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| A hug to last a month. |
On the eight hundred seventy
something miles we covered to Montana from Colorado, I spent some time in the
company of Albert and Stephen (Einstein and Hawking)…in my mind of course. You see, as we were traveling, mainly in
Wyoming, the farther from civilization we were (was not hard to do), the longer
a mile became. And the longer a mile
became, the longer time took. For
example: As we were traveling down a
somewhat barren two lane highway in the middle of nowhere (no offense Wyoming),
I would notice signage with the next few towns listed and how many miles it was
to them, the ones we’ve all seen I’m sure.
So let’s say I see we have 36 miles to Ulm. I look at the odometer and the clock to get a
reference on space and time, as we hurtle toward Ulm. After what seems like an eternity, we pass
another sign, but only a few miles have clicked away in what seems like a great
amount of time (and I tend to push the speed limit a bit). So I start thinking that Al and Steve could
have thought out of the box a bit more.
Forget the singularity theorems and black holes, Brownian motion and
relativity; let’s get to the bottom of time travel in wide-open spaces. It’s like running in molasses. But maybe the rest of this story will help.
The last few days before
leaving Dillon, I was on Google Maps, checking times and distances to determine
when we should leave and so on…it’s an Einstein/Hawking thing. So as we travel, we see beautiful landscapes
and picturesque little towns as the day wears on and at some point I begin to
wonder when we will get into our hotel for the night. It seems as though the closer we get the
farther away it is. Was that part of one
of Einstein’s therories…I don’t know, I lose track. Well, we finally see signs for Helena, Mt. –
Yea! The miles tick away and we pull
into the outskirts of Helena and I ask Beth to pull out the reservation form
for the directions to the hotel. We pass
signs with Helena this and Helena that and Beth says, “Uhhhhhhhh…..I don’t see
a reservation for Helena, but we do have one for Great Falls.” At that point I felt as though I had been
driving on a treadmill. Greg whips out
the atlas and see that Great Falls is a half a page away from Helena…another
hours drive, at least!
As I began to drowned in my
incompetency as a road captain, cooler heads prevail and Greg suggests that we
see if there is another Days Inn in Helena and if we could just swap out our
reservations from one city to another.
Brilliant! Right? Beth gets on the horn and calls, explains the
situation, and our hopes ride high until the girl on the other end of the phone
says, “No.” That’s all. “No.”
Either she has no conscience or customer service skills or both. It was like ripping a band aide off, she just
wanted to make it as painless as possible.
I say she failed to stop texting during the 5-minute customer service
training she was obligated to listen to before being turned loose on the
public. Where’s the, “Oh, I wish there
was something I could do for you.” or “Let me talk to my manager, maybe we can
work something out.” Nope, just a “No.”
With water under the bridge
we head to the highway, to Great Falls we go.
Eventually we see the sign for Ulm, 36 miles. The name gets stuck in my head and the more I
say Ulm, the more meditative state I slip into. Ulmmmmm, Ulmmmm, Ulmmmm… I am focused until it sounds like a soft rain
begins to hit the windshield.
That soft rain is actually hundreds,
if not thousands of bugs, going splat on the windshield, as we make our way
farther to the north. It would have been
easier to see if it were a blinding rainstorm. With a scarily high percentage
of the windshield un-see-able, we press on.
By the time we see our hotel, the bugs on the front bumper and car top
carrier have the appearance of being wrapped in a harry wool blanket. A quick stop at a nearby carwash let’s us get
the majority of the fuzz off and 16 hours after leaving Dillon, we check in for
the night…what’s left of it. What the
Helena!
My Zen from the road: Besides making an epic bike ride, border to border, Greg is using this platform to raise awareness for PTSD. He is seeking donations for the Pedal Against PTSD charity. 100% of monies received by this organization goes to providing bikes to veterans. Pedal Against PTSD's goal is to empower veterans to overcome PTSD through cycling and to raise awareness to struggles of post-traumatic stress disorder. Check out Greg's GoFundMe page...(the link is kinda long, but it works! Click on it.)
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