emerging communities · ancient roots

While there’s a lull in the action (that is, a lull in blog-posting action, due to the fact that I am presently too mired in studies to think about much else!), I thought I’d take a moment to answer one of the more interesting questions I was recently asked about my tour by a fellow student. After I brushed off the seemingly mandatory first question, “Were you ever in any danger?” (to which my answer is, believe it or not, no!), I was then asked, “Okay, then what was the strangest thing you saw?”

Now that’s a great question! I have two responses.

The first occurred on the outskirts of Clarence, Missouri. Evening was approaching, which meant that I needed to begin my usual routine of filling my water bottles, then find a place to camp for the night. Just before reaching US-36, I spotted a gas station enfolded by a sprawling cemetery (if you’ve been following along thus far, you may recall that I find cemeteries to make excellent stealth-camping sites [stealth-camping—the legally ambiguous art of camping for free in tucked-away places otherwise not designated for camping]). Perhaps I should have read the gas station’s unusually snug proximity to the cemetery as a hint that something was a little…strange. But at the end of a blistering summer’s day of pedaling a 100-pound bicycle for 70+ miles, my mental reflexes were a little slow.

And so it was that I drew closer and marveled that the cars in the lot all seemed to be from the 1950s, marveled all the more when I noticed that the single gas pump was also of vintage variety, and I was finally shaken out of my mental stupor when I noticed that the price-per-gallon on the pump was well under one dollar.

Yes, strange.

I took a closer look around this eerie gas station-cum-cemetery. The utter stillness among the graves also extended to the station itself, despite the fact that at first glance the place seemed to be bustling with activity. I looked into the windows of the antique cars. Yes, they were inhabited, but the inhabitants weren’t moving either! A closer look: they were mannequins! And not just any mannequins, but mannequins in giant monkey suits, and others with similar macabre distortions to their humanoid features.  Fully lucid now, I stood dumfounded, trying to absorb the meaning of this roadside-frozen-freakshow-museum-graveyard.  No matter how I strained my imagination, though, I couldn’t infer any meaning or purpose. Just…strange. Finally, I shook off the cognitive dissonance and vague uneasiness that had swept over me, pedaled to a real gas station a half-mile away, filled my water bottles, pedaled back to the cemetery, set up camp behind the graves, and slept like a…mannequin?

The second strange incident occurred on the 4^th of July in Munson Township, Illinois. Now, on the previous night, I had done something I rarely do on bicycle tour: pay to camp at an actual campground. Big mistake. The place was crawling with four-wheel ATVs being driven in circles by drunk people shooting off bottle rockets long past bedtime. The next day, then, expecting more boisterous patriotic revelry, I determined to camp as far away from civilization as possible. And I was quite successful. On Google Maps I spied a small green dot with the label, “Munson Township Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve.” A cemetery AND a nature preserve? A stealth-camper’s dream! And the place was far from any significant town or road.

Arriving at the cemetery/nature preserve, I was quite happy to find an immaculate hilltop slice of wilderness, peppered with graves over a century old, overlooking an endless rolling sea of soybean fields. I felt so safe in this quiet, isolated spot that I didn’t even bother trying to hide my tent; I slept fairly out in open view of anyone who might happen to drive up. And in fact, as I drifted to sleep on what was by far the quietest 4th of July I’ve ever experienced, I was jarred to full consciousness at midnight by the glare of headlights drawing near. I prepared to get out of the tent and do what I always do in such situations: proactively approach people, introduce and explain myself. But I hesitated because the couple who parked a mere 15 yards from my tent hadn’t yet noticed me; their headlights hadn’t shined in my direction. I waited, listened, watched as the man got out and clambered into the woods in front of the still-shining headlights.

“It’s in a box. I know it’s here! Why can’t I find it!?”

After about 15 minutes of this midnight treasure-hunting, he gave up the search, got back into the truck, and drove away. They never discovered me. I continued to listen as the sound of the motor drifted off into the night, leaving behind only stark silence…and a handful of questions!

After waking the next morning, I conducted a little treasure-hunt of my own. In the place where the man had searched, I found an old toilet bowl and an assortment of rusty, abandoned farming equipment. But no box, nor any clue of the mysterious content of said box, nor a hint of why they chose the middle of the night on the 4th of July to come looking!

Strange.