After 500 Miles, Hitting a Wall

The ride to Pomeroy, Wash., from Walla Walla was about 65 miles, and there was a companionable tail wind most of the way. But just at noon, not quite 40 miles in, we stopped for lunch at a spot on the map, Starbuck, and when we emerged from the air-conditioned cafe refueled about 45 minutes later, the temperature had leapfrogged at least 10 degrees.

My companion, Tom Scribner, a lawyer in Walla Walla who had designed our mostly back-road route through the rolling wheat fields of southeast Washington, rode blithely ahead as we found the intersection to U.S. 12 and began the 20-mile final stretch to Pomeroy, where we had a motel reservation.

Before long I crossed an invisible threshold, 500 miles since I left Astoria, Ore., bound for my apartment in Manhattan. But it was a short-lived exhilaration. With the temperature north of 90, I began to fade. Big time.

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