It was definitely weird at first riding my bike in the breakdown lane of a major highway, but when I saw how the hills had been graded to long, gradual slopes I warmed up to it rather quickly. I could see the un-graded hills to the north where my off-highway path would have taken me and was happy I’d opted for the less scenic route. It took only five miles, however, for me to run into one of the unique problems of riding on the highway…construction.
Sure, you can run into construction on any road (as I often did), but highway construction is a different beast. The entire westbound lane was shut down and traffic was being diverted into a single lane on the eastbound side. There was nowhere for me to ride, so I had no choice but to pick my way through the construction zone itself. It was nothing but dirt and gravel in some places, but there were big sections where the pavement was still intact. I had to work between construction equipment in a few spots, and dismount in places to get my bike past some areas that were too soft to ride on. I was glad that I got started early enough that the workers weren’t there yet and it was an inactive site. I wasn’t in the mood to test my bulldozer dodging skills. All seemed to be going well until I got to the bridge.
There was a 6 foot wide trench between me and the newly poured concrete of the overpass. No way I was getting over that. I backed up to where I could get over the median and onto the single lane of the detour. I waited for a while until there were no vehicles coming, jumped out onto the road, and pedaled like I was going for the yellow jersey! I made it past the bridge and back into the construction area before any big trucks wiped me out. After that, I had three lanes of downhill all to myself for the next two miles – sweetness!
When I got to my exit I waffled. The secondary roads from this point on were only slightly off the main track of the highway, but I was feeling pretty good about ol’ Route 25 and chose to go ahead and take it all the way into Casper. Ten miles later I discovered that supernatural forces may have influenced my choice.
A little red car was pulled over in the breakdown lane, its left tires just inside the white line. There was plenty of room on the right for me to pass. I assumed the driver was making a phone call or sending a text message. As I passed I saw an older woman in the driver’s seat with her hands in her lap and the windows rolled down. Something wasn’t right. I squeezed my brakes and turned around to check on her.
“Having car trouble?” I asked.
“I’m out of gas.”
Seeing that her iPhone was sitting there on the dashboard, I made the next logical assumption. “You’ve called someone for help?”
“Well,” she began with a quirky grin, “I’m psychic, and so I put out a call to the angels and asked them to send me help.”
Ho, boy. It took my brain a second or two to recover from that. “The angels must be having an off day since it looks like I was the best they could do,” I told her. She chuckled, but I don’t think she appreciated my questioning her angels’ judgement.
I got out my phone, located a towing company and gave them a call. After that we exchanged introductions and I got in the front seat to wait for the tow truck to arrive. Judy the Psychic insisted that I didn’t have to stay, but I wouldn’t have felt right if I didn’t see this thing through. I asked her to enlighten me about her mystical abilities in the meantime. She was only able to give me a vague collection of new age standbys by way of explanation – healing, auras, spirit communications, and so forth. Nothing very specific or at all verifiable. In case you were wondering, I wasn’t the least bit surprised by this.
About twenty minutes later the guy arrived, poured a few gallons of gas into her tank, and presented the bill. Judy rummaged around in her purse for a few moments before admitting that she didn’t have any cash. She asked the tow truck guy if he could take a credit card. When he said he could and pulled out his smart phone with a card app on it, she then had to ask if he would mind splitting the bill between four different credit cards. The look on his face told me we were very close to a breakdown lane homicide. I assured him that he could put the whole amount on my credit card, and he was happy to do so.
Judy was beside herself at this, and insisted that I give her my address so she could send me the money. I explained that I had been the beneficiary of a lot of kind people who gave me help during my journey when I really needed it, so this was simply my opportunity to pay it forward. Despite my appeal to karma (a supernatural economy that she should have been very comfortable with), she still wanted my address and phone number. I gave in and scribbled my address on the back of a receipt that she tucked into her over-stuffed purse, and I was more than certain that I’d never hear from her again – I didn’t need to be a psychic to predict that!
Judy started up her little red car and headed off to the nearest gas station, presumably to put a tank of gas on six different credit cards. As I got started on the last five miles of my day, I couldn’t stop laughing at the thought that if she was a psychic, why didn’t she foresee that she was going to run out of gas? The angels could have saved themselves a lot of work if they had just gotten Judy to look down at the fuel gauge about 20 miles sooner. This one cost me some money, but it was easily one of the most entertaining encounters of my trip.
What I Learned: Don’t waste your hard-earned cash on those black, rubber bungee cord thingies. As I churned through the miles on the highway, I noticed an inordinate number of these things lying in the breakdown lane. I must have spotted at least 30 of the things along the way. Some were broken, but most were intact. I could only assume that this style of stuff-holder was either popping off passing vehicles at an alarmingly high rate, or that people were tossing them out mid-trip. Either possibility doesn’t speak well of their efficacy. I decided never to buy this type of bungee cord in the future!
Distance Today: 57 miles
Total Distance: 2,377 miles
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