The last time I checked there was still no such thing as ”space-travel literature.” Evidently, the physics of the problem hasn`t yet been worked out.
In outer space you may be doing things as you represent your country`s taxpayers in this, their finest moment; but one thing you aren`t doing, and cannot do given current technological limitations, is pause.
You can`t stop, get out, look around. You may have a destination, but that is all you have.
However precisely plotted, yours is still a headlong rush and your narrative will be literally lifeless because at no point did you look anybody in the eye.
To put it bluntly: You haven`t been traveling. You`ve been hurtling.
Fortunately, we terrestrials may yet loaf, mosey, dawdle and brake for a contemplative respite. The difference between ”knowing how to travel” and
”knowing how to go” is ”knowing how to stop,” a difference still acknowledged and even honored.
By the way, I do not mean to pick on astronauts; the foregoing comments apply equally to truck drivers as well as everyone who has ever boarded an airplane.
But even as we board airplanes we know we could be doing better. And so we do on the other trips we take, on the stops we make.
Hotels don`t count
I`m not talking about hotels. Those are end-of-day stops, more or less obligatory. Nor am I talking about airports, which are the venue of so many involuntary halts.
I am talking about creative stopping, stopping at its most responsive and inventive.
There was the time, just months ago, when I was confronted with the problem of stopping in Alaska. I was really on my mettle, in the state where travelways are fewest, in the state that therefore leaves the most to the invader`s imagination.
My mission had been nothing more than to set foot in the only continental state I had yet to visit. Having hopped off the boat in Ketchikan, Alaska, and accomplished this, how was I to occupy myself until the next southbound ship weighed anchor?
In a town accessible only by sea and air I did something fairly unusual:
I rented a car.
I could avoid Alaska-priced hotels merely by motoring to a state campground and pitching my tent. And in the event it rained-which of course it did-I could simply park, let the back seat down and stretch out in my sleeping bag.
On an aged wharf I snoozed in weatherproof comfort, while the wind rocked my vehicle on its spongy springs. That was gratifying, but I must admit it was exceptional.
Bikes are best
The ability to stop depends strongly on one`s mode of transportation and when you realize this you realize nothing beats a bicycle, except possibly your own two feet.
Bicycles are so convenient. No need for a runway, a pier or even a parking space: To stop you merely get off. Trips are suspended as easily as they are commenced.
Mine officially begin when I hear the screen door slam behind me and they officially pause when I put one foot on the ground. Could it be simpler? No.
Pedaling the length of Florida, I got caught in heavy rains north of Lake Okeechobee. By the time I reached the Atlantic coast I`d decided I`d had enough.
So I checked in to a motel in Stuart. A quintessentially Floridian establishment, with jalousie windows, clattering air conditioners and a lean, stringy hombre behind the registration desk.
I bustled in, washed up and emptied my sodden money pouch on the bed-$1,800 in 50s and 100s.
It`s no fun traveling with wet cash, so I stopped there to let it dry. Sure, I could have come to this motel in a car just like everybody else, but then I would have forgotten it the moment I left it.
While waiting for my money to get crisp again I wrote a postcard to a Brazilian friend, defining ”tacky” in Portuguese.
The bicycle did not cause any of the above, but it surely facilitated it. Traveling by bicycle, and thus exposed to the world, I was caused to stop prematurely, but the stop was amusing and productive.
Serendipitous find
Traversing the Red River from Texas to Oklahoma, the first state line I had ever crossed by bicycle, I commemorated the event by buying a milk shake at the earliest opportunity-and to reward my good taste the woman who served me told me about an archeological museum up the road in Idabel, Okla.
An archeological museum in southeastern Oklahoma? Yes, indeed.
I pedaled on up, found it and resolved to camp behind it until it opened. An old man approached me, asking politely what I was doing. I told him. He told me he was not only the curator but the owner. It was a private collection. My excitement won him over.
The museum would ordinarily have been closed the next day, but he would open it just for me. Had I settled into Idabel in any other way-not that there are too many ways to settle into Idabel-I would have been invisible.
Coming by bicycle proved my earnestness. Arriving by car and parking in the parking lot, I might have been just as earnest, but it wouldn`t have mattered.
I had to stop precisely where I stopped, flush against the back of the building. Ten yards away in any direction I would have been just a tourist, content with meaningless surfaces and easily dismissed.
But the real point of this anecdote is simply that it is available for the telling. Arriving by car, I probably would not have parked in the parking lot or anywhere else-I would more likely have skipped this town altogether.
It`s hard to stop. It takes practice. You can`t be shy about it. Stopping is conspicuous.
Arrival of note
When I stopped in Caliente, Nev., I was the only person getting off the train, and when I stopped in New London, N.H., I was the only person getting off the bus.
My arrival in the former town was so exceptional that the first person I met-the police chief-could not help but comment on it.
In Caliente, ”arriving by train” usually means ”having hopped a freight,” but here was I, a fellow who`d paid money to sit in a seat. The fact that I wasn`t paying money to sleep in a bed-I was proposing to overnight at a nearby state campground-made me no less estimable.
New London, as might be expected, responded differently, though the difference was not significant. The first and only witness to my arrival was the waitress who served me the best Reuben sandwich I`ve ever eaten.
Thus, mass transit can be a good second choice for apprentice travelers who are not up to the rigors of bicycling. Personally, I prefer the rigors, but even I will admit that a bicycle does not ensure rewarding interaction with local scenery.
There are times when even a bicyclist cannot stop. Coasting down a long hill to the Reykjavik, Iceland, city limit, I approached a couple of pedestrians who turned and asked me the time as I whizzed past them.
Because I looked at my watch they knew I`d understood their question. But I mystified them by not answering. My Icelandic primer had instructed me only how to tell time on the hour; concepts such as ”half past” and ”quarter to” were totally ignored.
As it was 10:47 a.m. and as I was moving too quickly to hit the brakes, turn around, pedal uphill and show these poor guys my wristwatch, they were left to marvel at my rude silence.
They may as well have shouted their inquiry at a passing spaceship, for all the good I did them.
