Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 95
Bicycling Across History to Oregon
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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’