Day 14 - Reno, NV

Wendover is a strange place. A small and lonely casino town miles away from anything but the highway, it straddles both the Utah and Nevada border (half the town is in one, half the other) and the Mountain and Pacific time zones. Nice mountain view, but a somber place to stay longer than a night.

My health, and the bike's health, have been increasingly shaky. My body has been accustomed to a diet of low-meat, non-processed, mostly organic sustenance, and the curve ball the food deserts of the road has thrown is noticeably accumulating force. Today, I awoke with a returning scratch in my throat and sinus congestion, hauntingly similar to a bug that lingered on and off for about a month and disappeared once we hit the trail. I have what would be considered a solid immune system, but one noticeable affliction comes with days of rapid weather change. Today, it was borderline hot, and I was feeling nauseous on top of the aforementioned scratch/sinus return. The bike has been coughing and spitting more and more, and having greater difficulty starting up. My initial association of these symptoms with elevation and temperature drop didn't hold well in Wendover, where we were closer to sea level on a warm day. To boot, when the RPMs drop below 2000, the bike coughs and stalls. This was happening before only when the engine was cold - now it is clearer that the carburetor is having issues. Every time I slow to a stop, I have to simultaneously hold the hand brake and give it steady gas, or else I find myself on the side of the road waiting to for the injection to reignite.

After she was started up (and died at the gas station, and started up again), we hit the road. Our assumption of the direct route to San Francisco, I-80, being a desert version of the monotony of the prairie was pleasantly mistaken. The beige-brown desert mountains of the western end of Utah continued on, and the cruise was very pleasant. The road was relatively quiet on a Sunday, with mostly big rigs that we strategically weaved in and out of. Except one. There crept up on us an 18-wheeler with ventilated sides and rear, transporting horses. The driver was averaging 15 mph over the speed limit (which was 75), and was passing vehicles left and right. He was largely unsympathetic to our presence and the gusts caused by his wake and, while passing other trucks, cut in front of us and slowed slightly. We were unavoidably caught behind him for a good half hour, keeping a safe distance - but not safe enough to avoid the back spray of horse urine that eventually misted our faces and windshields.

Songs in shops and rest stops have played a marginally significant role in the excellent adventure. Dropping off the bike for the clutch cable and tire replacement, for example, "Patience" by Guns and Roses was overheard in the shop; a mutual love of Snake's and mine assuring us that "just a little patience" would get us through the predicament at that time. At the gas station today, the U2 song mentioned at the beginning of this blog came on, and I felt a turn towards expiation of the previous day's inadequacies as I gazed upon distant snow-capped mountains contrasted against the desert. Songs speak to us undoubtedly - the particular significance observed in this case is timing. It further supports the sentiment that something larger than ourselves, beyond our control, is at work. There is a scientific element of truth to that aside from matters of faith - but it is more what is normally attributed to superstition that strikes a chord here.

We continued our haul down I-80. With every refuel, I pumped my body full of whatever beverage had the highest vitamin C content. We stopped for a brief lunch in Battle Mountain - a deli attached to a liquor store, across from the gas station. The chicken sandwich did not agree with me. Feeling a surge of nausea, I checked my cell phone - mostly to divert my mind from the sickly feeling, but also to see if word had come from friends that were close to the area. I noticed a text message from one of my friends kind enough to take care of my beloved cats while I was on the road - one of them, Gepetto, was growling and peeing pink. For those unaware, I have a borderline irrational love of my felines - they are the yin to my yang. The thought of either of them in less than exceptional condition broke my heart. The nausea increased tenfold. I called my friend to find out the details, and she reassured me that it was nothing demanding immediate attention. I trust her word, as she has great experience with animals, and takes good care of my boys. She would take him in to the free clinic tomorrow for a diagnosis. In the back of my mind was the sinking feeling of losing another loved one on this trip; a thought which only something like the alone head-time of the road can mitigate.

As we pushed on, I reverted to breathing exercises to regulate the sickly feeling. Years ago, when I began to dabble in meditative practice, the crucial nature of breath control was fully illuminated. At first glance, the vitality of breathing is obvious - no breath, no life. But digging deeper into that statement discloses an entire outlook on life relative to breath. When we were bracing the Canadian elements last week, I recounted silently to myself a story I had been told of Buddhist monks who, in deep meditation, were able to maintain consistent bodily temperature while seated in lotus position under a frigid waterfall. The potency of this story has never left me - when one masters consciousness of breath, and can regulate it at will, one controls life. My entire existence henceforward has had embedded within it this kernel of breath mastery.

It helped in the cold, and it was helping now. I started to feel better. In the practice of doing so, it came into awareness that a dear friend - a big sister figure in my life, who has expanded my boundaries in many ways - was undergoing Reiki certification. She mentioned to me how an advanced level of Reiki entailed distance Reiki, and that she would attempt intention toward me while I was on the road. Whether or not one believes in such practices is wholly a matter of personal choice - I for one choose to remain open to the possibilities, as so many forces that we accept as givens (gravity, electromagnetism, lunar relations to tides, etc) are outside our immediate sensory experience. There was a time before any of these were even observed, let alone accepted - who is to say we know it all now? At any rate, as I felt the impact of breath exercises to quell my nausea, the thought of my friend's distance Reiki appeared in my scope of awareness, and acting upon the thought, I started to intend the current to heal sore muscles and stiffness of back. Whether it was her force or not, it was helping. The mind is a powerful thing. I also attempted to channel the force of what I was feeling to Gepetto. If only he could speak
English.

We were at our final spot before our evening destination, sitting on the curb taking a few minutes, when a Buick pulled up not far away with an elderly couple and their 50s-ish year old son. The father came out, and with a warm smile and surprising energy, declared to us, "Alright halftime - let's switch!" His bonhomie was energizing. They inquired about our trip, and uttered the second most popular comment to date (behind "You're a long way from home"): "From Boston, huh? You don't have the accent." The stereotype is perpetuated that anyone from the area affirms statements with "wicked pissah" and omits the letter R from their vocabulary almost entirely. I told him, "get a few drinks in us, then we'll see." They chuckled. The son told us about how, at this very gas station several months back, two young guys had pulled up on Kawasaki dual-purpose bikes, covered in mud. They were on an excellent adventure of their own - apparently, a trail has been mapped from Georgia to the Oregon coast that is entirely dirt-road. GPS units are available for rent or purchase to follow the route. The dirt bikers were on their way to the coast, then planned to extend their trip down to the South American tip, and by boat, off to Europe. They kept an excellent adventure blog as well, and passed the URL onto this gentleman, who said that after bypassing by boat certain parts of Central America due to guerrilla warfare, they called it quits in South America. "There is much in Nature against us," said the nature-loving sage Robert Frost. The road abides to Nature. The son commented before leaving, "man... you guys are living every guy's dream." The thought then returned to me that living the dream always entails tribulations omitted from the dream in its purely fantastic form. But if there were no bitterness in life, sweetness would taste bland. The father left us with a parting magic trick he performed in hospitals - he pulled out a bouncy ball, bounced it once, then motioned throwing it in the air as it disappeared from his short-sleeved grip. It was a great little trick, and I wondered to myself at what future occasion the ball might stupefyingly fall from the sky.

Our longest stint to date, across the state of Nevada, terminated in the biggest little city in the world - Reno. The casinos have stellar hotel rates to lure folks in to spend spend spend. We had reservations at a 4-star hotel and casino for $45/night, lower than any lodging to date except camping. When we pulled off the exit, the bike sputtered with the throttle maxed and the bike puttering at 1500 RPM. I pulled over, and after a few minutes, the high end of the carburetor kicked in and I carried on precariously. As we rounded a corner to the parking garage of our hotel, the bike stalled. After multiple attempts, she started up again, only to die on the first level of the garage. I tried unsuccessfully for about 15 minutes to restart it, and after backfiring loud enough to summon a bomb squad, the engine smoking, it was time to call it quits. Snake helped me push it into a motorcycle parking area. I stood for awhile staring at the bike in disbelief. The day was a microcosm of the greater roller coaster this trip has been. As I stood there, memories flooded in of childhood rides on the bike, looking at it in our family's garage in awe, rides to school and sports practice - I choked up at the thought of having to put it down. Motorcycle shops adhere to a schedule identical to barbers, and none will be open until Tuesday. For the time being, I vowed not to bother myself to the point of despair with the situation. Snake and I checked in, and headed down to grab a bite and test our luck.

I am not a casino guy. The casino environment from my vantage point is laden with a tragic underpinning. Exploitation of hopes and dreams, disgusting gaudiness, excessive indulgence on all fronts, and worst of all - a pedestalization of the dollar, the golden calf of human existence. It also doesn't help that I suck at poker.

We had a coupon from the hotel for $5 off the all-you-can-indulge buffet restaurant. We had barely eaten anything in our course of hauling ass across Nevada (breakfast at the Wendover motel was a meager bowl of cereal), and took the opportunity to eat ourselves into gluttony. While immobilized in the downtime of digestion, I took notice of the ubiquitous displays of fake flowers hedging the restaurant from the casino. The waitstaff appeared automata - desensitized to their surroundings to maintain sanity, a vacuous look about their eyes. I watched a busboy clear plates off a table - having worked in restaurants for more than one job, and conscious of the amount of food that is wasted on a daily basis, I trembled at the reality of all who are dying worldwide of starvation while Jr's third helping of eye-of-the-round gets chucked without even being touched. The amount of food discarded, between patrons and nightly leftovers, in this buffet alone could probably feed an entire province for a day. Multiplying that by the number of restaurants in this casino, the number of casinos in Reno, the number worldwide, my food tried to make an escape out the wrong chute. But what about the wonder of it all? The thrill of chance? Let's try our luck and live a little!

One of the bars were offering mixed drinks for $2 each, so we capitalized on the deal. The only way I could cope with reality at present was to take the edge off, and whiskey did the trick. Before too long, I was perched at the Harley Davidson electronic slot machine, and like a rat demanding feeding pellets, pumped singles in for my one-in-thirty-trillion chance to win a new bike. Like the array casinos, the electronic slots are identical with different visages, but the stakes of this one were more relevant at present. Voa loved gambling - she was always responsible about spending, and joyful at the simple pleasure of the thrill of the risk. It also didn't hurt that, most often, luck was on her side, and she would often return well in the positive monetarily. I however, did not inherit the gene. I played for her, for dad's bike, for an opportunity to participate in blind chance. If you don't play, you don't win. If you do play, and you have had the kind of day like today, the deal is sealed on your fleeting luck. We conceded, and called it a night.