As you all know by now, Chelsea and I (mom and daughter) set out on June 4th, 2006, to ride our bicycles across the United States, with Alex – my youngest son and Chelsea’s younger brother – as a support team member. We were intending to cover 4280 miles and cross 13 states. We intended to cross the Peace, the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Colorado Rivers, along with riding through the Appalachian foothills, the Ozarks, the Rockies, the unnamed mountain ranges in Utah and Nevada, and Carson Pass in the Sierras. We planned on ending in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge.
Fifteen life-changing weeks later, we accomplished our goals. On September 15th, 2006, we finished our bicycling part of the trip by riding across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Not only did we see the things we intended to see, we saw Baton Rouge LA, the French Quarter in New Orleans, St. Louis MO, Wichita KS, Denver CO, Grand Junction CO, Telluride CO, and Salt Lake City UT.
Along the way we rode through a massive national heat wave that lasted for weeks, with day temperatures from 102-115 degrees for days on end; we dealt with 80-90% humidity day after day; we rode with head and side winds almost constantly for the last five states, and portions of the first eight states; we exponentially expanded the meaning of the word ‘hilly’ in our personal vocabularies; we rode through weather so cold that our fingers felt like they were frozen to our brakes levers; and we brought new meaning the term ‘team-work’, never mind honing our conflict resolution skills.
We also met some of the most amazing people one could ever hope to meet; we were met with unfailing kindness and generosity at every stage of our trip; we saw some of the most amazing geography that makes up the United States; we got a chance to assess our lives and lifestyles from a point of huge contrast in every way; and we got to learn in a clear and indisputable way how it feels to be ‘unplugged’ from the rest of the world, and in particular from the technology world. We challenged ourselves both physically and emotionally in ways that we would never have dreamed of doing. Perhaps more than anything else, we learned how to ‘roll with the punches’ – and we could never have predicted how fundamentally that would change us.
After attending a really great family reunion/birthday party in Carmel, Chelsea and I spent two weeks doing some recovery and decompressing at a mountain retreat (well, we call it that, because it was so restful there), which is actually the personal residence of some very dear and long-term family friends of ours, in Oakhurst, CA, near Yosemite. We were at 3,500 feet in elevation, near the end of a road in the wilderness. We had real bathrooms, indoor plumbing, and food whenever we needed it. We had real beds, separate bedrooms, and real sheets, and it was as quiet as can be at night – no geese honking all night, no trains going by at all hours, no extreme weather battering our tent, no semi’s rumbling by all night long. We had a real refrigerator, wonderful companionship, and home cooked meals. What’s not to like?
We ‘holed up” there to rest and to catch up on our writing, but we ended up spending the two weeks relaxing, trying to reorient ourselves into some semblance of normal life, and talking about what our next steps would be. Chelsea made the decision to fly back and left on October 3 – Alex had flown back to Florida on the 19th of September. That left me (Rosemary) to drive back across country by myself.
I left on my return trip by car after dropping Chelsea off in San Francisco, and started in on the Adventure Cycling routes up the west coast to Seattle, intending to cross the country on the northern route to Bar Harbor, Maine, coming down the eastern seaboard. After working my up to Seattle, where I hung out for a few days with a close friend, I continued on to Winthrop, Washington. It was so incredible beautiful and peaceful there that I again stopped – this time for 3 full weeks. I spent the days working on our photo album (I sorted and filed almost 2500 photos, reducing them to a usable 1400, writing captions for the “keepers”), and on a cycling book, as well as the “real estate investing by bicycle” book. I took rest breaks to go down to the river and watch the salmon spawning.
I spent the nights hanging out in the office of the KOA campground swapping stories with the hunters – I had arrived just at the beginning of the hunting season – and talking to Mike and Jeff (Mike is one of the owners of the campground and Jeff has worked there for years). Winthrop was an amazing town – where else could I hang out with grizzled old-timers around the campground, and then go for organic coffee and sandwiches for lunch? I did manage to get some great bike rides in, but the weather started changing fast, and by the time I left, it was so cold that my washrag froze solid just in the walk from the washroom back to my cabin.
Not being terribly interested in having weather related car adventures, I turned around and headed back down the Pacific coast. After stopping along the way at friends and family homes, I found myself again in Yosemite. This time I ended up staying for 6 weeks, working on a new website project, and writing my new book on creating a virtual office. It was a much-needed time-out, allowing me the freedom to write and create without all the usual distractions. Being with much-loved friends didn’t hurt either!
I finally packed up and left on Christmas Eve day, and headed to Santa Barbara for a few days with family, before heading home. I ended up driving over 3,000 miles in only four days, arriving home a few minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
So where were we when we started? Where are we now? How did we change? What revelations or awarenesses did we have by the end that we didn’t have before? What are we taking away from the trip? How was our trip different than other cross-country cycling trips?
Now that we’ve been back for a few months, we’ve had some time to process these questions, and we will be writing our thoughts and observations over the space of the next months. Along the way we did make notes on some of our thoughts, and we want to share them with you in an article we are calling “Reflections from the Road”. We’ll be adding to this as well, so stay tuned, and meanwhile, be sure to check out our photo album and the new products we are posting.