Journal 21 Aug 99
Days of soppy, thunderous rain finally let way for a perfectly blue sunshiny Saturday. So, with Stèph in London and the weekend to myself, I loaded the motorcycle this morning and took a ride across the border into France. The once-every-25-year Swiss shindig called Fete des Vignerons has finally relieved the town of Vevey of its siege of overpopulated partying, making the ride along the north side of the lake much easier than it was two weeks ago, when Vevey's narrow streets were crammed each night and day with at least twice as many people as live there.
Hooking around the east end of the lake toward the border, a Honda TransAlp 600 drew up behind me. Unconsciously I moved toward the left edge of my lane. He promptly fell into formation in the "slot," the right third of the lane that a second bike in a group naturally takes, one or two seconds behind the lead bike. Motorcycle culture is one of those that transcends other cultures, bridging them for strangers who, here, often don't even speak the same language. Little gestures like waving when passing. I've felt more at home here since we bought a bike.
I arrived in Lugrin, where my father-in-law Pierre grew up, just before noon. After lunch with Steph's aunt Monique at her house, Monique and I hopped on the bike and wound upward toward the rock-and-pine world of Thollon, a resort town at the top of the mountain that's generally too crowded with skiers to enjoy in the winter. I thought Thollon was the end of the road. I was wrong. We pushed further up a few more kilometers of paved road, until we had no choice but to turn around. But before we did, we sucked in the view.
I'd never seen the corner of Switzerland where I live from such a full-eyed perspective, from 2500 feet above. With wisps of clouds between me and my world, I felt as if I were looking at a world that was half map and half reality. First, the lake: Tiny white dots of sailboats navigated their courses through the darkened solar system swirls of current. From this blue and black pool of stars climbed the green hills and mountains, up and away, first a gentle, pale green patchwork of vineyards and fields, slowly fading to the dark green of pine where the rock and grade put an end to cultivation. The stillness of the mountains are a stubborn contradiction to the ever-shifting motion of the water. A tiny Montreux and tiny Vevey were planted at the seam of these two worlds, on the shore of the lake. After all the time I've spent in these towns, I've never seen them in their true perspective, with the rolling green expanse of Switzerland winding beyond the horizon above them.
Before we got back on the motorcycle to head back down, I telephoned Steph's mom Claudie to let her know we'd be late for tea. Monique and I then wound slowly down the mountain road, a perfect stretch of ride aside from a few kilometers behind a diesel-coughing bus in the middle.
After tea, Claudie and I hopped in the car and drove over to Evian to rollerblade along the lake while Monique and Pierre swam in the 75 degree water. We didn't roll over anyone with our rollerblades, although one 4-year-old tempted fate and jumped in front of Claudie as she wobbily rolled along. It was only the second or third time Claudie was on rollerblades. It's clear that being a ski instructor has given her a serious balance advantage; even after pushing her luck a few times, she hasn't fallen. Ski-weebles wobble.
Pierre, Claudie and I ate a dinner of sausage and ratatouille in the warm summer air on their patio. We watched the sun set behind the Juras, splashing purples, reds and greens across the lake and the sky above Lausanne. After the night took hold of the sky and mountains, I walked up to Monique's farmhouse, ready to fall into a heavy sleep.
When walking up to the farmhouse, past the dilapidated old barn (which is almost always connected to the farmhouse itself in France), I thought back to having taken the same path that afternoon at one of those moments when one is 100% present in the moment, feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing everything around oneself as fully as one is aware of one's own self. A happy-just-to-be-here moment. On top of that, I was in the middle of France, visiting people who are now my family. It brought an easy smile to my face. I'd felt the same way in the streets of San Francisco at times, in Baltimore and, while crossing the U.S. on a motorcycle for the first time, when visiting my grandparents in the heart of Indiana, as well as countless other moments that are beyond the grasp of my memory at this moment. No matter where I am when it hits, the same thing rings through my head, the ringing synchronized to subtle tremors of excitement: You're lucky. This is what it’s about.
22 Aug 99
After riding out of Lugrin at 10:00 this morning, with a Sunday wide open before me, I opted to take the long way home. Instead of turning left toward Villeneuve and Montreux to hook around to the north side of Lake Geneva, I headed straight toward Aigle. After opening up the throttle into a sprint across the flat valley floor of Valais which, sandwiched between wide, machine-cultivated crops, reminded me for a minute of the Midwest, I turned up into the winding paths of the Swiss Alps, climbing to an altitude of 4700 feet over about 25 miles.
The climb from the flat valley floor of Valais up to les Mosses is dramatic to say the least. Everything beautiful about the mountains is within view of the road. The road tiptoed along the edges of monstrously deep ravines whose bottoms I couldn’t see, padded with pines from top to bottom, ravines whose walls finish in needling rock overhead. Mountain streams tumbled down the rough wall of stone next to the road, and occasionally overhead in massive, creek-sized "gutters" built to keep the road from flooding. Wisps of fog intermingled with the pine, the stone, and the silence, reminding me of hitchhiking through the comparatively docile Smoky Mountains early on a Saturday morning a few years ago.
The fog and overhead gray which plagued my morning finally opened up to a brilliant blue just before reaching the summit at Le Col des Mosses. And the first thing that the sun hit for me was an antique market, smack in the middle of the little town of Les Mosses, smack on the top of the mountain. I was ready for a break, so I pulled off the road and stretched out my legs, wandering among the stands of old and useless brickabrack—120-year-old beer bottles from small breweries in Switzerland, a scalpel from the turn of the century, an olive pitter (which was actually not useless at all, but seeing as how we don't eat many olives, I couldn't really justify the five franc investment). The stand owners were friendlier than the average joe in the middle of the urban concentration of Lausanne that I’m used to running into. Maybe the mountain air tends to make dispositions a little rosier. After my blood circulation was back in order down to my toes, I hopped back on the machine and rolled off.
After descending toward the north from les Mosses, the terrain was much less formidable, so there were quite a few more towns than there had been on the south side of the pass. Looking at the Swiss checker-painted shudders on ancient houses, watching the cows roll by with the scenery all sandwiched between locks of mountains, I had the happy-to-be-here-zen sensation again.
After riding through a quiet mountain town called Chateau D’Oex, I tagged onto the tail end of a group of seven cyclists from Zurich and rode with them for a few dozen miles. Near Gruyere, they took a sudden left where I'd planned on going straight. With no place in particular to be, though, I let my curiosity lead me to follow them. I expected they were going to ride through Gruyere. My expectations got the better of me. They passed Gruyere and took a steep road that I hadn’t noticed on the map, cutting through a thick forest. By the time the grade hit about 20%, we'd broken into two groups; the five bikes in front had taken off, passing the slow moving cars and trucks even in blind turns, leaving the final two Zurichers and me to climb at a more leisurely, sane pace.
The forest opened up to sunlight without warning, and just as abruptly, we found ourselves surrounded by a congested, high-capacity parking lot at the edge of Moléson, a resort too small to show up on most maps. At the time I had no idea where I was, but we were apparently at the Zurichers’ destination. We'd caught up to the other five cyclists. The Zurichers all turned into a gravel parking lot beyond the tight lines of tourist autos packed onto the asphalt. I was about to follow but swayed to shy rationalizations at the last moment: It’s often difficult to make the transition from the riding state of mind to a stationary, conversational mentality. On top of that, although at least half of their group probably spoke French, English, or both, I didn’t feel like taking the risk of having to fall back on hand-gesture protocol to convey, "Great tagging along with you, have a pleasant day." So I kept straight and stashed my bike at the end of the asphalt.
I found a balcony at a pizzeria with only one other occupied table, pulled my typing machine out of my pocket, and began to type while waiting for the waiter. After a slightly undercooked calzone under a gray sky (which will undoubtedly disappear again after I head back down the hill and away from the summit), and after the waiter showed me where I was on my map, I typed some more while waiting for my check. The check has arrived, I’ve almost finished my coffee, the cows that were wandering on the steep green hillside above the restaurant have faded away, and I have no more story to write. So I guess it’s time to go home.