Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot

by George B. Thayer

Chapter XVIII.

Monterey and the Geysers.

My trip to Monterey, which was mentioned in the last chapter, was made in connection with an excursion arranged as a part of the Grand Army of the Republic programme. I was very glad the ride was taken on the cars, for the last fifty miles was over a section of country that strongly resembles in appearance the sage bush and sandy deserts of Wyoming and Nevada. The prospect of traveling over such roads on a wheel does not stir up in me such an enthusiastic determination to undertake their passage as it did two months ago, and the chance of meeting Eastern people on the train was quite an inducement to go by cars; but a bicycle is just the thing with which to visit the Geysers. The knapsack on this trip was left behind, not because of any inconvenience that it causes, for the longer it is used the better I like it for carrying the amount of baggage necessary on long tours, but the knapsack is the occasion of so many questions, it is such an advertisement, that whenever it is possible on these side excursions it is left behind. But although I started out wearing trousers and dressed otherwise in ordinary clothes, and entertaining the idea that I should not be so publicly bored as usual on this journey because of my ordinary appearance, this impression proved to be a false one as soon as I took the ferry for Oakland.

Every one on the boat seemed to know the machine and rider, and on a boat or train it is the same everywhere. Why they knew the machine will be explained shortly, but a few words first about being bored by so many questions. It is not because of any reserve I feel in regard to imparting information about this mode of traveling across the country, to any one interested in such touring, for four or five years ago I asked just such questions of Professor Williams of Brown University, on his return from his European bicycling tour, and whenever any one on the road or at a private house asks questions I feel only glad to answer them; but let any one on a ferry boat, at a station, hotel, or any public place commence the usual string of questions—and this string never varies from one end of the country to the other—then a crowd of listeners quickly gathers around, each one in the audience eager to ask the same or some question the others have not thought of, and it becomes disagreeable in the extreme.

The machine became known in this manner. The enterprising agent of the Columbia machine here, with a manner that he must have imbibed from Chinatown, it was so child-like and bland, and with an eye to business which I did not see him open, asked permission to “fix up the machine a little, cement the tire on good,” or something, and the next morning the machine was covered with Grand Army of the Republic decorations, a big placard citing its history hung upon it, and the whole affair placed on the sidewalk in front of the agent’s place of business, opposite the Palace Hotel, to be viewed by the thousands of people not only from California, but here from all parts of the country during encampment week. So that is the reason why machine and rider are so well-known in this vicinity, better known perhaps than in any other part of the country outside of New England.

The ride of three hours to Napa was a delightful one, across the bay to Oakland, then a few miles on the cars to Vallejo Junction, across the bay again, and a few miles farther by train to Napa. After stopping over night there with a new-made friend, I started out up the Napa valley in the cool of a pleasant Sunday morning. The roads were excellent and the country pretty thickly settled for California, but very few persons were stirring about, and the quiet and peaceful appearance of everything was in pleasant contrast with the noise and excitement of the past week in the city. Calistoga, ambitiously named the “Saratoga of the Pacific,” on account of a few mineral springs, and a hotel that wants custom, was reached by noon, and it was twelve or fifteen miles farther before any hill climbing to speak of was necessary. Then it all came together, about seven miles of it.

It seems strange, in passing through as much unsettled or newly settled country as I have, not once being obliged to go without food for more than six or seven hours during the day, that now, in this old inhabited part of California, I should not be able to procure a mouthful of food for eleven hours, but so it was. It was partly my fault though, for I had ridden thirty-five or forty miles, and it was two o’clock in the afternoon before I thought of being hungry, and then the hill-climbing commenced, and the farm-houses were minus.

It was nearly six o’clock before Pine Flat, five miles up the mountain, was reached, and during the last two or three miles I could not walk without staggering sometimes, and often stopping to rest, I was so faint. But a good meal of eggs and venison fixed me all right, and the next morning the summit was reached without much trouble, and only six miles of coasting remained. But such coasting! The grade is not as steep as in some parts of the Yosemite route, Priest’s Hill, for instance, on the Big Oak Flat route, but the road is much narrower and decidedly more crooked. It twists around the sides of the mountain and runs so close to the edge of precipices two or three hundred feet high, that it must make one’s head swim to ride round these turns in a stage.