360 Degrees Longitude (5 page)

 

Katrina's Journal, June 13

… After riding for about ten miles, we realized we'd practically gone in a circle. Great. That was but the first wrong turn. Next, after riding for about three or four miles, we found the road we were looking for. This road was supposed to take us several miles down to a bridge that crossed a small river, and shortly after crossing the bridge, we would find our campsite. After a long time of riding downhill, Mom said something like, “Sometimes I have this strange feeling that this road is just a path to someone's farm.” Just a tiny bit after she said that, we came to a dead end. In front of us was a river, only about twenty feet wide. But where was the bridge? On the other side of the river was a pub, with a deck and tables and chairs and people and plenty of boats. On our side, there were no boats. We called to people on the other side and begged them to come and get us in a boat, but they didn't own the boats
.

Our map showed a bridge where we were standing, but if there was a bridge, it was doing a great job of hiding. Talking to the locals who were lurking on the other side confirmed that there
used
to be a bridge, but the owners of the land nearby didn't like the through traffic and, well, somehow the bridge had been damaged beyond repair and torn down.

We had no choice but to go back and take the long way around. About three hours and more than twenty miles later we were on the other side of the river, and only twenty yards farther down the road.

Some
members of my family have the irritating quality of seeing the humor and adventure in situations like the bridge being out. Later that night as we pitched the tent, Jordan and I plotted against Team Estrogen for their high spirits and good nature. We snuck another two pieces of soap that had been squished into one bar into September's soap case.

A few days later we arrived in Salisbury to see our first UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site: Stonehenge.

The only thing I knew about Stonehenge was from the movie
This Is Spinal Tap
, so we got the obligatory headphones for the self-guided tour. We learned that Stonehenge was already ancient history when the Romans ruled England and that the stone pillars were built by … nobody really knows.

We would have good and bad experiences with UNESCO sites as our year unfolded, but Stonehenge reminded us of what we already knew; Katrina and Jordan experienced culture and history much differently than September and I did.

We walked along the path encircling the stone columns that have been enshrined on screensavers around the globe. Jordan paused, and looking at one of the columns noted, “They sell hot dogs here. And there is a gift shop.”

Katrina, always budget conscious, retorted, “We have food in our panniers, and we can only get one souvenir per continent.” Then, adjusting the headphones of her audio guide, she added without taking a breath, “These headphones hurt my ears.”

Summer solstice was only a week or so away. If we waited, a large gathering of people who hadn't found proper homes since Woodstock would be arriving to visit Stonehenge to feel its vibes. I could feel the vibes before summer solstice—it was the traffic thundering past only a few hundred yards away on the A303. It was so loud it was as though someone had turned up the volume all the way to eleven.

• • •

On a tandem you have a captain (the person in front) and a stoker. The stoker gets his name from the bygone era of steam trains when a person tended, or “stoked,” a fire. The hotter the fire burned the more steam was produced for the engine and the faster the train went. On a tandem the stoker's job is similar—to provide power.

Jordan and I had a lot of miles under our belts before we arrived in England. We had cycled across Austria before Jordan was in kindergarten, and it was while cycling the backside of Maui that we learned the hard way that you can't eat or drink a computer.

Even without a computer weighing us down, I knew that Jordan wasn't much for pedaling. I had hopes of conditioning him because Katrina, at eight, had been a great asset as a stoker. As hard as it was for me to admit it, part of Jordan's problem was me. I tried to ask for “pedal power” as nicely as I could but under the strain of huffing up a hill, my words could easily be interpreted as a bark to an eight-year-old. In those early days cycling in England, Jordan was starting to withdraw.

I was also having a hard time finding “my groove.” In the days before we left California, some friends asked me if I thought we were in shape to cycle such a vast distance. I quipped, “Well, let me just state that I don't think
my
physical condition is going to be our limiting factor!” I now realized that my
mental
condition was at risk of being a limitation.

David and Carolyn had warned us that finding camping spots in Southern England that are a comfortable day's ride apart might be difficult. I regretted pontificating on the virtues of camping, as many times I was shamed by Katrina's tenacity to cycle farther than planned in search of a campground. The nights we actually found refuge in a campground were a treat, even in a drenching rain. The night we had to make do in a farmer's field, I woke up the next morning with Jordan's sore throat and fever.

Then there was the matter of our load. Despite the time we spent economizing the “to take” pile, we still had to carry food and water, schoolbooks for the kids, clothes for everyone, a tent, four sleeping bags and mattress pads, rain gear, a first-aid kit, a camera, three PDAs, a cell phone, and enough bike tools to stock a small repair shop. And three pairs of shoes for September? What was with the hair dryer? Clothespins? Matching socks? And, since I was the strongest rider, Jordan and I had the “heavy stuff.”

Team Estrogen, however, was thriving, and due to all those fashion choices, was quite stunning.

 

John's Journal, June 18

The British Postal Service was kind enough to sell me an international calling card that has free calls to the United States on every Saturday in June. So, as I have on every Saturday for the previous twenty-odd years, I called my mommy
.

I ended up talking to her about Jordan, who has been acting very surly. I've been wondering if this trip is doing him more harm than good, and told her I was thinking about bringing him home
—
not seriously thinking about it, at least not yet. She was kind enough to remind me that Jordan was acting normally for eight years of age. I think her exact words were, “Well, if you can't remember what you were like when you were eight years old, then let me do it for you!” Above all else, she convinced me that Jordan was fine, and that I should forget about pampering him, let alone bringing him back home. For once it was good to be told that his behavior was hardwired in his DNA
.

September is much better at personal relationships than I am, so I turned to her for advice. “I need help getting Jordan to provide some power for going uphill,” I said.

“Don't ask Jordan,” September said. “Spider-Man is the person you need to talk to.”

Jordan was first introduced to his alter ego when he was four. We were on everybody's mailing list; buy a couple of things mail order, a few more online, and suddenly you're getting five pounds of mail every day. Jordan would watch for the postman every afternoon, and then run to the mailbox looking for toy catalogs. He would then study them as a starving person would a menu. When he found the sleek Spider-Man costume, he found his soul mate.

At the tender age of four Jordan had never seen Spider-Man before—not the movie, the comic book, nothing. But as soon as he saw the advertisement for a Halloween costume, he knew! He knew Spider-Man was bad to the bone. When Jordan finally got a Spider-Man costume of his very own, he wouldn't take it off and would do all sorts of things he knew were taboo.

September would say, “Jordan! You know better than that!”

“I'm not Jordan anymore! I'm Spider-Man!”

“Well, Spider-Man would never pinch his sister. Spider-Man is good!”

“NO! Spider-Man is baaaaaad!”

During the intervening four years Spider-Man had been Jordan's alter ego. A year or so earlier I saw Jordan “shooting a web” at the ball during a basketball game in an effort to steal it. So, I wisely followed September's advice to have Jordan get in touch with his inner Spider-Man. Not insignificantly, we also started to lighten the load by abandoning anything from that extra pair of sneakers to hand towels. You could map our progress by the stuff we left behind at various campsites. Katrina and Jordan caught on quickly and lobbied to abandon their math workbooks.

Cycling from Salisbury to Fordingbridge via a route that goes through the New Forest and Godshill was the best cycling we did in England. The scenery was green, the traffic was light, the sun was shining, and for a stretch the road was even flat.

Jordan and I pulled off to the shoulder for a moment. We were on a long straight road and the trees formed a perfect canopy overhead; September and Katrina were little more than a dot in the distance. As they approached us, I made small talk with Jordan about our next move. “I think those Spider-Man turbo boosts up the hills are really helping. If I didn't know any better I'd think Spidey was shooting a web and just pulling us up those hills today.”

Jordan gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Do you think you have a couple of more miles in those legs? Our map shows that there's a campground around here, but if we could get farther down the road, it will just make the ride that much shorter tomorrow.”

I could see the wheels turning in that little head. “Why?” Jordan asked. “What's happening tomorrow?”

“We're trying to reach a place called Poole, where we can catch a ferry to France. France is where they make French bread.” I had to make the goal of getting to France personal for Jordan. Along with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, French bread slathered in Nutella was one of his half dozen or so dietary staples.

Jordan and I commiserated for a moment while we waited for September and Katrina. I whined about the lack of burritos in my diet—Jordan, the lack of French bread and Nutella. When September and Katrina pulled up a few moments later, we started to discuss our options: find a place to stay now, or continue down the road a bit more. We pulled out a map to investigate our options. The English are among the most friendly on the planet. We found that standing on the side of the road perusing a map was all that was required to obtain assistance.

As if on cue, Mr. and Mrs. English-Person in the Ford Anglia pulled over to ask if they could help us. “So, where is home for you?” they asked.

“Well, for the next year or so, home is where our stuff is,” I told them. “We're trying to decide where we want to call home for the night. Is there a campground nearby?”

“Why, there's a very nice campground just a mile or so down this road. Sandy Balls.
You can't miss it.”

I tried to stifle a laugh, but there was too much momentum behind it. Trying to keep it in would have resulted in my eyeballs popping out or something equally nasty happening. “That sounds like someone had an accident at the beach!” But something was lost in translation, as they just gave me a blank stare.

Just like that our mantra was born:
Home is where your stuff is
. And with a name like Sandy Balls, how could we pass up the chance to call it home for the night?

• • •

Southern England seemed to be landscaped by committee—the hedges were all trimmed to regulation and the flower beds all had a Photoshop quality to them. As we pressed south, we stayed on the back roads that a century earlier served horse-drawn carriages. Homes with thatched roofs came to the very edge of the narrow lane, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine a hitching post to serve the travelers' horses passing through. Every village came with a High Street, which back home would be Main Street.

As we made our way from village to village, we would roll in on High Street, park our bikes in the center of the roundabout, and look for lunch. Villages take great pride in the roundabout on High Street, and it would invariably be outfitted with benches, an arbor, and of course the regulation landscaping. Lunch, however, proved maddeningly elusive some days. We had a difficult time remembering the English definition of a village or town. Our definition, however, was easy to remember: A village does not have grocery stores or ATMs. Towns do.

Ten days after we left the suburbs of London we arrived in the port city of Poole, where we could catch a ferry to France. It was a major mental milestone.

 

John's Journal, June 21

… that isn't to say the kids haven't been getting on my nerves. Yesterday was a good example. We came straight down from Fordingbridge to Christchurch, and then cut over to Poole, which meant leaving the quiet roads for fifteen miles of cycling on two heavily loaded tandems through bustling city traffic. We got lost so many times as we crossed town and every time we stopped to look at a map the kids would start to play this game where each would try to touch the other one, without being touched in return. Aarrgghh! It is difficult enough to have a conversation with September over the roar of traffic, and hold up a tandem all while under the stress of not getting clipped by a bus, but when you add a stupid, silly “touching”game and a spasmodic stoker, it was tough not to scream at the kids. But cycling through a city the way we did today isn't much fun, especially for the kids, so I didn't yell at them for playing it. That's a start, isn't it?