Big Road Trip Dream
I had a dream a few nights ago that Pennsylvannia had all kinds of great plants and butterflies and flowers and richness of life, with cool snakes, a great place to visit.
So I had a dream where our family took a road trip. A lot of it was at night. We were using lousy Gazetteer and Topo maps. It was hard to see what road we were on. The roads were getting bad. Martha would drive right thru any town that looked interesting. She’d drive on dangerous roads and stop to read the map in dangerous parts of town.
I had a mini dream within the dream that some hoods held us up when we stopped in one of those bad areas. I attacked them back and they grabbed Henry by the hair and tried to get away with him. It wasn’t easy to stop them, very panicky.
We couldn’t figure out where we were. Texas, Arkansas? Kansas? Illinois connected to it…. Like with the Gazetteer it seemed like we had to switch between maps too often. Where we were was always on another map. It ended up being Missouri maybe. But then it seemed like we were dropping down into Pittsburgh. Which was full of bridges and scary confusing freeways and traffic. Everything was minimalls, too. We got stuck in a part of town that was one big architecture corporation. We thought we’d just park for the night there, but suddenly we saw a clear plexiglass gate closing off the whole complex and we got out.
I started to REALLY hate the crowded minimall world.
Then we got out of town on a twisty little Highway 35. It was so abandoned looking we thought we were lost again, but then saw a sign that looked right. We went on it. It was fast, narrow and scary and I kept telling Martha to be careful. She would get too close to the big edge dropoff which could catch a tire and pull us off. She let other cars intimidate her. This was a highway made by another type of state theory, that’s for sure.
We weren’t making very good time, either.
Then we finally crossed the river. It wasn’t Pittsburgh. Maybe. Then we had to drive up the side of the river valley to get back on our way again. Again, this road was situated somewhere different than we were used to. It just went up and up, straight climbing. Our car had to strain 100%. It felt like it would tip over backwards. A mile straight up. Yikes! What if someone tried to ride a bike on such a road? How could you ever climb such a hill?
We swore we wouldn’t drive this way again on a road trip. And let’s try to get ourselves NORTH pronto where there’s some elbowroom. I also tried to remember to tell myself never to drive near cities on road trips. Avoid at all costs. Actually, we had tried in the dream but the city just kept a coming.
My dream switched gears. Now I was on a bike trip. Pulling a trailer.
David Salowich had gone on ahead somehow and was in SF but we were in touch.
But I had yet another intermission, where I was racing an HPV on the freeway. There were a ton of bikers, all racing across the city bridges. Taking up a whole lane of freeway, blasting along. There were rough and tough fully faired HPVs all in formation, zipping thru the regular riders. Then there’d be a crash and they’d all go down on their sides, sliding. No one got hurt but it was gritty action.
Then I was riding my bike again up a big hill and took a rest stop where some girls who were also touring were having a quarrel and trying to kill each other. I dropped all my wallet contents out into the sand. Very hard to get re-organized and going again.
Then I saw a bike racer training on the freeway. He’d just do a real fast piece in the traffic then take an exit to wrap up. Cool.
Then I saw a superfast race pack and then the racers talking about the race afterwards. They said most of the riders were pack filler, but that the real race wouldn’t start until so-and-so. They said Nick would be the best if he would only get his act together.
Then we were riding HPVs with my high school buddies, Sam and Joel, on the freeway and they were being reckless from lack of experience. We were really flying though. And we took a 25mph corner way too fast but lived anyway. It was like a videogame. There was gravel on the road, too. Very dicey, but fun.
Then I saw a bike race going up a very steep switchback hill overlooking a freeway scene. It was called the World’s steepest bike race. They were mostly pushing their bikes in their cleats and suits. The world’s best guys couldn’t ride this hill. It made me recall some great hillclimbs I’d watched. Or thought I had. Red Zinger. With Barbara—watching a hillclimb from the roof of a parking lot. I wonder where that was? Boulder somewhere.
