Jackson met Marvin outside a Town & Country grocery in the agricultural processing town of Warden, Washington, while I was inside finding food for dinner. The cool Fall night had settled in. Migrant workers and farmers filtered in and out of one of the only places to buy food in a 15-mile radius. Each rushing out of the dimly lit store into what turned out to be the first freeze of the season. The crops waiting to be harvested lingered in the back of their minds as they left. I was thinking of the cold too. We determined there was no place to camp in town, no hotels, no RV parks. The time was 9 p.m. but we knew in 15 more miles, past the corn, past the wheat and the potatoes, there was a somewhere to lay our heads.
When I walked out of the grocery I saw Jackson talking to a farmer. I didn’t think much, one of us often finds the other waiting outside grocery stores with our bikes talking to locals. The farmer was Marvin. Marvin grew onions.
“You totally don’t have to do this, we can definitely find some place to sleep,” Jackson said.
“No, no, no,” Marvin said. “It’s just, it smells like onions.”
“Onions?” I thought. I soon realized in the middle of million stalks of corn and wheat, this wasn’t a normal conversation we had outside a grocery store.
“This guy is going to let us sleep in his onion shed,” Jackson said to me, his eyes twinkling with the excitement of finding some road magic. “The shed locks and it’s safe, you cool with that?”
I was definitely good with it, an onion shed, no problem. I’ve been in onion storage before on farms, in small wooden structures, and barn basements.
We followed Marvin’s truck two blocks down the road to a warehouse the size of a football field — the onion shed.
Marvin unlocked the padlock on the chicken wire door and let us in. The warm smell of onions instantly flooded our senses in the dusty space. He found us a light, revealing wooden crates stacked to the ceiling in groups of six and eight — each filled with onions.
He gave us his phone number and a key. That night it did freeze, but we stayed warm layered in our sleeping bags behind a tower of onions.
The onion shed.
That night we received a massive load of road magic. Jackson and I were both familiar with what hikers like to call “Trail Magic”: an unexpected act of kindness. Loving the concept of trail magic we dubbed the kindness that came our way “road magic.”
Road magic comes in many forms. Road magic is getting helpful directions, or a campground suggestion while you’re waiting outside the grocery store. It’s finding an unopened beer on the side of the road, a rainbow you can make out the end of, seeing a magnificent 14-point elk cross the road in front of you, but not too close. Road magic is not knowing where you might sleep at night because you’re in the desert and then finding an unmarked campground on the Columbia River at the end of your day. Road magic feels warm, it reminds us that people aren’t bad, they’re, generally, good.
The unmarked campground after biking through commodity crops and desert on a two-lane road with 18-wheelers passing us.
Since we’ve been back in New England we’ve experienced a lot of sadness, anger, and hate, just as many people have this past week. During these times it’s easy to remember the pick-up truck driver who rolled coal on us on my birthday, or going into a restaurant and not being waited on because we were dirty(?). But I’m making a conscious effort to remember the layers of people — remember the generosity of others — and perpetuating that wherever I can. I acknowledge that the kindness shown to us could potentially be influenced by our race and genders, but I sincerely think the people who helped us would help anyone if they could.
Our next dose of road magic found us the day after my birthday. We contacted a Warm Showers host because it was pouring on-and-off all day and we really needed a dry place to sleep during the thunderstorms headed our way. When I contacted Alden he told me I was welcome but it may be a little crowded because four other bikers were staying that night. We said, “no problem,” and brought the total to six. When we got to Alden’s double-wide trailer there were 11 bikers already there and we made 13.
We met bikers from six different countries, Keith made everyone burgers and homemade pie. We shared stories, bickered over the best way to pack up a tent, talked about John Steinbeck and laughed. We even stayed up a past “biker midnight.” At 11 p.m. we all laid out our sleeping bags like we do every night, but this time we weren’t two bikers in the middle of the woods. We were packed like sardines on the living room floor, surrounded by so many different origins, different experiences, different world views, different languages — our commonality: our mode, bicycles. As thunder boomed and the rain fell on the trailer’s tin roof, we fell asleep, dry and together.
During the second half of our trip, Jackson and I were often reminded we aren’t alone. We met very few bike tourists in the first part of our trip. The Pacific Coast, we learned, was filled with other bikers. We finally felt we weren’t spectacular, what we did wasn’t crazy. Being in a community for the first time in a month or two felt so good.
In the days following the biker gathering, we weaved in and out of other people’s tours. We shared in the rain and terrain. We shared campsites and yurts, farm meals, high-fives, the excitement of sunshine, a familiar “hi!!” at rest stops. When Jackson and I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge I felt like all the friends we met along the way were right there behind us. Keith, Guillaume, Kristen, Ville, Morgan and the many other bikers who sang songs with us as we passed or shared a few miles.
The world is a confused, tortured, and sometimes dark place, but the only way we can get through it is together. Expand your community. Meet people who aren’t like you. There is positivity in every situation if you look for it. Road magic isn’t about what comes your way, but how open you are to accepting it.
In the words of one of one of my favorite poets, from one of my favorite poems:
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” -Mary Oliver, “Evidence”
I apologize for not posting sooner. To make the trek from Spokane, WA to San Francisco in time for our flight we biked 50-60 miles a day with sunlight hours disappearing as we went. My night time access to a computer was limited. Sorry to those of you looking for more consistent updates. And thank you to those who followed along with us on our journey.
More stories and pictures to come soon.
These are pictures from Spokane, WA to the California border:
Dani Walczak 