Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 95

Bicycling Across History to Oregon 91 ter high winds elsewhere. Earlier in the trip, soon after crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri, the wind was so bad that semis tipped over. Finding it impos sible to stay on our side of the road, we were often forced to walk our bicycles. In Oregon, along the Columbia River gorge, we were on a flat road, in the lowest gear and pumping hard to average 5 mph. But Wyoming was the worst. And as those travelers of yesteryear had reported, we found the constant noise of the wind to wear on our nerves. One evening, after spending a long day battling the ele ments as we approached Casper, which proudly bills itself as one of the nation’s windiest cities, I wrote in my journal: “We really felt like emigrants today and I doubt that any were ever more tired than we are tonight.” The following day, again facing head winds of 25-35 mph, so exhausted and cold and frustrated was I that near Independence Rock, the famed landmark where hundreds had chipped out their names 150 years earlier, I Just lay down on the road’s shoulder. There was no shelter to break the wind and I knew that the slightly warm blacktop would reflect some heat. I fantasized that the occupants of the occasional car that buzzed by me at high speed thought I was dead. This galloping past the dead and dying in the road had been commonplace during the great cholera epidemics that periodically plagued the pioneers in the 1850s. So terrified had travelers been of that dreaded and usually fatal affliction that people were often left where they fell. Wyoming’s rain and cold also thwarted us. The day that turned out to be our shortest in miles traveled was probably our toughest. We rode for 3 hours in a steady rain and covered 45 miles. And it was 38 degrees. We had no choice but to push on since the naked geography of the land offered us absolutely no cover. On the verge of hypothermia, at 9 am we wheeled into the first shelter encountered, a small motel. Here the owner poured coffee down us, swaddled us in blankets and turned up the heat full blast. We were lucky. Yesteryear’s exposed traveler, caught in a similar or worse storm, had no such amenities available. For example, the famous California-bound Donner Party in 1846 was marooned by snow in the mountains. Some members died while some who survived did so only by resorting to cannibalism. And misconceived notions about the severity of weather in the mountains of the West continue to this day. In places, snow hangs on well into summer. For example, in mid-June, while crossing the continental divide at South Pass, we met a family from San Diego who had headed to Wyoming to vacation with nothing to wear but light Jackets, shorts, t-shirts and sandals. Had they read, before setting out, some emigrant Journals that speak of snow patches in July at South Pass, they might have packed more sensible clothing. These southern Cali fornians, upon arriving at Yellowstone National Park to find snow covering the campsites, had terminated their vacation and were headed home. My mention of the Donner Party and the practice of cannibalism introduces the subject of diet. Ours was ample. Although we bypassed the typical emigrants’