Poetry-An American Adventure II

New York

We are conciously trying to outrun the weather when we reach a debacle in Lockport. The main road was virtually impassable, some festival was in high activity and everyone was there. We thought we would be clever an use the side roads but got defeated by a large river, a bridge flooded out, and an unexpected expressway. We got bolloxed by the river/expressway, sent back to town, got out again only to find ourselves on the shore on Lake Ontario to the north, before breaking past this only-one-of-many-huge-unnamed-rivers. We kept ahead of most of the rain but the storm would be lapping Ella’s tires for the next two days.

Climbing out of the Niagara valley was slow but we were now in very pretty, half-wooded steep hills just entering into leaf color season. We hit a couple of hills with 2 mile downgrades and I realized that we had only 3 drum brakes (drum brake fade) and no emergency brakes.

About that time Emile declared this to be a perfect place to bike. The hill country seemed like a good place for Emile to get in his training ride. The broad shoulders on the highway ensured good safety. We stopped, prepared the bike, dressed in cycle gear, and sent me 50 miles ahead. Uhhh, are there going to be more of these mahunga hills? My experience with Ella was 50 miles of flat road to this point. Fortunately the hills were smaller and compression was plenty to slow, but I took poetic license in describing the experience:

Flying down a hill in God-knows-where New York
In a comely 1929 Model A Ford barely under control
too frantically busy to notice a lovely autumn
a vista of leaves turning into a full rainbow
the corn crop a translucent pale yellow of ripeness

Everywhere else lush green meadows
unthinkable in California
New York State Highway 20 in increasing undulations
precipitous plummeting beautiful views
and dangerous downgrades
Challenging this lovely old car with every new slope

Clearly I am down on my knees grateful to be here
what better summer vacation could a dad have than
helping my son get his painstakingly restored Ella
this object of love and so much personal identity
to Boston, to her continued life and well being

Let me explain the seriousness of the situation:
This car is hemorrhaging oil and water
constantly raising the haunting specter danger
of running dry into mechanical destruction
and no clue where to get more 40 weight oil

The rear engine bearing is dying
We have adjusted tightened as much as we can
but Emma still pounds out a death rattle
A ten cent pin in the clutch can go anytime
making shifting all but impossible

The water pump is dancing alarmingly in and out
A serious wobble even for a Model A
Two cracked wheels, one seriously out of round
These are not the problem, just idyl thoughts
while serious these will not kill me

The lack of windshield wipers, defroster, or even heater
with thundershowers threatening every day
mere distractions for my racing brain, thudding heart
RainEx and FogEx improve vision to impairment
scanning through and ignoring water droplet distraction

No, it is the miles long relentless downgrades
only three wheels with mechanical rod-driven brakes
the fourth so bad a blessing to be lost
drum brakes - old drum brakes - and rusted
overheated they fade away from functionality

Did I tell you they badly need adjusting?
We know this, discussed this, planned correction
but not now not here barreling down this hill
thanking Henry Ford for a throttle I can throttle
a worn engine’s compression my best hope

The dismantled emergency brakes scare me silly
but then they were rusted useless disconnected
sitting in pieces in a box in the back seat
I am still learning how to drive this car,
this unfathomable beauty form another age

Still unclear on critical concepts, unmarked controls
My son 30 miles back on a ten-speed racing bike
“Dad, I need a workout, drive the car 50 miles”
Ella be kind to me, I know you not
I am alone alone alone with a thrill of fear

We were cutting down to Highway 20, doing three small regional highways, so we opted to check-in at Alabama, about half-way. The hills soon faded to marshy land then farmland. Stopping at the intersection of this small town for 20 minutes waiting for Emile, a teenager comes out of a house 50 yards away and spends quite awhile fascinated by me and the car. A significant event. It does not seem appropriate to respond at all, and after 15 minutes or so he is gone. We meet up, Emile drains a bottle of energy drink, and we are off to meet in Batavia. There is about 5 miles of highway construction that forces Ella to drive in a large trench where the pavement has been removed. This was the western NY style Ella suffered three times and she did not like it at all. Was mostly concerned about her clutch with all the rough starting and stopping, and those narrow tires and cracked wheels!

BataviaAfter waiting for Emile for about 30 minutes I began to worry that the place I had stopped at was too far into Batavia town. There was two lanes but they were both busy. When I saw another cyclist riding on the other side of the road I decided to move out to the real edge of town where the Ella Lane ended - just a few blocks. As I pulled in there Emile was right behind me. We were both surprised. He wanted to know where the heck I was going. I wanted to know where the heck he had come from. All that highway construction behind us had created several detours and he had taken another one. Once again Betsy’s suggestion of a travel cell phone would have eliminated this possible missed connection and confusion. Ah well. Emile had “hit the wall” on this cycling leg, was drenched in sweat and famished. Unfortunately Batavia seemed to be quite a staid town - couldn’t find anyone who knew of a pub. So Emile sucked it up and ate what food we had left while wepushed on to another town to find a pub. I surmised that closer to the finger lakes, being a tourist spot, we should have better luck, and in fact we had too much.

We pushed on to Canandaigua the next county seat and found a delightful town nestled in a hollow of the hills. Decent shopping street with art and art stores, and more importantly a good pub. We felt good enough about the town to leave Ella out of our sight while we entered a great pub/sports bar (perhaps too great) with four tv screens and a young active vocal clientele. Passing through the bar there was a full restaurant in back which got me into trouble. The all you can eat prawns were excellent, not too greasy, and lived up to their billing. Right away I got about 30 in a bed of tasty shoestring potatoes. They had a special on the homebrew of $8 a pitcher, and with Emile driving I drank most of that. Then I had to go and order 10 more prawns and they sent me 20. I was stuffed and soon to pay for it.

The tv and the waitress were equivocal about the weather, but obviously there was a good chance of rain. Bravura, stupidity, or machismo - take your pick. While the rain had stopped the skies still looked threatening, but we had been reminiscing about the previous trip where we took shelter in the picnic area when it rained in Cheyenne. Getting gas the clerk told me that Sampson State Park had covered picnic areas. I really shouldn’t have done it but we decided to camp at Sampson, twenty miles down a finger lake in the dark.

Sampson Park, Finger Lakes was one of the strangest parks I have ever been in, or at least to arrive at in the dark. First of all it was huge and flat and as barren as anything gets in New York. We drove a quarter mile straight in to a traffic circle and streets going straight off. Passing a warplane museum it became obvious that this was an old military base, or still was in strange ways. It had something of Treasure Island (in the SF bay) to it. We finally found the rangers office in the old warehouse section of the base. Two old rangers who were very savvy and cool, and two young women rangers.

It wasn’t until we got there and were negotiating with the rangers that I really realized that we didn’t have a tent, didn’t have a sleeping pad, that it was almost certainly going to rain sometime tonight, and the picnic area would be hard concrete. There were no motels except 20 miles back the way we came, so we had to get the rangers to take pity on our self-manufactured plight. they gradually realized that we were totally unprepared, and in the end gave us a spot as far as possible from the Rvs in the Rv area. One ranger even led us thorugh a bewildering maze of streets to our destination.

Most of the Rvs were sporting American flags, had lights on , were barbecuing or just getting ready to retire for the night. As we trudged back and forth across a hundred feet of wet lawn in the dark I could hear parents warning their children not to wander in the direction of the two strange men in the old car! Oh well I guess we were. We set up camp and brought out the laptops for a little computing. Mine died quite quickly, darn!

Emile opted to risk the lawn for sleeping but I slept on the concrete. Concrete is hard. I did get a little sleep and I did survive the concrete per se, but my leg felt trapped in the sleeping bag, my toes really resented the concrete, and I had serious digestion problems from all that beer and all those prawns. So while Emile slept - thank goodness since he was the driver - I woke up around 3:30 wide awake with nothing to do.

Walked to the lake but it was remarkably plain, in one way looked bare like a newly constructed reservoir, since light fog made for no detail, like looking down Tomales Bay with no lights, no life. In another way I could feel the weight of old history here. Of desperate campaigns and Indian wars. Of Indians (and settlers) desperate starving and freezing. Dangerous winter crossings of this lake. It wasn’t particularly cold but I felt shivers and inhospitality and walked back to the pavillion.

Finally I went and got the power cord for my laptop and walked to the bathroom, plugged it into the shaver socket above the sink. Tried the laptop sitting on the sink, that only worked for a few minutes. Had to sit on my Peruvian sweater on the floor, back to the wall. Uncomfortable but got some work done on the book - that felt good. After about two hours of this discomfort I realized that the laptop had recharged some and went out into the dark to work at another pavillion. With my windup lantern I was scattering the coons and skunks right and left - coons quickly slithering and skunks running away with tails held high. Got another hour of work done and decided to see if I could sleep a little more.

Thunder had been making light but threatening footprints all evening and suddenly there was that warning sprinkle that presaged an intense shower. I called out to Emile on the lawn and he immediately got up and relocated to his chosen picnic table without waking up! Opted for a park bench myself this time and they are much softer than concrete! Can hang ones toes over the edge as well. Unfortunately the zipper decided to come undone at that point. Almost immediately after the rain came down in a thunderstorm deluge, it really came down for an hour.

After that a bitterly cold offshore wind came up - I think fall arrived to New York with that moment. this caused me to tangibly understand those stories of early settlers, perhaps suddenly caught in freezing rain or snow, without Sierra Designs skiware either. Dressing in all my clothes and in the sleeping bag I was comfortable and probably dozed a little. Sometime before dawn I had had it though, got up, trudged over to the showers and had as warm a shower as possible. got dressed in my least dirty clothes, and began packing up with the dawn.

At about real dawn Emile woke up. I felt guilty putting Emile through this by my pig-headedness and apologized the the next morning. He only smiled ruefully, declaring that he slept well, and pointed out he was culpable as well - did not borrow a tent and also had no pad. Realized then that this was one of our crazy macho test things. Declared that for sure to night, hopefully our last night on the road, no camping! What was amazing about this insanity was that I was not crippled or limping or had a hip pointer from the concrete pad. In a strange way it was good to know such a night was completely survivable.

We finished packing up, and really started to stow things in Ella. The routine was to then check oil and water. Dismay! The oil breather cap was missing! While the Model A has a long breather pipe down to the oil pan, we couldn’t go on without some sort of cap. I have in the past lost these caps. What was neat was how fast Emile remembered, and he straightaway walked over to the awakening Rvs and borrowed a piece of aluminum foil that we could double and double again and then form a cap over the pipe. Checking out at the rangers I asked if they had any wire, and sweet rangers that they were, looked all around and found some aluminum wire. It was very nice of them, and we used it, but aluminum wire can be twisted and untwisted about twice before it breaks. Do not take aluminum wire on your backcountry trips.

On the way out of the park in the daylight it was quite clear that this was a former military base. And driving back up to Highway 20 the high side away from the lake on our right was all military base for at least 10 miles. Emile points out white deer in the military reservation behind the high fence, smaller than ours in Mendocino. Emile notices a doe and we surmise it is an albino. Later we pass three bucks, two of which are white, and realize that they are not sports but a breed like ours as well. Emile goes on about the genetics but soon loses me.

Rubber Stamps sign outside an isolated private residence on Finger Lakes highway.

Did the rest of New York on old Highway 20, which paralleled I-80 at a discreet distance. As the old interstate highway it was pretty straight, two well-paved lanes with broad shoulders that allowed Emile a safe bicycling experience. The flatness of Ontario was gone, changing to undulating over rolling hills perhaps a thousand feet high. Ella wasn’t bothered by most of them, but the others were slow going in second. Just beginning Fall color. Dappled between farm country and woodlands, old fashioned barns with dirt bermed driveways I guess to rise above the snow.

We were worried about Albany. Getting through was easy though on a Sunday with a Monday vacation. I had a devious route swinging north past the SUNY campus which worked well - while stopped for gas near the campus we were asking some admiring students about a pub and motels - areas in which they were clueless, but the young dad in front of us sent us straight down the road to a major sports bar (not a pub but ok with good food). “Tell them Dennis sent you/” meant nothing to them but was sweet nontheless. He also told us to avoid the dumpy motels there and where to find a quite decent Super 8 motel. I even got to watch the 49ers not quite win a football game! only because they were playing Cleveland, and certainly not another 49ers fan in the place.