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Atomic Sunset "You got to have a dream. If you don't
have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?" A howling wind pushed us out of Bayfield. I called to Sharon, "Maybe I should raise a sail!" We made spectacular time to Ashland. "It's going to be dark soon," Sharon hollered from behind. "I'm tired of dodging motorhomes." (Last chance holiday traffic crammed the roads.) "Let's pack it in for the day and get an early start tomorrow." "Aw, let's keep going!" I wailed, still high from our sailing adventure, and revelling in our strongest tailwind in weeks. We pushed through Ashland. On its outskirts, the wonderful paved shoulder we had been cruising so merrily, petered out. Cracked pavement jolted my tires; motorhomes brushed past my elbow. Suddenly I was a lot less enthusiastic about continuing. "How about we call it a day, honey?" I said. "Good idea," Sharon called back. We spotted an industrial plant with a picnic table near a back door. An acre of aspen, across from the plant's parking lot, had a large sign posted: No Trespassing. Perfect. We wheeled in and leaned our bikes against the picnic table. While Sharon rustled up dinner, I stepped over to the parking lot to talk with a trucker walking around his rig. He turned out to be from Oklahoma City and said he was waiting for morning when the plant reopened so he could unload (actually his language was a little more colourful about the plant being closed). I asked him, "Do you think anyone will mind if we set our tent over in the trees for the night?" "I doubt it," he answered. "The folks around here are hard-headed - like there's some in the plant right now, but they won't unload me - other than that, they seem all right. Can't say they'll mind. Besides, all they can do is tell you to leave ... and by then it'll be morning." He gave me a pleased look. Maybe that line about "misery loves company" wasn't far wrong. The trucker and I stood silently, arms folded across our chests, watching an atomic blood-red sun set over Chequamegon Bay, enjoying the fine art of male conversation where neither says a word ... and both are comfortable with it. The sun sank below the horizon. I returned to Sharon and relayed the trucker's comments about no one minding if we stayed there. "Oh yeah?" Sharon retorted. "While you were over there shooting the breeze, a watchman came out. 'You're not planning on staying around here are you?' he said, and not very pleasant-like either. 'We try to discourage it,' he said." "Hmmm," I drawled. "Hasn't he heard Wisconsin's tourism motto: 'You're among friends'?" "Well," Sharon said, "apparently his friends stay in motels." After a truncated meal, we decided not to trifle with the guard. We packed up, and headed away from the plant, down a darkened dead-end road. Maybe we could ask a family for permission to camp on their lawn? But, at the end of the road, we hadn't passed any houses. The street ended. The night was as black as a witch's cat. Now what? Being lifetime members of the 'no-plan travel club' may be an exciting way to travel, but our unscheduled style sometimes caught us unprepared. And it's not as if we can just jump back in our auto, turn on the headlights, hit the gas pedal and tootle another 100 kilometres or so down the road. (At times we debated whether or not to ask permission. When darkness fell, it sometimes seemed better not to ask - and deal with the consequences if someone discovered us - rather than be told no, and then what would we do? However, that approach led to some sleepless nights battling guilty consciences while waiting for the police to show up.) "I think we should set up in the back of the park," I said. "We'll leave early," I added. "I don't know...," Sharon was hesitant, clearly not keen on the idea. "The guard might come looking." A small laugh burst spontaneously from me. Considering we couldn't see our hands six inches in front of our faces, I doubted the guard would present much of a problem. I persuaded Sharon to sneak off into the trees with me. Not wanting to risk our flashlight beam being seen, we set up the tent by feel, then tossed in our sleeping bags, and faded off to slumberland with an uneasy feeling lining our guts. Sometime later, Sharon nudged me. I opened one eye. The inside of the tent was as black as a coal mine. "Is it time to pack up yet?" she whispered. I fumbled for the light button on my digital watch. (Sharon had deemed it unnecessary to wear a watch while on vacation. Why then, I wondered, is she forever asking me the time?) I read the numbers in the light's tiny glow: 12:30. It was half past midnight! "Uh, we still have at least another hour of shut eye," I assured her. I set my watch's alarm for the absurd hour of 5 am - an hour I had previously considered fictional - then closed my eye. I fell face-first into the Land of Nod. Down, down, down an endless spiral tunnel and into a very peculiar dream. In my dream, at precisely 5 am, my alarm went off and all the plant workers simultaneously arrived in the parking lot. In my dream they exuberantly slammed their car doors, and ran (yes, ran) to the park where our tent was set up, to partake in an early-morning gymnastics and calisthenics program. In my dream two athletic women vaulted on top of our tent like Olympic gymnasts, collapsing it. They then blithely continued their jumping and stretching exercises on top of our flattened tent (and us). After a rousing hour of exercises, a bell rang. Everyone stopped, picked up a white towel, and bounded off, joyously, for work. Except for one man with a handlebar moustache. He approached us. "Just because you are a cyclist," he castigated me, a raspy French-Canadian accent tinting his voice, "you think you can do anything you please!" I was about to assure monsieur that was not the case, when the real life squeal of tires roused me from my dream. I rose wearily on one elbow (all that exercise) and squinted through the mesh. Brake lights streaked a reddish glow through the night. The vehicle screeched to a stop in the parking lot, then wheeled onto a side street and sped away. Still peering through the mesh, I watched in fascination as a string of vehicles streamed into the parking lot, headlights illuminating the woods in front of our tent. Smoky light cast unearthly shadows like some alien scene in an X-Files episode. Oh no! I thought, still in a quasi-dream-waking state. They're here for their morning calisthenics! I roused my soundly snoozing partner. "We've gotta get out of here," I blabbered. "The plant workers are here!" In blackness we stumbled about in our half-asleep fog, packing wildly. In our mad scramble, I had forgotten our tent fly and left it laying on the ground. It blended in without a trace. Fortunately, luck was on my side - I tripped over it. (Stooping to retrieve the fly reminded me of a forest campground bulletin board notice I had seen: 'Lost in the woods. One camouflage wallet.') As I secured the tent to my rear rack, my watch alarm beeped: 5 am. In darkness, we pedalled away, following a service road paralleling the main highway. In a short distance, the service road dead ended. Still too dark to dare venturing onto the main route, we sat on a concrete barricade, shivering in the pre-dawn, eating crunchy Kraft peanut butter straight from the jar like a pair of homeless people. "This is too weird," Sharon said, sitting in darkness and digging in for another spoonful. "This is nothing," I said. "Wait till you get a load of the dream I had...." |
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