Egg Tooth

My first bike trip.

In November of 1976 - at 20 years old - I left my mom's house to hitchhike down to Tampa Florida to see a girl that I liked.   My mom got up early with me at 5am and took the picture to the right saying that she might never see me again.

It only took me a little more than a day to get down to Florida.   I spent a week or so in Tampa, and then hitchhiked over to Arlington Texas to see my dad, who was living with his wife Lois, their dog Fracky, and their cat Snowy.   I spent Christmas with them.

After Christmas I hitchhiked over to Tempe Arizona and stayed at my sister Joy's and her boyfriend Jim's apartment while they were back in NY visiting my mom.  I ended up getting a job as a dishwasher at a Hobo Joes restaurant in Scottsdale, and would hitchhike from Tempe to Scottsdale and back every day.

When Joy and Jim returned, I went over to the ASU campus to a "roommates wanted" board and found a guy to room with.   One bedroom apt.   One of us slept in the bedroom, one on the couch in the living room.  We switched off every month.   

Jim was working for a solar power company in Tempe and got me a job with them.  Minimum wage $1.85 an hour, my job comprising of doing what was asked of me.  Working in the machine shop, and then going out around the southwest on the installation crew whenever needed.    

One time we had an install in New Mexico, and I remember on our morning trip over, we saw a guy on a bicycle riding across the desert.   Then, later in the evening on the way back, we saw him again, about 40 miles further down the road.   This intrigued the hell out of me.

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Six months later, I was leaving that life, and had my sisters drop me off in Santa Monica CA on the edge of Rte 1.  My intent was to just head north,  with my bicycle, a couple hundred dollars to my name, and some Army surplus ammo bags that I was using as panniers.   The picture to the right is me riding away from them, because, again, they thought that might be the last they ever saw of me.

I ended up riding for 3 weeks north up to San Francisco, then on to Sacramento, then over on Rte 50 (which was a small road at the time) over to Tahoe then on up through Oregon and over into Idaho and Wyoming.   Most of the food I ate on that trip was 50 cent plates of pancakes in the morning, and ham hocks out the grocery stores in the afternoons.   20 year olds are built to last on anything.

Then  - for the first time on the bike trip - it started to rain just as I was getting into the small town of Alpine Wyoming, about 20 miles south of Jackson Hole.   I end up hiding out in a coffee shop, and I see a post card of Vermont just above my head on a tack board.  East Coast!   So I ask the two waitresses about the post card, and it turns out that they were from Vermont and just spending the summer in Alpine, and staying in an old RV out back.  

Then, all of us being young and free, they invited me to stay in the RV out back with them, and I end up staying for 3 days while at the same time spending all of the rest of my money on them and me on beers in local bars.   But when I was in the bars with them, I would see young guys walking up to the bar with rolls of 50s in their hands, so I asked the waitresses "Why are all these guys walking around with rolls of 50s?" and they said "Oh, there are 3 oil crews in town".   

So the next morning, having no money left, I rode my bike down to one of the oil crew trailers and knocked on the door, and a guy comes out and I say to him "Can I have a job?" and he looks at me for a moment, and says "Are you that guy that rode his bicycle into town?" and I say "Yea,that's me!  Now I need a job!" and then he pauses and says "My wife needs a bike".  Giant pause.   Then big smile  "Well she can have my bike if you give me a job!"

And so began my intermittent life on oil exploration crews over the following few years in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Texas and Montana.   You get on a crew and every morning you show up at the crew site and they fly you out in helicopters to the middle of nowhere and you spend your days laying cable.    

Some oil engineer somewhere has drawn a straight line across a map and decides there might be oil there , and even though it is a straight line on a map, the map is just a representation of the world, and in tje world itself there are no straight lines.   That straight line in reality goes through forest and mountains and canyons.  You spend your day climbing up and down canyons and hills, or walking through brush or marsh.    But you and everyone else on the crew is a young 20 something and built to last forever,  so you never are worn out, really.  14 hours a day carrying cable, or sleeping under trees while you wait for the next helicopter load to come in.   

As a NY suburban kid it was all fun for me.    As a New Yorker though, there were always guys on the crew, rough western types, who disliked east coasters with a passion, so I usually had that to deal with.   Being out in the middle of nowhere every day, though, with just the sky and trees and animals was amazing.   You felt a connection to the way people always lived for the past million years, that is, until towns and cities came around.

Anyway, the crews were always good money.  I could always jump on and off a crew fairly easily, and it suited my hitchhiking life and London life at that time.   Easy enough to get on a crew, make some quick money, then get back on the road or hop on a plane back to where I wanted to go.