Inefficiency is the Heart of Adventure

Pacific Coast Adventure Cycling Route

This is the first in a series of stories and essays from the Pacific Coast Adventure Cycling Route—a 2000-mile bike ride from Canada to Mexico. If you’d like to support Dressing Like a Kangaroo, consider sharing this post with someone who would fight a raccoon.

Each day, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport bustles with eager vacationers, harried parents, and a handful of businessmen tightly buttoned into their most comfortable suits. A dozen planes, each sorted efficiently with two hundred passengers, take flight en route to San Diego. 

With three hours and a hundred dollars to spare, anyone can trade in a dreary Seattle day for 75 and sunny in La Jolla. I can't imagine why, but an equal number of self-loathing travelers fly in the opposite direction.

I’d see a handful of these planes every day.  They roared overhead while I delayed unzipping my sleeping bag on chilly mornings. Or, I'd see their contrails cross hatching the midday sky. Sometimes, I’d crane my neck to watch them pass, wondering if anyone was looking back, their breath fogging up the porthole glass. I wondered if the landscape that enveloped me looked as dramatic from 30,000 feet, or maybe it had shrunk beyond reverence.

From up there, I was just a speck among the rolling hills of soft coastal sediment. Slowly, the land gave way to the thump of waves hitting the Oregon coast. The sound intermittently disrupted the hum of airplanes above. Thump. Fizzle. The hum of a distant airplane. And another small bit of rock settles to the ocean floor, no longer a terrestrial being. The waves crash into the sides of the dramatic cliffs and rugged sea stacks -- outcrops with a more stubborn constitution. They rise from the waves like temples amidst the thump, fizzle, and hum.

Seafaring birds nest on these sacred sea stacks, far from the reach of predators. I watched the birds circle the isles, and mused at their unlikely symbiosis. Gulls and terns find sanctuary on the towering rocks, which in turn receive protection from the tides. Before the hammering waves can dislodge bits of rock, they must first clean off the thick layer of guano deposited by the birds. A few of these fertilizer rich sea stacks have sprouted tall bushes and small trees. 

The coastal terrain is sparsely settled by today's bustling standards, though a few towns have nestled themselves into the less dramatic corners where the mountains eroded leaving shallow beachside plains.

The Oregon Coast highway cuts through it all, swooping into the plains and valleys before riding the tops of 800 foot cliffs in a way that feels characteristically short-sighted. The civil engineers of the 20s had a "live fast, die young" vision for this beautiful young highway. I could imagine a man sporting a fedora and waistcoat, standing on those bluffs and deciding in a gritty, oratorical tone, that “automobiles must partake in this spectacle! Construct the highway on the precipice of these splendid cliffs.” No thought spared for how the cliffs formed, or rather deformed. The land has a loose grip on its terrene identity. 

I cycled on the edge of these exposed cliffs, past the sea stacks, and descended down into damp shades of conifers. Until, at around 6PM, I turned off the coastal highway onto a gravel road. My instructions were to "take the first left turn out of town." It took 12 miles to reach the unassuming drive on the left-hand side that disappeared up the hill into the understory. It would have been easy to miss if it wasn’t the only turn I’d seen in over an hour. A rusted mailbox leaned out towards the highway, marking the entrance.

I pedaled up the road for about a quarter of a mile, weaving my way up the hillside. The harder I pushed on the pedals, the more loose gravel spun beneath my tires. Tired and impatient, I swung my leg over the saddle and planted it on solid ground. The movement had to be achieved in one decisive action, or my bike bags swayed with the weight of my food and gear, toppling us both.

It was my fourteenth day of cycling, and my bike and I were finally learning to work together. I pushed my steel-framed steed up the rest of the rutted path, leaving the cliffside for a dense canopy of fir and cedar, shading a carpet of ferns below. The salty coastal scent was softened by cool moss and bark.

I rounded the bend to crest the hill, curious about tonight's digs. Northern Oregon had plenty of well-maintained state campgrounds to choose from, but the Southern coast proved to be more remote. There were no established campgrounds nearby, just a few overpriced motels and, of course, strangers I met on the Internet.

My other option was pitching my tent in the brush on the side of the highway, though I feared midnight visits from nosey wildlife. I'd had a few scuffles in recent nights with families of bandit raccoons who had tasted the ecstasy of refined sugars and felt they had nothing to lose. 

I yelled and charged at one in a half-naked stupor as it stole my lunches for the week. "Scram! You dirty shit!" It was three in the morning, and I wasn't picky about the words I chose to wake everyone in the campground. He called my bluff. While gripping a gallon bag with seven peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in his ratty hands, he looked up at me with eyes that reflected bright yellow, but invoked a hellish black.

That raccoon spoke telepathically in those early morning hours, "I'm going to steal your lunch, and you're going to let me." I stepped back towards my tent, and he walked off with my lunches. 

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I used a website called Warm Showers to arrange places to stay when I couldn't find campgrounds. It's designed to be a community forum where touring cyclists can find volunteering homeowners to crash with during multi-day rides. It's a niche community of enthusiastic riders that has yet to be corrupted or rigged in the ways other corners of the internet have been. There's a network of hosts spanning the entire Pacific Coast of the U.S. that I tapped into when needed. Paul was the only host listed for 50 miles in either direction. I sent him a summary of my situation:

Hi Paul! I'm bike touring to the start of the Pacific Crest Trail and then hiking back up. I started at the Canadian border about two weeks ago. I would greatly appreciate a place to stay tonight, even if it's just a tent site in the yard. I'm very friendly and low maintenance, though if you'd like to share a meal and tell me tales from your own adventures, I would be delighted.

As I pushed my bike up the drive, the forest had been cut back in an area the size of a school bus for a big beautiful garden bursting with vines and sturdy plants that took pride in their solid roots. It was the kind of garden that makes even the strongest-willed transients think, "I'd like to settle down someday."

As I traveled south, I had fantasies about the kinds of hobbies I would take up if I owned a plot of land. It was rare that I spent two nights in the same place, so I dreamed, "I'll build my own house. And a greenhouse. And keep a garden." In the desert, of course, because my fantasies weren't immune to the financial realities of owning land. I'd never been able to keep a plant alive, but if I just slowed down, I thought, I could grow a thriving garden. The number of perceived daylight hours approached infinity as I shed responsibility.

The house was a few hundred feet up from the garden. It was a big house, clad with shiplap siding, on a hillside clearing with a view of the ocean. A separate garage was considerably more weathered, and lower in profile. I could hear staccato musical notes resonate through the room and escape out the window. 

A big chocolate lab galloped out the door as I approached. Torn between its sense of duty as a guard dog and its essence as a puppy, he howled and barked and wagged his tail. Neither of us knew if he was excited to see me. He was immediately followed by a golden Vizsla puppy who wagged his tail so hard his hind legs toppled over in an endearing display of incoordination. 

"Bella! Miko!" A pleasant voice called from the garage, optimistic about their aptitude for instruction. "They're friendly," he said as he poked his head out of the garage, "just ignore them." He was wearing a cap and a canvas apron with tools in his pockets. A trim graying beard framed his face neatly. Bruce was Paul's husband, and he led me inside.

"Come on in, shoes off at the door."

Tall ceilings and full-height windows framed the ocean and the sky in one big abstraction. The walls were decorated at every inch, salon-style like the Royal Academy of the Arts. Rows of framed prints packed tightly up toward the ceiling. Thematically, the art leaned toward the dramatic and erotic with no stylistic through-line. Contemporary queer and vibrant illustrations of nude men hung next to mid-century oil paintings depicting dark and tragic scenes of contemptuous lovers. 

Bruce had built this house from the ground up over the last two decades and was somewhat protective of his castle on a hill. He showed me to my room upstairs, where I could take a shower before interacting with any of the furniture. 

I descended the staircase freshly washed 15 minutes later. Bruce sat at a duet bench in front of a plain wooden upright piano. Cheerful music resonated through the open house. It was Simon & Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge Song" that lifted my heart in my chest and put a childish smile on my face. Bruce belted from the living room, and Paul hummed the chorus from the kitchen while chopping carrots from the garden. 

Slow down, you move too fast

You got to make the morning last

Just kickin’ down the cobblestones

Lookin’ for fun and feelin’ grooovy

I swayed over toward the piano. Hands on his thighs, Bruce tapped his feet and the keys played themselves. Like a phantom shared the bench, his feet pressed the pedals underneath, and the keys danced on the keyboard.

"It's called a player piano," he said. I thought it might have been operated by spell or incantation. He explained to me that it was a fully mechanical instrument, it wasn't plugged in, required no batteries, no spells or magic. I was still toddling when the iPod was released, so the player piano was an entirely novel invention to me. 

"How does it work?" I asked. 

"You press these pedals below the piano, and it plays the roll with the music," He replied.

"I get that," I said, "but, how does that work?"

He grabbed a scrap of paper and started drawing a diagram. Here's how it was explained to me in simple terms. You load a paper roll into the spool box that's level with your face. Two pedals lay below the piano, and you simply press them in an alternating pattern to get the paper to scroll. By pressing the pedals, you create a vacuum in 88 teeny tiny chambers (one for each note) behind the face of the piano. The scrolling paper has holes in it that represent the music, and the piano has holes corresponding to each note's vacuum chamber. As the holes on the paper line up with the holes for the vacuum chambers, the air in the channel pushes a valve, drops the hammer, and the piano plays a crisp, beautiful note. 

Bruce is one of the few people in the country who can repair mechanical instruments like player pianos, he says it’s a lost art. I couldn't help but feel that it was fate that I was there in his living room, though I don't think he saw the resemblance. I was there, in a round-a-bout way, because I had a similar instrument.

In simple terms, let me explain how it works. There is a small uncomfortable bench above two pedals. You press the pedals in an alternating pattern. A vacuum is created, and two chambers made of flesh and bone gasp for air. The pedals turn a metal spool, which rotates two 26 inch wheels made of rubber and metal.

The noise my instrument makes is a little more abrasive. The back wheel makes a clicking sound like a giant cricket if you lose tension. It’s an anxious reminder that you've lost rhythm. But, when you are pedaling, it squeaks and moans with every stroke. And roughly every five minutes, a loud metal thump and clank rattles the bench. 

I remarked this to Bruce, that my bike and his instruments weren't so far apart. And that I was fortunate to have ended up there because my bike seemed to be broken in some small ways.

I'd bought the bike on Craigslist five days before I left in an impulse purchase six months in the making. I checked Craigslist every week waiting for the Surly Long Haul Trucker to appear in my frame size. It had been discontinued the year prior, but was remembered as one of the most dependable chunks of steel that money could buy. I hardly checked the last month before my trip while I dealt with more pressing logistics. But, as I laid in bed a week out, I had a hypnagogic dream that I was cycling down the coast. These visions weren't uncommon in the nights before my departure, but in this one I was riding the Long Haul Trucker, panniers on every corner. I rolled over and swiped my phone off the nightstand to check Craigslist one last time and I picked it up the next day. My Long Haul Trucker jolted, raddled and clanked, but never stopped moving forward. 

"What are your rates?" I joked, "I think my bike needs a tune up." Bruce laughed politely. People flew player pianos in from all over the world so Bruce could work with them. Maybe comparing him to a bike mechanic wasn't as funny as I thought it would be. 

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That night I laid in the guest bedroom, looking out the window over the ocean and sky, hardly distinguishable in their shade of navy. Little red and white flashes passed through the frame. Every year, a couple million people could probably spot this little coastal anomaly from their airplane window while trying not to talk to the person next to them. Each one traversing the Pacific coast without having to fight a single raccoon for the next day's lunch. I can't help but feel like they did it wrong. 

Inefficiency is at the heart of any adventure. It’s found in odd ways of approaching common tasks, and being unprepared in small, or big ways. The project cataloged in this collection was built on a sturdy foundation of inefficiency: a self-propelled loop from Seattle, back to Seattle. But, there were also small daily inefficiencies that are not unknown to my average day. I often note them as annoyances. So, there is nothing special about this collection of small inefficiencies, except that for six months I had the opportunity to call them adventures.

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