Читать книгу 360 Degrees Longitude - John Higham - Страница 11

June 4–June 22

England

The surest way to put me in a good mood is to get me on a bike. There’s nothing quite like pedaling across the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny day with a cool sea breeze to get me doing my Julie Andrews impression from the opening scene of The Sound of Music. Not that we would be crossing the Golden Gate in England, but we were going to ride. And in not too many weeks we’d be passing the same mountain in Austria that had inspired that famous scene. I was in a good mood.

But to get started we first needed to get to the starting gate. That would be at the home of some dear friends, whom we had never met, in Leighton Buzzard, a suburb somewhat north of London.

A few months before our departure, September went on a business trip and met a gentleman named Wayne on the plane. Unlike me, September makes friends instantly. I wasn’t even there but I know exactly what happened. Before the plane even left the tarmac, Wayne knew our life story and knew about our upcoming trip and our plans to cycle across Europe on tandems with our children.

Small world that it is, Wayne had friends in England who have been cycling across Europe on their tandems with their kids for years. Wayne introduced us to his friends, David and Carolyn, via e-mail. In no time David and Carolyn became our lifeline. They were generous beyond imagination and offered a fountain of cycling information. Plus, they offered us, complete strangers, their home as a starting point.

You have to be extremely dedicated to cycling on a tandem to schlep one of them around the world. You must be certifiable to schlep two. This wasn’t the first time we had taken the tandems out of the country, but we had yet to discover any method of moving two disassembled tandems from point A to point B other than brute force and awkwardness. Lucky me, I am the only one in the family strong enough to pick up one of the tandem cases—of which there are four. The Great Tandem Schlep goes something like this:

September takes some of our bicycle panniers about twenty yards from point A toward a distant point B. I then carry two of the tandem cases the same distance while Katrina and Jordan stay behind to guard the remaining pile of tandem cases and panniers. I then leave the two tandem cases with September while I go back for another load. After ferrying stuff back and forth between September’s base and the kids’ base, I do it all over again and move another twenty yards toward our destination.

In this fashion we made our way out of Heathrow International Airport to the London Underground, onto the train, through the long corridors of a connecting station, onto the train again, and then finally up to street level and to our hostel several blocks away. Getting four tandem cases, eight panniers, and a family of four off the London Underground during a twenty-second stop while a wall of human flesh is trying to carry all of you in opposing directions is a lot like being a goldfish in a blender.

September had been to London before, but this was the first time the rest of the family had been outside of Heathrow, so we arranged to see the sights of London for a few days before making our way to David and Carolyn’s in Leighton Buzzard. On our first morning in London, Katrina was using the computer in the hostel lobby to e-mail her friends back home. I sat in a lounge chair waiting, reading a current Time magazine. At least that’s what it looked like to the casual observer. September walked over and asked, “Anything happen in the world in the last week?”

“Well, we haven’t invaded Canada yet, if that’s what you mean,” I replied, hoping she would not investigate my reading material any further.

As part of the plan for the kids’ education, we had brought with us a bunch of children’s books on British history. Mind you, it isn’t as though prepubescent literature targeted for double-X chromosomes is normally on my reading list, but the book I was reading was more interesting than current world events. I had Katrina’s copy of Beware, Princess Elizabeth stuffed inside the Time magazine, as I wasn’t about to be caught in public reading a book about a princess.

The names “Bloody Mary” and “Elizabeth I” were familiar to me, but it wasn’t until I started reading Katrina’s preteen princess books that I learned that they were sisters, albeit in an “are-you-sure-what-you’re-eating-isn’t-poisoned” sort of way. All the underhanded cloak and dagger stuff caught my imagination.

We went to Westminster Abbey full of anticipation. I wanted to see where archrivals Mary and Elizabeth were buried, side by side, no less. Plus, I had learned that Sir Isaac Newton’s final resting place was in Westminster Abbey and wanted to pay my respects to Mr. Gravity. If it weren’t for him, I’d be out of a job.

As I stood in line at the abbey, I noted September’s eyes were fixed on a sign adjacent to a counter. “It’s almost a hundred dollars to get the four of us inside,” she said.

“To visit a church? What if I have the urge to absolve myself of some naughtiness, and I’m short of funds? Do they have some sort of frequent sinner program, so we could use the same pass here and at some of the other sites we want to visit?”

“No,” September replied. “For example, if we want to see where Anne Boleyn took her last steps on the way to the chopping block at the Tower of London, it will be another hundred.”

Planning a yearlong trip around the world isn’t like planning a two-week vacation, where every activity for every day can be planned and budgeted well in advance. In the months before we left, we made plans only in the general sense. For example, we knew what regions of the world we wanted to see and in what season, so most of our intercontinental airfare was prepurchased. Conversely, all overland transportation and day-to-day activities were left completely open. As one person wisely summed up long-term travel, “Why plan anything? The first day something could happen which changes everything.” We were committed to our budget, but when standing outside Westminster Abbey the budget suddenly seemed just plain rude. It was immediately clear that if our funds were to last the entire fifty-two weeks of our trip, we couldn’t do everything we wanted to do.

“According to our guidebook, the British museums are completely free,” September commented hopefully. “Even for Americans.”

So that is where we spent our time in London. These vaunted institutions are fascinating resources to explore if you ever doubted the breadth and depth of how the British looted their colonies.

• • •

When I was a kid, the litmus test of whether or not your town had arrived in the Major Leagues was if there was a McDonald’s. When a McDonald’s opened in my hometown, it was quite an event. We boasted with pride, “Logan, Utah now has a McDonald’s!” Kids on the school playground would discuss in awed tones the fact that the sign in front of the McDonald’s had changed from “100 Million Served” to “200 Million” and ultimately “Billions and Billions.” It was big news.

We hadn’t been in the U.K. very long before we learned they have a not-too-dissimilar litmus test. A city isn’t a city unless it has a university. We also learned that there are specific qualifications for whether a village is a town or a town is a village, but we could never remember what those qualifications were. I don’t know how many times we were corrected by a well-meaning local that the next town was actually a village, or the village we were in was in fact a town, thank you very much.

After a few days in London it was time to make our way to David and Carolyn’s in the town of Leighton Buzzard. The towns (pardon me, did I say towns? I meant villages) in England have these terribly funny names. Leighton Buzzard is one of the more prosaic. How about Piccadilly Circus? Or there is Spital Tongues. Somewhere there must be a Toenail Fungus, England. I looked on a map but couldn’t find it. Someone a very long time ago had a great sense of humor.

Leighton Buzzard is about 40 kilometers north of London, and its calm neighborhoods and well-trimmed hedges contrasted dramatically against the insanity of London. I was grateful to have quiet streets to start pedaling on. David and Carolyn were gracious hosts and accomplished cooks. They served superb meals for September, Katrina, and me, and humored Jordan with a mac and cheese food substitute from a box. We were going to have to work on Jordan’s picky eating habits, but that was a battle for another day.

I assembled the tandems and we tested our ability to ride on the left-hand side of the road. David offered to keep the tandem cases at his house until such time and place that we sent for them. The night before we departed we stayed up much later than we should have, discussing world affairs, where we would find campgrounds in southern England, and most importantly, the merits and drawbacks of various types of fenders on touring bicycles.

Katrina’s Journal, June 10

Today was the day! After packing up everything, we loaded the panniers on the bikes and left. David rode with us on his own bike for a distance, and then headed back home. England seems very hilly.

Not too far from our starting point in Leighton Buzzard is the tiny village of Eydon where my fifth great-grandfather was born. I don’t think Eydon has changed since he left in 1855 and probably not even since 1555. Houses are made of stone and have thatched roofs. The paths are impossibly narrow for cars and perfect for cyclists. We found a church with a graveyard that contained several Higham graves, but none that were familiar to us. As a bonus, and a complete surprise, our map showed us that a short hop from Eydon was Cold Higham, an even tinier village.

After a full day of cycling, we approached the town (village?) of Islip, where David had told us we’d find a campground.

After arriving at the campground, I went into the office to secure a site, but quickly learned the awful truth—they were full. The Fickle Finger of Fate had brought us to Islip on the very day of the one thousandth birthday of Islip’s most famous son, Edward the Confessor. Of course I knew who he was. In addition to reading Katrina’s teen-princess series of books, I had also been reading Jordan’s Horrible Histories—England.

Horrible Histories is a series of books for reluctant readers ages eight through twelve published in the U.K., mixing history with the details that kids might actually find interesting, such as methods of torture, gory diseases, bloody battles, rodent infestations, and even medieval bathroom logistics.

Edward the Confessor was the guy who lost to William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066, united the disparate fiefdoms in the land, and became England’s first king.

Hello!

Why were these people celebrating the one thousandth birthday of the loser? I have a hard time visualizing a celebration in New Rumley, Ohio on December 5, 2839, for George Armstrong Custer, loser of the battle of Little Bighorn. Then again, I can’t see the British getting all cheery over William the Conqueror’s birthday, either. He was French. Let’s imagine for a moment that the United States lost the Revolutionary War in 1783. Would we celebrate King George’s birthday? I think not.

I went back to September and the kids to break the news. “They’re full—someone turned a thousand years old today.” Jordan had spied the pool and was virtually wet already; he looked pained at this news. “Oxford is only a few miles down the road. We should get going.”

“We aren’t giving up so easily, are we?” September asked. “Can you go back and ask again?”

“You know I’m no good interfacing with people in these situations.”

“That’s because, dear,” September said patting me on the shoulder, “people don’t interface. Only engineers do that. We’re ready to camp here. Jordan, come with me. Try to look pathetic.” And with that September roughed up Jordan’s hair so it looked like the kid had been dragged behind the bikes rather than propelling them.

A few minutes later September came back. “We’re in pitch number three—I had to promise one night only.”

“One is enough. What did you say to make them decide the place wasn’t so full?”

“I just told them how fabulously beautiful the countryside was and how we couldn’t believe our good luck to have arrived in town on such a historic day, what with us unfortunate Americans having no king of our own whose birthday we can celebrate. Having Jordan as a visual aid didn’t hurt, either.”

Later we pitched our tent and crawled into it. We had, of course, camped in our tent before, but that night I slept with Katrina’s elbow in my back all night, thinking, “What have we done?!.” Camping was the only way we could stay on budget in Europe. We had roughly 18 weeks and 2,500 miles ahead of us to Istanbul. It was looking as if it would be a long road.

By morning, September’s key-chain thermometer sported a reading of 34°F. We weren’t ready for that—we had brought thin, tropical-weight sleeping bags. I checked the date; it was still mid-June.

Jordan woke up sporting a 101.4° fever. We weren’t ready for that, either. Since we were welcome in our campground for exactly one night, we guiltily pumped Jordan full of Tylenol, worked with the kids on their homework, broke camp, and rode into Oxford.

Oxford, located on the Thames River, is home to England’s oldest and arguably most prestigious university. Americans know it as the place where Bill didn’t inhale.

Speaking of Bill, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank his dear friend Al for inventing the Internet. Such a wonderful thing. But lately I had been wishing Al had invented Wi-Fi, too.

The particular e.brain I had chosen to accompany me on our yearlong journey was a kind of electronic Swiss Army knife, as it did just about everything, including connecting to the Internet wirelessly via Wi-Fi. Ever since 9/11 I’d had a compulsion to get the news, and found myself going online and reading the latest headlines frequently. With full connectivity my e.brain was my lifeline to the outside world. I loved it.

As with all things loved, it occasionally made me crazy. I had been certain that I would be able to take it with me on our trip and find a Wi-Fi network just about anywhere. This proved to be a much more frustrating task than I’d originally anticipated. That isn’t to say that I couldn’t find Wi-Fi networks, I just couldn’t get into them. For example, while in Oxford, I ended up wandering all over the university campus looking for a department that left its network unguarded so I could check e-mail and get a quick news fix.

Despite its being overly informed about network security, Oxford became our favorite city in England (I can say “city” here because, you guessed it: Oxford has a university). The Oxford city council has chosen to keep its city pedestrian and cyclist friendly. Lacking the frenzied pace of London, Oxford can be easily managed on foot, or more importantly to us, by bicycle. For example, the Museum of the History of Science, Gutenberg’s Bible, Martyr’s Memorial, and many of Oxford’s colleges are all easily accessible on foot from the market square.

One of the most popular pastimes in Oxford is punting, which has nothing to do with kicking a pigskin on fourth down. A punt is not too dissimilar from a canoe, but with its flat bottom, it’s much more stable, and it’s propelled by using a pole to push off of the bottom of the river. Our punting experience had us starting just past Christ Church Meadow in the Botanical Gardens, where we looked for hobbits near Tolkien’s Tree named for the famed author who received much of his inspiration there. Despite its popularity, once past the immediate vicinity of the pier and rental shop, punting is a quiet, rural experience.

We also found Oxford almost impossible to leave. Cycling out of town, every time we turned around to see a sign posting how many miles back, it read the same thing.

Katrina’s Journal, June 13

… After riding for about ten miles, we realized we’d practically gone in a circle. Great. That was but the first wrong turn. Next, after riding for about three or four miles, we found the road we were looking for. This road was supposed to take us several miles down to a bridge that crossed a small river, and shortly after crossing the bridge, we would find our campsite. After a long time of riding downhill, Mom said something like, “Sometimes I have this strange feeling that this road is just a path to someone’s farm.” Just a tiny bit after she said that, we came to a dead end. In front of us was a river, only about twenty feet wide. But where was the bridge? On the other side of the river was a pub, with a deck and tables and chairs and people and plenty of boats. On our side, there were no boats. We called to people on the other side and begged them to come and get us in a boat, but they didn’t own the boats.

Our map showed a bridge where we were standing, but if there was a bridge, it was doing a great job of hiding. Talking to the locals who were lurking on the other side confirmed that there used to be a bridge, but the owners of the land nearby didn’t like the through traffic and, well, somehow the bridge had been damaged beyond repair and torn down.

We had no choice but to go back and take the long way around. About three hours and more than twenty miles later we were on the other side of the river, and only twenty yards farther down the road.

Some members of my family have the irritating quality of seeing the humor and adventure in situations like the bridge being out. Later that night as we pitched the tent, Jordan and I plotted against Team Estrogen for their high spirits and good nature. We snuck another two pieces of soap that had been squished into one bar into September’s soap case.

A few days later we arrived in Salisbury to see our first UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site: Stonehenge.

The only thing I knew about Stonehenge was from the movie This Is Spinal Tap, so we got the obligatory headphones for the self-guided tour. We learned that Stonehenge was already ancient history when the Romans ruled England and that the stone pillars were built by … nobody really knows.

We would have good and bad experiences with UNESCO sites as our year unfolded, but Stonehenge reminded us of what we already knew; Katrina and Jordan experienced culture and history much differently than September and I did.

We walked along the path encircling the stone columns that have been enshrined on screensavers around the globe. Jordan paused, and looking at one of the columns noted, “They sell hot dogs here. And there is a gift shop.”

Katrina, always budget conscious, retorted, “We have food in our panniers, and we can only get one souvenir per continent.” Then, adjusting the headphones of her audio guide, she added without taking a breath, “These headphones hurt my ears.”

Summer solstice was only a week or so away. If we waited, a large gathering of people who hadn’t found proper homes since Woodstock would be arriving to visit Stonehenge to feel its vibes. I could feel the vibes before summer solstice—it was the traffic thundering past only a few hundred yards away on the A303. It was so loud it was as though someone had turned up the volume all the way to eleven.

• • •

On a tandem you have a captain (the person in front) and a stoker. The stoker gets his name from the bygone era of steam trains when a person tended, or “stoked,” a fire. The hotter the fire burned the more steam was produced for the engine and the faster the train went. On a tandem the stoker’s job is similar—to provide power.

Jordan and I had a lot of miles under our belts before we arrived in England. We had cycled across Austria before Jordan was in kindergarten, and it was while cycling the backside of Maui that we learned the hard way that you can’t eat or drink a computer.

Even without a computer weighing us down, I knew that Jordan wasn’t much for pedaling. I had hopes of conditioning him because Katrina, at eight, had been a great asset as a stoker. As hard as it was for me to admit it, part of Jordan’s problem was me. I tried to ask for “pedal power” as nicely as I could but under the strain of huffing up a hill, my words could easily be interpreted as a bark to an eight-year-old. In those early days cycling in England, Jordan was starting to withdraw.

I was also having a hard time finding “my groove.” In the days before we left California, some friends asked me if I thought we were in shape to cycle such a vast distance. I quipped, “Well, let me just state that I don’t think my physical condition is going to be our limiting factor!” I now realized that my mental condition was at risk of being a limitation.

David and Carolyn had warned us that finding camping spots in Southern England that are a comfortable day’s ride apart might be difficult. I regretted pontificating on the virtues of camping, as many times I was shamed by Katrina’s tenacity to cycle farther than planned in search of a campground. The nights we actually found refuge in a campground were a treat, even in a drenching rain. The night we had to make do in a farmer’s field, I woke up the next morning with Jordan’s sore throat and fever.

Then there was the matter of our load. Despite the time we spent economizing the “to take” pile, we still had to carry food and water, schoolbooks for the kids, clothes for everyone, a tent, four sleeping bags and mattress pads, rain gear, a first-aid kit, a camera, three PDAs, a cell phone, and enough bike tools to stock a small repair shop. And three pairs of shoes for September? What was with the hair dryer? Clothespins? Matching socks? And, since I was the strongest rider, Jordan and I had the “heavy stuff.”

Team Estrogen, however, was thriving, and due to all those fashion choices, was quite stunning.

John’s Journal, June 18

The British Postal Service was kind enough to sell me an international calling card that has free calls to the United States on every Saturday in June. So, as I have on every Saturday for the previous twenty-odd years, I called my mommy.

I ended up talking to her about Jordan, who has been acting very surly. I’ve been wondering if this trip is doing him more harm than good, and told her I was thinking about bringing him home—not seriously thinking about it, at least not yet. She was kind enough to remind me that Jordan was acting normally for eight years of age. I think her exact words were, “Well, if you can’t remember what you were like when you were eight years old, then let me do it for you!” Above all else, she convinced me that Jordan was fine, and that I should forget about pampering him, let alone bringing him back home. For once it was good to be told that his behavior was hardwired in his DNA.

September is much better at personal relationships than I am, so I turned to her for advice. “I need help getting Jordan to provide some power for going uphill,” I said.

“Don’t ask Jordan,” September said. “Spider-Man is the person you need to talk to.”

Jordan was first introduced to his alter ego when he was four. We were on everybody’s mailing list; buy a couple of things mail order, a few more online, and suddenly you’re getting five pounds of mail every day. Jordan would watch for the postman every afternoon, and then run to the mailbox looking for toy catalogs. He would then study them as a starving person would a menu. When he found the sleek Spider-Man costume, he found his soul mate.

At the tender age of four Jordan had never seen Spider-Man before—not the movie, the comic book, nothing. But as soon as he saw the advertisement for a Halloween costume, he knew! He knew Spider-Man was bad to the bone. When Jordan finally got a Spider-Man costume of his very own, he wouldn’t take it off and would do all sorts of things he knew were taboo.

September would say, “Jordan! You know better than that!”

“I’m not Jordan anymore! I’m Spider-Man!”

“Well, Spider-Man would never pinch his sister. Spider-Man is good!”

“NO! Spider-Man is baaaaaad!”

During the intervening four years Spider-Man had been Jordan’s alter ego. A year or so earlier I saw Jordan “shooting a web” at the ball during a basketball game in an effort to steal it. So, I wisely followed September’s advice to have Jordan get in touch with his inner Spider-Man. Not insignificantly, we also started to lighten the load by abandoning anything from that extra pair of sneakers to hand towels. You could map our progress by the stuff we left behind at various campsites. Katrina and Jordan caught on quickly and lobbied to abandon their math workbooks.

Cycling from Salisbury to Fordingbridge via a route that goes through the New Forest and Godshill was the best cycling we did in England. The scenery was green, the traffic was light, the sun was shining, and for a stretch the road was even flat.

Jordan and I pulled off to the shoulder for a moment. We were on a long straight road and the trees formed a perfect canopy overhead; September and Katrina were little more than a dot in the distance. As they approached us, I made small talk with Jordan about our next move. “I think those Spider-Man turbo boosts up the hills are really helping. If I didn’t know any better I’d think Spidey was shooting a web and just pulling us up those hills today.”

Jordan gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Do you think you have a couple of more miles in those legs? Our map shows that there’s a campground around here, but if we could get farther down the road, it will just make the ride that much shorter tomorrow.”

I could see the wheels turning in that little head. “Why?” Jordan asked. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

“We’re trying to reach a place called Poole, where we can catch a ferry to France. France is where they make French bread.” I had to make the goal of getting to France personal for Jordan. Along with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, French bread slathered in Nutella was one of his half dozen or so dietary staples.

Jordan and I commiserated for a moment while we waited for September and Katrina. I whined about the lack of burritos in my diet—Jordan, the lack of French bread and Nutella. When September and Katrina pulled up a few moments later, we started to discuss our options: find a place to stay now, or continue down the road a bit more. We pulled out a map to investigate our options. The English are among the most friendly on the planet. We found that standing on the side of the road perusing a map was all that was required to obtain assistance.

As if on cue, Mr. and Mrs. English-Person in the Ford Anglia pulled over to ask if they could help us. “So, where is home for you?” they asked.

“Well, for the next year or so, home is where our stuff is,” I told them. “We’re trying to decide where we want to call home for the night. Is there a campground nearby?”

“Why, there’s a very nice campground just a mile or so down this road. Sandy Balls. You can’t miss it.”

I tried to stifle a laugh, but there was too much momentum behind it. Trying to keep it in would have resulted in my eyeballs popping out or something equally nasty happening. “That sounds like someone had an accident at the beach!” But something was lost in translation, as they just gave me a blank stare.

Just like that our mantra was born: Home is where your stuff is. And with a name like Sandy Balls, how could we pass up the chance to call it home for the night?

• • •

Southern England seemed to be landscaped by committee—the hedges were all trimmed to regulation and the flower beds all had a Photoshop quality to them. As we pressed south, we stayed on the back roads that a century earlier served horse-drawn carriages. Homes with thatched roofs came to the very edge of the narrow lane, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine a hitching post to serve the travelers’ horses passing through. Every village came with a High Street, which back home would be Main Street.

As we made our way from village to village, we would roll in on High Street, park our bikes in the center of the roundabout, and look for lunch. Villages take great pride in the roundabout on High Street, and it would invariably be outfitted with benches, an arbor, and of course the regulation landscaping. Lunch, however, proved maddeningly elusive some days. We had a difficult time remembering the English definition of a village or town. Our definition, however, was easy to remember: A village does not have grocery stores or ATMs. Towns do.

Ten days after we left the suburbs of London we arrived in the port city of Poole, where we could catch a ferry to France. It was a major mental milestone.

John’s Journal, June 21

… that isn’t to say the kids haven’t been getting on my nerves. Yesterday was a good example. We came straight down from Fordingbridge to Christchurch, and then cut over to Poole, which meant leaving the quiet roads for fifteen miles of cycling on two heavily loaded tandems through bustling city traffic. We got lost so many times as we crossed town and every time we stopped to look at a map the kids would start to play this game where each would try to touch the other one, without being touched in return. Aarrgghh! It is difficult enough to have a conversation with September over the roar of traffic, and hold up a tandem all while under the stress of not getting clipped by a bus, but when you add a stupid, silly “touching”game and a spasmodic stoker, it was tough not to scream at the kids. But cycling through a city the way we did today isn’t much fun, especially for the kids, so I didn’t yell at them for playing it. That’s a start, isn’t it?

We decided we needed a P-Day (Preparation Day) to do laundry, write letters, and just do something fun. And no museums or cathedrals allowed.

Starting out meant getting adjusted to our new surroundings, our new routine, and to being together all the time. Things weren’t always as we had imagined—sunshine, smiling faces, and deeply introspective family discussions on just about any topic.

The next morning we got up at 5:00, broke camp, and cycled down to the dock, where we boarded a ferry for a 6:30 sailing across the English Channel. We were going to get French bread!

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Now where did I put that bridge? Being lost and going in circles is frustrating when you are powered by dead dinosaurs, but when you are self-propelled it can put a sane person into a murderous rage. I knew it was time to find my happy spot when I started to consider swimming across the river with the tandems in tow.