Two Wheels on my Wagon (11 page)

In the meantime, I revelled briefly in the normality of my surroundings. A man mowed his lawn. Parents drove their children to school. I passed a golf course. It was soon enough to have me dreaming once more of the wilderness ways still to come.

Then I caught sight of something ahead, disappearing around a distant bend. There was no room for doubt. It had been a laden cyclist; it must have been a Tour Divide rider (as desert travellers through the centuries have made clear with their pursuit of mirages, desire can be a potent force). I estimated the distance between us was probably half a mile so there was no chance of a quick catch, but I upped my tempo a notch. The roads were straight, intersecting with each other at right angles. Yet every time I anticipated a clean line of vision ahead it was obscured by a truck, or a tree, or a dip in the road.

To pass the time, I struck up imaginary conversations with my soon-to-be new riding partner, though I couldn't quite decide if it was Rudiger from Germany or Jacob from Manitowoc in Wisconsin who was ahead. The website had had them both in Whitefish that morning. Or maybe it
was
both of them. That could be some party. Back in Banff, Jacob had displayed a laudable pride in the beer-brewing abilities of his homeland; add in some German bratwurst and Yorkshire pudding and we could have a ball.

This fictitious discourse had clearly been distracting me from chasing my quarry. By Columbia Falls, 10 miles after leaving Whitefish, I had resigned myself to a vain pursuit of the spectral cyclist ahead of me. Maybe it had all been a hallucination brought on by an almost unrecognisable sensation – hunger. After several days of contradictory messages, my stomach seemed to have finally accepted that a unilateral rebellion against the stresses and strains being placed on my body would end up being counterproductive for both of us. It wanted more breakfast and, although it meant foregoing the prospect of company, even if only illusory, I was happy to comply.

Refuelled, I continued south on another grid of interlocking roads, some metalled, some gravel, all as straight as a die. The scenery became steadily more agricultural, even if the broad, flat valley was still hemmed in on the east by lofty peaks in their coats of green. To the west lay Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake this side of the Mississippi. Each road provided access to a small handful of farms, interspersed with the occasional stalled housing development – a sign of straitened times. A signpost designating the residence of the Snell family caught my eye, but there the similarity with the BBC's fictitious caricature of rural English life, portrayed daily in the radio soap opera
The Archers
, ended.

The fields in between were predominantly given over to grazing – lots of horses, some cattle – or simply grass to produce winter feed. The short growing season precluded anything more exotic. Exoticism came instead from what appeared to be rudimentary trebuchets dotted here and there. I wondered if this indicated an unexpected popularity for mediaeval re-enactment societies, perhaps compensating for the relative youth of the region in the eyes of its non-native inhabitants.

In the end there was a more prosaic but equally charming explanation. These strange objects were in fact known as beaverslides and were a traditional Montana means of stacking hay for winter storage. They consisted of a large, rectangular timber frame, supported halfway up its length as if part of a seesaw. The lower two thirds of each frame was filled with slats, while the upper third was open. At the bottom of this frame was a slatted timber lip, onto which the hay was massed before being hauled up the slide and deposited through the open upper third into a pile below. The resulting stack was fenced off from inquisitive cattle and elk until winter, when it was used as forage.

Further on, the proportion of cows grew while that of horses reduced. Given the lack of variety it was a surprise to discover that gardening was something of a busman's holiday. Far from creating a bulwark against the vastness surrounding them, most front gardens, some the size of football pitches, were simple continuations of the prairie. Some even had cows grazing on them among the pick-ups and 4×4s. The only variation was provided by those who grew Christmas trees, the distance of a few miles to nature's own abundant supply clearly being too great. It was the gardening equivalent of Stockholm syndrome – people showing an unlikely affinity to the landscape in which they appeared hostage.

After three more hours I stopped for something to eat in Ferndale, which I mistakenly thought had a full range of services. Instead, it consisted of little more than half a dozen houses and a crossroads. A mile out of my way I found a gas station and began picking my way morosely round the store, looking for anything that might sate my now voracious appetite. Gradually, I became aware of the aroma of cooked food, even though its source remained so obscure that I had to ask for help in finding it. Such was my ignorance of gas station etiquette that I also needed help serving myself.

‘Just use one of the boxes to take what you want,' I was instructed kindly as I stared blankly at an array of chicken wings and samosas.

The problem was that I was incapable of choice.

‘But how can I get one of those?' I asked, pointing at the sign for ready meals.

‘Oh, they're in the boxes at the bottom. Roast chicken, roast potatoes and green beans. You can also help yourself to an apple dumpling with cream, and a large drink.'

‘And that's $5?'

‘Yep, we had to put the price up a bit not long ago.'

I sat on the bench on the veranda in very heaven.

The sunshine that had massaged my muscles at the gas station soon turned from friend to foe. The valley floor was only 3,000 feet above sea level and the surrounding mountains had created a giant oven in which I was slowly baking, or rather steaming, thanks to the humidity of the impenetrable forest on either side of the track. I climbed steadily for an hour, for which effort I was rewarded only with a rough and frustrating descent. The promised vistas (‘Clearcuts will offer views of the majestic Swan Mountains' advised the route description) rarely materialised, while the heat and humidity became ever more oppressive. Instead, vertiginous, crowding trees turned the trail into a sinuous prison which continued, according to the map, for another 100 miles. The trees that hemmed in the narrow road were the bars on my window, a window that gave onto a view of trees, trees and more trees. Rarely can agoraphobia and claustrophobia have been so closely intertwined.

After another hour I could take no more. It was not yet 4 p.m., but drastic action was needed to preserve my sanity and diffuse the panic that was beginning to set in. Closer inspection of the map revealed that I could find food and accommodation in a nearby lakeside resort. The price to be paid for escaping from my mute green captors was retracing my steps 2 miles and venturing another 4 miles off route, a round journey of 12 miles or an hour's riding. It was an easy decision.

The resort of Swan Lake proved the perfect antidote. Far from the garish compilation of condominiums I had feared, it consisted of little more than a smattering of houses and a few essential services spread alongside the empty main road: the Swan Lake Bar and Grill; a community hall; a volunteer fire department; a chapel; the Swan Lake Trading Post; and the Laughing Horse Lodge.

I stopped at the trading post to replenish my supplies, feeling demob happy. If it were possible to have eaten postcards and trinkets I could have filled up for the entire journey. I asked about accommodation.

‘The Lodge is cosy,' said the proprietor. ‘If she's got no room, we've got space to camp. I've got everything you need – hot showers and cold beer.'

It sounded appealing, but I craved a bed as well. I picked up the local newspaper. The front page picture was of a young grizzly seen roaming earlier in the week.

‘Don't worry about him, he's all right,' I was told, unprompted. ‘It's the black bears that are the problem here. There's one who's been getting into the bins recently. He'd better be careful or he's gonna get some buck shot in his ass.'

Peculiarly reassured, I went to the lodge. There was no one home – not even a laughing horse – but a handwritten notice invited new guests to choose a cabin and book in once the owner had returned. The cabins – timber-framed, rustic, delightful – were at the back and formed a courtyard around an idyllic cottage garden full of aquilegia, surfinia, poppies, roses and lupins. I lounged guiltlessly in a chair in the shade and watched with fascination the swallows darting hither and thither. A sign at the front of the lodge explained there were four varieties: the tree swallow; the violet green swallow; the cliff swallow; and the gregarious barn swallow. Between them they produced 60 chicks during their six-month stay from April to September.

‘They're a bit messy, but we love their electric chatter and voracious appetite for mosquitoes,' the sign concluded.

I contemplated the relief I felt at no longer having to pretend I was fearless, even if it was the trees that had got to me rather than the bears. A pair of hummingbirds arrived, seduced by voluminous hanging baskets. From the house next door, a middle-aged couple mounted their Harley Davidson and sped off, helmet free, to enjoy the open road.

After checking in I rode slowly back to the bar and grill. Happiness, I decided, was feeling hungry and having the means to satisfy that hunger. I ordered my first burger and chips since Banff from the ‘ever-so-purty' waitress. In cut-off denim shorts, she was a dead ringer for Daisy from the
Dukes of Hazzard
. I felt slightly incongruous in full waterproof overclothes – the only items I possessed that were ‘clean' – but she smiled sweetly anyway. Swan Lake clearly had it all.

I sat outside on the decking and watched the bar owner entertain his grandchildren and their friends with rides in his Model T Ford. Inside, a group of 20 or so locals had gathered for a wine tasting, something of a novelty in these parts. Snippets of conversation reached me through the saloon door. It was an education.

‘The next wine I'm gonna move on to is a dry rosé, a kind of transition between white and red,' said the sommelier. He pronounced rosé with such emphasis on the second syllable it came out like ‘row-zay'.

This was clearly a surprise to at least one of his audience.

‘Yes, ma'am, some people like their row-zays. If you go to Europe, the most popular wine is a dry row-zay, drunk as an early evening aperitif. The warmer it gets, the hotter it gets, the more people drink it.'

I found myself nodding in agreement. He was warming to his task, explaining that the row-zay in question was made from Syrah grapes (pronounced ‘sea-ra').

‘It's been pressed twice to make it nice and dry and it's got a little bit of spice. It's good with anything, water melon, white meats . . .'

A double-bacon-cheese-burger-with-extra-fries-and-onion-rings was delivered to my table. As an accompaniment I chose not a ‘row-zay' but a sweet Coca-Cola. Inside, things had moved on.

‘Now, gang, we're gonna move to the red side of the tasting. Some bottles of red can fetch up to $2,500.'

He had scarcely finished this party piece before he was drowned out by a chorus of ‘holy cows'. It could have been my imagination, but the audience seemed to shuffle a bit closer in anticipation of sampling a treat.

I finished my meal and walked back into the main bar.

‘So how d'ya like the red, gang?'

It had gone down well. One good ol' boy was a particular fan.

‘It tastes kinda like Victoria's Secrets.'

There was an eruption of laughter. The sommelier was the first to regain his composure.

‘Good for you, man. I'm gonna use that myself.'

I wasn't sure this experience mirrored that imagined by the Tour Divide organisers for those foolish enough to participate in their race, but it was fine with me.

I
was determined that those following my progress from home would have no excuse to accuse me of another lie-in. Abdicating paternal responsibilities in the noble name of adventure was one thing, I reasoned; doing so merely to catch up on nearly seven years of interrupted sleep was quite another. I conveniently overlooked the fact that the end result of my absence was exactly the same.

I was equally determined to start early enough to have no excuses for not completing at least 100 miles by day's end. Yesterday's early stop might have temporarily saved my sanity, but not making a decent fist of getting to Mexico would cause longer-lasting psychological harm.

By 5.20 a.m. I was back on the bike. Once again the morning was cold, though not quite freezing. The deserted main road led silently to the fire track, which in turn led back to yesterday's green prison. The steely morning light of the sun's weak rays filtered through a veil of high clouds and emphasised the feeling of incarceration. Or maybe being cast adrift at sea was a better metaphor, given the oceanic scale of the forests around me. Still, unlike Captain Bligh, at least it was voluntary. And I did know where I was planning to stop for lunch.

I was also comforted, somewhat perversely, by more immediate obstacles, such as staving off the chill and overcoming the inevitable bad humour of the hour. I was contentedly grumpy until nearly 8 a.m., at which point I had something of an arboreal epiphany; I was almost enjoying the forest.

It was a reluctant sort of enjoyment that was distinctly uncomfortable to admit to, and I would have been quite prepared to deny it in a court of law. Yet its existence was all-pervasive. Even the forest's vast scale was no longer so discomfiting. It was strangely thrilling to be quite so overwhelmed, so completely alone. I made several unsuccessful attempts to count to 1,000 trees without missing any. The process was doomed from the start by the inevitability of distraction, either by terrain or navigation, but there was virtue in futility: by the time I conceded inevitable defeat the best part of another hour had passed.