As Dogzilla and I pedaled away from Captain’s memorial, I sobbed. There was no way around it any longer, our lives were now carrying forward without her. She was no longer a living member of our pack but was now relegated to the world of memory which would inevitably fade with time without the aid of new memories being created. I had lost her physically, but now was beginning the slow and agonizing second round of death, fading from memory. The next several miles of trail were a blur, both from the mental haze of grief and from the tears that clouded my vision. One thing was for certain, I did not want to be on the trail, I didn’t want to be anywhere to be honest, but least of all here, carrying on an adventure that we were meant to do together. I felt like a complete failure. If it hadn’t been for my promise to get Zilla to Idaho and my new sense of duty to keep Captain’s legacy going, I would have quit right there.

As the tears began to slow and my mind began to become hypnotized by the rhythm of the pedal strokes, my inner anguish dulled a bit, allowing me to see the Washington desert for what it truly was, a barren wasteland. I actually found a lot of comfort in that landscape and in the absolute solitude as the last thing I wanted in the world was to be around anyone except for Zilla and the one friend I could no longer be with, my Pig. I took note of the stark, desolate countryside but found it impossible to get motivated to take any video footage and nearly as impossible to take any photos, though I did manage a couple. They weren’t very good, but honestly, I didn’t care. I was just going through the motions of the ride, I was completely numb. The numbness wasn’t just mental though, there was a physical component as well.

The unexpected path that Captain had cleared for us had petered out, giving way to the extremely rough and uncomfortable railroad ballast that was all too common on this portion of the trail. This led to a merciless and relentless jarring with every inch we moved and the constant slamming of my handlebars into my hands caused my hands to start to fall asleep. This meant I had to keep trying to shake my hands out by changing positions to try and get the feeling back in them. And if that wasn’t enough, the constant hard thuds caused the mount for my GoPro camera to break. Incredibly, the camera didn’t fall onto the trail and get lost but instead managed to fall inside the trailer instead. But since I wasn’t doing any filming, I have no idea exactly when or where this happened. Even so, that wasn’t all; easily the most annoying thing of all was that the endless banging had caused the bolt for my kickstand to come loose to the point that with every pedal stroke, the kickstand would swing out from my bike, directly into the line of rotation of my pedals meaning that every spin of the pedal caused me to hit the kickstand with the back of my shoe and the edge of the pedal creating a metal clunk with every turn and inevitably slowing us down ever so slightly with the added friction of each spin. To say I was miserable would be an under statement.

(click photos to enlarge and see descriptions)

Unfortunately, the bolt for the kickstand was larger than the wrench I carry with me could handle so there was no way to fix this issue while on the trail. I started trying to brainstorm ways to potentially temporarily fix the problem and the answer was simple, a piece of string would allow me to tie the legs of the kickstand to the frame, preventing it from swinging out into the pedals. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything with me that could be used to tie the kickstand down. I came up with the idea of using long blades of grass since there were various grasses and weeds in stands here and there in the predominately barren terrain, but being the desert, they were all far too dry and brittle to allow for much, if any bending and every piece I tried to use would break about into multiple pieces before I even had a chance to tie them into a knot. My mind then turned to litter.

I began scouring the trail for any discarded wire from the old railroad days or maybe a rusty old strand of phone wire or barbed wire but I came up empty handed. I then started thinking about more modern things that might help but the only idea that came to mind was a ribbon for a balloon. But we were roughly 10 miles from the closest town, Lind, Washington, so the chances of finding a balloon in the middle of absolute nowhere were pretty much zero. But pretty much zero doesn’t mean absolutely zero because about 1/4 mile later, I saw the sun shine brightly off of something metallic to side, and low and behold, there was an ancient mylar helium balloon stuck in the scrub brush. I couldn’t believe my luck! I went over to see if the ribbon was still attached and it was! However, when I went to rip it off, I could tell that the sun had all but destroyed the ribbon as it basically fell apart the second I touched it. Cursing the illusion of good fortune, I got back on the bike and continued to kick my kickstand with every turn of the pedal.

I gave in to my fate of endless metal clanging and set my sights on our next landmark, the “town” of Ralston. From what I’d read, Ralston was nothing more than a grain elevator, a few houses, and a small park all of which was probably another 10 miles or so to the east. There would be no stores there to get a wrench or string or even a drink for that matter. We continued on our journey to Ralston when maybe a 1/2 mile later, I saw another metallic glint in the brush. To my amazement, it was yet another mylar balloon! This one was in even worse shape than the first one and I’m pretty sure the ribbon turned to dust just from me looking at it. A few hundred yards down the trail, a 3rd balloon! This one was in decent shape and I was able to get the ribbon off, but when I tried tying the kickstand to the frame, the ribbon gave out. Then another 1/4 mile away, a 4th balloon! This balloon was in the best shape of all, so I took great care and patience in removing the ribbon and ever so slowly and carefully trying to tie it into a usable knot. To my surprise, the knot held, the ribbon was sturdy enough, and my kickstand was now no longer in the way.

This was exactly the type of pick me up I needed. But then I started to think, over the probably 750 miles of trail that we had covered, I could not recall a single mylar balloon that we had passed along the trail, even in more populated areas like Seattle and its suburbs, so for Zilla and I to have come across not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 balloons in just a mile or 2 and in the middle of nowhere seemed like astronomical odds! Then I remembered the mysterious path flat path in the trail that had opened up near Captain’s memorial and I started to wonder, could it be possible that Captain was somehow still with us and helping us along our journey? I’m not religious, not in the least, so my mind is always looking for logical explanations for things and this one seemed borderline impossible. Don’t get me wrong, I know that balloons are a huge environmental problem, but to go from seeing none over such a great distance to seeing so many in the middle of absolute nowhere where there shouldn’t be any, it just didn’t seem like there was any plausible explanation. With that, I looked up to the sun, smiled, and said the only thing I could, “Thank you, Pig.”

Dogzilla and I rolled into Ralston a while later and, as expected, there wasn’t much to the “town” at all. What we did find though was that the winds were starting to pick up, the sky was clouding over, and the temperatures were starting to drop. Just two days prior, the forecast had promised a week of mild temperatures and no precipitation, but as of that morning, things had changed to a week of near freezing temps with chances for snow on several of the days. When Zilla and I had left for the trip, we hadn’t prepared for that kind of a ride, so I wanted to do whatever I could to get us out of the weather before a potential storm broke. As I looked at the skies beyond Ralston, I could see what looked like rain falling in the distance. I decided it was time to call it a day and Zilla and I raced back to the car. After returning to the car and getting the bike and trailer loaded, we started to drive to our hotel. Less than 2 minutes later, it started to rain. I did the only thing I could, I looked at the clouds where the sun was mostly obscured, smiled, and said, “Thank you, Pig.”