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February 5, 1997
Leaving California - border xing next
The scene in the picture here is typical of the early morning when we first wake up (basically Jen and I have been up for hours slaving over the burner making tea and breakfast - Ollie and Carole just lie around in bed groaning and complaining - typical French !!!).
The guy in the background is Bill Mosely. We bumped into each other on the frontage road 10 miles north of Oceanside, California. At the time Bill was dumpster - diving for food - he'd taken a $100 bet from a friend that he couldn't bicycle from Santa Barbara to San Diego - a distance of around 300 miles. "He said the wrong thing at the right time" Bill told us, and he grabbed a bike and went to it.
That evening we shared space and time with Bill. One of the first things that struck me about the guy - apart from the obvious fact he was hungry and had little or no cash - was the neatness of the gear on his bike. That told me more about Bill than anything he later said or did. He had an aura of peace and centeredness about him; a sense of personal pride and quiet grace. This person needed nothing from us, and we needed nothing from him, except maybe companionship and the trade of stories and wisdom from the road. He had obviously lived a little and had some neat things to say on life; hey - some free consultation from an expert who's been through it !!! All we had to do was sit and listen....
"Yeah, I reckon I got me a guardian angel looking after me" says Bill after telling us about some of the bar-scrapes he's been in "He's working overtime though!". I ask about his time in Vietnam - what it was like to be an adolescent teenager dealing with death every day, totally and utterly **** scared the first time the enemy was engaged. The fear - what was it like? Bill mumbles and says nothing - looks away and I feel embarrased about making him feel uncomfortable. Its difficult for a young male like me to know what war is like - the inescapable horror of it all. Hopefully I'll never get to experience it at first hand; yet there's a secret longing to know what it would be like; being forced to accept death - it must be an ultimate emotion. Perhaps a gateway to greater understanding - like being on an ocean. Who knows?
...its getting dark...we sit around eating cold ranch style beans and chocolate chip cookies. We're still debating on riding the 12 miles to Oceanside to slake our thirst with a cheap bottle of Old Milwaukee. We hum and har but the decision has already been made in our hearts; its actually logic talking - there is no moon, we are tired and we have no idea how far it really is. Last time we struck off in the gathering gloom to find beer we ended up cycling for 4 hours in a storm and the pitch blackness because some joker had rubbed the 1 off the front of the 16 on the mile sign to San Simeon. We opt to camp and invite Bill to join us. We make a protective circle with our sleeping bags and bikes behind the toilets - that way the police can't see us and will leave us alone. The trick with camping is to find somewhere really dark that no-one sees you enter into. Then no one bothers you.
We ride with Bill down the coast into San Diego. He ends up staying with us at Ernie and Judi's house for a day, and when it comes time for him to head back to Santa Barbara to claim his reward, he takes Carole aside and modestly asks whether she would consider riding his bike to Peru - a step up from Jon's bike which is like trying to ride a shopping trolley. We're all pretty gob-smacked. Here's a guy that ostensibly has nothing - giving the one thing of material value he has to a bunch of kit-junkies that already have more gear than you can shake a stick at. Now that's really giving....
Jason
Posted on February 5, 1997 5:47 AM