Richard Treks: BALM: Week 4 Day 5

A couple of hours ago I cleaned and oiled the bike's chain. I checked the bolts to make sure they were tight. I wiped dirt and grime off the frame. I pitched the tent, fired up the JetBoil to boil water for my freeze dried dinner of chicken and rice.

I mention these things because tonight is the final time I'll do them on the BALM.

Even before I started this ride around Lake Michigan I had been thinking some about final things. The last time we do things. Ann and I had a new fence erected in the back yard. The fence is treated lumber, six feet tall. A privacy fence. Gauranteed for 20 years. The last fence we'll see put up.

Our house is brick, some upper sections with siding. The house is old, built in 1925, so the siding is most likely asbestos. We had it abated and covered with high end vinyl that's guaranteed for the life of the house. Ann and I both mentioned that this fence is the last siding we'll see put up.

The same goes for a new concrete driveway we're thinking of having poured. Do it now. Never again. The last time. Another final thing.

It's so very odd to think you're doing something for the very last time. It's like crossing a river, and afterwards the river disappears. It's like a field of strawberries, you pick one, it's tart and sweet, and all the other strawberries disappear. It's like watching the full moon fade to new and you sit there for months on end and the moon stays black.

It's so very odd to think that I have lived for far more years than I have remaining.

Life is so very full of awe and wonder. Who would not want to live all over again? If not just to live better? My first tour years ago ended with me a physical and emotional wreck at the foot of Wolf Creek Pass in southern Colorado. Even last summer I was blackjacked by a hill south of Galena, Illinois, the birth place of U. S. Grant, and by a series of hills in a stretch of land between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. But from all touring disasters I have learned to do better. I have learned to be a better organizer and planner, I have learned that sometimes it's good to forget the map and to wing it instead. I have lost weight. Big Shark replaced my crank sets with gear ratios that enable me to ascend hills far more easily.

In the morning, I'll take the tent down, load all the gear onto the bike, turn on the Garmin, and secure the hammer while saying, "Hammer." Tomorrow morning will be the last time for doing those things.

But the last time just for the BALM. Later this summer I'll be biking with thousands of others (yes, thousands!) across Iowa. And next summer there'll be a bigger tour. Wouldn't it be wonderful and beautiful if life itself was a tour, the ultimate tour? And after doing one, there is always another? Always a better one?

Keep on pedaling.

Follow the BALM.