It was the spring of 1970 when Jim Baker suggested he and I take a long bicycle trip. I had done a lot of biking but had never thought about a cross-country ride and probably would not have done one without his prompting. It turned out to be a real adventure that few besides Jim and I ever knew about. It has been many years since I saw Jim and only talked to him once on the phone in recent years but have a good feeling and fond memories just thinking about him and our trip.
I had met Jim on a Minnesota Rovers Outing Club spring break trip in 1969, driving to Arizona for some backpacking. I will never forget that trip because Jim was driving on some back road at 2 am with everyone asleep when he hit a deer with my father’s car. Luckily he slowed enough that nobody was hurt and the car was still drivable, though the radiator was punctured and then repaired by a farmer in Koosharem, Utah for $5.
Driving into Bryce Canyon National Park, the damaged hood flew open, blocking the windshield when I was driving about 70 mph, so we had to tie it closed. The first day of backpacking had a tough 3,000 foot climb, and some people, who shall remain nameless, put rocks into Rod Johnson’s pack because he had been talking about how he really wanted to get in shape. I am not saying that Jim was involved, but he might have been. So the rest of the trip, everyone had to check their pack each morning for rocks.
It was also memorable when, after a hot and dusty day of hiking among peaks that still had snow on their tops, we all ran into Rucker’s Lake only to come flying out of the 42 degree water!
Sometimes people just click, and that was the case with several of us on this trip. The best thing about that trip was the long lasting friendships that formed among many of us, including Jim and I.
Jim and I started out biking the day after my sister’s wedding in early July. Neither of us had been on a long bike trip with all our camping gear before.
In Wadena, MN the third day in the saddle, with our butts aching, we watched as the manager of a city campground sent a motorcyclist dressed in leather packing and then came over to us, but allowed us dirty and sweaty bicyclists to stay.
Jim planned the route through the middle of North Dakota and into Montana. With temps in the 90’s we were relieved to head into a little Montana town to look for camping. There were fields on our right and houses on the left, but it was the municipal swimming pool that did it. No word was spoken but Jim turned toward the pool and I continued straight until our front wheels locked up and we both went over the handlebars. It was great entertainment for the kids at the pool, but embarrassing for us. After 800 miles riding together without incident, we had pretzeled my wheel. Jim biked into town and asked around until he found someone who fixed bikes for the kids in town and who straightened our wheels enough so we got to a bike shop. In Billings a shop opened half an hour early to work on our bikes, gave us a free lunch of real homemade food, charged us half what they should have, and gave us lots of advice for free.
We rode through a hailstorm in Yellowstone National Park with motor homes rushing by us but not stopping. The camping was intimidating with the bearproof trash cans all around our tiny tents with our food hanging in a tree next to us. At night, even the mice trying to get our food sounded like bears. Once, out in the park, traffic backed up because of a bear people were feeding, so we crept down the middle of the road to the car that was next to the bear. The driver said to stay next to him as he pulled out, but left us stranded as he floored it! Luckily the bear already had plenty to eat.
We went to Grand Teton National Park so Jim could take a 2 day rock climbing course at the Exum School while I hiked. Jim said that rock climbing seemed to use different muscles and that all our biking had not been good training for climbing, but that he had learned a lot anyway.
Our route turned mountainous when we went through Jackson, WY and headed up Teton Pass where road workers let us go but told us we had ten minutes until the next blast. We were working so hard to get over the pass quickly, but the old road got so steep that we were zig-zagging back and forth. Luckily all the cars were stopped by then so we had the whole road. We heard the blast behind us, and were on the downhill switchbacks before the cars caught up.
We had been coached in mountain technique by the Billings bike shop owner – brake before the corner if you must, hang on tight, and go as fast as you can. Though we were flatlanders, Jim and I both took this to heart.
We went over 6 named mountain passes in a week or so, continuing through northern Idaho and eastern Washington straight into the west wind that blows most of the summer. Jim took the wind in stride, but it really bothered me.
Over the Cascades at Stevens Pass we then biked the downhill stretch to Seattle, home of the Pike Street Market, and Puget Sound. We were ahead of schedule and had extra time.
Have you ever wanted to just bike downhill? We met a fellow who was curious about what we were doing. He let us stay a day at his house, and then drove us to a ski area for the last skiing of the season, where we could just fly down the mountain highway. Good plan except for all the sand that had been spread on the tight, winding road which kept our brakes on and our speeds low.
Ten miles down the road, things had flattened out and we were getting used to pedaling again. We took our shirts off because of the heat. I was ahead of Jim when I realized how much speed I was picking up and started braking hard at the first corner because I could see tops of trees over the guardrail of the second corner where the road turned for a plunge down to the river.
Unfortunately Jim thought that I wasn’t braking, so he didn’t brake until he saw the second corner coming up fast. When he hit his brakes, one of the cables broke, and he slid out on the corner bouncing off the railing and sliding down the gravel shoulder on his bare back.
He was on his feet when I biked back up the hill. As I picked some gravel out and washed the blood off his back, he seemed in very good spirits. Apparently, when he saw that guardrail coming, he thought he was headed for the treetops. I was amazed he took it so well.
Jim suggested we head to Vancouver since neither of us had been there before. Canadian Customs almost didn’t let us across the border because of the number of Americans who were just staying in Canada – think Vietnam War era. They wanted to see every one of our 40 US dollars, and made us sign something promising to leave Canada in 3 days.
We rode up the Fraser River valley to Vancouver and all over the city, sleeping in Stanley Park one night, and a huge armory building with lots of hippie types the second. It was very different being in a large city after so long on the open road, and it was time to start heading for home.
No money and 1,700 miles to go, but Jim had a plan. We would catch a freight train home from Seattle! We had never been on a freight train, and had no idea how to do it, so we called Burlington Northern asking about shipping something to Minneapolis and learned that every train going East left from the Everett Yard a few miles north, so that’s where we went. We sneaked around watching the activity until a couple of guys not much older than us asked what we were doing. When we told them, they said to follow them because they wanted to catch a freight going south. We all walked right up to a man in the yard with a bunch of papers and after our new friends asked about their train, we asked too. He told us a track number and when the train would leave and told us not to get on when it was moving.
We got on an empty auto carrier car, but in Wenatchee we were put on a siding. When we asked a yardman when our car would be leaving he said in about 2 weeks, after it was repaired. After questioning us about how old we were and saying how dangerous it was, he told us where to get on a train that was leaving for Minneapolis soon.
After our false start, we were on our way home with a gallon of water, a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and some cans of Cream of Chicken soup to spread directly on the bread as a soup sandwich. Jim assured me that was what people who rode the rails eat. And that is what we ate all the way home to Minneapolis. With a couple dollars still left in our pockets, another successful adventure was at an end.
Six weeks is a long time to spend with one person, but I was always happy to be around Jim. He was very easy going and friendly, with a great sense of humor. He was a thinker, with a quick and perceptive mind, interested in a wide variety of different things. This led to some really interesting conversations around the campfire at night that wandered off in many directions from what we started to talk about. I found in Jim a physicist who talked to me about concepts that I could hardly imagine in a way that I could at least begin to understand. Big things and little things, insignificant things and cosmic things were all fair game.
On a later train trip, Jim put an overstuffed old chair in the open door of a boxcar and would sit in it smoking his pipe as the train slowly rolled through little towns, past cars stopped at crossings, with little kids watching the train and pointing at him in disbelief. That is the image of Jim that I will remember.
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