Continental Divide

Part 70 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

It’s election day in the USA. And as America chooses its president, I cross the Continental Divide.

These excerpts are from the audio-taped sections of the journal, so again apologies for the rambling, the lack of structure, and for not having the time to edit it to a more manageable length.

8.30 in the morning, November the 5th. I’m running late as ever. This is, where is it? Lordsburg, New Mexico.

I’ve just watched a programme on an amputee running across America – only the 18th person to ever do so, and the first ever amputee. Certainly leaves you feeling quite …not inadequate, what ever the word is given that thousands upon thousands of people have cycled across it. And he was raising money for cancer.

The lunchtime in Ruidoso the day I left I asked my host, while his wife was at the salad bar, if they tried to meet most days for lunch. He paused for quite a while and then he said:
- Yes, why? Don’t you eat meat for lunch?

Last night when I ordered my dinner I said:
-Can I have potatoes and beans please?
-Is that instead of the rice and the vegetables sir?
-No, that’s as well.

And he got me a lot of things. He was very good, bringing me napkins, bringing me water several times, and Pepsi loads of times, and whatever else. At the end he says:

-Is there anything else I can get you tonight sir?
-No, you’re playing a blinder.

Being Election day, it’s probably worth my while talking about the election. Dole last night spent 2 million quid on blasting all the networks with more infomercials. I watched some of them actually. He is certainly an interesting person – when it was just going through his own history.

Dole yesterday, was in Alamogordo. So he got quite a bit of coverage. They reckon between him being there and Gore in Las Cruces and somewhere else, it was an unprecedented presidential campaign in New Mexico. That hadn’t happened before.

I’ve noticed watching them in the last few days, from the David Frost interviews to whatever else, that they’ve felt kind of sorry for Dole – which I didn’t think would happen. Almost like he didn’t get a fair shot at it. He seems to be getting much more coverage in the last few days than Clinton even though Clinton is also going to a lot of States. So I’m wondering if the media feel sorry for him also.

Clinton’s voters are certainly keeping a low profile. By all accounts he’s going to easily win this election today but do you meet people who say they’re going to vote for Clinton? You don’t. It’s like they’re quite happy and they’re saying nothing. Maybe they’re embarrassed also. Or just smug perhaps.

I was thinking about them muscle problems I had in me legs coming from Mesilla up towards Hatch – the one in my right leg when it went. The previous day I’d gone over the pass – the San Agustin Pass – into Las Cruces. And going up there, well I normally ride with my – virtually my toe on the pedals, but I’d slip my feet fully into the toe-clips so it’s like the front half, a much larger area of the foot.

The effect of that is that you end up using the entire leg. Whereas the way I normally cycle you’re really only using from the knee down. So I was thinking it probably makes sense – I was suddenly using muscles I hadn’t used before on the trip. It was kinda gas as they’re – well it’s four thousand six hundred miles and twelve years of cycling, I’m quite possibly a bad cyclist.

That day I went past Fort Selden - where I changed the puncture by the Rio Grande - it was, like Fort Bayard yesterday, the home of the Buffalo Soldiers, and it was the childhood home of General MacArthur.

This is CMT. It’s so much better than the political nonsense that’s on the television at the moment. Yesterday when I watched it I saw Tricia Yearwood’s first single and the dreadful, dreadful haircut that she had.

Deming, the museum there, outside there’s a war memorial. It’s to those that died in Japanese war camps, particularly on the Bataan March. A lot of people from New Mexico were based in the Phillipines and surrendered. It was just after Pearl Harbour, the Japanese went in there, the Americans surrendered and they were taken prisoner. There was quite a lot of people from New Mexico and they had to go on this horrible march. And quite a few of them didn’t make it. It’s an upright flat stone with a picture of two prisoners of war carved on it, two emaciated bodies with watchtowers in the background and barbed wire around.

[The rest of this post, with mountains, mines, and Marcus Allen, is continued below the fold]

Read: Cycling Across America #70 »

I’m somewhere in Ireland on a bus right now, live blogging in motion when I should be sleeping.

To put you out of your understandable misery I can tell you I’ve just come out of a tunnel and am entering an airport.

Over the next couple of days I may or may not have any updates on the site. It all depends on what I manage to do on the bus this side of the border. Before I enter the telecom jurisdiction that is Northern Ireland I will be unplugging the mobile modem because should I dare to use it north of the border o2 will charge me the princely sum of 4.95 euro per MB.

To put that usage in context, yesterday in my studio in Dublin my usage for a couple of quiet hours in the background (because in the foreground I was painting!) was 24 MB.

That usage is fine in Dublin because it’s covered in my monthly data allowance of 10GB - something I don’t get anywhere close to in a month (I’m about a 2GB a month man).

But if I had that kind of usage for the next 3 days in the north, roaming in other words, o2 would charge me somewhere in the region of 500 euro for the privilege. That is not a typo.

So rather than natter online about how green our overpriced land is, I’m instead inclined to spend the weekend drinking beer, drawing pictures, and making sweet monkey love to the Walls of Derry. You know I like walls, right? I mean I really like walls.

Oh and the bus is moving rather fast so I’m now surrounded by hundreds of green fields, (and one yellow one) as the Cooley Mountains come into view.

Meanwhile, the observant among you will have noticed that I really have started painting again. So in about 2 weeks I’m expecting to have another big sale of paintings. What are you expecting in about 2 weeks?

Other Trips by IrishKC:
   • Genoa
   • Cambodia
   • London
   • Downpatrick
   • On Me Holidays in England

Read: Live Blogging From An Irish Bus »

Hurley, New Mexico

Part 69 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

Posts got slightly out of synch there for a bit. This is the real #69 with the previously named post #69 now being corrected to #70 Continental Divide. So the next new post will be #71. Sorry.

Anyway New Mexico is so big I’m still in the Land of Enchantment - being enchanted by the land as it happens.

These excerpts are from the handwritten sections of the journal, so are more manageable to read than the sprawling mess that is the transcripts of the audio sections.

Falling behind again. As ever my own fault but the elements didn’t help.

With the wind in my favour I didn’t rush out of Deming but I did forget to check for a bicycle shop. This was based on the presumption that any such shop would be closed on a Sunday so the search for more patches was postponed for Silver City.

From the phone book I now know that there was a bike shop in Deming and it was open today and closed yesterday Saturday. It’s very difficult to recognise Sundays on this trip. It’s not like Europe where regardless of country each Sunday stood out.

If I do remember Sundays in the US it will be because of the NFL and mostly the Chiefs. This is the 10th NFL Sunday and the Chiefs are back on winning terms.

There’s a better class of mural in Deming. 3 of them I liked but in awkward places to photograph. As they were painted to be seen rather than photographed I didn’t mind, I simply spent time looking.

Deming was founded as a railroad town over 100 years ago and named for Mary Deming Crocker, wife of a railroad magnate. I left the lettercard for a friend back in Dublin, written in the restaurant last night, at the reception this morning and chose Burger King instead for breakfast.

The decision was made on the basis that I needed to have a 40-mile breakfast and I knew I could get that in a fast food place but in the hotel or local cafe I might not. Seemed like months since I’d had Hash Browns, French Toast Sticks and a biscuit.

After chatting briefly with some locals I loaded up with tacky food and headed north. With the wind directly on my back it was easy but warm.

On this day of forecast rain and snow showers, what few clouds there were were quickly disappearing. Had to take the long pants and my jacket off.

In a wide shoulder I kept Long Grass at 15 mph and enjoyed the view. The horizon was ringed with mountains many of them perfect triangles sitting on the horizon all alone. I went past Black Mountain and crossed the Mimbres River. It was an entirely dry river bed - eerie.

[The rest of this post is continued below the fold]

Read: Cycling Across America #69 »

In the 1970s and 1980s I have spent the odd Halloween in England. Even more than Paddy’s Day you felt quite special - because Halloween didn’t exist in any real shape, much less a ghosty one, in England.

Halloween was ours, an ugly mess of an Irish holiday that wasn’t a holiday. And so much of our night was buried in ancient traditions that were long distorted that it was almost impossible to describe and make any sense.

As England’s children now maraud around doing damage because they take the Trick or Treat thing literally, I find it all very funny how quickly it copied another nation to add this date to its calendar.

And since it chose to copy another country I’m glad that it ignored us, ironically on its doorstep, and instead opted to ape America based on what it thought it saw in film and television.

Of course the thing that Americans call Trick or Treating isn’t what we called it. The other day I was in a group who were discussing what the verb was to describe what we did in those pre-candy days. Of course candy wasn’t part of our vocabulary either; it was sweets that we weren’t getting at doors.

We all know we said “Help the Halloween Party”, and we all know that we all did it, but what was the verb?

Briefly it occurred to me that wouldn’t it be fantastic if we didn’t have a verb for it, not officially anyway, that it was just something we did.

I racked my brain and tried to remember the words we used.

-Are you going out?
-Are you going around the houses?

Maybe we really didn’t have a term for it, even though we did it.

And I had a stronger memory. It may well not have been official. And you may not have used it, but my memories became dominated by one word. Collecting.

-Are you going collecting?

I could be very wrong. Memories are strange that way. What phrase did you use in the 1970s - or earlier?

So Much More About Halloween:
   • Hallowe’en in Ireland: A Quiz
   • How Do You Pronounce Samhain?
   • Profiling Halloween
   • Do You Have Halloween in Ireland?

Read: How To Describe Help The Halloween Party »

Apologies to those who subscribe to just the Feed of Personal Posts as my feeds have been getting their knickers in a twist lately.

I’ve been rushing around a lot the last few days sorting out the new studio, and my brain hasn’t always kept up with my legs.

As I always say at times like these, things will calm down soon.

If you’re not somebody who reads feeds, just carry on about your business as if I wasn’t here. As it happens I’m not actually here, but we’ll talk again soon.

Read: Apologies to Feed Readers »