5000 Miles to Go

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I rode two hours past tobacco fields, corn, and cotton into Wallburg, a town even smaller than the fictional Mayberry, which in many ways it resembles. I buzzed past the Baptist church and the massive white Victorian farmhouse where my father was born, and down the long hill to my aunt and uncle's house. I was looking forward to seeing them, but foremost on my mind was the performance of the Ural. Was it only by chance that it had been running perfectly all the way from Ohio? During the next few days I asked my uncles and cousins about it. They are mechanics of everything on and off wheels, so they are used to strange machines -- they only looked a tiny bit askance at the Ural.

"It looks good," said my uncle Jack, "and it sounds like it's running right...." He listened to each cylinder. "It could be that she's running a little lean, though."

I adjusted the carbs and he listened again. "Yep. It's just fine. I have a good feeling about it."

"It sounds like it's running right," said my uncle Walter. "I don't believe there's anything wrong with it any more."

"They must have fixed it all in Ohio," said my cousin Dennis.

Aunt Peggy ready to ride

I WAS ALMOST DISAPPOINTED. Here, I had at my disposal the best mechanics I knew, and there was nothing for them to fix.

So I gave everyone rides. My aunts, who were at first reluctant to get in the sidecar at all, had more fun than the kids, if shrieking was any indication. I took them through the woods and into the dirt, where I hit the back brake and spun donuts. My cousins' kids piled three at a time into the sidecar and were at once thrilled and frightened, but they didn't say no to a second ride.

It was like being 16 again, staying here with all this family. Their numbers were overwhelming, and I have found it impossible to keep up as my cousins have married and expanded the family circle.

As my cousin Jan and I drove her pickup to the football game, she returned waves to almost every car and pickup that passed.

"Who are all these people waving?" I asked her.

She laughed and said, "I don't know all of them. You'd better wave, because you're probably related to them, too."

WE PARKED, MANEUVERING in the dark around running adolescents and the marching band that was lining up to parade onto the field. We waved at Jan's husband, the band director, who was in the midst of last-minute instructions, instrument tunings, and costume fittings, and entered the gates. In the crisp, moonless night, eight perky, blue-eyed cheerleaders shouted and bounced on springy young legs, waving bright green and yellow pom-poms, whipping up enthusiasm whenever it threatened to lag. The football players paced seriously at the bench, listening to the coach and whacking each other on the head.

The game started. Spectators were split between the fanatical and the social. Anxious parents, equipped with foam chairs, wool blankets, and binoculars, leaned forward on the metal benches. Their eyes followed their sons, who deliberately clobbered each other in the soft autumn air.

The marching band put on a halftime show, complete with high-stepping flag girls and majorettes. Tubas and horns gleamed under the stadium lights. Above the playing field, groups of teens whispered and giggled around the bleachers, flinging out flirtatious come-ons from within their groups, taking them back in the same breath. They smirked and punched each other on the shoulder, flipped hair and shrieked, unsure whether they were children or adults.

My God. Had I actually lived this life with cheerleaders and football players, and parents and giggling? I had forgotten it. I'd also forgotten the heavy North Carolina accent that I had worked so hard to obliterate when I moved to California as a 16-year-old.

I was in the land of creeping kudzu vine, sweeping verandahs, and glasses of iced tea tinkling in frosted glasses. Of rocking chairs and gazing out at the street. Of the titles ma'am and sir and the sincerity of store clerks who actually seek out customers to ask, "May ah help you?"

People hear the "North" in North Carolina and don't remember that it is a southern state, surrounded by Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Most everyone I used to know here drew their income from tobacco or textiles. Today, the tobacco companies have wisely diversified, and textile production has increased dramatically, aided by the high-tech companies that have settled here. The Piedmont Triad is now a mini-Silicon Valley, and its climate and geography make it an attractive home for many transplants.

GEOGRAPHICALLY, MOUNT MITCHELL is the highest peak in the eastern United States -- more than a mile and a quarter high. The Appalachians sweep through the west. From my grandparents' home in the Blue Ridge Mountains I have hiked and climbed and canoed. I have tasted moonshine and witnessed spontaneous bluegrass festivals, whittling contests. I've participated in a quilting-bee. I've watched the sun set over layers of blue-gray mountains and felt the air turn cold with the appearance of the first stars in the velvet-black sky.

White-sand beaches edge the east of the state. A fringe of islands with the allure of the south and the climate of the Caribbean hover just out of reach of the mainland. From a rocking chair on the porch of my cousin's beach house on Emerald Isle, I have read William Styron novels and watched pelicans and dolphins. I have gathered conch shells and tiny purple butterfly mussels. I have eaten fried shrimp and bluefish with hush puppies, and drunk ice-cold beer in restaurants with cement floors and fluorescent lights.

North Carolina, with its archipelago and its agriculture, was quite a find for the first settlers. The first documented European to see it was Giovanni da Verrazano, who landed on Cape Fear in 1524. Though he was thrilled at his discovery, he couldn't interest his royal patron in France to colonize it, so the native Americans, mostly Cherokee, remained relatively safe from disease and colonization for a while. The region was finally settled in the early 1600s, when King Charles I of England gave the word. It was named Carolina, which means "land of Charles."

In the mid-1700s, Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated and North Carolina received an influx of Scottish Highlanders. They made their homes around Fayetteville, which is now the site of Fort Bragg, a large U.S. Army base.

I went there, not to see any Scottish games, but because the Ural dealer in Fayetteville had actually been trained in person by Randy at a South Carolina seminar a few weeks before. I thought I'd go get some parts, do a minor tune-up, and have him take a look.

IT WAS A TWO-HOUR DRIVE from Wallburg. In the United States, North Carolina is second only to California in its number of miles of paved roads. Some politician got voted in on this promise years ago and actually made good on it.

"Why in the world were paved roads so important?" I asked my aunt Betty, who had given me that statistic.

"Red mud and water," she told me, "is awful to drive on."

The state has a remarkably even distribution of seasons and the rain falls year round at least once a week. Of course the farmers don't like the muck, which is not a problem in dusty Montana or the Dakotas. This is what I remember about it: I was about five years old, sliding down a red mud hill and into a creek. In my Sunday dress. I think I got in trouble.

So with all these paved roads, I oriented myself southeastward and winged it most of the way to Fayetteville. There were few road signs, and I kept track of the direction by the way the sun shone on my face. Maybe it's a good thing my compass was destroyed the first day of my trip. I think my sense of direction has improved.

From the mountainous east the roads lead through gentle hills, then flat country through rural areas and farmland, to the pine trees and sandy soil nearer the ocean. The red mud is ideal for making pottery. For about 10 miles along one road, potters, including the famous Ben Owens, have set up workshops and sales rooms.

IN FAYETTEVILLE, THE URAL DEALER was oddly combined with a tire store, a furniture store, and a stereo store. The mechanic was indeed quite competent and interested in learning about the Ural's little idiosyncrasies, and didn't mind if I worked on the Beast along with him.

The crew at the Fayettville Ural dealership

"Randy told us about you," he said. I looked up, surprised. I hadn't spoken to Randy since Ohio, at the Iron Pony.

"He told us that there was a woman riding a Ural Tourist around the United States, and if she showed up, to help her all we could."

And he did. We put in a new filter and changed the oil. The filter is one of the parts that is not interchangeable with other manufacturer's. It installs in front of the engine behind the exhaust pipes, which means that you have to take the pipes off to get to it. It's kind of silly, but not difficult once you know how. All you need is a screwdriver and a rubber hammer. Fun when you're pissed off at the bike. But for a change, I wasn't.

The old filter fell out in pieces in my hand, and I realized that I hadn't changed it since Seattle. We also gave her a valve adjustment, cinched the carbs, checked the brakes, and rotated the tires. The spark plugs and wires were replaced, and everything was steam-cleaned. The Queen Beast gleamed. Her engine and wheels shone silver. I hadn't seen silver for a thousand miles.

In Fayetteville the military men stared at me and this World War II apparition. At a stop for gas I answered questions for a string of them, and after 15 minutes gave them directions to the Ural showroom. They all wanted theirs in camouflage.

IT WAS A RELIEF to be done with the repairs. On the way back to Wallburg, I relaxed, finally convinced that the problem had indeed been fixed in Ohio. Now what would I do? I'd be able to think about other things, maybe even listen to music while I was riding. Michael had sent me some tapes which I hadn't had a chance to hear. He called that night.

"Hey, why don't you call my Mom?" he said. "She lives so close by, it would be fun to see her."

The strangeness of meeting the mother of a man I knew mainly from an email romance struck me only as I was the recipient of a firm, sincere hug from a tall, chic woman on the sidewalk outside the restaurant where we'd arranged to meet.

"How are you?" Lou asked me, a decidedly un-cyber human presence with the same smile as my decidedly cyber-boyfriend. "How is Michael?" And in the same breath she added, "This is kind of strange, isn't it?"

She was looking forward to starting work at the Furniture Mart, which is this part of North Carolina's claim to fame. High Point, the furniture capital of the world, swells enormously during their huge furniture shows. Residents make big money renting rooms to interior designers who can't find hotel rooms, and temporary employment soars.

At the railroad tracks in nearby Thomasville, the chair capital of the world, stands a giant chair about 20 feet tall. When I was little, someone told me that a giant walked down the tracks at night and that Thomasville was the halfway point in his journey. To be nice, the town built the chair for him, so he'd have a comfortable place to rest. I imagined a sort of Jack in the Beanstalk giant, but friendly, and I believed in him for about as long as I believed in Santa Claus.

"This is quite a trip you're taking," said Lou, with Michael's smile. "I suppose that this marks the halfway point for you."

I hadn't thought of that. I was halfway gone and halfway home. Was the glass half-empty or half-full? As Lou and I talked, I realized that even though I was enjoying my trip and its challenges, I missed home, I missed my friends, my beach cottage, movies, the library... and I didn't want to admit it but I was thinking about Michael, too -- more and more as we exchanged thoughts through cyberspace.

It was perfect, really, the chance to get to know someone without the distraction of his physical presence. It was a surreal weaving of cyber-communication with the hardwired reality of my particular space in time.

I hugged Lou and went back to my aunt and uncle's house to sit down with my mileage log. I'd avoided making any calculations so far, but it seemed appropriate that I do it now, since I was at this halfway point. The total was close to 5,000 miles.

That meant I had another 5,000 miles to go.

Index | Dispatch 19