, we dump our stuff; six dollars for a campsite, we’re really excited; in fact we’re ecstatic, we setup camp and get some clothes ready, we’re going into town for a little food. So we start pedaling, we only become depressed when we realize how far away town is from our campsite and that our campsite is one of five other campsites, ours being the farthest from town with the least amount of services. We don’t, as a matter of fact, even have running water. So we get to town and our worst, worst, worst, fears are realized: they have no food. All they’ve got is a run down country store that’s been absolutely abused and used. However, they do have maple syrup, which is some consolation. We got some food, we didn’t bring our bags to carry it because we were going to eat out, so we had to carry it on our hands. We had to carry water because we didn’t have enough water. And, needless to say, we are having spaghetti with ketchup tonight. And some corn. And that’s about it. And to say it is not looking good right now would be a lie because we are starving. We didn’t even eat lunch! We stopped early and had a little snack — Ben needs help. [Time passes -- in-between bites of Sharkies continues] Anyhow after we ate some food we’re feeling a lot better. We’re certainly not very clean because we sweat our balls off today. But, we did a little wet wipe shower. Ben’s washing some dishes in the ocean and we’re trying to get stuff cleaned up so we can go to bed. I’m tired. Tomorrow we are going to Fort Braggs — Fort Bragg. Probably spend just the day there if it’s got everything we want. Which would namely be: a shower, a laundry and some places we could eat. [a la Homer Simpson] ahhhh: food. Over and out.

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