Going Back In Time

Some of you have heard this story before. That’s too bad – ‘cause I’m telling it again . . .

When I was ten years old – back in 1979 – my Dad was running the M.S. Society in Minnesota. His job was mostly about fundraising but he didn’t really love to fundraise in the traditional sense – that is, he didn’t love asking people for money directly. 

He got it in his head that maybe he could raise money by having people ride their bikes to Duluth – where he was from originally. It’s a 150 mile ride and my Dad decided that he wanted to test his idea out – see if ordinary people could make it. So the two of us rode our bikes – Schwinns all the way – up to the city they call the San Francisco of the North. 

A little like his son, my Dad has never been much of a planner, so late one afternoon he strapped a super uncomfortable external frame backpack on and the two of us headed out. I think we made it to White Bear Lake (basically a suburb of the Twin Cities) that night, and to Hinckley – which is about half way to Duluth – the next day. This left about 75 miles for the third, and final, day. 

Now, Minnesota is not super hilly. But the route we took – on Highway 23 – definitely has some rollers. Let me just tell you that to a ten-year-old boy who had never biked much before and who was on his third day of riding in a row, those rollers seemed like mountains. It was brutal. I cried a lot that day. 

With each new ascent, my Dad kept telling me that this was the last hill – and then it would be “five mile hill” down into Duluth. But every time we would crest a hill, we would just see another one in front of us. And every time I would start crying anew. 

It was not good . . .

Which brings us to our ride today. Let me count the parallels . . . This was our third day of riding out of Mexico City. Each day has been harder than the last. We’re not ten any more, but what might be worse than youth is old age . . . the slow decaying of the body accompanied by loss of muscle mass and maybe a little dementia.

This morning we previewed the ups and downs for the day by looking at the biking directions. Not exactly the same route – but close enough to get a pretty good idea. What those directions showed: two substantial but smaller passes (to give a little perspective, each of these “smaller” passes was probably about 6 miles up and 6 miles down), and then the day would finish with a really long, really big climb – capped off by a descent into town that was literally about 5 miles long. Five mile hill!

As the day wore along the climbing started to accumulate. And as we came toward the end of the day we kept hoping that each new hill we climbed would be our last – and then we would have five mile hill down into town. But with each new hill there was another new hill. And these were not of the Hinckley-to-Duluth variety. 

I just looked – and the TOTAL elevation gain from Hinckley to Duluth is about 400 feet. Contrast that with the – according to Diana’s Strava – 7,800 feet of elevation gain we had today. That’s after the last two days – about 4,000 feet of elevation gain on Friday and about 6,000 feet – and 78 miles – yesterday. (In other words – we were already tired going into today).

There were no actual physical tears today – we are, after all, adults. But, let me tell you, there was plenty of the adult equivalent. Whining. Complaining. Wishing we were done. 

And here’s the thing . . . unlike yesterday there really wasn’t the same level of reward for our efforts. I mean, it was nice and all – but even when we were at our highest elevations for the day – around 6,500 feet – the landscape was still pretty arid. Not a lot of cool rocky stuff. No lush green. Nice, but not breathtaking . . .

One last complaint on all this . . . Yes, we did finally make it to five mile hill. But right at that point the road seemed to go to hell. Super rough, with random potholes the whole way down into town. So instead of a nice glide into Huajaupan, we had a harrowing jackhammer-like experience to finish the day. 

In the end we were both wrecked. Legs – like wet noodles. Shoulders and arms – super sore from the final descent. 

Footnote. I often skip this part of the trip to Duluth story – but after we made it to the bottom of five mile hill we were technically in Duluth but there was still about ten miles to my grandparents place. My Dad went to a local pay phone (before the days of cellular) and my Grandpa drove out to pick us up in his old Country Squire station wagon . . . Nonetheless my Dad deemed the trip a success and went on to start the MS 150 – which had made a bazillion dollars for MS since then…

I’m not sure what we would have done today if there was ten miles left after five mile hill. We would probably be flying back to Minnesota right about now . . . 🙂

Speaking of my Grandpa, I wanted to make one other observation about how coming to Mexico is like going back in time. 

If you go back in time seventy years ago in my family, my grandparents were running a combination gas station / grocery store. The family lived upstairs and just ran up and down to take care of the store and grab any supplies for themselves. They ground their own hamburger to sell, they sold radios, televisions, whatever they could to get by. Sounds a lot like the stores we see all the time in modern Mexico. 

But here’s what started me thinking about this . . . I mentioned last night that Jaimie took us to find the pasole place after asking his dad, who was just sitting around the store. What I didn’t mention was that when we first came to the hotel we couldn’t find anyone around. Eventually we realized that you had to go down a back hallway that connected to a little grocery. Turns out that the family runs both the store and the hotel and you had to go to the store to get a room. The young woman who checked us in – I think Jaime’s new bride – had a few kids with her behind the counter. 

Well, in 1954 my Grandpa built the start of a little motel across the street from the family grocery store. If you wanted a room at the motel you had to go to the store. Or maybe the family would see you and run over to provide service. And there were three generations there. My Dad and his sister. Their parents. And his grandparents.

Pretty much exactly like the hotel last night. Like I say – going to Mexico – especially rural Mexico – is like going back in time . . .

Alright, after that side road I wanted to share one other thing about our ride today. About half way through we’re going through what turned out to be a pretty nice town: Acatlan. As we’re entering the town a pickup truck passes me. In the back? A whole pile of plucked chickens – apparently on their way to market. I managed to take a quick picture before it zoomed away. 

I took this picture because of Diana’s parents. Diana’s parents house was a pretty regular place. But there was one thing that they were deathly afraid of. 

Salmonella. 

They had a separate cutting board for chicken. They had separate knives for chicken. They wore special gloves to handle chicken. There were frequent conversations about the dangers of salmonella. You could get it from chicken. You could get it from undercooked chicken. You could get it from eggs. 

You should never risk getting salmonella.

They even had their own special pronounciation of the word – for them it rhymed with vanilla – and it was almost like saying Voldemort in Harry Potter. It was bad!

I always wondered about that. Because as far as I know I’ve never known anyone who had salmonella. Do you die from it? I suppose you can. 

I’ve always assumed that it was something bad from their past. Probably in pre-war China there was lots of salmonella. 

And this kind of goes along with the going back in time theme. Before refrigeration people probably always trucked plucked chickens around without ice or anything. 

We have seen a ton of such chickens in Mexico. Just sitting there in the sun. Flies buzzing around. From our modern American point of view it’s pretty alarming. 

Diana has talked about how her parents would turn over in their graves if we bought one of those chickens. 

“Donna (her parent’s pronunciation of her name) – salmonella!” (In this case this constituted a complete sentence – meaning something like: “Do not handle that chicken. Don’t even think about cooking and eating that chicken. You could get salmonella. What is the matter with you?”)

Anyway, after seeing the pickup truck we were kind of alarmed. But then we found this huge marketplace where people were making quesadillas and haraucha, they were selling fried crickets and fruit and vegetables, and pretty much anything you can think of. And there were about a dozen stands where people had plucked chickens just sitting there in the sun . . . 

Again, like going back in time . . .

Needless to say, we didn’t buy a chicken or any fried crickets. 

But we did have a nice little lunch from one of the street vendors. 

Hopefully we don’t get salmonella and we recover enough tonight that we can make it to the next town tomorrow. Elevation profile doesn’t look quite as bad . . .

Oaxaca on Wednesday if all goes well . . .