“Yes, we have a Kitchen Dick Road and it intersects with
Woodcock Road”, Confirmed Tony, a fellow backpacker and hiker. I had asked him if I’d correctly remembered
that such a road existed in his home town of Sequim, Washington upon meeting
him on the side of the road in a random New Zealand wilderness parking lot. Forgive me for seeing the intrigue and serendipity in finding Tony, a recent college grad from Sequim, Washington at a time when I needed a ride and he had a car. Events taking place on Kitchen Dick Road in Sequim, Washington changed the course of my life in many ways. For starters, in Sequim, I launched into a fairly serious ten year bike racing career that influenced everything in life including my future job prospects and choice in university, etc. But more interestingly, Kitchen Dick Road marked the start of my adorably shy long-term, long-distance, strictly platonic, but also strictly exclusive sort of first love.
Having visited Sequim at age 14, I found the name of this road infinitely hilarious. I was riding my bike on this humorously named road because it was on the course of my first ever bicycle race. Donning unspeakably neon clothing, I was the only girl in a pack of 15 and 16 year old boys. (And yes, I did keep up with them, thank you very much!) I had already been competing in triathlon at this point and my tri-coach had encouraged me to try a bike race. I finally signed up when one 15 or 16 year old boy in particular invited me to the race. We claimed to be “just friends”, of course. He was wonderfully sweet to me, holding my hand (and holding down a job), calling me every night and even writing hand-written love letters to me, etc. So naturally, like a frigid bitch, I abruptly dumped him one night. I cannot for the life of me remember why I did this. But I remember responding with “if you really loved me, you’d leave me alone” to his admirable follow-up hand-written letter asking me to reconsider being friends (respectfully sent a whole month later to give me time and space). Again, I have no recollection of why I did that to him. But I hope that he is happy and by all accounts deserves to be with a woman who treats him better than I did!
Having visited Sequim at age 14, I found the name of this road infinitely hilarious. I was riding my bike on this humorously named road because it was on the course of my first ever bicycle race. Donning unspeakably neon clothing, I was the only girl in a pack of 15 and 16 year old boys. (And yes, I did keep up with them, thank you very much!) I had already been competing in triathlon at this point and my tri-coach had encouraged me to try a bike race. I finally signed up when one 15 or 16 year old boy in particular invited me to the race. We claimed to be “just friends”, of course. He was wonderfully sweet to me, holding my hand (and holding down a job), calling me every night and even writing hand-written love letters to me, etc. So naturally, like a frigid bitch, I abruptly dumped him one night. I cannot for the life of me remember why I did this. But I remember responding with “if you really loved me, you’d leave me alone” to his admirable follow-up hand-written letter asking me to reconsider being friends (respectfully sent a whole month later to give me time and space). Again, I have no recollection of why I did that to him. But I hope that he is happy and by all accounts deserves to be with a woman who treats him better than I did!
In further coincidence, Tony and I were staying at the same backpackers
(youth hostel), so over a couple of burgers, I decided to invite Tony along on
a tramp (hike) I’d wanted to do along Haast Pass a few hours south. We were to
meet up with Tom and Jaryn (British Mountain Guide and American East Coast
cyclist and business development man), who I’d met a week earlier during
another tramp on the Routburn track. Of course it’s worth mentioning that I had met them by chance,
too. We had bonded over our shared adoration for Hut Warden John who gave a 45+ minute hut safety talk which
included a voluminous history of the hiking trail and surrounding area. New
Zealand is littered with back-country huts (which conveniently eliminates the
need to carry a tent). The popular huts are staffed with full-timers like Hut
Warden John. Charmingly, at age 75(?) John seemed to be as determined to continue wielding
a trail-maintaining shovel as he was to wear his old man slippers
around the hut like your grandpa would.
During our two day tramp, had quite a lot of time to ponder
how I wound up there with those guys: in fact, I had nearly 50 km of root
climbs, creek navigating, monotonous forest sections, wonderful valley
crossings with towering v-shaped waterfalls tumbling into wildflower-peppered
grasses, and steep ascents to ponder
this question. And what I came up with is:
1) I’m not totally sure how I got here with these guys, but
I do know that if you end up in a back-country hut with a group of exhausted people
who all obtained business degrees at one time or another, it is inevitable that
your group will entertain fellow hut mates with musings of to make a million
dollars selling dehydrated wine (which will seem like a good idea at the time).
2) It is extremely difficult to scramble carrying a backpack
while collapsing in fits of hysteric
everything-is-funny-when-you-are-the-right-quantity-of-tired giggles (Admittedly,
this revelation is totally unrelated to the question at hand, but at this
point, you will be unable to focus on one train of thought).
3) If you wind up
with two wheels on Kitchen Dick Road in Sequim, Washington, you should probably
go race your bike.
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