Stateline

New Moon

I am just barely in Oregon this evening, freshly showered and moquito-bitten at the deserted Stateline RV Park on the outskirts of Merrill  OR.

There are no other campers, just a bunch of empty old trailers infrequented by a local duck hunting group. Randy the caretaker is a nice enough guy. He was kind enough to give me a couple of liters of bottled water after he admitted that nobody drinks the well water. I can filter the stuff that comes out of the hand pump if I need more tonight.

Guess what. Riding the train in a coach seat all night is poor preparation for pedaling a bicycle for a couple of hours. I dozed off here and there, but I was not at all ready to go when I stepped off in Klamath Falls.

I'm going to blame someone right here right now for my lack of shuteye. I don't know her name, but she got on in Sacramento about midnight. She has really bad aim when trying to plop her booty into a coach seat on a rocking  choo-choo. Let's just call her She Missed.

Okay, She Missed is old and it was late, but imagine my surprise when this old, sleepy, off-balance biddy careened onto my at-rest thigh which was, of course, attached to the rest of me and carefully occupying its assigned lower level window coach seat.

I didn't panic - mostly because the business end of her walking stick was about three inches from my eyeball. I still have pretty quick hands, even at my advanced age, and I fended off disaster instantaneously with sort of a controlled karate chop. I didn't knock it away from her, I just covered it and moved it a safe distance back from my eye.

I like that eye. In the future, I may don appropriate Personal Protective Equipment whenever attempting to snooze on the railroad.

She Missed was not even sorry, maybe because I sort of sarcastically said, "You missed," as this was all going down. She said nothing so I elaborated, "You missed your spot." That got her a little worked up and she snapped, "I am in my seat." As if having one whole buttock atop my innocent little thigh was perfectly good aim.

Then I don't know what happened exactly but after a minute she got up, fussed with some luggage, and tottered off to the back of the section, presumably to sit on somebody else's limbs. She Missed was not a bad person. She just never mastered the important skill of coming to a stop.

I never really slept much after that. She Missed had me all messed up. Her friends and family must be sick of that nonsense.

The ride from Klamath Falls to Merrill was pretty easy, but it got interrupted by a breakfast stop at Nibbley's Cafe and Bakery. It's only a few hundred yards off the O&C Line Rail Trail that leads you out of town and I wanted coffee & eggs to jumpstart my system. Good decision, as usual.

I was pretty fried by the time I finished the ride, not from the route or from the miles, but from the heat. This is flat, high desert with alfalfa farms everywhere you look. They are surrounded by volcanic hills and low peaks. Sooner or later, I will have to do some climbing.

For now, it's time to fix some vittles and get horizontal. I am really happy with my Big Agnes Copper Spur 1 tent and Thermorest Neoair mattress for this kind of camping. Can't wait to sleep hard all night. Wherever She Missed is, she ain't missed!

Peace, Love, and On My Way,
Jim