I am living in luxury!

I got a motel room because that’s an easy way to get a phone line for e-mail access, but the real luxury is air conditioning. I also have a table and power for my computer. It’s nice to be able to use the computer without the pressure of running out of battery.

I have had very poor results with my cell modem. Of course, most of the places that we have been in have had limited cellular services.

We have had bad weather following us all the way so far.

I ride a recumbent bike. You sit in a real chair, not on a saddle. You have a seat back and you are partially reclined (hence the name recumbent). It is a lot more comfortable than a regular bike. A few months ago while I was resting in the middle of a long ride, a couple came up to me. He asked if the bike was more comfortable than a standard bike. Before I could reply, trying to think of an answer to this question with an obvious answer, she replied, "It ought to be, it’s just a damn lounge chair."

I can’t believe how fast some of these people ride downhill. 40-50 mph. One guy had a recumbent that he built himself. The chain kept coming off and jamming in the front wheel (It as a short wheel base bike and the crank is in front of the front wheel.) He wiped out at 40mph and didn’t have any more road rash than I had. Unfortunately, he took two other people with him. On the recumbent, you fall over sideways, and on regular bikes you take a header. One woman ended up with a broken shoulder and several broken ribs.

I had a 16" front tire on my bike. I put a 20" one on in Missoula.(Had to get a new front fork for the new wheel.) It is much more stable and I like the way it handles a lot better than the smaller wheel. I am not very comfortable going real fast. I usually hold it to about 20mph or below. I think that part of my discomfort is the Under-Seat-Steering. It is great at lower speeds, but at higher speeds I don’t feels quite in control. I feel that it is not self-stabilizing and that I have to keep it carefully controlled at faster speeds. I want to experiment with a short wheel base as well as above the seat steering.

One of my tent neighbors was a test driver for Yamaha motorcycles. He said that a particular model had an oscillation at high speeds. I get an oscillation at about 28 mph. The speeds seems to change based upon the weight on the bike. I have about 30 pounds of stuff in panniers on the back. When the bike is unloaded, I have not noticed the oscillations. Yamaha tried all sorts of things to solve the oscillation problems. Nothing worked well until they put on a fatter front tire. That seemed to do the trick. I’m looking for a fatter high quality 20" tire. If I find one, I’ll try it right away.

Why do people take teddy bears with them when they go camping. No backpack is complete without a small bear strapped on. Is it a whimsical token of security.

People are taking along the strangest things that are whimsical and maybe even a little foolish. One guy has inflatable flamingos and an American flag that he decorates his front yard (space in front of his tent.) Another is packing a cello on his bike, not to mention guitars, bag pipes and a trumpet. There are teddy bears and other stuffed animals of all sorts, including stuffed snakes. There are exquisite lounge chairs (compact for camping) and quite a few laptop computers.

And, one guy has a dead rubber chicken strapped to his back while he rides, and when questioned, he says:

Once upon a time there was a fair Indian maiden from the Pacific Northwest. She was the most beautiful and fairest maiden that ever lived. So beautiful she was, that Coyote asked her to mate with him.

"No, I will not." She said.

"You must." Said Coyote.

"Never, never, never" said the maiden.

"If you won’t mate with me," said Coyote, "then I will turn you into a dead chicken. You will remain that way forever, unless . . . Unless you can get some idiot to carry you on his back across the land from ocean to ocean."

And the idiot is Dick Ryan from Colorado. He is about 65, and has only one leg. He has been riding bikes for only a couple of years. This spring, he had a special prosthesis made for bike riding. Unlike his walking prosthesis, this one is the same length as his normal leg (the regular one is ½" shorter to make walking easier.) The foot is also constructed without the give in it. The give is wasted energy on a bike, but necessary for easy walking.

The guy who made the prosthesis donated it for free saying, "If you’re crazy enough to ride your bike across America with one leg, then I’m crazy enough to give you the artificial leg for free."

The prosthesis maker has this thing about dead chickens (don’t ask me the details, I didn’t ask). So Dick is packing this chicken across country and taking its picture along with the state sign whenever he crosses a boarder into a new state. He will make a present of the pictures and chicken when the task is done.

So . . . Are teddy bears, flamingos and chickens whimsical foolery or the essence of life?

 Never leave home without your flamingos and American Flag: