Vandalf the Gray

It’s now two Fridays ago that I rolled into Darwin in my rented MG, whose engine is almost as powerful as me running in bare feet. I have never driven a more timid vehicle. I’m not making this up: you have to start it twice. When you engage the cruise control, it disengages the gas pedal completely. I never measured the zero to sixty time, but the sixty to seventy time is fifteen seconds.

Back in civilization, I finally got a good look in the mirror after a week of camping in 100° weather. First thought: well, you certainly look like a vagabond. Second thought, half a second behind the first: no, you are a vagabond.

Basically I’m a rich hobo. Everything in my life right now fits on a bicycle. I rented out my house, so there’s no home for me to go to. I have no dog care, no lawn care, and frankly not a five star review when it comes to personal care, to judge by the vagabond looking back at me in the mirror. No body wash, no shampoo, no shaving cream: all of that is the same bar of soap. I’m a month overdue for a haircut. The beard goes from nonexistent to scraggly, depending entirely on whether I have access to running water. I hate to imagine what the nose hair and ear hair situation must be, what with the big five-oh right around the corner.

I’m vigilant with dental care and bike care, and after that it’s a short list. Which is not to say I’m smelly. Long-distance cycling requires you to pay particular attention to chafing. Sweat makes salt, salt crystals have sharp edges, and sharp edges chafe skin. So my clothes look like I sleep on the ground, but I don’t smell like I look.

At least not by the time I go to sleep. Halfway through the day and halfway up a mountain, that’s my business. But sitting next to you on a plane, I’ll never be stinky. Though I gotta say, I do wish this was something I could control. If you’re in an airport and I can hear you from across the room, I think everyone who sits next to you should be stinky. I promise, your cell phone is not a Korean War-era field radio. Whoever you’re shouting at, they can hear you just fine.

Anyway, that was two Fridays ago, in Darwin. Today I’m in Wellington, driving a Toyota Ractis I’ve named Vandalf the Gray. We’re heading for the Dimholt Road, aka The Way of the Dead, aka Putanigura Pinnacles. Vandalf can fit a mountain bike with perhaps a millimeter to spare, and only if you tetris it at just the right angle. But its cruise control works, its brakes work, it can accelerate uphill, and it starts every time on the first try. So compared to that MG, Ractis makes perfect.