Before a journey

 Before a long journey on my bicycle

A 3am rant from a adventure cyclist 

By Bill Poindexter 

I am always amazed by the fears that swell up before one of my expeditions. I become plagued by doubt and guilt-old friends. Questions like “is this a good decision” slap me hard, sort of an ongoing self check with a cacophony of the typical excuses: am I fit, enough money, work, my cats will miss me, what if’s rise like smoke and then everything starts to settle like leaves falling to the ground. It’s really my own fault, I don’t like to plan too much, I hate using gps, a vague map and directions from locals is really more my suit. “Where you going?” they, the curious, ask. “Northeast.” Is all I can return. I have always been that way as I have a strong intuitive understanding of direction and can figure where I am from the stars or moon or sun and if I get lost well, that’s a bonus because then fear will come out and play-we are dear old friends. 

My affairs are in order just in case. I say my good byes as though they are permanent just in case. I walk out my front door with my overloaded bike with 2-3 weeks worth of food so as to save money. Never been a saver, this trip is the bare bones I have ever done, I feel like a hobo getting ready to hop a train, this trip going to have to be creative and place myself in the hands of Humanity because I am one of the naive who believes in the goodness of the regular people and I need their help and I want to know their thoughts about what really matters in life, and right now in this time. I will be happy for stale bread and yesterday’s coffee. The universe is a big place and I am going to fling myself into it one mile at a time and learn what it has to offer and then know my self a little better. “But you have so much experience Bill, why is it hard for you?” I don’t really know, I am just human. I am not afraid of the  dangers of cycling on roads, or wild life, or weather, illness, bandits, camping alone, or being solo and broke. I guess the real fear comes from the long days on the bike, and delving into my own mind and seeing the bad and good and facing my truth head on-That terrifies me. But, my friend, this journey, more than any other will be the Hardest. There is no insurances, no money cushion, it is early spring along the final cusp of winter, and I still have my physical injuries;a fib, sciatica, bursitis, and more with the age of 60… Jesus how did that happen? I plan to take a few days to do a Vision Quest-a 3 day fast somewhere no one is around 

and most likely in a forest. It’s a time for past present and future to meet and figure my place in the universe…”Here lies the dead body of Billy P, better it be him and not me!” No, I should be fine. I love nature and most happy when sleeping on a patch of ground. I haven’t decided if I will tell this next story while I roll or wait until after. The story will be good. 

Dispatches through Time in space

Dispatches 

 by Bill Poindexter

January 5, 2024 2:59 AM

Time and space 

Dear friend, 

Hard to believe another year gone by. I wanted to thank you for reading my words. I don’t expect you to read them all the time when I send out dispatches out or rants.

 I appreciate you reading my words as that in itself entrenches my writing desires. The older I get, and I’m 60 now, I realize that I’ve always been a writer/story teller. Today I was re-reading some of my dispatches from my bicycle tour from Kansas City to Yorktown Virginia via the transamerica Trail as I am organizing, a book about that experience. The dispatch amused me and brought back some fun memories. 

I’m laying here in bed, holding the phone in my right hand dictating this I’m laying on my right side Coyote my oldest cat I think she’s around 15 or 16 now the black-and-white one you’ve probably seen pictures of her she’s tucked into my right side up against my chest and draped over my right arm holding the phone and my left arm is wrapped around her. A cold night outside, the weather’s been a little strange it’s been kind of a wet cold without the rain or snow but every morning there’s a lot of frost out there and when I go out to feed the squirrels, stray cats and the birds, I can feel it in my bones. I woke up many a morning on the bicycle tour with that wet cold feeling. 

 I generally would wake up between two and four, doing some writing like this, or in my journals with my pencils. If I hand write, I like writing with the pencil, there’s  something about a pencil in the way it feels on a piece of paper that I like and I prefer writing in a journal blank pages versus one that has lines on its paper.

I’ve never been one to be organized in a traditional sense -organization to me is having the lot on the table in full view so I know where everything is to me that’s order to other people it’s called clutter. 

I also have a cup of hot, tapwater coffee, freeze dried maxwell house I think it is. And this coffee always sends me back to military school as a 14 year old boy. It was a rough time for me, being alone, becoming a man I’m sure you know the story of me getting hazed that first couple of months I was there. I’ve written about it a few times, but as I got used to the school there I would wake up in the middle of the night as well, the time from bedtime around 1030 to 620 was my time I relished and like now I would get up in the middle of the night and write at my desk looking outside the window listening to the woods and words, sparking my imagination, and even then I would go down to the bathroom to pee, and get some hot water from the tap and come back up and make myself a cup of coffee with freeze dried coffee, if I had it. And like I said, I would either write, or just think, or maybe read a story, and at that time I would read stories of ghosts in haunted houses or stories of great white hunters in Africa and their adventures, or stories of explorers. Military school had a good library not in the amount of volumes, but the way it was set up and that it was easy to find books and it wasn’t a large selection, I mostly would skip the card catalog, then walk down  the dusty  isles reading the titles until something interesting pulled me in. Many of the books had that old smell to them and had not been checked out for decades, at least the books I wanted to read. I liked that very much as I felt the books were in hibernation and waiting for someone like me to come wake them up. It wasn’t like cheap books of today the fall apart easily. These were books with proper bindings and thick paper the kind they were made to last a long time.

That was back in 1979 along time ago. 

One thing I learned in military school was how valuable my time is as the school was very structured so almost every hour of my day was taken up with something, so my free time was between 1030pm and 620 in the morning.  And every morning when I woke up, I would usually dread the day not that I would be scared of it, but that I would dread the structure of the school, the mundane, the ridiculous, the classes bored me, the food was awful, but I knew I just had to get through it. All I have to do is make it until bedtime and then I have my time. I still think that way whether I have a job or or just riding out a normal day. 

One of things about being on a bicycle tour is, as long as one is solo, every day is your day, and there is a strong inner voice of introspection during the long distance cycling when you’re bicycling from an hour or two after waking up until late in the afternoon or possibly sunset. And for me once I’ve set up camp, and had my supper, then I get into my sleeping bag with my journal next to me looking out at whatever I can see in my surroundings in the dark and usually angled so I could see the sky and the stars if they were out and I would be reminded in my safe little home, the tent or the piece of ground I was laying on as sometimes it would just be me on a patch of dirt with a ground pad and my sleeping bag waiting for sleep to come and remembering my day then it starts to transcend it is just me, the earth, and the universe at that moment in time and space on that patch of dirt, or in this bed, or at that military school in that bed, or at the writing desk, being aware of the past, present and future, not being afraid but embracing life. To be clear, actually, more clear it’s that feeling you have when you are outside looking up at the stars and you feel small, but yet somehow are attached to everything. And everything is as it should be.

Thank you for reading my words. 

I hope you’re doing well. It’s been along time since I’ve talk to you. Drop me a note and let me know how things are going and if you’re in the area, let me know. You’re up for a cuppa coffee and a chat. And I’ll share wonderful things with you. 

Peace and love, 

Bill Poindexter.

If you’re interested in supporting this endeavor, I am also trying to raise money for my next expedition, which I’ll be talking about an upcoming post please consider buying me a cup of coffee and a sandwich. You can find me on https://venmo.com/code?user_id=2935349168832512847

thank you!

Meeting God on a bicycle tour

 

Meeting God on my bicycle tour by Bill Poindexter

As most of you know, over the last few years, I’ve been on a journey to come to terms with my own spirituality. I’ve had numerous conversations with people from all different religions, and I’ve gone in meditation, asking for guidance from the universe. And I find that when I am traveling, and I travel by bicycle on self contained bicycle tours, also known as bikepacking, if you’re not familiar with Bikepacking, just think backpacking, but on a bicycle-I’m carrying all my camping gear as well as food and water and tools for my bicycle. 

And on this particular journey, synchronicity played a big part of the whole journey coming together -everything from being able to raise/earn funds for the journey to someone loaning me a bicycle, and it was very interesting about how all the timing came together as I was originally supposed to start the journey in Canada but instead had to start two weeks later further south by taking a train to Santa Fe New Mexico, and then making my way up to Taos because of some conversations I had about Taos having a spiritual Vortex with some locals that I met in Santa Fe after getting kicked out of a hostel- That’s another story for another time. And then making my way from Taos across a vast Desert basin to the beginnings of the great divide mountain bike route, which I started at Hopewell Lake New Mexico and then I rode for the next 40 days to Banff Alberta Canada. 

This the story of me leaving Taos and it’s about an experience I had on the way to a town called Tres Piedres right at the edge of the Carson National Forest.

I woke early in the morning on the covered front doorstep of the visitor center in Taos, New Mexico. I slept illegally, probably, I might add because I was on a tight budget on the trip and there had been a thunderstorm the night before, so I decided not to camp and I figured, well, it’s a visitor center. It was closed and I slept on the front doorstep. I got up and left at first light made my way to McDonald’s where I had breakfast with some homeless people and then I did a little sightseeing around the town, but Taos didn’t do anything for me. I decided to make my way to the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route or at least get as far as I could that day. 

I met a Native American man and we had some interesting conversations. He was the maintenance man for the Rio Grande Gorge rest area, the Gorge, also known as the Little Grand Canyon, was just west of Taos. 

He was kind enough to offer me water and asked questions about my journey.

I told him I was heading to Canada, and he in his simple way said,

“Canada that’s a long way. How are you gonna get there?”

I told him I was gonna ride the great divide mountain bike route 

and he said “well there’s an easier way” 

and I said “yeah I’m sure there is.”

He smiled. “How did you get here?” He asked 

And I said well I just took the highway 

“there’s an easier way to get here to from Taos” he said 

“you just go to the end of town take the dirt road go to the second Mesa and take a right“

I said oh, I didn’t know that. But I love that simplicity, “just go to the second mesa and take 

 a right!“

We had a great conversation and shook hands and I rolled out across the basin to Tres Piedres, which is about 40 miles to my destination. It was already close to noon, and it was a hot day, and the sun high as I meandered across the desert on my bicycle being unsure of what my future was going to hold over the next month or so. I contemplated life as I rolled across the desert, I would see mini dust devils / vortexes rise, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic, and it reminded me of a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia. The movie with Peter O’Toole playing, 

T.E. Lawrence, crossing the great Desert. 

I rode and contemplated life, I would go deeply meditation and speculate on my own existence, mortality, and purpose. As I crossed the vast desert with few cars, I would periodically stop to have some food and water looking down one side of the highway and then the other with no sign of humans just the mirages rising from the heat of the day on the road – I marveled at the beauty of the desert and of New Mexico. After 2 -3 hours I started to get fatigued. I probably hadn’t been drinking enough water and hadn’t eaten enough food which is pretty normal on my expeditions -in the beginning as it takes me a few days to get dialed in on how much food and water I need and the desert itself was very hot and dry. I would continue to occasionally stop to have drink and I would look behind me, and in front of me and see the vastness of the road and see the mirages as the dust devils Danced off in the distance. I was in deep thought, and I knew I wasn’t very far from the town probably 15 miles or so, an easy ride for me. 

I was in deep thought and all the sudden out of nowhere there was an old pick up truck like one of those small pick up trucks from the 90s. It was covered with rust and there was a bunch of junk in the back. It seemed like it was going just a little bit faster than my pace, and I hadn’t heard it coming, but I caught it out of the corner of my eye as it started to pass me. 

I turned my head as it just went past, and I could see there was no back window there was an old man, skinny, scruffy looking, tanned with deep wrinkles, gray hair and a beard, and he looked directly at me, and I remember thinking he had the clearest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life as our eyes connected, and he smiled, winked at me and nodded and then sped off.  The look he gave me was one of comfort, that calmed me.

I had felt alone on the road and been feeling a little bit anxious and that one look that one glance, gave me comfort. I think maybe it was just that I wasn’t alone then.

I started feeling very fatigued and occasionally when you don’t eat enough or drink enough, you have an experience called -bonking. It’s where you don’t have enough calories in your body, and you start getting, very fatigued, low blood sugar, shaky, erratic heartbeat, go slower than normal and it’s important to stop and take a break.

I turned off the road into an area that was going into a sparsely populated residential area and there was a place on the side of the road just off the highway that was covered with some picnic benches. I didn’t have much water left maybe half a bottle left but I did have some food so I ate some food drank the rest of my water and I was only about 6 miles from town so I knew I’d be OK. I took a quick nap on the picnic bench. And after about an hour I felt better and got up, packed my bike. I was walking out to the road, pushing my bike, the man in the pick up truck pulled up. I think I had stopped on the road he lived on. 

He stopped right in front of me and smiled at me with those infinite blue eyes.

He grinned and I smiled. The pick up truck itself was an old dilapidated truck. Lots of rust, very old and I could see that even in the inside of the truck some of the seats were didn’t even have fabric on them. They were just rusted old Wire frames from underneath, and the man himself had a little puppy dog wrapped around his neck, who is just as happy as could be and I looked at the passenger side and saw that he had some packages and bags of stuff and there was a case of beer and 2 L bottles of vodka, and he had a beer in between his legs.

“How ya doing?” He asked 

“I’m doing good, just took a break in the shade.” I said 

“Where you heading?”

“To town, then over the the Continental Divide to ride a road to Canada.”

“Canada! That is gonna take some time.” he said laughing

“I’d offer you a beer but I don’t think you would want it.”

Actually, I did, but I didn’t want to deprive him of his stash. I asked him if he had any water, he said, no, and then I told him that was a good looking little puppy he had on his shoulders.

“ Yeah, I’m teaching him how to drive!” he explained reaching up petting the dog. “No, I’m just teasing, he’s too young to drive.”He said rubbing the dog’s head vigorously.

I just smiled and was unsure what to say. Actually, I think he was probably teaching the dog how to drive. I thanked him for stopping. And we parted ways.

I remember the comfort he gave me by that interaction, the calmness and the presence of mind. And I like to think that he was an angel or God, and that out of all the people around there this poor scraggly old man who in the desert with his dog after most likely cashing his Social Security check, was kind enough to stop and offer me help in guidance if I needed it. And honestly at that time, bonking, feeling stressed out, uncertain of the long expedition I was on solo. I was scared and stressed out physically and mentally and I was very uncertain of my future and I needed a calming voice, a calming presence. Unconditionally. And as I rode away, I just shook my head, and said, “wow!“

 I remember as I looked in those beautiful blue eyes I saw something I saw a light.

Some things are hard to explain in life. But I remember those blue eyes, which twinkled with light, like sunlight or moonlight reflecting off the vastness of an ocean. I don’t know, but in my mind, and in that moment I met,God. 

Perhaps, the God/ Universe within all of us?

If you’d like my writings, let me know as you can comment below.

Peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter.