Hello dear readers. In case any of you are new to this site or still wonder about some of the basics of this trip (like maybe, "Why are they doing this again?"), read the paragraphs below for some enlightenment on the origins and purposes of our venture. A sixth grade class in San Francisco is sort of following my trip (I'm sending them postcards and stuff), and towards the beginning they sent an email with some questions for me.
have you ever wanted to have an adventure? i love adventures. i also love to travel-- seeing new places and meeting new people is usually fun for me. it's neat to get away from places that are familiar and see how people live and work and eat and talk in different parts of the U.S. and the world. so this "crazy road trip" is an adventure. it's a way to get outside of the normal way we live our lives and do something different.
riding a bike is magical. do you remember the first time you actually learned to pedal on your own? wow, the freedom! now you could go all over the neighborhood, to the corner store, ride through the park with your friends. one day on this trip i saw a little boy in a parking lot learning to ride, and i remembered how much fun it was to have a bike when i was a kid. and it's still fun. there's just something about being on a bicycle, getting somewhere under your own power, that's neat. on a bike we also get to see more things. cars and planes are nice to get somewhere fast, but you miss a lot. on a bike you're moving slower, so it's easier to notice the butterflies and wave to the man picking up cans at the side of the road and be awestruck at the birds circling through the sky. for this trip, it's the process of getting there that is important, more so than actually having to get to a certain place. we want to have fun and meaningful experiences along the way, rather than just get from point A to point B in the fastest time possible. have you heard the popular quote, "joy is found in the journey, not at the end of the road"? one last thing. bikes don't pollute. they are a very environmentally sound form of transportation. the only power required is your own. and it keeps you in shape.
my cousin is from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. (that's a place where lots of people visit to see the Amish, a unique group of people that you might want to learn more about.) he is also a world traveler. most recently he has worked in Supai Canyon (close to the Grand Canyon), trekked in Nepal, and climbed mountains in Chile.
actually, my cousin brought me! he was already on a bike trip across the country, but he and his partner had different travelling styles, so they split up (they are still friends, just decided it would be better to travel separately). instead of traveling alone, my cousin asked me to join him. he came all the way back to Lancaster, PA, from where he was in Indiana, then helped me buy all the things i needed for the trip and started over with me!
i have two bags, called panniers, that hang off of the back of my bike, over the wheels. i also have a rack in the back that i can strap my sleeping back and other large things to. my cousin pulls a small trailer. i can't remember, maybe you can see it in the pictures that are now on my website. with the trailer, he can carry more things, so he takes the big group gear like the tent and the cooking stuff.
well, we don't get to wash clothes that often. (sometimes we just smell. :-) but usually at least once a week we stay with a friend or with someone who lets us use their washer and dryer.
well, i memorized some poems while i was in san francisco that i'm reviewing in my head as i bike, to keep them fresh. poems by langston hughes, william wordsworth, adrienne rich, gerard manley hopkins, john ciardi, and others. it's great to have those poems in my head to help me focus on something else occasionally when the biking gets hard. on this trip, though, i've only memorized one so far. it's a poem from the Lord of the Rings series by J. R. Tolkien. One that Bilbo and Frodo sing as they set out on their adventures. it starts, "The Road goes ever on and on..." have any of you read Tolkien's books? perhaps you've seen the movie of the first one. the books are great, if you want to tackle them. though there's no shame in waiting till you are older, too. they're pretty thick books. maybe you could try to find the poem, though, if you are interested in hearing all of it. if you're having trouble i can give you some hints.
it seemed like a fun goal, a good way to see what America is like from beginning to end. plus, we have friends spread out all over, so it's a good way to see some of them along the way. we live in a big, big country, and there's lots of different types of geography and architecture and people to see. yet even though we are so different and so spread out, common experience and common kindness unites us all. people are human wherever you go, and seeing the many different ways that people live helps me appreciate how precious and how complex human life is.
both. meeting a goal can be fun just by itself. but i'm sure you've learned that by now. setting goals and then reaching them is often how we humans get things done, right? you learn stuff so you can reach the goal of passing the test. and it feels good to pass the test. and then maybe you realize that you had fun just learning the stuff, never mind the test. so i'm having fun learning to ride a bike across the country, and i'm having fun biking toward a goal.
Keep in touch - Joe (lappjoe@yahoo.com) and Glen (glapp@juno.com)!