Wednesday, July 9, 2008
TAT Day 7
I'm writing this a day late. We woke up at camp in the riverbed to the sound of light rain Tuesday morning, and considering a couple of warnings about possible floods the night before (after all, the reason we were camped there was because of a flood), we thought it might be best to jet out of there. We had a quick breakfast and powered up the steep gravel hill on the west bank of the river.
Oklahoma roads were much smoother for us. Actually, I enjoyed Oklahoma a lot. Part of this may have been because of the rain off and on--temperatures were very pleasant. We hit a few hills here and there, but mostly flat farm land. I think it was probably the best time of year to be in that particular part of the country, because the fields were covered in deep, brilliant green grass, or sometimes tall golden grasses. The sky was sort of roiling with varied greys in the clouds, so it made for a fascinating backdrop, and after a couple of slow, jolting days, it was nice to fly over smooth gravel roads.
_thumb.jpg "OK road (Touchstone)")
We passed a camel. Actually, a couple of camels. They were fenced in, right by the road to the right of the Jeep. My window was already rolled down ("the experience," remember?) so we just pulled up and I took a couple of pictures. One of the camels came over to look, and then he lifted up his head and made this gargling sound deep in his throat--his gut, almost--like something deep in the drain of a very old sink. I remembered that camels can spit. Another short transcript of our conversation:
Erin: "I think he's going to spit at us. Let's get out of here."
Nathan: "Do you think he could hit us?"
Erin: (Picturing the ride for the next 15 hours, covered in camel spit) "Really, let's just go."
Nathan: "But how far do you think they can spit?"
Erin: "Come on! We're leaving!!!!"
We left, and thankfully no spit.
We looked at the amount of roll chart left until our next hotel--have I explained about the roll charts? Well, it's a little late, but let me do that. Some guy named Sam developed the Trans-America Trail, and he created roll charts with mileages and intersections or turns. Nathan bought a set of roll charts from him, and we got sheets and sheets of these maneuvers and mileages, which we spent some good time cutting out and attaching into long strips. These strips of paper were then rolled and put into a little box with two spindles (probably has a name, but I'm going to assume that since I don't know the name, not everyone else does), and you can roll your way along the chart. Sam had developed the trail keeping in mind how far a person might make it in a day, and planning stops at motels each night. Since the trail was developed for duel-sport bikes, and we did it in a Jeep, we went considerably faster on a lot of the roads (on some we went considerably slower), so we didn't pay much heed to the motel stops, except that we rolled the chart by days that way. It just seemed easier.
So, as I was saying, we looked at the amount of roll chart left until the next hotel, and we realized that we would probably be there before noon, what with the smooth road and all. However, we had a lot to do here in Chattanooga before we drive up to Michigan, so we decided to call it a day at that point.
Drove back to Chattanooga, arrived at 4:00 am to David and Montie's, where we crashed in their living room.
One more roll-chart-related anecdote: Nathan's knee spent most of yesterday looking hideous. I made a couple of attempts to persuade him to get stitches, but he held out. Last night, though, (I should say this morning: it was well into the AM) his knee was hurting him pretty badly. So every few minutes he would try to move and end up moaning in pain. I kept waking up every time he made his various hurting/moving noises, but was sort of (almost) falling asleep in between, just enough to have the sort of half-dreams where you mix dreaming with reality.
Most of our time on the TAT was spent with me reading out the miles until the next turn, and what kind of turn it would be. "2.3, left at the T." Nathan would repeat it back, just to be clear, sneak a peak at the little drawing that Sam had included on the roll charts, and we would try to pay attention well enough to catch the next turn without having to go back for it. So this morning, while Nathan was not-sleeping with his aching knee, I was dreaming that I had a roll-chart for my sleep, and that Nathan's noise waking me up was like the maneuvers on the chart. Except I couldn't figure out the mileage in between. But my mind made a strange analogy between intersections and Nathan trying to move. At 6:30 I woke up enough to suggest pain-killers, and he took some ibuprofen. After that he was dead to the world.
Posted by EHenson at 9:29 AM