ODYSSEY - Day One - Part 2

The wind felt cold but refreshing. I was streaming along. It was nice to finally feel like I was making progress. I passed the Gorham library - site of much work on the Internet whenever my apartment WiFi was out. Then I passed the road to the Middle School. The only other traffic light on that in-town part of the road was set to simply flash red. On and on I went occasionally reaching a hand back to feel that troublesome sleeping bag. Each streetlight that I went by gave me the chance to see my shadow and to judge whether anything was working its way loose.  I'm not sure how long it took me to reach the rotary, but it only felt like about 5 or 10 minutes since I had left the laundry mat.

All was quite in every direction. I whipped around the rotary and started up the small hill toward the intersection with Route 22. I rolled to a stop about halfway up the hill. This time I remembered to tip the bike to get off rather than lift my leg over all that crap on the back. I walked up to the intersection and crossed over it to the other side of the road. Ahead of me lay the South Gorham run, where the road veers off to the right and starts a relatively straight path to Payne Road in Scarborough. I decide to give riding another go.

Once I was up and rolling I found new energy to really get moving. I had never walked this route before and even when I had driven it by car I had not realized that it was mostly down hill. I guess that makes sense since in general topography does tend toward lower and lower elevations as one approaches the coast - at least in Maine.

The sound of my knobby tires humming along the tar and the dark woods on either side, broken up by houses that were just as dark, set me into a pattern of thinking about what it must be like to work at this time of night/morning. I heard my breathing and it sounded like I had a wheeze. I cleared my throat several times but the wheeze got louder. I realized it wasn't me, but something off in the distance. Then the wheeze began to break up into what sounded like hoots of laughter. I made a gradual turn and crossed a few intersections, and that's when I recognized the sound. It was much louder now. It was a sound I knew very very well. It was a sound that usually only occurs on relatively cold nights out in fields. And I thought to myself, Shit...coyotes!


For people who have never lived out in the country, the sound of a pack of coyotes when they're playing at night or after they have made a kill, is BEYOND haunting. It sounds like crazy witches dancing around a fire. It is a sound that reminds one of insanity. When I had been living at my apartment in Gorham, I would hear coyotes out in the back field. I recorded it many times. Some of which is already on an album that I am about 1/3 of the way through, but had to delay because of this move. When they would be out in the field I would always get up and walk around the apartment to make sure both cats were inside. Coyotes eat cats as a snack. They are intelligent and ruthless hunters. I admire them very much and always feel bad that they are so persecuted. They will even eat dogs too (even though they are half dog-half wolf themselves). With cats it is like with rabbits, the pack out maneuvers the prey until one of them can grab the cat in its teeth. There is no escape when that happens, the cat is shaken to death and the pack will eat it quickly, from the alpha male to the omega.

Dogs are a different story though. Often the pack will wait in the woods while one coyote heads up toward a the yard where a dog is running free. The coyote will then act friendly toward the dog, playing with it and letting the dog chase it etc. As this is going on the coyote slowly works all this activity further and further away from the house lot and deeper into the woods. Then without warning the dog will realize than it is surrounded by coyotes. Again, there is no escape from that situation.

Unlike wolves, coyotes are relatively small canines.  But a pack of three or more can even take down a buck.  A human would be no problem at all for three.  But coyotes like most wild animals will not attack a human unless they are being threatened or are desperate for food.  I had often wondered from the safety of my apartment what I would do if faced with two of them.  It is a survivable scenario, but it would definitely be a "bad day." 

Over the years I have learned to estimate the number of animals in a pack by listening to their individual voices.  Each is different.  And my experience with multitrack recording certainly sharpened my talent for this.  Naturally, as I rode on through the darkness, especially the stretches without street lights, all of this stuff crossed my mind more than once.  And these thoughts grew stranger and more pronounced until they became quite menacing.  The pack was close by now, and I heard them pretty clearly off my right shoulder to the west.  The other thing about coyotes is that they don't continuously yip.  They yip for a while then go completely silent.  Then they'll yip again and you can judge whether they are closer or further away.

As I had been riding, this intermittent yipping had definitely become closer with each pocket of sound.  I seemed to have been riding toward them.  They would not have intentionally be coming toward me, because my scent would have been left behind me not projected out in front.  (I'm not THAT smelly.)  Yet, I had no choice but to venture on.

Finally, there was a very long period when I couldn't hear them.  Then I caught them singing again, but they were much farther away.  Relief spread over me.  Thankfully I had made it nearly the whole way to Payne Road without having to stop and walk (about 4 miles).  As I crossed over the Turnpike bridge the sky lightened from the Maine Mall area and I knew I was almost there.  I had passed into Scarborough long before that and was happy to be finally out of Gorham.

Things were going much more smoothly now.  It seemed the debacle at the start of this journey had been a test of my will to complete it.  I drifted across Payne Road and began the last stretch toward the Oakhill area of Scarborough.  I passed by the Scarborough Public Library and saw that the side of it was very dark; nice and grassy too.  For the last mile or so something had been scraping the spokes of the rear wheel.  When I got to the paved entrance to the Library I pulled in and headed back up toward the building.  Stealthfully I drew up close to the side and stopped the bike.  I walked up until I found a nook that was fairly well-hidden.  I untied the sleeping bag and unrolled it out on the grass.  I climbed in and a dreamless sleep came quickly.

Occasionally I would open my eyes and realize I wasn't in bed anymore; that I was outside in wet grass.  But the bag was warm and I felt as though I was recharging myself enough to face the next day.

I closed my eyes...And then through my eyelids suddenly it seemed that someone had turned on a light.  It was dawn.  The sun was orange through the trees in the east but not yet above them.  I had done it.  I had reached my small goal.  I had made it through the first night.  I didn't realize at that point that I after one more night I wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to sleep again.  I rose quickly, if sorely, rolled up the sleeping bag and got it tied up on the bike. 

In short order I was on my way, moving again, walking my laden bicycle into the rising sun and toward another uncertain day.  My thoughts were on how to lighten my load.  It is all about simplifying right?  I could understand why having less in this situation was key to surviving it.  When I walked by the listing of library hours I saw that it wouldn't open until 1:00 pm.  I made the decision to wait until the next day to get online.  Instead, this day would have two major objectives: (1)  get rid of the bike and as much other stuff as I could and (2) find a good place to sleep this next night.  It was time to journey to my sister's house (about 7 miles).

Here is a map showing the morning journey...

The pink dot at the bottom left is where I spent the night

and the pink dot at the top right was my destination.

I traveled along Route 1/9, to Broadway, to Evans and then Highland.



[Visit this site tomorrow for the final episode of day 1.  Then we'll take a break from the ODYSSEY and I'll get back to some walking-philosophy.]