Cambria, CA – Day Five

There are many ways in which my wonderful husband balances me. He tames my wildly impractical impulses, he helps me discipline my irresponsible spending, he forces me to take myself less seriously; he offers many other helpful counters to my craziness. He also helps me face and overcome my fears. For my every “What if I can’t do it?” or “What if (you name it) happens?” or “I don’t think I’m (you name it) enough,” he has a “You’ve got this,” or “We’ll figure it out together,” or “You’re the most (you name it) person I know.”

Now it’s not that I don’t respect his opinion, but coming from someone as confident and capable as Leon, it’s easy for me to hang onto my own doubts. But when a lesson in courage comes from as unlikely a source as a middle-aged, scarred-up chihuahua with a limp, I admit I have to take notice.

Folks, meet Lupe.

Lupe is the most bad-ass dog I’ve ever met. She’s not just the Chuck Norris of chihuahuas – she’s the Chuck Norris of chihuahuas, dobermans, german shepherds, lions, bears, and honey badgers who don’t give no shits. This is one bad-ass dog.

Last year when I got it in my head to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim, Leon initially thought it was one of my weird phases and I would forget about it after a while. It probably ranked up there in his mind with the time I thought I wanted to quit my job and become a professional photographer for National Geographic. But once he realized I was serious about this one, he begrudgingly agreed to come along and, let’s face it, carry most of my crap the whole 25 miles. As if that wasn’t enough, he also had to reassure me when I got started on the “What if we get dehydrated?” and “What if one of us gets bitten by a snake?” and “You know how scared I am of heights – do you think I’ll be able to do the red wall part?” As with this motorcycle trip, the night we spent on the South Rim before trudging down toward the Colorado River, I lay awake all night wondering if we would survive the next two days while he slept like a baby.

This time, I worried about one of us crashing. I worried about how much the trip would cost. I worried I had not planned well and scheduled us for too many miles each day, and we would be tired and sore and miserable every day of the trip. I read newspaper stories about middle-aged motorcyclists who crashed while riding in Oregon, and even looked at wreck photos. Each time I verbalized those worries, I heard from my husband, “We’ll make it,” “If we get tired, we get tired. It’ll still be fun,” or simply “It’s going to be amazing.”

Today, we left Death Valley and rode to Cambria, California. I knew nothing about Cambria when I booked a room there, except that it’s on the coast and about as many miles from Death Valley as I thought we would want to drive that day. We stopped at another Cycle Gear in Bakersfield, where we bought a whole new headset for my helmet. That was an unexpected $280 or so (and did not actually fix the problem). Because of that stop and another detour, we were pretty late getting out of the furnace that is central California and heading into the mountains that meet up with the coast where Cambria is. By the time we got to Pasa Robles, about 25 miles east of Cambria, we were both worn out. My neck and his shoulders were hurting like hell, and we were hungry and needed showers. Badly.

We turned off of Highway 101 onto CA-46 towards Cambria and started up into the hills. Almost as quickly as it had heated up the day before as we descended into Death Valley, it now was cooling off as we climbed. Trees were now green, there were flowers, and the early evening sun was shining through a light fog in the mountains, which made the whole area look like something from a movie. Or maybe an Ansel Adams photo. About three miles from our hotel, we came around a curve and saw the ocean below, clouds hugging the near side of the mountain we had just climbed, and the beautiful town of Cambria sloping down the mountain toward the water. It was stunning.

We carried our stuff into the room and then walked down to the beach. We spent about an hour just looking at driftwood, analyzing the characteristics of the rocks that made up this particular beach (this was Leon, who is fascinated by rocks), and walking along and listening to the sounds of the waves and birds and wind. Then we went to dinner at the only place that was still open, which of course, was incredibly expensive. It was a long, exhausting, expensive day, but we had made it. Many of the things I had worried about happened on this day, and we still made it, and it was still amazing.

I don’t know to whom to attribute the quote, but I’ve always liked it: Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is in acting despite the fear.

Now let me tell you about Lupe.

We met her today at a gas station in Trona, California, between DVNP and Bakersfield. Her owner was sitting on a bench near the door and when we pulled up to the pump, he started talking to us, asking about our bikes and where we were headed. We were ready for a break by then, so we stood around, drank more water, and talked for a while. Once in a while, Lupe would walk to the edge of the walkway and bark at something, then come back and lie down in the shade. Leon said, jokingly at the time, “Now that’s a bad-ass dog.”

The owner said, “She rides with me everywhere I go on that bike. I gotta get her a windshield, though.” I asked how he carries her, and he said she stands up on the gas tank. We were surprised by that, and he said, “Yeah, she loves it.” Leon said, “Man, our dogs would fall right off of there!”

And then the owner said, “She did fall off one time, about a year ago. That’s why I gotta get her a windshield. It was right up there, going around that big curve,” and he pointed back to where we had come from. “I usually keep her harnessed in, but that day I had been to the store and had a bunch of stuff and I didn’t. But I came around that curve and a big gust of wind came at us and just blew her right off before I could grab her. She rolled and rolled.”

We looked at each other, and Leon said, “And she just jumped up and was fine, right?”

The owner said, “Oh, no! She spent three days in the hospital. I felt so bad, you know. I ran over to her and I was crying and saying ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ because I let her fall off. But she wasn’t breathing when I got to her. So I picked up her face and blew into her nose, you know, and she came to. She just jerked awake. I picked her up and laid her across my lap and went home. I knew she was hurt bad, but the closest vet hospital is 250 miles away, so I ran home to go to the bathroom before I left to take her there.”

Leon asked if all the scars around her head were from that accident.

He said, “Yeah, her head was all messed up and she broke two bones in her back and she had some bleeding inside. She was in the hospital for three days, man. But I’m gonna tell you something. This dog… ”

He stopped for a second, then motioned at Lupe. “I went back home and left her outside while I went in and used the bathroom and when I walked back out the door to take her to the hospital, she was up here,” pointing at the gas tank of his bike, “right up here standing up on this gas tank like, ‘Ok, let’s go. Let me face those fears.’ And she rode all the way to the hospital like that.”

We finished talking and started packing up to leave. Lupe’s owner also decided to go, and he called Lupe over and said, “Let’s go.” She hopped off the step and ran over to the bike, jumped onto the seat and then stood up on the gas tank looking forward. He got on behind her and started up the bike, while she barked, like, “Come on, lets ride!” And they pulled out of the gas station parking lot, into the street where Lupe had nearly died.

Folks, if a 5-pound chihuahua can fall off of a moving motorcycle and die on the side of the road, then a few minutes later get back up on that motorcycle and ride four hours to the hospital to treat her life-threatening injuries, I think I can make it through the rest of this trip.

Live hard and ride easy, friends.