Greatest Hits: Photos from the big ride

Partly as therapy for myself and partly to serve you, loyal readers of this-here blog, I've spent a bunch of time over the past couple of weeks going over my photos & organizing them.

I posted them here throughout the summer but I thought it would be nice to have them all in one place.

Mostly because of technical difficulties (my modem going out mid-stream as I was uploading stuff) I have these in two batches, conveniently grouped as the first half and second half of the ride.

Here are photos from Seattle to St. Paul: http://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/TheBigRidePartISeattleToMinneapolisStPaul#

And here's St. Paul to Boston: http://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/TheBigRidePartIIStPaulToBoston#

I'm nearly used to being back in SF, after struggling a little to re-adjust from relying on Gross Life Skills (like, where I would ride, eat, and sleep on a given day) to focusing on Fine Life Skills (getting to meetings on time, wearing long pants all day, and navigating urban traffic). If I didn't have photos stuck up on the wall around my desk I might not believe I actually had all this adventure, and yes - I am thinking about where I might ride next summer...

Home!

I got back to San Francisco this past Saturday, and have been really caught up in doing things to feel at home again - like stocking up on my favorite foods (and baking!), riding my mountain bike across the city, and especially just being around Camilo - who managed to grow an inch taller than me in the past three months. I love being here, but it’s still kind of weird.

I find myself both compelled and challenged by the idea of trying to end this project (the sense of The Ride itself, and this narrationof it); I feel I should summarize my 11 weeks of adventure into digestible bits but know the most important/meaningful parts of this trip are (typically) complicated and inter-related, and defy tidy summaries. That’s one reason I really enjoyed keeping this blog: it was a way to capture what was happening as the process went along, with the feeling of that time and place, instead of looking back and trying to re-create it.

But here I am, on the other side of nearly 4,400 miles, back in my little pink shack and on the familiar streets of my city. The ride is over (though other roads beckon, already!!) - and I think I need to wrap up my narrative too.

Things People Ask Me

Was I ever afraid?

I was never afraid of people I encountered on the trip; there were some I didn’t necessarily like, but no one was threatening or creepy. Sometimes people drove stupidly but no one seemed to be trying to run me off the road. For a few days in South Dakota I was afraid of getting caught on the prairie in a thunderstorm (it’s the lightning that’s dangerous), but after a while I realized I could take cover under a bale of hay, if it came to that, and it stopped being frightening and became more of a game - especially since I was so lucky at evading the storms.

Didn't I get lonely?

I really didn’t get lonely, which was interesting and slightly surprising. I figured I would be, a little bit, especially after I left the Cycle America group. But even at home I need a good dose of solitude, and I was pretty comfortable on my own - though I ended up talking to myself kind of a lot, and catch myself doing it even here.

Meeting strangers was one of things I looked forward to as I planned the trip, being one of the highlights of traveling (along with the utter joy of moving along a country road and being in all that landscape). I found it much easier than I’d expected to connect with people, including simply striking up conversations with someone sitting next to me at a bar - which isn’t something I tend to do here at home. (Sitting at the bar is an easier way to get to talk to people than being at a table - plus it seems like your food comes faster, which doesn’t make sense but worked out).

Overall it was a great combination of being on my own and having company. Like pretty much every aspect of the trip, it just worked out.What I hadn’t expected, and really loved, was getting to read the comments people wrote on my blog and emails some folks sent me directly. That was so supportive - I found myself almost overwhelmed with appreciation and affection, which is the opposite of lonely.

Plus, once I hit Minnesota in late July, I also had a fair amount of actual company over different stretches: Jon rode with me into St Paul, and came over to camp with me in Wisconsin and again for six nights in New York; I met a couple in Michigan riding the same route I was, and we ended up staying in the same campgrounds for about 10 days, riding separately during the day and meeting up in the evening; I got to spend a couple of evenings with my sister and then a weekend at her house in Ann Arbor; and in the last couple of weeks of the trip I stayed with friends and relations in Albany, Ithaca, Northampton and Hull. That added a whole sense of community and celebration at the end, which I hadn’t planned but was really wonderful.

What surprised me the most?

*Climate change is in full swing, and the weather was wrong everywhere: starting with too much rain in Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota (with subsequent flooding - and South Dakota’s plague of frogs); too little rain and too much heat all summer in New York (until I got there, naturally); and of course way too cold here in SF.

*There is a lot of countryside in this vast country - a lot. My 4,400 miles of riding were almost entirely on two-lane country roads, except for intentional forays into places like Rapid City, Minneapolis, Albany and Boston - and even then I was only on busy streets when I got to the center of town. West of the Missouri River some of those roads had a lot of traffic, since there aren’t many roads to choose from, but they still traversed forests and enormous fields of crops and/or wildflowers (my favorite, naturally).

*RV campgrounds turned out to be great places to camp, which I hadn’t expected at all. Usually when I go camping I want the most secluded and under-developed sites possible, but on this trip I really appreciated the showers, laundry rooms and wi-fi that most RV camps provided. Plus they were generally close to stores (and bars!) in small towns, so it was easier to get the things I needed.

*The interstate highway I-90 from Buffalo to Gillette, WY was one of the best roads I got to ride on! There was less traffic than on some of the two-lane roads crossing Montana, the shoulder was enormous and in great condition, and for once the rumble strip was well out of my way and felt like a protective barrier in my favor. (Based on that experience I got on I-90 again in South Dakota, but that kind of sucked and I got off after about 15 miles.)

*East of the continental divide, this country is paved in corn. Most of it looked like proprietary GMO stuff, too - based on the little signs stuck at the ends of the rows. It was really hard to get away from corn syrup in the little what-passes-for-food in the convenience stores I often had to forage in, or even the grocery stores in small towns along the way. Not to mention all the ethanol being produced (those fields had signs too). I knew this, on some level, but to see it for myself was still surprising. In a bad way - knowing that corn is heavily subsidized, to the detriment of supporting smaller farms and more sustainable/organic crops and localized/community distribution.

*There are bike lanes and off-road bike paths all over the country - in the smallest communities and in big cities. I was blown away by the bike paths in and around Minneapolis & St. Paul, but there were great paths in Spokane, Washington; Kellogg, Idaho; Schenectady, NY; and leading into Boston, too. Of course there were also bike lanes that abruptly ended in gravel, and hundreds of miles of roads with no shoulders - but I got used to sharing the road with logging trucks, RVs, and reckless mini-vans. The surprise was how many places have great bike facilities - and how lame San Francisco is compared to Minnesota. Ha!

What were the hardest parts?

*Finding fruits, vegetables, and other real food along the country roads. Many of the named dots on my maps that looked like a town were really just an intersection with a gas station “convenience store” - which is convenient if you want candy, high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-salt products, cigarettes or crappy beer, but not so handy for dinner. I learned to stock up on a couple days’ worth of food whenever I encountered it. (And also learned that chocolate milk is readily available and pretty satisfying as an afternoon snack - but I’m still detoxing from all that corn syrup…)

*Finding places to pee out in the middle of nowhere. It’s easy enough to go in the bushes or behind a tree, but large areas of Wyoming and South Dakota were mostly prairie & grass; and then in Ontario, New York and Massachusetts there were a lot of small housing developments along the roads - I didn’t think it was cool to pee in people’s front yards…

*Avoiding thunder-storms, and worrying about them. After about a week I decided that I wasn’t going to bother checking the weather anymore, I’d just keep my eye on what was actually happening - because expecting a storm was making me more anxious than just dealing with them when they hit. (Though in fact I was so lucky I never did get hit by one when I was out on my bike… still amazed by that.)

*Dealing with my morale when riding for a long time against the wind. I don’t so much mind riding hills but riding against the wind really sucks. Plus it makes no sense that it’s so hard - it’s just AIR for crying out loud! I found that swearing really loudly was mildly amusing but only temporarily satisfying… and listening to music on my iPod was much more effective (with just one ear-bud in, because I promised my sister-in-law Paula that I’d be careful). I could only sing along to every other line (or I’d get too out of breath) but it was still better than swearing.

*Packing up a wet tent on too many mornings. Well, a wet rain fly. It’s against my religion to put away a wet tent: it grows mildew, and loses its waterproof magic, and is a lot heavier to carry, too. But it rained so much, and/or the grass was so dewy, that it couldn’t be avoided. I’m not sure if my tent survived this trip… but it had a long life of adventure before this summer, so it’s not really a tragic end. Just irritating (and I felt guilty about it - usually in conjunction with feeling like I was in a hurry, because it was getting late and I Should Be On the Road Already).

What was it like in the middle of the country (different from SF)?

This might sound like a cliché, but I noticed as soon as I got out of San Francisco: this nation is obsessed with guns. There are gun shops, ammo shops, shooting ranges - and people with pistols on their belts - all over the place, from Washington all the way to Massachusetts. It made me laugh sometimes, but also gives me the creeps. (Though I sort of wished I could have participated in that machine-gun shoot in South Dakota…)

This is also kind of a cliché, but people in Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota really were extremely friendly and helpful. I think a lot of them were on vacation too, which maybe made them jollier, but even discounting the folks I met in campgrounds I found people were very easy to talk to and most of them wanted to offer me something: cold water, a beer, some dessert… (I enjoyed accepting these offers, of course!).

I was a little surprised to find this stopped being the case almost as soon as I hit Minnesota, where people mostly ignored me (and each other). Upstate New York was the most unfriendly (duh - but I wasn’t expecting it) - and in general was blighted and grim, which I think added to the overall feeling. No one was hostile to me there (except in Utica, which was generally a really crappy place to be), it was just… grim.

Has my life changed from being on this trip?

I thought it might, without knowing how - and I probably still don’t understand all the ways I may have changed… but here are the things I already feel are different:

*I’m 50 years old! I’m feeling pretty strong these days, and my strongest feeling is: I don’t have to take crap from anybody! (Not that I do, really, or even have to confront much of it - but this might affect how I do my work. I’m interested in seeing how…)

*Apparently I can do just about anything I set my mind to! That’s pretty fun. I wonder if I can figure out how to have a lot more of these kinds of adventures? I think so…

*I realized I’m not nearly as shy as I thought I was. I can pretty much talk to anybody about something. But at the same time, I really do like peace & quiet and solitude, and I'd rather talk to one person at a time. So I’m still not going to cocktail parties (not that I get invited to many) but I know it’s because I don’t like them, rather than being completely socially incompetent.

*Janis Totty found me! She was my best friend in 9^th grade and someone I think of as my first love, whose family moved away in 1977 and who was lost to me practically ever since… So of course I changed course to go to Northampton to see her. Over 30 years later we still have so much in common, so many parallel tracks in our lives, that we fell right back into being friends again. What a gift…

*I found Jon Duncan! Or we found each other, in a laundromat in Missoula, Montana. (It wasn’t quite that random: our mutual friend Pam got us in touch so I’d have a place to stay when I rode through Minneapolis/St Paul; he just happened to be in Missoula the same time I was, and it was laundry day, etc.) Feels kind of nutty to put this on my bike blog, but it’s true: my life is different now that he’s in it, even if I’m not sure how that’s gonna manifest itself (given that St Paul’s about 2,000 miles away from San Francisco)… But that’s part of the adventure, whether it’s a bike trip or a relationship: you throw yourself into the project and do the best you can as it goes along. This is also the biggest surprise of the summer - just about the last thing I expected to happen. Yay!

How does it feel to be back?

Complicated! I love sleeping in my bed but miss sleeping outside; I am having a blast riding my trusty old mountain bike around the city, but it's also really loud & busy. (And there isn't any corn...) Mostly I feel inefficient and jolly, which is pretty different from my typical multi-tasking focused approach to life/work tasks. I'm enjoying that - a slightly vacationy feeling as I get back to work. I'm also enjoying all my hip & groovy food (organic everything! salad every day, and toast, and peaches and strawberries! Strong coffee & good beer! Etc.). I have a great life - my ride wasn't about escaping that, and it's good to come home to. Although I really am planning some small and medium adventures before winter hits, and a few big ones for next summer... and there's always Minnesota...

Mostly I'm happy to be around Camilo, and to see people I care about - really looking forward to more of that.

So, anybody wanna go for a ride...?

Meandering

The town of Northampton, MA lies along something called The Oxbow, where a section of the Connecticut River flowed in a loopy course that eventually became so convoluted it cut itself off from the rest of the river. Janis Totty explained this to me and said, "Old rivers meander... they tend to go around obstacles instead of cutting through them."

I think this says a lot about the 50-year-old brain. Well, and the rest of me. I don't mean this in a bad way - I've been having a lot of fun & adventure making my way across the continent in a slightly ziggy-zaggy pattern, going over a lot of challenging terrain but usually in the most do-able locations. I learned a lot, laughed out loud and cursed out loud too, and found myself open to all kinds of possibilities that I couldn't have imagined as I was packing up to leave San Francisco.

Over the past few days I've been thinking about how to organize summaries or descriptions of some of my experiences from this nutty adventure. Like most organizing projects, I started out trying to keep it simple, but I keep adding to the categories. Now that I sit down to put them on here, I have an impulse to change the order completely. I'm going with that - it's part of the meandering process, and I've decided to embrace it.

So I'm starting off with Statistics (instead of putting these at the end):

Started riding: Sunday, June 20, out of Everett, WA (a bit north of Seattle)
Ended up: Friday, Sept. 3, in Hull, MA (on the Boston Harbor)

Mileage: 4,383

Days riding (as opposed to rest/layover days): 60

States/provinces I crossed: 11
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan - UP and downstate, Ontario Canada, New York, Massachusetts

Especially fantastic days of riding:
*Coming down from Stevens Pass and riding along the roiling Wenatchee River
*Out of Spokane, WA to Kellogg, ID
*Almost all of Montana, but especially Kellogg, ID to Thompson Falls, the morning ride out of Thompson Falls towards Missoula, and out of Missoula to Lincoln
*Ashton, ID to Jackson, WY
*Dubois to Riverton, WY
*Newcastle, WY to Custer, SD
*Crystal Falls to Escanaba, MI; Escanaba to Manistique; the afternoon from Manistique to St. Ignace
*Port Dover to Fort Erie, Ontario
*Albany, NY to Northampton, MA
*Waltham to Hull, MA (and not just because it was the last day!)

Really crappy days of riding (generally because of head-winds):
*Afternoon riding to Grand Coulee Dam, WA
*Afternoon riding to Spokane, WA
*Afternoon riding into West Yellowstone, MT
*Afternoon riding from Miller to DeSmet, SD (the plagues of South Dakota...)
*Afternoon riding from Mackinaw City to East Jordan, MI

Mildly crappy days of riding:
*Gillette to Newcastle, WY
*Afternoon riding to Edgewater, WI
*Holley to Newark, NY
*Getting the hell out of Utica, NY (the afternoon was great, though)

Mountain passes crossed & their elevation:
*Stevens Pass, WA: 4,061
*Thompson Pass, MT: 4,852
*Flesher Pass, MT: 6,131

*Targhee Pass (MT/ID): 7,072
*Teton Pass, WY: 8,431
*Togwotee Pass, WY: 9,658
*Powder River Pass, WY: 9,666

Flat tires: 4 - but only 2 while riding on the road! (One was in camp, and the other while in a bike shop!)

Things I had to fix or replace:
*New tires in Rapid City, SD, and new rear tire in Herkimer, NY
*Adjusted derailleur in Pierre, SD
*Duct tape repairs to toe clips until could get new ones, Coleman, MI
*New chain & cassette in Ann Arbor, MI (preventative rather than urgent)
*New bell in Escanaba, MI

Things I did *not* have to replace: the brake pads! (I don't like to brake)

Things I carried and never used:
*Baling wire
*Rope
*Brake pads

Number of different shower configurations I had to master: 60 (they are all remarkably different!)

Made it to the Atlantic! - plus pictures

Even with my front tire in the Atlantic Ocean (not to mention my feet), I still can't believe I rode my bike all the way from the boat launch in Everett (near Seattle) to the Boston Harbor...!


















On Friday I officially ended the ride at the front porch of my friend Jenni Lopez, who lives in Hull. We had to wait until this morning to take the photos, though, because I arrived just before the remnants of Hurricane Earl, and it started pouring rain in the afternoon. (Which was really fitting, since it's the story of my journey since mid-July: just missing the worst of every storm!)


My odometer reads 4,383 miles, which includes the joy rides on the Needles Highway in South Dakota and then from Ft. Erie to Niagara Falls; since most of the days I rode were joyful I decided to count those extra ones, too.

The last two days of riding were really fun - to Waltham, on the outskirts of Boston, and then into the city. I decided to stop in Waltham on Thursday because I wasn't really ready to be done, and wanted to save a nice, short ride for the last day. I'd found a nicer hotel than I usually stay in, for a treat. When the guy at the front desk saw my bike he asked where I'd ridden from, and when I said "Seattle! I'm ending tomorrow in Boston!" he got quite excited about my trip, and upgraded my room to an enormous suite with a view of the river. It was probably the nicest place I've ever stayed, and was a really perfect way to savor being almost done...


From Waltham I got to ride bike paths along the Charles River all the way into the heart of the city. The path started out as hard-packed dirt, with wooden bridges crossing over marshy areas and sometimes criss-crossing the river itself. These changed to paved paths leading into town, and then wider paths through parks following the river.



Then quite suddenly I realized I had reached the Boston Common, and had to take to urban streets to get to the harbor. That was actually really fun, riding in the streets of a city I'm completely unfamiliar with. I guess I've gotten used to riding in any condition, and I was so happy and excited I didn't mind all the traffic. Plus I had the Boston Bicycle Map, which is really great, and managed to wind my way down to the waterfront.

I took a ferry across the harbor to Hull, which is on a little peninsula dividing the sea from the harbor, and rode along the spit of land to Jenni's house near the beach that faces the ocean side; that's where we celebrated this morning.


After the photo shoot on the beach we went into the city, where I got to have lunch with Jonah in Cambridge, and then went to a park to hear great salsa music at a Puerto Rican cultural festival. It was kind of a shock to be in such a big city after so many weeks on rural county roads and in small towns, but I really loved being tossed into the mix of speaking Spanish, being led through busy streets, and the diversity of this city (in terms of ethnicity, languages, architecture, and nature/built environment - all the things I love about cities) and its historic buildings and institutions.

On Sunday I'm taking my bike to a shop to have it packed up and shipped back to SF, which is so strange! (I'm already excited about the prospect of putting it back together when I get home, and riding over the Golden Gate Bridge.) Then I get to cram all my stuff into a duffel bag and on Monday head to St. Paul for a few days before I fly home next weekend... I can't imagine not riding a bike for a week, so plan to jump on a borrowed one and ride a lot more of the amazing bike paths all over the Twin Cities. (Plus go to the movies! And maybe even read a book or two.)

I have a few ideas of things I want to summarize as this blog comes to a close - so if anyone has questions or topics to address, let me know!

Here are pictures of Massachusetts: http://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/Mass#

On the brink

Tomorrow I ride into Boston - and after 4,350 miles I still can't believe it. I could have made it there today (Thursday) but I wanted to savor this last bit just a bit more. Not to mention yesterday was the hardest day of riding I've had since northern Michigan, and I wanted to have a couple of short fun rides to remember the whole thing by. And not to mention, it's so much more exciting to arrive with a hurricane!

It's been exciting all week to ride across the Berkshires, despite the crazy heat-wave that really took it out of me yesterday (I won't go into the details, but my butt was suffering...). I love how different the landscape is, and how different the built structures are here from everywhere else I've been. And more great signs, of course.

Beyond the joy and bewilderment I feel at being very nearly done with this joyful and bewildering journey & series of adventures I've had, I am struck with amazement at connecting with people I care about. On Monday in Albany I got to have lunch with Ken Smith, who was my across-the-street neighbor as a kid but even more importantly a partner-in-crime on road trips to the UP when we were in high school (which launched my love of camping, and fed my love of adventure in general). Today in Waltham I got to have lunch with Josh Lawton, brother of my former housemate Sarah, who I hadn't seen since Camilo was a toddler. On Saturday I get to hang out with Jonah Varon, Myra & Charlie's son, who goes to school in Cambridge... and I'm staying this weekend with Jenni Lopez, my former colleague from working at META those many years ago. This continent is pretty wide (and covered with corn, pretty much everywhere east of Idaho), but it seems sort of small at the same time...

And lest you think that's as sappy as I get: I got to spend an evening & a morning with Janis Totty, who found me through this blog more than 30 years after her family moved away from Michigan. She and her partner Janet live in Northampton, which is why I changed my route to Mass. instead of Maine - I had to see her. We talked for hours, of course, but we also drove through fields and by the river, and stood outside to look at the sky - and saw an enormous shooting star fly across the constellations. It was that kind of night. The thing is, this wasn't just nostalgia - though there's enormous power in remembering how much you loved somebody long ago. We have so many things in common, still. To a certain extent it just seemed obvious, that we'd be friends I mean. That we still are.

And this whole thing isn't even over. I need to ship my bike home this weekend, so that part of the adventure will have to end - but I'm not quite done with this journey-ing stuff, because there's still those five days in St Paul before I go home again...

Albany, my beacon - plus pictures

I'm in Albany, NY wrapping up a rest day - meaning a day of running around doing errands, but resting from riding my bicycle. One of the projects was shipping home all my camping gear - from here it's only a few days to Boston, and I'll be staying with friends the rest of the way. The tent, sleeping bag & pad, stove and cooking stuff added up to almost 20lbs, which I am delighted not to be hauling over the Berkshires... but I'm sort of wistful, already, about not sleeping outside for at least a few weeks (and I'm already thinking about going camping in Marin within a couple of weeks of getting home...!)

I spent a week crossing upstate New York - could have done it a couple of days faster, but there were several delaying factors. One thing was that it rained every day from last Saturday until Thursday. I managed to take shelter one wet morning in the gazebo of the Erie Canal park where I had camped, and had my breakfast under there while it poured outside, which was actually pretty fun.

I managed to stop once at a historical site, in Seneca Falls, where they held the first national women's rights convention to launch the movement to win the vote for women. The whole canalway is a series of historic sites across the state, but I found it hard to break the momentum of riding to visit many of them - especially with a bum knee, and in the rain. I'm planning to do a lot more of that as I head into Boston, so if anyone has ideas for things I should see - let me know!

I also took a day out to visit my Danko & Kukuk relations-by-marriage in Ithaca, which was very exciting and satisfying, and then a day near Syracuse camping with Jon, who came from Minnesota on his motorcycle.

For the past few days we've been riding off on our different bikes each morning, then meeting up in the evening - after my 50 miles and his 350 (riding in the Adirondacks or to Vermont). It was a good week to get tendinitis, or whatever it was - given the short mileage, relatively flat terrain, and rest days built in. My leg is feeling a lot better and I've got that antsy, I-want-to-be-riding feeling - which is a great way to tackle the Berkshires into western Massachusetts, then down into Northampton, where I'm heading tomorrow (Tuesday).

I loved being around the Erie canal, despite abandoning its bike path (which was mostly mud, had many gaps where you had to be on the road anyhow, and was was confusing to navigate). Many of the old locks have parks around them, including some where you can camp out - which were especially pretty early in the morning.

Once the rain stopped I really liked riding on the country roads that make up most of the cross-state Bike Route 5. Besides the nice roads, though, I have found upstate New York to be economically depressed, fairly grim, and the culture not very friendly... and despite the great bike route, I have seen very few people on bikes in the past week - until today, in Albany.

I had yet another series of I'm So Lucky moments related to a sliced tire - it held over two days of riding on it (with an under-inflated tube) and then blew out while I was in a bike shop, of all things, pumping up the tire! So now I have a new rear tire that is very spiffy, and continue to be grateful for all of that.

Here in Albany I'm staying with a friend who gave me the idea back in April that I could skip the mountains and ride across the flat part of the state to see her - yay, Deborah! (Not to mention all the salad, corn on the cob, and tomatoes from the garden...)

And now I'm almost done. I will be in Boston by this Friday, incredibly - well, the whole trip is still hard for me to believe, so reaching my destination will only be the culimination of the incredible. Then I head to St Paul for a little vacation, and finally I'll be home on September 11th. I'm starting to get a little homesick, in a good way - though I think I've turned a little feral, and I'm not sure what it's going to be like being indoors so much everyday.

And here are some pictures! http://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/NewYork#

4,000 Miles!!

I'm in central New York - and just west of Syracuse yesterday I hit 4,000 miles. I almost missed it but managed to watch my digitial odometer click from 3,999.9 over to 4,000 - but still can't believe it.

More good timing & luck: I'd already scheduled taking a couple of days to camp, rest & not ride my bike (though I always miss that... still love riding the bike!), and right now I'm struggling a little with either a pulled muscle or tendinitis, which is really irritating. I hope a couple of days break will improve things but either way I'm so close to the end I'll just ride through - it's just a lot harder to make it up these lovely rolling hills.

It's been raining all week, which is kind of fun to ride in but much more complicated for camping. Hoping the forecast for sun comes through, to ride into Albany and then Massachusetts - I'll be done in just over a week from today!

Back in the Empire State

Greetings from New York! After being stymied all morning I was just able to post a picture of the pedestrian & biker entrance to the US from Ft. Erie, Ontario Canada. It's so civilized, really, to be able to stroll across a bridge to get where you're going (unlike the border between Detroit and Windsor, which bikes are prohibited from crossing). Except earlier today the blogger posting thing kept crashing when I tried to load it...

That fed a temporary conspiracy theory among those of us vulnerable to such tendencies, because I got hollered at by the customs guy for taking photos at the border. You're not allowed, although there are no signs that say so - you're just supposed to know that danger lurks everywhere, apparently, disguised as a Beverly-Hillbillies-style bicycle tourist carrying a little digital camera. Since it just worked from here in Seneca Falls, I guess it must have been a problem at the place in Newark where I was before.

Had to show the bike path along the Niagara River in Buffalo (remember those lovely grassy parks on the Canada side?) - but to be fair, the Erie Canal towpath is really lovely.







But to then be honest, it's also muddy and full of puddles, and really slow to slog through - so mostly I have bailed on the canal path and am following Route 31 - which is also the NY State Bicycle Route 5 & even has official signs (first like this that I've seen anywhere) - although it's impossible to find a map of the route...

It's raining again today - third day in a row. I hope to camp at Cayuga Lake State Park tonight but it might be too wet... I just dried out my tent but it's starting to get a little raggedly from traveling wet - only a few more nights of camping on this trip, I just realized - so I want to take advantage.

It's been hard to find the internet, again, but I hope to have access on Tuesday night (in Ithaca, visiting Sheila, David, DC and Paul!)... we'll see!

And pictures, eh

Thought I should post my Canada pictures now - it was hard to capture the scope of the corn, I have to say, not to mention that specific agricultural scent... but I got a lot of other stuff. Besides the corn, there were tons of blueberry farms - and a few stands with pie, where naturally I stopped. The route followed coastal-ish roads - meaning Lake Erie was anywhere from a quarter-mile to a full mile away, which actually was a bit disapppointing. Thursday it got more interesting: river port towns in the morning, a functioning steel mill, and then riding right along the coast for a few hours. It was a glorious day, just about a perfect day of riding, but that's hard to capture on a little digital camera...


Also - I forgot to say: I saw yellow arrows again, from my Cycle America friends! I actually saw a few on one short stretch of road in Clare, MI last week, pointing them (and me) to the Pere Marquette bike trail. That was a total surprise and a blast.


I had an idea I might see arrows somewhere around Niagara, because I knew they were going through here - but I actually encountered them a couple of days ago on very rural roads near Port Stanley (a river port not far off the coast), and then followed them until Dunnville, when they turned north and I kept heading east. It was both fun and actually really moving to see them - knowing that group is reaching the Atlantic ocean and the end of their ride tomorrow (Saturday) - it must be so exciting for them, and yet also maybe hard, to be done... So often when I've found the arrows I have felt the companionship and affection for people in that group. Anyhow, here's to the Coast-to-Coasters! I'll get there soon!

And here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/Canada#

Joy Ride

I think this whole thing could be called a "joy ride," but today I got to leave all my stuff behind in a motel room and ride up to Niagara Falls, and that was especially fun. It's been a really lovely day - sunny but not too hot, after last night's thunderstorm (!!) cleared out the humidity. (I was safe in bed, yay.)

It's easy to make fun of the tremendously cheesy development around Niagara Falls - but the falls themselves are truly awesome. As in, awe-inspiring. I'm really glad I took the time to see them, and to just sort of hang out along the river.

I also noticed that the US side of the river doesn't seem to have so much green space... hmmm.

Canada, picnic table & grass; US, smokestacks...

I seem to spend a lot of time at laundromats, which is where I am now. I managed to ride across Ontario in just four days but used every stitch of my clothes to do it! So I'm stocking up on clean laundry, new tubes of toothpaste and sunscreen, and snacks to get me launched on the Erie Canal bike path starting tomorrow. I got to ride about 15 miles on car-free bike paths yesterday, which was fun, and I'm looking forward to the whole network of canal pathways. (Though I admit that today I rode on the road, instead of the bike path - I felt like going fast without my heavy load!)

I'm also re-routing myself, to end up in Boston instead of Maine. I realized since I'm going to visit my friend in Northampton, Mass. I might as well just keep heading east. What's shocking is how close Boston is! I'm going to get there in just a couple of weeks.

So I'm slowing down a little... dawdling across upstate New York so I can visit family in Ithaca, camp in some gorgeous state parks with Mr. Duncan (who's riding his motorcycle over), and hang out in Albany with Cyndi's sister Deb. Then I guess I'll dawdle across Massachusetts and around Boston (and Hull, and Cambridge...), and then some more lolly-gagging in St Paul before I end up back in SF. I guess that will be my summer vacation before getting back to work...!

Starting tomorrow I'll be camping again, so might not be online again until... maybe Tuesday, in Ithaca. Ithaca! Wow. This all still seems so impossible...!

O [ntario] Canada

I'm writing this from the library in Port Dover, Ontario. I was so excited to have access to the internet. One of the things I space out about while riding alongside corn fields is, What should I put on my blog? (Right up there with my next snack.)

This picture shows the Detroit River, as seen from a lovely park in Ontario. The opening in the distance is where the river reaches Lake Erie.



As I got further along and could see across the actual lake - that's what you see on the US side! (And that's Ohio, BTW not Detroit.)
US >>>>>










While as you ride into Ontario, this is what you see: a whole different approach to generating electricity. (Not to mention the solar clothes dryer.)
<<<<< Canada

Lest you think I am heavy-handed with visual editorializing, I have to say these windmills are everywhere! I've been riding in Canada for three days now and have seen them multiple times each day. On Monday, heading from Windsor eastward (along the northern shore of Lake Erie) I also saw lots of cool signs about bikes & cars sharing the road. Those disappeared by Monday afternoon, but people all along the route have been friendly and giving me room - none of these roads have shoulders, is the thing, and they're pretty narrow, so it takes some thought to make space for everybody.

The route I'm following is really lovely... the first day & a half of riding it was completely flat, and I had strong winds pushing me along, which was super fun. I found myself wondering, Am I going to get out of shape for climbing hills, if it's like this the whole way? How am I going to cross the mountains to get to the east coast?

Not so worried about that anymore (well, maybe about the mountains...) - today I hit hills. And the road is taking them the old-fashioned way: straight up. Or worse: straight down, with a hairpin U-turn at the bottom so you have to come to nearly a stop before the turn, thus losing all your momentum before climbing back up. It's mostly fun, except for when the wind's against you (as it was, bizarrely, most of today) or there's a big truck trying to pass - but it's going ok on the whole.

Now I'm looking forward to hitting Niagara Falls on Friday!! And crossing back into the US on Saturday, to hit the Erie Canal bike path... (Let's hope getting back in is less of a hassle than leaving: it took forever to get through immigration between Detroit & Windsor...)

I've also been thinking a lot about my destination(s). I've decided to end up in Massachusetts instead of Maine, but don't know exactly where or how I'm getting there... So if anyone has ideas about that, please let me know!

My sister rocks!

Well, both my sisters rock, along with my brother, his wife and all her family, my kid, aunts & cousins... etc.

But I have to give special thanks to my sister Peg, who has not only been supportive about my trip for the past several months but brought some friends into it (who routed me to their cottage in Hope, and then into Ann Arbor), and has spent the past few days driving up to meet me, carrying my stuff, finding a hotel & lunch spots along the way, and putting me up at her house. And driving me around to do a million errands. And is driving me to Canada!

Thanks!

Traversing Michigan - and pictures!

I can't believe I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, sitting in my sister's rocking chair (using her neighbor's wi-fi - thanks, dude)!

It always feels like a big deal to get on the several planes it takes to reach Detroit, so the fact that I actually rode my bike here remains - honestly - unbelievable.

We spent the morning doing errands, then had lunch with Bill Smith, our former neighbor who is the kind of family friend that simply becomes family. I also took my bike to the spa - Two Wheel Tango, my sister's favorite bike shop. Got a new chain & cassette (it wasn't urgent but would've become so in the middle of nowhere, most likely) but other than that, bike's in great shape. Yay bikey!

I was really, really tired after 8 straight days of riding - averaging over 75 miles a day. Monday was the only really hard day of actual riding, with all those hills all afternoon - but while the road got flatter, it also got hotter and more humid every day.

On Wednesday I had another round of crazy good luck - after riding in a light but steady rain the last 20 miles into the town (well, intersection) of Leroy I was pretty wet but enjoying the cool, when I got to town and found the only place to stay: Muddy's (aptly-named) Travelers Inn. About one minute after I pulled in, it started to pour - buckets of rain, for over an hour. There was flooding in much of central Michigan as a result - I just can't believe my luck with this stuff. (Not to mention that's a part of the world I find a little creepy; it's fertile ground for the Michigan Militia, and I didn't really feel like camping by myself in some deserted campground... much less in a pouring rain.)

The next morning there was a thick ground fog that took hours to burn off - and then it got really steamy. The heat really snuck up on me - riding creates a breeze so I wouldn't realize how hot it was (low 90s, w/high humidity) until I stopped, and then the sweat would be literally dripping off me. I ended up riding in what amounted to my underwear: a sport tank-top kinda thing and those bike shorts you kind of giggle at. Usually I wear a jersey & baggy shorts over that stuff - it just looks so silly - but it was too dang hot! No, I do not have a picture of myself in this get-up. But I thought it was fun to be out on the road in my skivvies.

On the road - following the Adventure Cycling Erie Connector route and then the Larry Macklem route (a friend of my sister) - I discovered a side of Michigan I'd never seen: the most amazing, gorgeous bike path I've found on this whole trip (the Pere Marquette trail) and the state's immense agricultural mid-section. Endless fields of corn, some sugar beets and then a surprise crop of sunflowers! That was especially exciting.

I broke my iPod so couldn't space out on music, so instead I spaced out thinking about... uh... ideas for more exciting road trips... how much I love to ride my bike (good thing!), how lucky I am to have so many people sending me their love & support, and, of course, when I might stop and have a snack.

One of my errands today (facilitated by my endlessly supportive sister) was going to see if they could revive my iPod. Alas, they could not. The good news is they gave me a new one! since it was still under warranty. I was bummed and also laughing at myself - that this amounts to the challenge & adversity of my trip, not really much of the actual riding (except for days like last Monday, which you develop a kind of amnesia over). Then the guy offered to load up all the demo music he had on his repair laptop, so I'd have something to listen to on the road! It's not necessarily what I would have picked but kind of like listening to some weird radio station... which I realize I can also do, so that will be folded into the adventure.

Tomorrow I am crossing over into Canada!! You can't ride across the Ambassador Bridge (from Detroit) so my sister is driving me into Windsor. I should be in Niagara Falls on Friday, and then get back into the US in Buffalo on Saturday and hit the Erie Canal bike trail to cross upstate New York.

I'll be camping this week and I don't know if I'll have internet access until Friday...

And as promised, here are pictures of the last eight days of riding, from Escanaba into Ann Arbor. Michigan is big, and was full of surprises - can't wait to see what I come upon next.

http://picasaweb.google.com/106458209676650999720/TraversingMichigan#

(Not lost) in Owosso

What? You don't know where Owosso is? It's in the middle of the mitten, that being the lower peninsula of the state of Michigan. It's not far from the capital city of Lansing, it's having a glorious sunrise as I write this - and apparently it's also in the middle of a vast internet-free zone that extended from Traverse City to this donut place where I am having what passes for breakfast. (And enjoying the first wi-fi I've encountered since Tuesday.)

I never did find my laz(y)boy power recliner sofa... but another old friend whose contact info I'd lost has found my blog. Holy moly! But Mark, please send me your email so I can get in touch w/you (I couldn't seem to reply to your comment).

I am a sentimental blob even at home, but being on the road is really making me sappy, and I'm just about in tears over all the support and love that people are sending me. I can't say how much I appreciate it. It's amazing and really, really helps get me through the hard parts. (Especially since I dropped my iPod and apparently messed it up, so can't listen to inspiring music... the Pogues, Joe Strummer and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had been good in the tired afternoons...)

Tonight I should be in Ann Arbor, drinking yet more great local beer and making my list of stuff to do tomorrow - which will definitely include posting pictures of this week of riding down the state of Michigan. Monday I'll be in Canada!!

Everything and Opposite Days

That's the Mackinac Bridge! I'm just going to come right out and say it: It's prettier than the Golden Gate Bridge, and Lake Michigan is better than the ocean, too.

I'm writing this from a laundromat in Traverse City, Michigan as the sun is going down, hoping I can find my campsite in the dark 3.5 miles away from here... (I have a light but it's going to be pretty dark out there on the bike trail!)

I want to write about Sunday, which was Everything Day... and then Monday & today, which were the opposite of each other...

Sunday started off gloomy - a combination of rain and feeling sad about the news that my friend Stuart Colthard died on Saturday after a few years of fighting cancer, and then a shockingly quick descent over the past couple of weeks. I thought I'd see her in the fall, but... anyhow, I was thinking about her riding along in the grey along the coast, listening to music she liked too.

And then the sun came out... and I started feeling happier again, because that's what biking in the sun along the shore of Lake Michigan can do for a person. I remembered the tasks my brother and sisters had set me - all the things our parents didn't let us do on family vacations. First I ate a pasty for lunch (meat & potatoes in pastry dough, sort of a Cornish burrito) - really really tasty if you get a good one, which I did, in the Hog Island Country Store;
then I saw a sandy beach along the road (it's in the far distance in this photo) and got off my bike and went swimming there!! (actually our parents let us wade in the water off the highway, but then our clothes always ended up getting wet - I had my suit this time.) Then I went to the MYSTERY SPOT!!! It was dumb but, duh, that's why you go, right?

And finally, I camped in the state park by the bridge (at the Straits of Mackinac) - and I took the picture of the bridge from the picnic table at my site! Way. On Sunday it seemed like I did, and felt, everything... and ended up happy. Tired, but in a good way.

But Monday pretty much sucked. It poured rain in the morning and then turned hot & muggy - so my stuff and myself were just a steaming mess all day. A day which lasted forever... it felt like the Adventure Cycling route took every long-cut imaginable rather than the shorter way, and took me over every hill in the NW lower peninsula. Against the wind, naturally. It was a really long day - 80 miles - and then the last 10 miles included some of the hardest hills of the day. It was awful.

And then I saw the sign - horrified, like What, it could get WORSE? Only to find that in fact it was a steep down-hill, which took me pretty much into the town where I stayed. So the crappy day ended well, but it still really knocked me out.

And luckily today was the opposite of yesterday: I got up & out early, was on rolling hills by 8:30am - which at that time of day are fun, I have to say. It was really hot again, but I got to swim TWICE - yay - in a little lake called Torch Lake, and then in Lake Michigan at Grand Traverse Bay. I'm camping in the state park there, and the beach is fantastic - it's sandy and the water is shallow for a long ways out, so the water is warm... I also rode less than 60 miles today (after 80 yesterday and nearly 90 on Sunday), which helped. AND, using the handy guide I found in Escanba, I had dinner in a local brewery - so I really feel like I got to do all the fun things today. (Well, most of them.)

And special bonus: an old friend found my blog & wrote to me - her family moved away when we were in 11th grade and I never could find her. What a great thing - and it's the opposite of losing Stuart, it just occurs to me...

One of the reasons Monday felt so hard was I got a late start, because I stayed up late Sunday evening hanging out with the people next to me in the campground (I shared my six-pack with them and they shared their dessert & a nice chair by their fire). That meant I didn't get all my routes written out & my stuff organized that night and had to do it in the morning, plus get a shuttle across the Bridge (they don't let you ride a bike on it & there's no sidewalk)... so I didn't get riding until 11am. In the rain, etc.

It's a tension I'm feeling - the need to be focused on getting my stuff ready for the next day, vs. taking the time to talk to people... which is a strong impulse, and really fun. And one of the point of traveling, really. I don't want to just be in my tent scribbling out cue sheets... I've learned that it all goes better if I get up at the crack of dawn even if it means I don't get enough sleep. But I'm trying to get more sleep, too...

So, that's my week. I might not have internet access again until Thursday or even the weekend - but then again, maybe I will.