JUne 29

My university conferred on me the degree of Dr. of Divinity and so I felt compelled to go out into the world to find the divine.

Today I met Elijah the prophet. Here’s the story.

First, I have to catch you up on the day, which began at 3:47 am with a loud whoop as the wind rushed down off the glacier and collapsed my tent. My first thought was, well forget my first thought.

My second thought was that when I bought a “lightweight tent,” I intended to buy a tent that wouldn’t weigh very much. But perhaps they meant lightweight as in “this is a tent for lightweight activities like camping with your six-year-old in your front yard on a balmy calm summer evening, definitely not the kind of tent you would take on a month-long bike tour in Norway.”

Anyway, fast forward to me breaking camp, and by 4:30 am I riding down the road, which is early even for me.

I do my two biggest climbs of the entire trip, more on that later, but fast forward to say it was a really long day, including that 40 km detour.

I am finally 10 km from town, where a hotel room and dinner await me. It’s 7:30 at night and I am getting tired.

I reach a tunnel.

Now I’ve ridden through many tunnels at this point, but this one is different. It does not have sidewalks. And it’s 2 km long. And it stinks of fumes. I do not want to ride through that tunnel.

Miraculously, I noticed an overgrown path winding around the side of the tunnel, so I go to check it out. Turns out the reason it’s overgrown is that it has been covered by a massive rock slide. Younger Jamie would’ve attempted to hike a bike over it, but I’m not as stupid as I used to be.

I go back to the tunnel entrance.

I will not go through the tunnel on my bicycle.

I will not go around the tunnel.

I will not go back to where I came from.

I decide that I am going to hitchhike. I am going to stick out my thumb and somebody in a van is going to pick me up and drive me and my bicycle and my panniers through this stinky, dark, long tunnel .

(Don’t worry I was not abducted - nothing bad happens. And yes, yes I do have an emergency device in my pocket always just in case. And yes, I did have a plan of what I would say to the person if I didn’t feel comfortable getting a ride from them.)

And suddenly I notice that I feel very serene about the situation. It’s been a very, very long day. I’m tired but not cold. It’s still pouring, but I am warm because I’ve been riding really hard for a long time and my great shower pass head to toe rain gear. ( fyi I figured out a hack for the gloves more on that later.)

It’s been a tremendous day of accomplishments for me and somehow I will get through this last 10 km safely.

Several small cars stop, but they’re not large enough to take me and my bike.

Finally, a Tesla stops. The driver is well-dressed man in suit and he has three kids in the back and presumably it’s his wife in the front passenger seat. He tells me that I am allowed to cycle and people do it all the time. I explain to him why don’t want to ( too scary with the cars going so quickly and I don’t want to breathe fumes for that long.)

He says “I tell you what. How about this. I’ll take your packs so you can move more quickly and I will drive right behind you very slowly. I’m in a Tesla. They’ll be no fumes and I will make sure nobody passes you so you can feel safe. “

I said that’s going take a really long time. Are you sure you don’t mind? Are you sure the other cars won’t mind?“

He says, “ We were all put on this earth to help each other. That’s what we do.”