A tricky situation

PAGE, AZ—As Friday evening waned in Page, AZ, a change in the weather brought a change of plans. For years we had talked about riding the fabled Thunder Mountain Trail, and this trip to Las Vegas would give us the chance.

We had planned to awaken at the Crack Of Dawn, the most fearsome of all of the major orifices, where squinty, crusty-eyed crabbiness, bad breath and no breakfasts are sure to dwell in the sleepy pre-dawn half-light. We were to drive 150 miles through this unsatisfying realm between light and darkness to hit the trail just after Sunrise.

Instead, the Weather Channel informed us that some kind of freak low pressure system was roaring out of California with 50 million gallons of moisture in tow. It was making a beeline toward Thunder Mountain and drowning everything in its path. The thought of becoming stranded in a thick soup of red earth far away from civilization in itself was not enough to make us think twice about possibly abandoning our dream. We've ridden wet and cold and unprepared before, and when it comes to being fools, we excel when we need to.

No, the coup de grace for our little plan actually was the increasingly miserable onset of a terrible cold I had acquired from a co-worker—one of those people who would not take the day off if he were dying of the bubonic plague. It's people like him who will turn the Bird Flu into a pandemic when the time comes. He will show up to work to open doors and rummage through community files with boogery fingers that constantly wipe a nose set firmly against the grindstone.

As a compulsive handwasher and germophobe, I'm usually the one who misses whatever office malady happens to be sweeping through. But I must have slipped up somewhere. In a big way. Whatever I had contracted was making up for two illness-free years just when I finally had some time off, and now it was tormenting me in a hotel room far away from home.

To say I felt like crap was an understatement. My nose had turned into a leaky faucet, my ears were plugged to the point where it sounded as if everyone were talking to me underwater. It felt like someone had taken an S.O.S Pad to my throat and tonsils. The thought of slogging around in the pouring rain in infirmity seemed not only stupid, but just no fun. We aborted our Thunder Mountain game plan and opted instead to linger here in the midst of Navajo Country for a couple extra hours of sleep and a test of the Rim Trail in the city of Page the next morning.

The hotel clock-radio blared 80's Hair Metal at 7 a.m. Ratt, Quiet Riot and Poison are not your friends at this tender hour of the morning, so they were hastily banished with the snooze bar. Alice Cooper would not suffer the same indignity, so I rolled out of bed and pushed the brew button on the thimble-sized coffee maker that had been placed in our room for our convenience.

In the hotel lobby, the entire country of Germany had converged to eat Free Continental Breakfast before enjoying what was to be a big day at Lake Powell. We carbo-loaded with German precision, eliciting nods of approval from our new-found friends.

A few minutes later we were at the Rim trailhead and riding just above the McDonald's, where a stream of cars were stalled in the Drive-Thru waiting for portions of Supersized Death. Some of the occupants in cars below pointed and stabbed at us with eyes full of scorn. The trail was not well marked, so we nervously wondered which way to go, not keen on standing around to suffer more indignities from the Fast Food crowd.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a Native American woman appeared on a Wal-Mart bike with a shiny kickstand. She rode unsteadily up to us, dismounted and panted.

"Hurry! Hurry! This way!" she stammered breathlessly.

"Is this the way to the rim trail," I asked?

"Follow me!" she said.

And off she went, maneuvering her peculiarly shiny bike off the path and toward the road. She crossed the street, barely missing a speeding pickup truck.

"This way! This way!" she beckoned.

We followed. On the other side of the road a plastic sign post indicated the trail route. Just around a corner, an ancient Native American man sat in the dirt by the side of the trail with a beer, grinning with two front teeth.

"This way!" called the siren.

The old man's eyes twinkled as he looked up at us on our bikes, with our helmets and Spandex. He pointed at the woman and urged us to go. I heard him laughing as we went, but he didn't use the laugh of a drunk. It was the laugh of a wise man.

Unsettled, I hesitated and looked ahead on the trail at our scrambling guide, who was straddling the top tube and walking her bike at a blistering pace. She made a hard left off a small sidewalk and I followed. I was on the ground before I knew what had happened. The turn dropped off into a ditch lined with soft sand. I picked up my bike and brushed myself off and the strange woman was gone.

Seconds later another pair of cyclists appeared. They told us we were going the wrong way and that we should follow them to the Rim Trail.

"We were following that lady the other way," I said.

"What lady?" they asked with sincere puzzlement.

When we tried to follow our new guides, my bike wouldn't shift. A terrible clatter issued from the rear of the machine and the pedals would not turn easily. Close inspection revealed that my derailleur hanger was bent from the ridiculously slow tumble I had taken moments earlier. Luckily I had a spare.

As we changed it, I heard the old man on the trail nearby softly singing native songs to himself. Each time I looked up at him, he pointed at me and laughed.

We finally rode the Rim Trail and enjoyed spectacular views of Lake Powell, but I couldn't shake the thought that the mysterious woman from earlier in the morning was not of this Earth, but rather was a being who dwelled in the Crack Between the Worlds, a Trickster who had come to complicate our day.

"Naw," I finally said to myself, settling the question in my mind once and for all.

Then I heard a small hiss and felt a shudder rising up through the frame of the bicycle as we made it back to the McDonalds to complete our seven-mile, out-and-back ride. Both of my tires were flatter than the light dominating the reddish landscape. Close inspection revealed a fistfull of goat head stickers in the tread.

"That's really weird," said Caroline. "I don't have a single sticker in my tires. Where did you pick those up?"

Somewhere in the Crack Between the Worlds, I reckon.