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cowboy Roy Rogers’ famous palomino Trigger (originally called Golden Cloud) was acquired from the rodeo grounds right down the street. Actor Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto in The Lone Ranger television series from 1949-1957, boarded race horses in the valley. At the eastern end of the floodplain, San Francisco automobile magnate Charles S. Howard built a stable that housed, among other champions, Seabiscuit, arguably the most celebrated thoroughbred in American racing history.
    Now, ranches like the Kimzey place got by renting stalls to urban horse owners who liked to take slow rides through the wetlands, down the beach, and up the mesas. Many of the renters, however, were tired of getting flooded out. Horses had even drowned on the Kimzey place. In this way, environmental issues had become a major concern for the mostly conservative ranchers. As a leader in a local river valleyassociation, Dick had worked with Ben McCue on a number of these problems. (Later Dick would tell me, “The original horsemen in the valley thought the surfers [professional environmentalists] were assholes, but we’ve linked up on the environment deal and it’s been all right.”) Each flood seemingly brought their interests closer into alignment. So when McCue and I rolled up, there were no greetings, really, just grievances couched as lists and updates. When Dick said this valley was forgotten, I understood that he meant in the eyes of city government. But we all knew it went deeper.
    He waved his cigarette like a wand. “This all used to be farmland and cattle through to Chula Vista. The farmers took care of the water channels. Now that the city owns ’em, there’s no maintenance at all. They get clogged up, and when it rains even a little, we get flood. I lost renters, had to drop rents. If this doesn’t get taken care of, we’ll be washed out of here.” Dick took a drag and added, pointedly, “And anytime you get flood, you’re going to get tires—always, it’s that consistent.”
    We looked at the Dumpster. There was a long silence. The ocean breeze picked up and riffled through the trees.
    â€œAnd then there’s the bikes,” Terry said, speaking for the first time. Our attention fell from the trembling green leaves and landed on Terry.
    â€œBikes?” I asked.
    â€œThe Mexicans,” said Dick, nodding across Monument Road to Smuggler’s Gulch.
    â€œMexicans?”
    â€œOn bicycles!” said Terry, suddenly animated. “They come banzai down the canyons. They drop the bikes on the trails. They run into the estuary. They run into Imperial Beach!” Pointing, he thrust his cigarette to the north. “I’ve collected a thousand bikes in the last six months.”
    â€œA thousand bikes?” McCue said.
    â€œMore,” said Terry.
    â€œWhere are they?” I asked.
    â€œRight on over here.” The younger Tynan turned on a heel. We followed. And around the side of the barn, we came upon the collection. Anything professional in our demeanors—McCue’s as an environmental advocate, mine as a journalist—evaporated with each step we made into the heap. Bikes for every stage of our lives lay mashed together. A change came over all of us, even Terry. Being confronted with that many used and distinctive bicycles, each one a history, laid in piles and rows, on their sides, upright and upside down, poised on seats and handlebars—it does something to the imagination.
    I was immediately transported to a childhood vacation. My parents had wedged us kids into the 1978 Volvo station wagon and pointed it east. Around Rye, Arizona, we came upon a fenced industrial graveyard called All Bikes. Inside were acres of bicycles and motorcycles and three-wheelers. You may know the feeling when, on mountain roads in deep winter, the passing of a snowplow has created a hallway within a snow shed that extends far overhead—you travel