Judging Ashland
[ Day 12 – June 24, 2012 ]
I spent the morning getting my money’s worth at Callahan’s, putting hot water to numerous good uses and loading up on all the pancakes I could fit in my stomach. In between short stacks I chatted with other diners, including an older couple from New Zealand on a three-month, northbound tour of the Sierra Cascades route. They were carrying only their clothes, personal items, and enough food and water for each day (what the cycling world refers to as “credit card touring”) paying a premium on meals and overnight accommodations in exchange for the relative ease and comfort of lightweight bicycle travel. Fully loaded touring lends a respectable level of legitimacy, but if I had the means I’d tour as the old folks do. I tried to imagine myself in my sunset years, riding around the country with a familiar partner at my side, but I simply didn’t have the imagination for it.
The Old Siskiyou Highway
I eventually bade the Lodge farewell and made my way down the Old Siskiyou Highway. It was a thrilling two-mile descent—a series of tight, technical turns under a leafy canopy glowing green from the afternoon sunlight. The roadway eventually leveled out, leaving an easy eight miles to the town of Ashland.
Ashland was one of the few towns between Truckee and Eugene that I’d heard of. Perhaps by name association, I imagined it as a sort of Asheville West, a low-key mountain town with a taste for Shakespearian theater, and (I hoped) the perfect spot for an afternoon off the bike. I made my way to a hostel near the city center only to learn that I couldn’t check in for another three hours. This dashed my plans for a bicycle-free afternoon and was the first underwhelming discovery in a series of downtown Ashland disappointments.
Wandering through the city’s shopping district and “cultural center,” I found a coffee shop where I could keep an eye on my fully loaded bicycle. I munched on a scone and studied the long array of upscale dining and retail options, each bearing a manufactured small-town veneer and steep price markups. I thought back to the summer aura of Tuolumne Meadows and recognized a sort of pretentious, man-made inversion: a seasonal hippy haven that draws both the well-heeled and the voluntarily homeless; a tourism center that comes alive in the summer months to siphon off a year’s worth of patronage through fifteen-dollar hamburgers, Shakespeare t-shirts, and artisanal candy; the type of place that David Foster Wallace might have called “economically significant but existentially loathsome.” I felt like I’d unwittingly (foolishly) sunk into a bohemian sandpit of shi-shi consumerism and pot-addled freeloading—the same detached absurdity that I had hoped to leave behind in Berkeley.
Much of this criticism was likely overblown. The feel and cost of the place didn’t meet my expectations, and I was taking it out on the town with a myopic and hasty judgment. To whatever extent parts of Ashland were truly distasteful tourist traps, it was due in large part to Californians like me passing through and dragging our wallets behind us.
I wish I had been a better guest of Ashland, or perhaps saved the visit for a day when I wanted what the town had to offer. I reminded myself that this was my trip, but that didn’t mean that everything would go my way (how often I must remind myself of this). At any rate, I resolved to put it all behind me and ride forth with a more open mind.
[ Daily Miles: 10 ] [ Total Miles: 638 ]