Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot

by George B. Thayer

That night I had not been abed long when, in my dreams, one of those watchful waiters, seeing something troubled me, came to the bedside with an armful of liver and onions, simply that and nothing more, and as he placed the dishes around on the bed in that same semi-circle, he took care to heap them up in the center of the circle so that I could hardly see out. Although such a task at first weighed heavily on me, I soon lifted the burden by devouring each dish in turn, but scarcely had I drawn a sigh of relief when another waiter appeared, more heavily loaded than the first, with the same, liver and onions, simply that; but I said I didn’t want any more. Still they came, piling the dishes around and above me in an immense semi-circle pyramid, and the more I tried to do my whole duty as a wheelman by stowing away the monotonous meal before me, the more solid grew the foundation of that pyramid. But there was no escape. On all sides of the bed were those wasteful waiters filling the room, and hovering about with dishes piled along up both arms and upon their shoulders, until I seemed to be in the center of a great amphitheater of dishes of liver and onions. Even then I should not have become discouraged at that, simply that, but out in the hall there was plenty more. So, much as I dislike to acknowledge defeat, I was finally induced (but it took a deuce of a long while) to stop eating, and, in sudden awakening, throw up the whole business, liver, onions, and all.

Once more taking the train, which was ferried across the water at Benecia, the twelve heavy cars and monster locomotive not making the slightest depression of the boat, I finally reached San Francisco, the turning point on the trip. It may not be uninteresting to give the boys a few notes in regard to the cost of the journey in time, money, and muscle. The stock of muscle is of course decidedly larger than at the beginning, but the amount of flesh is about fifteen pounds less, which was all lost on the first month or six weeks. My stomach has given trouble twice, both times when after long, hard riding for many days, I ceased all work and tried to appease a ravenous appetite by eating enormously. I succeeded, both in satisfying my appetite and myself that even a wheelman’s stomach can be overloaded when he stops riding for a few days. The water, of which I have drank very freely everywhere, excepting across the plains, where there was but little to be had, has caused me no trouble. Three pairs of shoes have been worn out, and the feet of twice as many pairs of stockings.

The distance on the wheel has been 3,036 miles, that on the cars about 1,800, and in climbing up and about Pike’s Peak and the peaks about the Yosemite, nearly one hundred miles more, so that the entire distance traveled has been nearly, if not quite, 5,000 miles. The cost has been $120. This includes repairs to machine, new clothes, and repairs of old ones, and every expense whatsoever.

It is a curious fact, curious to me at least, that on both the other bicycle trips I have taken, one of 500 miles down through Rhode Island and Martha’s Vineyard, and the other of 1,200 miles up through the White Mountains, the cost per mile of distance traveled should have been so nearly what it has been on this trip. It is within so small a fraction of two cents a mile that I feel confident one can travel on a wheel, in almost any part of this great country, for nearly the same price. And it would be almost ungrateful to the machine now not to say a word in its favor, for I have a feeling of affection towards this Columbia Expert, that is akin to that felt by an equestrian for a strong, able horse that has carried him safely over so much country.

Before I started on this trip the machine had carried me 3,000 miles, into mill flumes and mountain passes, and had been put to as severe a test as it is possible for New England roads and a Yankee rider to place upon it. It was the manner in which it stood the test that inspired confidence to give it a harder task, and the manner in which it has brought me here is now known to the reader. The trip into the Yosemite was the severest strain ever put upon the machine, and, in fact, the rider; but the wheel I think would have come out in a whole condition had it not been for that butt end of an eight-penny nail. As it is, the expense of keeping the machine in good repair for three years has been less than five dollars, or one-thirteenth of a cent a mile for distance traveled.

The time taken to accomplish this portion of the trip has been one hundred and ten days, so that the living and traveling expenses combined have been but little over a dollar a day.

And now that the turning point in the journey has been reached, and as this is a “true relation,” as our forefathers used to say, of the common-place adventures of a wheelman, there is only one more little incident that needs to be told, if it need be told at all, and that is in regard to a bottle. From the start I have carried one. Many cowboys and ranchmen thought the tool bag was a liquor flask, but the little bottle above mentioned was carried in the knapsack, and everywhere the knapsack went the bottle was sure to go. That bottle and the Yosemite were the two objects, great and small, that kept my spirits up during the thousands of miles, and many of them weary ones, that we traveled together. The prime motive of the journey was to see the Yosemite and carry that bottle of liquid to California. The cork was not even drawn during the entire journey, and yet that liquid had a wonderful power in keeping my spirits up. In fact, a glass of California wine has been the only alcoholic stimulant thus far drank. The object of carrying a bottle of liquid so far and not even smelling of the cork may seem to some foolish on my part, but had the liquor being used sooner the object sought could not have been accomplished, which object was to get some mixed liquor, some “’alf and ’alf,” and carry it back to Connecticut. The object was partly accomplished to-day.

Last fall, while riding along the rocky shoes of Nahant, I filled a small bottle with water from the Atlantic Ocean. To-day I emptied part of that water into the Pacific Ocean near the Cliff House, and now I have a bottle filled with water taken from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and in the bottom of the bottle are some pebbles and sand, the former from the Atlantic, the latter from the Pacific.

And to-day, standing on the extreme western limit of the Great American Continent, I make obeisance to the good wheel by whose aid I have now accomplished the wonderful and laborious yet delectable journey!