[originally posted to the Wheeled Migration mailing list on August 2, 2004]

Hello, everyone! This is a test of the mailing list, I suppose, and also an update on my departure plans.

I plan to leave Tuesday morning, August 10, one week from tomorrow. The first day I'll ride from my home in Minneapolis through St. Paul and Stillwater, MN, to a state park just across the St. Croix River in Wisconsin.

Assuming all goes well after that first day, I'll continue east as far as Menomonie before following a bike trail south to rejoin the St. Croix. After following the river as far as La Crosse, I'll turn east again on another bike trail and then jog south through the hills of southwest Wisconsin to my first destination, an ecovillage/artist community called Dreamtime Village. That's as far as I've planned in detail.

After Dreamtime Village, I'll head roughly due north and then east to visit some friends near Appleton the weekend of August 21st (assuming I'm not delayed) and then take the ferry across Lake Michigan into Michigan.

For those who like to ask how I'm training for the trip, I finally have an answer: I'm carrying a lot of junk around on my bike trailer. Yesterday I pulled a heavy load of books to sell to used bookstores, and today I carried four full loads of stuff that didn't sell at Saturday's yard sale to various discount shops. And then there's the stuff I'm storing... looks like there are four or five loads left.

I'll share one story from the yard sale... In the morning, a little boy -- maybe age 9 -- came by and asked if we had any free stuff. We did, and he found an old cell phone with a dead battery. I showed him how to remove the battery if he wanted to replace it, or "You could just wear the phone and look cool." He biked off with it, and a few minutes later he came back with some friends (slightly older) who wanted to know if we had any more cell phones! Of course we didn't, but we pointed them to the rest of the free stuff. 

A few hours later, the same boy came back and said he wanted to buy the color TV, but he didn't have the $25. He asked what he could buy for a dollar, and I pointed him to my stereo whose turntable is broken, but the dubbing deck and radio work fine. Turned out he had only 67 cents, but I let him have it since no one else had expressed interest, and I knew he'd get good use out of it.

He came back again as we were starting to close up and asked what he could buy for a quarter. I asked him what he'd like and he went straight to the stereo cabinet I'd had the stereo in earlier. I'd been asking for $1, but again there were no other buyers, and I was about to throw it out, so... 25 cents. He had no way to transport the thing, so I put it on my trailer and walked him home with it. When we got to his house a bunch of boys swarmed out and carried it inside, like Jawas with a 'droid.

Anyhow, that was the high point of the sale for me. See you next week! 

--Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on August 14, 2004]

Hi, folks! Sorry it's taken me a while to write a real message; I wanted to have something real to say first. I've been taking daily notes, but they make for dull reading. I've got enough miles behind me now that I can start using generalities instead of just specifics. :)

So... so far everything's going great! I know most people wouldn't consider two days of cold drizzle and rain a good way to start a bike trip, but in a year there are bound to be some days of bad weather! Besides, I find that one sunny day makes up for about three drizzly ones, not only in my mood but in basic tasks like recharging batteries (solar charger) and drying laundry. So I'm all caught up now.

Three days is also the magic number for my physical fitness. As on my previous trips, the first two days were really hard: my joints ached, my muscles ached, and I couldn't think straight by the end of the day. But on the third day I was not only pain-free but so full of energy I didn't want to stop riding. Now I don't know what I'll do with myself when I take a day off to visit with friends... turn a generator or something.

Tuesday and Thursday I rode at least half the way on designated bike trails made from old railroad rights-of-way. (Gateway State Trail from St. Paul to Stillwater, MN, and Red Cedar State Trail, from Menomonie to near Durand, WI.) Wednesday and Friday I stuck to county roads and the shoulders of state highways. I've got to say that Wisconsin gets good marks in my book for its highway shoulders: all the ones I've ridden on so far are very clean of debris and comfortably wide.

Wisconsin state parks are also excellent. Both Willow River (Tuesday night) and Perrot (Friday night) are spacious, quiet, clean of litter, and well staffed, and their restrooms and such are in great shape. I wish I could say the same for the "resort" I patronized outside Menomonie; its owners are getting too old to keep the place up, apparently.

Thursday night I experimented with unofficial camping. There were no official campgrounds along my route (the Buffalo River from Mondovi, WI to the Mississippi), so, being full of energy, I just kept riding all evening until the sun began to set, eating dinner during little breaks along the way. Then I found the perfect spot: an overgrown access road leading into a grove of trees near the river. I followed it when no one was coming and found no "no trespassing" signs, just a little one proclaiming "FUR FARM LICENSED BY WI DEPT. OF NATURAL RESOURCES".

I followed the road (on foot) way into the wetlands but didn't find any clues to what a "fur farm" might be. Maybe it's not leased right now. I certainly heard plenty of beavers going about their business overnight, along with loons, frogs, some bird that sounds like a monkey, and a pack of dogs that yelped like coyotes! At any rate, the place was beautiful, and I took lots of pictures both at sunset and at dawn, when the valley filled with fog.

Since I didn't have ready access to water that night, I ran out and couldn't make breakfast, so when I rode into Alma (on the Mississippi) first thing Friday morning, I stopped and got a proper greasy-spoon breakfast. It occurred to me that my camping menu doesn't include any fat, and fat is a necessary nutrient...

Which leads me to roadside farm stands. I've been able to get sweet corn every single day just by stopping at stands along my route. I've also bought some cheese straight from the factory store, a properly ripe muskmelon, and a tomato. I hope to be able to buy citrus fruit this way during the winter. :-)

Finally, I apologize to those of you whose calls I haven't returned. Although my phone gets good reception most of the time, it's roaming (i.e. not my provider's coverage), so if I used it I would be charged a bundle. If I don't find better coverage soon, I'll switch to a plan that doesn't penalize me so much for roaming. Thanks for your patience!

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on August 16, 2004]

Hello again. I'm enjoying my day off here at Dreamtime Village, which is a community of artists and craftspersons who moved to the unincorporated town of West Lima to start a community and basically homestead on unwanted land. For more information, read the excellent anthropological study at http://www.dreamtimevillage.org/articles/unglaciated/unglaciated.html .

Now it's time for Q & A! Hooray!

Q: Do you do email at libraries, or via cell phone?

A: I had planned on mostly using my PalmPilot for e-mail, using its modem and an inexpensive Internet provider with dialup numbers all over the country (http://allvantage.net). Although this works great when I'm within local calling range of one of the dialup numbers, the rest of the time it's impractical. (On my last bike trip, I dialed long-distance to my Minneapolis ISP and racked up a very impressive phone bill.) So I'm using Web mail at libraries and other public access points more often than I expected. These also give me the ability to upload photos as I did yesterday.

Q: Do you eat the sweet corn raw? I think you said you weren't cooking on this trip.

A: That's right, I prefer it raw. Even some farmers have never tried it that way; one who watched me eat an ear said he intended never to find out whether it might be better raw. Apparently some people have trouble digesting it.

Q: Regarding dietary fat, how about peanuts or peanut butter?

A: Up until a few months ago, I ate peanuts all the time, but then I realized they were making me sick, so I've cut way back. Now I'm eating sunflower seeds (shelled) instead. I guess they have some fat, but not like a good ol' fried breakfast. :-)

Q: Have you had much trouble with mosquitos, ticks, etc.?

A: Very little. The two state parks I stayed at were almost mosquito-free. The worst campsites were the fur farm -- no surprise, right by a river -- and the walk-in campsite where I stayed Saturday night, just outside Sparta, WI. In both cases I was the only stationary person for miles. I put on repellent as soon as I stopped my bike, then put on my headlamp and my mosquito hat over that (since if the headlamp goes on second it collapses the netting against my skin) and pitched my tent. I've gotten probably 5 bites total, and seen no ticks at all.

Q: How are you getting your photos into the computer?

A: Although a friend lent me a digital camera for the trip, I haven't been using it much because I like to have negatives I can keep and store. So that's my backup camera... mainly I'm using a film camera and having the photos developed straight to PictureCD. That allows me to upload them to Yahoo or elsewhere from any computer with a CD-ROM drive, and I can make prints from the CD at little kiosks in a lot of photo shops, supermarkets, etc.

Q: What's the deal with your phone service?

A: On my last bike trip, through Iowa, I sprang for AT&T's cushy Digital One Rate plan (where you pay the same price no matter whose signal you're using) but found that I had AT&T brand service most of the time. Silly me, I assumed that two years later that would be the case in Wisconsin as well, so I stuck with the plan I used in Minneapolis. Turns out the phone companies have moved on to a newer technology called GSM, which my phone doesn't support, and AT&T never implemented digital service in Wisconsin. So I've been basically roaming nonstop since I left Minnesota. Effective today I'm back on the One Rate plan so I can finally return some calls, but when I pass through Appleton next week I'll see about getting a newer phone -- which would pay for itself in a matter of months by allowing me to use a cheaper calling plan.

Q: I notice that the Yahoo! group description says "This is an announcement list" but also it is configured so "Anyone can post". Is the latter intentional?

A: Yep. If you attempt to post to the list, the message will just go to me.

That's it for now! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on August 17, 2004]

I know, three posts in three days, I'm pushing it... but I've got dialup access here in Mauston, WI, so I thought I'd send some of my notes from the past few days.

Saturday morning I left Perrot state park and followed the Great River State Trail into Onalaska, just north of La Crosse. The ranger told me a Target there was my best bet for 1-hour photo developing. I wasn't ready for the experience of re-entering "civilization" (essentially suburbia: big box stores, no sidewalks, lots of aggressive SUVs). It was a nightmare!

After getting only half my errands done in over 2 hours I gave up and headed east on the La Crosse River State Trail. Just east of La Crosse I found a little town where I thought I could stop and find a phone line suitable for my modem, and I found one in a little computer store that just opened last week. I talked shop with the proprietor and she let me send the e-mail I'd been storing up on my Visor.

The La Crosse River State Trail is about as flat as it could be, except that the river flows west, so I was going slightly uphill all afternoon. Very tiring on an essentially dirt road. I got a personal recommendation from another cyclist for a campground where I'd been planning on heading anyway, but instead I decided to check out the "walk-in" campground east of Sparta. It's for cyclists and pedestrians only (being on the trail), it's totally unstaffed, and it was totally empty except for me and the critters. I had to scare off a pair of eyes from my tent while I typed this -- probably a raccoon. This was much more special than any private campground. There was a bunch of firewood collected at my site, so I tried my best to start a fire, first using just matches and kindling, then using my bike lube as lighter fluid, but no luck.

I began Sunday on the Elroy-Sparta State Trail. There were other ways to go, by road, but I wanted to check out the (former railroad) tunnels along the path. The trail maintains a maximum of 3% grade, so it's much easier going than the roads alongside. There were places where the railroad grade (made entirely of cinders) towered at least 200 feet above the landscape! The first tunnel I reached turned out to also be the longest, fully a mile long! It was blasted through solid granite, so there's no need for supports to hold the ceiling up, but there's an overhead spring halfway through that drips throughout most of the tunnel. Signs at either end instruct cyclists to walk their bikes. I started in not knowing how long the tunnel was -- it's perfectly straight, and you can see the light at the other end clearly. I kept turning around and seeing that I wasn't yet halfway through! Finally as I got near the halfway point and the dripping water turned into a rain shower, I started to panic and got out my headlamp. As I put it on, I realized I was still wearing my sunglasses!

I left the trail at the little town of Norwalk, whose twin mottos are "Gateway to the Tunnels" and "Black Squirrel Capital of the World." I didn't see any squirrels, but the logos were cute. I got an early lunch and prepared for the road portion of my ride. The route I had chosen bypassed the town of La Farge via a local road. This seemed like a good idea on the map, and it looked that way for the first mile, but then the pavement gave out and I had to climb a long, steep hill on gravel, pushing the bike. So that wasn't fun at all. But I still wound up arriving at Dreamtime Village at about 5:00.

Most of the residents of Dreamtime Village are artists and few are handymen. The buildings, which were in disrepair when they were acquired more than a decade ago, are still in disrepair, though most of the walls have been artistically painted. I was reminded of the Golgafrinchans in the Hitchhiker's Guide stories. But they're great people, very laid back, very much into living in harmony with each other and the land. There are about a dozen adults and two teens who live there most of the time. The feeling when you walk around the grounds is that civilization has ended and nature is taking everything back, and the people have decided to let it.

This morning I managed to find a relatively flat route out of the hills (the "driftless" area of Wisconsin that has never seen glaciers). The route I found was so easy going that I made it all the way to Mauston -- on the edge of the driftless area --by 1:30. That gives me the whole afternoon to get to a campsite!

Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on August 23, 2004]

Hi, folks! I had a great visit with my friends this weekend, in spite of record-low temperatures and a bear on the loose. They let me sleep indoors. ;-)

I'm at a Kinko's in Appleton now on my way toward the Lake Michigan coast. There's a headwind this morning but it's been very easy going so far; I'm going to have to resist the urge to go all the way to Manitowoc today because I don't want to wear myself out like I did after my last day off.

Just a few logistical updates for those of you who like to hear about the challenges of traveling.

Yesterday I went to the AT&T Wireless store about a mile from where I am right now, planning to follow the advice I'd gotten from one of their phone support people last week. He said I could get the same coverage for less money if I bought a newer phone that uses GSM rather than digital service. However, the salesman at the store advised me against it, saying the extent of the GSM coverage would be significantly worse than digital. So no upgrade, I thought; end of story.

After leaving the store, I happened to pass a kiosk selling both AT&T and Verizon service, and I noticed that Verizon's digital coverage was better than AT&T's. I asked about the rates and found that I could save about $20/month by switching, plus I could get a much cooler phone for free (after rebate). The only downside is that since I'm not in the 612 area code, they can't transfer my Minneapolis phone number to the new phone until I've had it for 60 days. If I lost my 612 number I'd have to notify not only friends and family but also my banks, domain name registrars, and so on. Big hassle.

But I sat down and did some calculations and found that even if I have to pay for two cell phones for 60 days in order to keep my number, I'll *still* save money by switching. So I'm doing it. I tell you this not to toot Verizon's horn at all, but because in the past I've recommended AT&T for their rural coverage, and I can't do that anymore. My momma told me, you better shop around.

On the health-insurance front, Blue Cross still says they haven't received the medical records that Abbot Northwestern claims they sent last week, so I still have no insurance. I don't know who's to blame here -- could be either of those faceless bureaucracies or the postal service -- but I suspect Abbot because they failed to send the records at all the first time I requested them, over two months ago. So if any of you in the Twin Cities want to organize a glove-slap posse to go demand satisfaction on my behalf, I'd love to hear about it.

Next time I write, I'll be in Michigan! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on August 25, 2004]

Hi folks! On Tuesday afternoon I took the ferry from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan. I'm now on my way down the Lake Michigan coast, hoping to reach Kalamazoo by Friday. Here are some reflections on my two weeks in Wisconsin.

Local produce I sampled, buying most of it directly from the farmers: apples, beer, bison, brats, cheese, corn, cream, eggs, fudge, ice cream, melons, milk, peaches, pears, peppers, tomatoes.

Favorite place I visited on purpose: Tunnel #3 on the Elroy-Sparta trail.

Favorite place I found by accident: Rock Ridge Primitive Campground, under construction at mile 11 of the Red Cedar State Trail.

Favorite smell: a field of dill.

Least favorite smell: a field where liquid manure (i.e. untreated sewage presumably from pigs but not necessarily) was being applied.

Favorite cultural difference: In Wisconsin, ice houses are called "fishing shanties," and they have decks and pontoons on them so they can be used on open water as well as on ice. I'm sure someone in Minnesota has thought of this, but in six years of living there I never saw such a thing.

Favorite differences so far in Michigan: Public trails here are called "linear parks" even if they go in circles. Also, a convenience store that doesn't sell gas is a "party store."

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on August 29, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm writing from Battle Creek, Michigan, where I'm staying with a friend for the weekend. Here are some notes from my journal from the last few days.

I was on the road at 7:30 Tuesday morning, anxious not to miss the ferry. As it was, I got to Manitowoc 2 hours early, though very tired from Monday's ride. I went straight to the Lake Michigan shore and happened to see the S.S. Badger on the horizon. I got some good photos of it approaching the dock. I stopped for a snack at a local place and wound up buying a full lunch plus dessert, the deal was so good.

Got to the ferry in plenty of time and checked the whole boat over before it set sail. I took my first photo ever with a cell phone, showing the lifeboats with inboard motors. The Badger is one of a set of coal-burning car ferries -- originally for railroad cars -- made during the '50s, and the only one still in service. Coal-burning ferries were hailed as part of the solution to the '70s energy crisis (according to the ship's museum) but the belching brown smoke looks archaic today.

The ferry has lots of seating of different types in different places, including a movie room and private quarters. A lot of passengers are content to ride inside with a TV screen, but I stayed out on deck for most of the 4 hour ride. As soon as the boat left harbor, I wished I had skipped the rich food on shore... I was queasy for about half the trip, but it was still very enjoyable.

Got into Ludington, MI around 6 EDT and headed straight for the campground some friends had recommended. As they had warned, it's pricey, but you can't beat the location: right across from their favorite pizza place! That night there was a serious downpour that plastered my tent and bike with mud, but nothing got damaged.

I woke to the sound of foghorns in the harbor but didn't see any fog until after I had finished errands in town and hit the road -- then the fog was thick enough I felt I had to turn on my taillight. The roads I took from Ludington to Hart looked ideal on the map but turned out to have a lot of traffic and no shoulders much of the time. I was discouraged and tired when I got to Hart, but the prospect of a rail trail -- free of charge (!) and paved with asphalt (!!) spurred me on.

The Hart-Montague Trail (technically a "Linear State Park") was a wonderfully easy ride. Outside of Hart I bought a bag of peaches from an unattended roadside stand. I bought the smallest bag offered, but it was still 12 peaches... I ate 3 immediately and 4 more during the day and gave the rest away to strangers. In the days to come I wished I still had fresh peaches, but I didn't want to attract any wildlife by keeping them overnight!

I got into Montague around 7:00, and the trail brought me right to the campground, as well as an ice cream shop, a grocery store, and a huge pharmacy. Judging by the campground, it's a big town for snowbirds.

I had a strong headwind all day Thursday, and the road from Montague to Muskegon was pretty unfriendly to cyclists, so that I was tired and discouraged when I got to town. I tried to get info about the trail to Grand Rapids, which would have shortened the distance to Kalamazoo (being diagonal), but what info I could find just pointed me more toward my original plan, to continue south through Grand Haven. I did learn of a trail -- shown on the Rail-Trail-Conservancy map of the state -- from Grand Haven to Holland. The prospect of another flat, asphalt path buoyed my spirits, and I headed south from Muskegon. Along the way a trucker forced me off the road: first time yet. I also stopped for sweet corn and discovered that my front brake was dragging (!!). It was easy to fix, but I wish I'd noticed it earlier!

Got to Grand Haven and discovered that if there was a railroad grade to Holland, the road must have taken it, because the trail certainly did not. No matter: my afternoon second wind had kicked in, and I tackled the roller-coaster hills with determination and vigor. I had had high hopes for Holland State Park. That turned out to be a mistake. The Michigan parks have had their budgets slashed and so have had to cut services and raise prices, so for $16 I got a site with no fire pit, no picnic table, no elecricity, and noisy neighbors. I did get to walk to the beach after sunset and see Lake Michigan by moonlight.

On Friday I followed back roads south until I reached the Kal-Haven trail (which goes west as far as South Haven on the coast), then followed the trail into Kalamazoo. After two free, paved state trails, I was expecting Kal-Haven to be free and paved, but it was crushed limestone and cost $3. Still it was a good trail and got me to the western edge of Kalamazoo about 6:30.

I asked some fellow cyclists about camping options. They didn't know of any, but they directed me toward some cheap hotels. Along the way I saw People's Church Unitarian Universalist, with some cars parked in the lot, so I stopped in and asked about camping. They let me use the phone, and I soon determined that there were no cheap hotels on the near side of town. The church folks let me camp on the grounds for free. After they left I took a sponge bath at the outside spigot. A tremendous thunderstorm passed through overnight, but again none of my gear got damaged. When I took down the tent I found it was covered with slugs, though!

I rode into Kalamazoo and visited a bike shop, where I got a new mirror to replace the one that broke the day before when the bike fell on it, and the People's Food Coop. I had been looking forward to visiting my first actual coop since the Twin Cities, but it turned out to be a little hole in the wall place without much selection. Fortunately I had found a commercial natural-foods store the day before and stocked up on staples.

At 1:00 I met Sister Ginny, who is the founder of the Manitou Arbor Ecovillage, now 6 years in the making. They have a plot of ground (to be sold them by the Sisters of St. Joseph) and a rough plan of what buildings will go where, but that's about it: no organizational status, no deed transfer, no floorplans, no financing. Over the years people have come and gone from the group, some frustrated by the consensus decision-making, others just out of time. Sister Ginny is highly qualified to start an ecovillage: she has degrees in ecology and at least two related fields, she teaches eco-spirituality at the Sisters of St. Joseph, and she has lots of connections. The members of the group have all the skills necessary to make this happen... they just need to do it. I'm sure progress is being made, but it's a little slow for my taste. [2014 update: it still has not happened.]

From there I rode to Battle Creek, getting in around 5 PM. It was very satisfying to see the familiar landmarks and realize that I'd pedaled all the way this time! A Greyhound bus passed me just as I entered town, as if to remind me how I'd arrived the previous times. I had dinner with my friend Keith, who's hosting me for two nights, and went with him to a social hour at Sign of the Covenant Metropolitan Community Church, where I'm an "honorary lifetime member" on account of my contributions 7 years ago. Looks like most or all of the female members have left the congregation, but that doesn't seem to concern the men much. We had a nice talk, and I'll see them again Sunday morning.

Q: Does it feel like fall out there?

A: On and off. Close to Lake Michigan the maples are already turning, but farther from the coast everything's still green.

Q: Have you gotten into any good books along the way?

A: To the extent I can... the only time I have for reading paper books is after I'm tented down for the night, and then it's only about 20 minutes before I fall asleep. Books on tape are even more of a challenge, since they require a quiet road or bike trail. Still, I have been doing some reading in both media. Nothing I'm eager to recommend. Given the time constraints it's probably just as well that I'm not sucked into some compelling novel; it might detract from the scenery, etc.

'Till later,

Ben

[sent to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 2, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm safe and sound in Ann Arbor, MI, where I visited with some college friends last night, and where my sister will meet me for the next few days.

Battle Creek is much the same as when I interned there 7 years ago; the biggest change is that Kellogg's and Post have moved a lot of their manufacturing overseas, most notably Kellogg's Corn Flakes, which are now made in Mexico. That shook people up a bit.

The trip here from Battle Creek was uneventful... I covered about half the distance on Monday, so Tuesday was a very short ride to a campsite in the over-hyped "Scenic Irish Hills." I spent most of Tuesday afternoon doing some overdue maintenance on my tent, then woke Wednesday morning to find that a heavy dew had undone all the careful drying. So I waited a couple hours for the tent to dry again before heading into Ann Arbor.

Q: (Regarding Wisconsin produce) You didn't eat the bison and brats raw, did you?

A: Of course not, silly! The bison was jerked, and brats seem to be served -- cooked -- wherever food is sold in Wisconsin. I think it's a state law.

Q: (Regarding beer) Is there a DUI for cyclists?

A: Yeah, it's called Losing One's Balance And Smashing Into Something, or LOBASIS for short. I drink only rarely, and never during the day.

Q: Are the rail trails only for bikers, or can walkers use them too?

A: They're certainly open for use by walkers, but most of them cover longer distances than most people could comfortably walk, so I've only seen walkers close to towns and other parking places. Actually most of the trails are also open for use by rollerbladers, snowmobilers, and cross-country skiiers, though their appropriateness for any of those uses obviously varies with the seasons.

Q: I wonder, if you called ahead, whether any UU congregations would welcome an itinerant lay preacher/autoharpist who might be allowed to camp in somebody's yard with the prospect of an _indoor_ shower?

A: I tried that during my last bike trip two years ago, but I found that church staff were reluctant to volunteer anyone's home, even their own. I had better luck showing up to Sunday services and introducing myself, though getting to a church in time for a service without being all sweaty was a challenge.

Q: My 7yr old son has a question for you...Why does your bike look different than mine? (He has your standard kid looking bike!)

A: The kind of bike you usually see is historically called the "Safety frame," since it was more safe than the ones with big front wheels that came before. Nowadays they're more commonly called "upright" bikes, because your feet are underneath you as you ride. The kind of bike I have is called a "recumbent," because that's the Latin word for "lying down," and some recumbent bikes make you look like you're lying on a sofa. Mine is more like an easy chair or a car seat, so it's properly called a "semi-recumbent." Some people ride recumbent bikes for their speed -- the fastest bikes on Earth are recumbents. But I'm more interested in comfort. Upright bikes make my wrists hurt, which is bad for typing and other daily activities. Once I started riding a recumbent, it was so comfortable I thought, "I could do this all day long!" Then I thought, "Hey, if I did it all day long, I could really get somewhere!" The main disadvantage of recumbent bikes is that they tend to be expensive, which is why they aren't made for kids. But I have seen a kit that lets you turn a kid's bike frame into the front half of a recumbent bike for an adult!

That's all for now. Take care! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 4, 2004]

A few stories to share:

I've been visiting with my sister here in Ann Arbor; she drove over from Pittsburgh, and we're staying in a hotel south of town. The road the hotel is on carries a lot of traffic and has a complicated median to prevent southbound cars from reaching the hotel; you have to go about half a mile farther south, turn around in another parking lot, and approach from the northbound lanes. Arriving by bike on Thursday evening, I didn't know what the setup would be, so I crossed the median, which involved jumping a couple of curbs. As I came down off the median to cross the northbound lanes and enter the parking lot, I heard a clinking sound behind me. I didn't dare turn and see what it was, because cars were coming, but as soon as I got off the road I stopped and looked at what the cars were all running over ... it was one of the two hose clamps that held my trailer hitch on the bike. The other clamp was still intact, so I pulled on into the hotel lot. By the time I had the bike inside the hotel room, the steel hitch, pulled down at an angle by the off-center weight of the trailer, had cut through its protective rubber layer (a piece of cut hose) and gouged a hole in the aluminum frame of the bike. Fortunately there's no structural damage, and even more fortunately I had a spare piece of hose and two spare hose clamps, so the hitch is good as new again. But if I hadn't heard the clinking sound and had spare parts on hand, it could have been worse!

Story number two... I was looking at the list of subscribers to this list and recognized an old high-school friend. I wrote him an e-mail asking what he's been up to for the last 10 years, and he was happy to supply details, but he didn't know what list I was talking about. Come to find out, he's cycled across the US himself and subscribed to this list without knowing that he knew me! I guess it is a small world after all.

Enjoy the photos! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 7, 2004]

Hi, folks. As I write this it's the evening of Labor Day, and I'm at a beautiful campground near a swimming beach at an old limestone quarry south of Bowling Green, Ohio, but I'll probably send the message tomorrow from the vicinity of Findlay. My sister and I had a great time in Ann Arbor, catching up, seeing sights, and visiting friends. On Friday we walked rather too much around downtown -- Ann Arbor's downtown covers about as much area as Minneapolis's -- and then had dinner at Hei Wa House.

Hei Wa House is a co-op that's been around for almost 20 years in several different locations. The founder now owns the current house but plans to sell it to the co-op organization when his family moves next door in a year. They're listed in the Ecovillage Directory because of their solar water preheater, nascent car-sharing arrangement, and a general ecological focus. There are currently 6 adults and 2 kids living in the house, and they share all household expenses, plus dinner every night (in contrast to Dreamtime Village, where shared meals are rare and most food is labeled with someone's name). They have a very generous guest policy, for those who don't have friends in town or pregnant sisters to think of.

On Saturday morning we visited a new branch library that's been designed with passive solar heating and cooling, plus an elaborate rainwater runoff system. I wasn't able to get a good angle for a photo, alas. We spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening with family friends, who took us to see Sunward Cohousing, the first of three cohousing developments on one large plot of land. The residents have done a lot to make their places more eco-friendly than typical condos, but the development's location on the edge of town means that it's surrounded by a moat of parking spaces and a wall of garages. 'Becca and I got some good photos on her camera, which I hope to be able to share with you later.

On Sunday morning I bid 'Becca farewell and went to church on my way out of town. Again: liberal people plus remote location equals no bicycles. I got a lot of dirty looks and sideways comments for "blocking the sidewalk" when I parked my bike and trailer at the church's only rack! But a lot of the same people stopped to ask questions about my trip on their way out.

Ann Arbor had felt too large, too busy, and too car-centric for my taste, so hitting the open road Sunday afternoon felt fantastic. I cruised to within a few miles of the Ohio border but the only campsite available (due to the Labor Day weekend) was $27 a night! For a "primitive" site with no hookups! I kept riding. When the sun was about an hour from setting, I stopped at a friendly-looking house and asked the elderly residents if they knew anywhere I could camp "without bothering anyone." At first they said no, but as I was leaving they offered me a back corner of their yard. No bathroom, little privacy, but you can't beat the price! I woke rested and ready to hit the road at 12:30 AM -- I'd mistaken the glow from my hosts' security light for dawn. When dawn finally did arrive, I headed to Ohio in search of a restroom!

Toledo's suburban sprawl reaches right up to the edge of Michigan cropland, making the border very visible. I had a hard time of it today (Monday) because of a strong headwind, plus sore muscles and a slight sunburn from yesterday. I found a nice park to rest in during the heat of the day, and I did my laundry from yesterday at the water fountain's side spigot. Beautiful dry air made short work of the drying.

Bowling Green reminds me a lot of Grinnell, Iowa, only about 3x bigger. Lots of college students, a healthy downtown, and a few big box stores creeping south to a major highway. There's even a Pagliai's Pizza and an Environmental Action Group. Everything was open on Labor Day, unlike in the smaller towns I'd passed through.

So about this quarry... from Bowling Green I tried to call ahead to the campground shown on my map, but it seems no longer to exist. The only campground that looked promising was the "Portage Quarry Recreation Club," and when I called them they said they only charged $4 a night, plus $4 admission. What a deal! You can rent scuba gear, swim at a nice sandy beach, or dive from various platforms. The campsites are as nice as ones I paid $20 for in Michigan, though there are no showers... the beach will do nicely, after a hot day like this! And now the drunk people are all going home, so I'll have the place to myself! (Also the mosquitos...)

What I'll miss most about Michigan: Fruit! Peaches, apples, blueberries, and plums were all in season while I was there, along with some others that I didn't sample. Also clean shoulders; Michigan is really good about picking up litter and roadkill. What I won't miss about Michigan: Expensive campsites. Also unfriendly strangers. I got out of the habit of waving to drivers because so few waved back or even looked in my direction, but that changed as soon as I crossed the border.

I'll write again from Columbus! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 10, 2004]

Well, it's official: I've been on the road for a month now. More than that: for the past month I've been going east, and for the next month I'll go back west before turning south. Lancaster, OH, which I'll reach tomorrow, is the farthest east I plan to go until next winter. It feels really good to look at the map and see how far I've gone in just a month!

I'm writing from a cousin's house in Westerville, OH, a suburb of Columbus. I got here yesterday evening only because I rode two days' distance on Wednesday. Tuesday morning, you may recall, I was at a former quarry south of Bowlng Green. It rained that morning and my tent got thoroughly soaked, and I had to put it away wet.

I followed the Slippery Elm trail (named for the trees that were used to make the first rails of the track during an oil boom in the early 1800s -- I guess iron must have been scarce!) to North Baltimore, then continued south to Findlay before turning southeast and finding a campground near the little town of Vanlue. Wednesday morning I woke to find that, against all odds, my tent was totally dry. I hurried to put it away, and as I rolled up the groundcloth rain started falling.

It fell all day long, nonstop. I also rode all day long, bypassing the place I'd planned to stop for the night and continuing all the way to Delaware State Park north of Columbus. Riding in the rain presents some challenges... putting your gear in waterproof containers is the easy part; the hard part is keeping it there even though you need it. Since I had noplace dry to stop, I just didn't stop... at least not as often as I usually try to.

One place I did stop was a bar in the little town of Marseilles (I neglected to ask how the locals pronounce it). I must have looked like a drowned rat when I lurched in the door and into the restroom. Then I asked for a cup of coffee, and the proprietor had to start it brewing. I was the only customer, and she was happy to have someone to talk to. She's had a laryngectomy and uses a buzz box to talk -- must make customers reluctant to smoke in the place. She'd been watching the Weather Channel and was sure I'd run into severe weather hundreds of miles away. She wound up not only giving me the coffee for free but handing me a half dozen bags of snacks. I discretely left her a tip.

The private campgrounds I've visited in Ohio have been so inexpensive ($5-$8) that I expected the state park to be similarly priced. I was surprised when they asked for $22, but I'd ridden about 80 miles and the sun had already set, so I wasn't in a position to argue! Anyhow, I got to Cousin Jeff's place on Thursday afternoon, let myself in, and helped myself to his laundry room: my clean laundry had been wet since Monday, and I hadn't washed any since.

Today (Friday) I planned to make a day trip into Columbus and back to Jeff's by evening. What a rush to get on my bike without the trailer attached -- I felt like I had a jet engine mounted behind the seat! But I spent so much time at the Westerville library that I didn't get very far into town before it was time to turn back, so after coming all this way I still haven't set foot in downtown Columbus. But I learned enough at the library and during the ride to know that I don't want to move here; that was an option I had been considering.

Columbus has a lot of bike paths -- the one I was riding was numbered 47, and I saw a sign for number 51 -- but there doesn't seem to be a comprehensive map of where they are or where they go. Same goes for the bus system: there are individual route maps, but master maps for the city are not available. Room for improvement, I suppose.

Q: I'm impressed at how much distance you're covering! It sounds like this could be a really viable form of transportation ... "after the fall" of cheap petroleum, etc.

A: I'd thought about that, particularly after seeing Kevin Costner's portrayal of The Postman. But my rapid progress has everything to do with good roads, and good roads are (currently) maintained by big machines. So if the big machines stop running, we may have to do like the Postman and ride horses. :-)

Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 16, 2004]

Hi, folks. I'm safely under the wing of my friend Bill, who was my youth director at church 10 years ago and whom I haven't seen since... he's now a minister, and he has a 9-year-old son who is really into geography and soccer.

Between the message I sent you Tuesday and the page of photos it linked you to, you've already got a pretty clear picture of the ride from Lancaster to Cincinnati. I had a very hard day on Tuesday and kept revising my expectations downward, so that I didn't pass through Xenia after all but bypassed it to the south. Most of the day yesterday I was following the paved rail-trail that stretches northeast from the Cincinnati suburbs well past Xenia and nearly into Columbus.

Once I got off the trail in Milford, things got a little tricky. I misjudged the width of a Milford sidewalk and smacked the hub of my left trailer wheel into a pole. I thought at first that the axle had been bent because the tire was rubbing against the frame of the trailer, but on further inspection I found that the entire frame had been knocked out of square... that is, instead of a rectangle it had become a trapezoid. A nice local police officer bought me a pop while he watched me fix it: I had to loosen about 18 bolts, straighten the frame, and retighten them all.

I had more misadventures with the trailer as I struggled into Anderson Township where Bill lives. Bill's wife is the director of a large theater complex (similar to the Guthrie in Minneapolis), so they have a much larger house in a much wealthier neighborhood than Bill's ministerial salary could provide, and that's great for their parenting options, etc.. But affluent neighborhoods aren't designed for bikes. At one point the entire trailer tipped over sideways into a busy street as I rode down curb at an angle... It couldn't be helped; there was no other way to go. Anyhow, everything's fine.

The local branch library doesn't have the maps I need, but the downtown library will be on my way tomorrow morning. There's a bike trail that follows the river all the way from here to the Indiana border ... which is ideal because otherwise Cincinnati is a very hilly place.

Q: How did you do that map?

A: I found the beautiful contour map of the US just by searching the Web for "contour map united states," and I'm afraid I've reproduced it without credit. I've edited it now with Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, and The GIMP... whatever software I find on a computer is what I use. Basically I just used a round paintbrush tool for the dots and the pencil tool to make the purple line (hold down shift to connect dots).

Q: Your legs look very fit. Are you planning to compete?

A: Although I wrote about going "fast" in a previous message, my average speed is between 5 and 10 miles per hour, so unless there's a bike equivalent of a tractor pulling competition, I don't think I'd stand a chance!

Q: I wonder if my color monitor is offtune? Your hair and beard seem brighter red than I recall (maybe sun-bleached?)

A: Probably a little of both... my hair is definitely lighter from sun exposure -- especially on my arms -- but also the colors are off on that latest batch of photos. Rob's computer didn't have any of the programs named above, so I used the software that comes on the PictureCD to get the photos ready for the Web, and it doesn't allow color correction. If you research PictureCD technology on the Web, you'll find that a lot of photographers complain about what it (and its professional sibling, PhotoCD) does to colors. Fortunately I have the negatives as well!

Time for lunch! Since there's no Waffle House in Ohio, Bill has transferred his all-you-can-eat appetite to a local Indian restaurant. :-) --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 18, 2004]

Hi, folks. I'm writing from Whitewater Memorial State Park, near Liberty, Indiana. I had planned to reach Indiana yesterday, but I'm starting to think that best-laid plans are best laid aside! Get ready for a long and rambling story...

Thursday I called the contact I had for the nascent Cincinnati Ecovillage group, and I soon learned that I should have called a day earlier. A longstanding intentional community / CSA farm called Grailville, outside Loveland (which I passed through unawares on Wednesday) has offered to sell part of its land to ecovillagers, so those members of the Cincinnati group who had rural inclinations have split to close that deal, and the remaining urban types have decided to try to green their existing neighborhoods. Had I known about Grailville on Wednesday, I might have visited it, but by Thursday I was too far away.

I left Bill's place Friday morning in a steady rain that was forecast to last all day long. I headed for the Ohio River, where a city Web site had told me there was a bike trail that would take me right into downtown. On the way I slammed into a large pothole that was concealed by a puddle. Immediately after that, I noticed a popping sound coming from my front wheel. I assumed it was the spokes, knocked out of their delicate balance by the impact. (One drawback of small wheels is that they have fewer spokes, so my front wheel has this trouble a lot.)

I stopped at a convenience store and got a cup of coffee to sip while I fixed the spokes, but when I got the bike upside down I found that the spokes were fine. Hmm. I got directions to the bike trail and was back on my way. As soon as I was on the trail, away from traffic noise, I could tell that it was not a musical pinging spoke sound after all, but a sickening crunching sound that could only be the bearings. I had visions of fragments of broken bearing rolling around inside the hub... I stopped at a park shelter to investigate.

When I got the hub open, I found that the bearings were intact, just a little rusty on one side where I hadn't adequately greased the hub when I worked on it in July. The noise was probably caused by a little piece of grit that worked its way in there. I took a leisurely hour to clean, pack, and grease the hub. (The task was complicated by the rain and gusty wind; I was lucky not to lose any of the frisky little balls in the drafty, flooded picnic shelter.)

The newly rebuilt hub was so smooth and quiet, such a satisfying piece of work, that I wasn't at all upset to learn that I had lost my bearings after all: I was on the wrong bike trail, headed out of downtown instead of into it! (It helped that the rain had also stopped, as it always seems to do when forecast to continue all day.) As it turned out, the trail along the river doesn't actually exist yet. No matter, I found a good route into downtown and arrived at the main library only about 3 hours later than I'd intended!

Now, the main Cincinnati library is an awe-inspiring place, nearly two city blocks in area and six stories tall (including basements). Wow! By the time I'd photocopied the Indiana maps I needed, it was 2:30, and I was sorely tempted to stop at the library cafe (!!) for a meal. Instead I made a beeline to the stash of snacks on my bike, where the first of several people informed me that according to a recent news story, Kryptonite brand locks such as mine can be picked with an ordinary ballpoint pen. Good to know, I guess, though I have to question the motivation of the guy who broke the story.

Before leaving the library I tried to retrieve my voicemail, thinking Bill might have heard back from a friend who wanted to put me up for the night, and I found that my AT&T number had been disconnected -- by Verizon! After half an hour on the phone with Verizon, we had the matter straightened out, and my old number is now transferred at last to my new phone. (Bureaucracy watchers will be pleased to hear that my other corporate snafu is resolved as well: I finally have health insurance! Hooray!)

So it was probably 3:30 by the time I left downtown: rush hour. The route I had chosen after studying maps of the city was a very revealing cross-section of the town, which is to say it took me through a severely blighted neighborhood. I later learned there had been race riots there a few years ago. I also had to go through this neighborhood very slowly, thanks to a hill that stretched for well over a mile. On the far side of the hill I hit some more potholes at high speed, and I broke another hose clamp on my trailer hitch! (Although I installed new clamps in Ann Arbor, I wasn't satisfied with the way they were holding in place, so I realigned them that morning and may have weakened them in the process.)

I stopped in a slightly better-looking neighborhood, and as I was installing a new clamp, a cyclist stopped to talk with me. He's hoping to do some long-distance touring of his own, but so far he only goes short distances in town; in fact he was thinking of riding the bus home. But since I was heading his way, he offered to show me a route that would be less hilly and less trafficked. By the time we had covered a few miles, he had offered to feed me dinner and let me camp in his back yard!

Mike and his mother Fran are both very interesting and generous people. Fran has mixed feelings about Mike's dreams of touring and took me in because "You're someone's son, and I know I'd want someone to take my son in." I tried to make their hospitality worth their while by showing them travel photos and playing the autoharp, but really my only option is to "pay it forward," as they say. After reflection, I decided to leave Mike my Ohio maps, since I wouldn't be needing them much longer. So now he has my bearings! I only got lost twice this morning without them...

Also, I've begun to realize that I'm enriching a lot of people's lives just by passing them on the street... a bunch of kids in inner-city Cincinnati saw their first recumbent bike yesterday, for example. Even if people think I'm a freak or a clown, at least I've shown them another way of travel is possible. On my way out of town this morning (Saturday) I visited the park I'd been headed for when I met Mike. Called Winton Woods, it's a county park located inside Cincinnati, and it has a campground as nice as any I've seen. But I bet they don't serve homemade cheeseburgers or blueberry-coconut-pecan muffins, so I definitely got the better deal!

The ride into Indiana was uneventful. I'm finally out of the hills that surround Cincinnati, so it should be smooth sailing all the way into Indianapolis! --Ben

[Posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 22, 2004]

Hi, folks. I'm writing from the home of my uncle, aunt, and two cousins in Indianapolis. I'll be leaving tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

I last wrote you Saturday night from Whitewater Memorial State Park in Indiana, which turns out to be a very popular weekend getaway for families with young children. I have the following to say to the parents of America: if you must buy electric scooters for your children, do not bring them camping. No one wants to listen to your kids riding their scooters to the bathroom early in the morning. Two or more scooters going by together sound just exactly like a Martian invasion fleet. Get your kids nice quiet bicycles instead. Thank you.

So that was Sunday morning. My maps, circa 1999, said there was a bike route north from the park to Richmond, and then recommended biking along US-40 into Indianapolis. I was skeptical, so I asked at the park office. The rangers assured me that although there was no bike route per se, I would do well to follow a valley through a series of small towns into Circleville (west of Richmond) and then take US-40. I rode into Circleville and sought out another opinion about riding on the highway.

A strapping young man at an antique shop -- who let me send my previous message to this list from the phone in his store -- assured me that the highway is the ideal way to bicycle into Indy, no question. Well, OK... Turns out they were all correct: US-40 is a great road for biking. The shoulders are generous and well maintained, traffic is light and polite (at least on a Sunday), and the hills are so gradual I was in high gear most of the day. And I really cruised! Some days I hit my stride at 5 MPH, but some days it's more like 15!

I rode nearly to Knightstown before heading north toward the only campground I knew of, Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park, Voted One of Indiana's Five Best Family Resort Campgrounds. I was dreading this, since I expected to have to pay for a lot of services I wouldn't be using. But as I crossed I-70, I saw a "campground" sign at a truck stop, and sure enough, there were people camping there. At $10 it was competitive with the most affordable state parks, the facilities were better than average (private shower rooms!), the highway noise and light pollution weren't all that much worse than at some parks, and on top of everything it had a fully-stocked convenience store and two restaurants open 24-7. So I slept at the truck stop! I did wind up wearing earplugs and a ski mask over my eyes, but I slept great, and I'll definitely look for more truck stops in the future.

I got into Indianapolis early on Monday afternoon and killed a few hours at a library before dropping in on my relatives. One of my cousins is a high-school senior and the other is in 8th grade, so they're on the go all the time, but we had a nice visit. I spent this morning on the Internet and rode into town after lunch. Indianapolis feels a lot like Minneapolis transportation-wise (which I mean as a compliment): it's about the same geographic size, it's flat as a pancake, it has a good system of bike trails in place and more in the works, and although people complain about the bus system it seems pretty straightforward and well used.

I rode the Monon Rail Trail straight south from 75th Street into downtown. The only public trail I've ever seen with more people walking, skating, and biking just because it's a nice day is the one around Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. Tons of people. I was glad I didn't have my trailer because I had to weave around so many people. Anyhow.

I think I mentioned that when I saw the Cincinnati main library, my jaw hit the floor -- four floors above ground and two below, in three connected buildings. Well, the Indianapolis central library is closed for renovation and new construction that will triple its size. I thought I knew what to expect from an "interim" library, having seen the ones in Bartlesville and Minneapolis. But the interim location the Indy librarians scored used to be the Historical Society. Creamy marble walls and green marble columns and dark wooden banisters and a huge four story atrium and a stained glass ceiling and classical paintings above the doorways. I tried to get a photo but I couldn't get a wide enough angle to do the place justice. More than 90% of their collection is on the shelves, and this is just their temporary location. Now I see why the Minneapolis library board kept trying to get city council to think big!

So I got my route planned for Illinois and copied the maps I need. Looks like I'll cut straight west across Illinois to the ecovillages in southeast Iowa and northeast Missouri before heading down to St. Louis, instead of going to St. Louis first. It was a tough call, but I made the best decision I could with the information available. We'll see how it turns out! I may be out of touch between here and Peoria.

Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 26, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm writing from Peoria, which is to say midway across Illinois. The fact that I was in the middle of Indiana just four days ago kind of boggles my mind!

I left Indianapolis in no hurry on Wednesday morning but still managed to get all the way to Crawfordsville with time to spare. Similarly, on Thursday I got to Attica, IN -- my evening stop, close to the Illinois border -- around 1 PM and had plenty of time to reach a campground north of there. Both days the sun seemed to just hang in the sky, which I appreciated because I can tell the days are getting shorter!

In the little town of Attica I couldn't resist stopping at a candy store I'd seen hyped in a state-published travel brochure. It was less pretentious than the chocolatiers in downtown Ann Arbor, but still a far cry from my beloved, unassuming Candyland in Minneapolis. When I get home I may have to go to Candyland and order one of everything, just to make up for lost time!

So Friday I started cutting a burning trail across Illinois, headed straight west across some of the flattest terrain I've seen this side of North Dakota. I chose this route for that reason: I had so much trouble with the hills in Cincinnati that I didn't want to take any chances. But the trouble with going straight across a plain is that there's no escaping the wind or the sun... yesterday I got a bad sunburn on my south-facing thigh. The plains are getting flatter all the time; we've had more than a week without rain, so practically every field has a combine at work harvesting the seed corn and soybeans, and the roads are full of tractors and trucks pulling hoppers full of seed to the various grain elevators. It's kind of fun to watch, but I'll miss the scenery; stumps just aren't the same.

Friday morning I had a revelation: my search for ecovillages has been much too narrow. The country is full of thousands of intentional communities where long-term homeowners share space with short-termers and guests (as at Dreamtime Village), where people make an effort to live alongside nature, where the homes are full of energy-saving gadgets and are designed to work both on- and off-grid, where per-capita ecological footprints are much smaller than the American average, and where a balance is struck between private and public space (as in cohousing). I've been staying in these places practically every night for six months: they're private campgrounds. I know that permanent campground residents (April through November anyway; after that the water's shut off) are not typically the idealistic lot one associates with ecovillages, but that just makes it more exciting that they're living the way they are. I think there's a lot of potential... all it would take is a little push to turn America's campgrounds into ecovillages.

I was all excited about this idea until I arrived at my stop for Friday night: a truly wretched place literally 20 feet from the Interstate. Saturday's stop (near Eureka) was quite nice, and one of the "permanents" told me that he pays only $600 a year for his site, which comes to $2.50 per habitable night compared to the $17 a night I'm paying. At that rate an RV would pay for itself in just a few years.

Anyhow, when I made a library stop on Saturday morning I casually checked to see what the sermon topic would be at the Peoria UU church, just in case I could make it there in time. Their intern minister, a student at Meadville-Lombard Seminary in Chicago, was to speak about our relationship with the natural world. I called up a friend who's a student at the same seminary and asked if she knew the guy; not only is he a friend of hers, but she said he's lived at a couple of ecovillages, so she gave me his number and suggested I take him out for lunch!

So I got as close as I could to Peoria on Saturday night, which turned out to be about 25 miles from the church. Then I got up an hour before dawn and rode into town as quickly as I could and got there five minutes late, looking rather sweaty and unkempt. One of the parishoners kept scrutinizing me, and I thought she disapproved of my church attire, but it turned out she was the intern's wife, noticing the helmet-strap tanline on my neck and wondering if I was the mysterious biker who'd invited himself to lunch. The two of them wound up taking me for lunch, after a terrific sermon. The congregation was very friendly, and I was mobbed with questions during coffee hour. Roger and Lisa have lived in two ecovillages: Dancing Rabbit, which I'll visit in a few days, and one in South Carolina (I think) whose name I forget. They didn't get disillusioned per se, but they did decide to buy a private home instead of continuing ecovillage life.

In the afternoon I went in search of a library and a bike shop. The only library that was open was far north, and no bike shops were open, so I was a little disappointed, but in the library parking lot I was approached by a man who asked a lot of questions about my bike and trailer and eventually invited me to camp in his back yard. Come to find out he bought some land in Hawaii a few years ago with the intention of starting an ecovillage there -- he told me this without my having mentioned I was touring ecovillages -- and he likes autoharp music, so it should be a nice evening, and I can go to a bike shop in the morning, so it's really a good fit. It's amazing how these things work out.

Q: How do you power your cell phone? Do you just charge it whenever you stay somewhere long?

A: Yep. It only needs about an hour a week, so if I take it with me to the shower house in a campground every few days, that's usually enough.

Q: What is your budget for this entire trip?

A: Originally I had hoped to get down to $15 a day -- I figured $10 for camping fees and $5 for food -- or just over $5,000 for the year. But it looks like it's going to be more like $30 a day or $11,000 total, which I think you'll agree is still very reasonable for a year's expenses! That's including my health insurance and cell phone bill, by the way.

Thanks for the questions! I'll be in Iowa in a few days, at the rate I'm going... --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on September 29, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm writing from the shore of the Mississippi River, having just crossed back to the west side at Burlington, Iowa. It's noticably wider than it was in Minneapolis seven weeks ago! I'm looking forward to my next crossing in Louisiana... and to my ride down the River Road this coming week.

When I last wrote you I had accepted the invitation of a man named Mark to camp in his girlfriend's back yard in Peoria. Mark and Sheila were both raised in Peoria, went to college elsewhere, returned to be close to their families, and met each other a few years ago. Sheila bought a house that turned out to be full of termites and had to be completely gutted, so now it has no heat and no completed rooms, but she and Mark sleep there to deter vandals. She hopes to get it insulated by this winter. Mark attended an ecovillage class at The Farm a few years back and bought some land on the island of Hawaii that he hopes to turn into an ecovillage called Vegan Volcanoes, but his search for fellow villagers is on hold while he takes care of his great aunt. Anyhow, I had a good chat with the two of them and played the autoharp and sang some songs, and in the morning they gave me my first taste of pawpaws, which grow wild nearby and which taste like a cross between a papaya and a banana. I also accepted some rice & beans from Mark which were so tasty that I forgot I'm allergic.

Mark escorted me to the bike shop, where I got my front wheel trued (finally) and bought a replacement rear tire. That's the first tire I've worn out on this trip; I just put it on a few days before leaving Minneapolis. (The rear tire gets a lot more wear than the other three, since it's the drive wheel.)

I rode out of town and picked up the Rock Island Trail for about half a mile. I believe this may be the actual Rock Island Line of legend, that went "down to Noorleans" (song at right). She's a mighty good road, but if you want to ride it, got to ride it like you're flyin', and I was feeling ill from the beans. Besides, the trail goes farther north than I wanted to go.

I was feeling really rotten by the time I got to Jubilee College State Park, northwest of Peoria, in the early afternoon, so I got a campsite and took a nap. I felt better by evening and was able to cut my hair, do laundry, and install the new bike tire. I sat at a picnic table reading e-mail while the sun set and the full moon came up. When the moon rose above the treetops, the coyotes in the forest let out an unearthly chorus of celebration that lasted for about five minutes! Wow!

I got up in the middle of the night and found the moon completely dominating the scene; it cast such a good light I was tempted to get back on my bike and ride! By dawn a front had moved in, bringing overcast and gusty wind but also such dry air that my tent could be packed immediately. I rode all the way into Monmouth, birthplace of Wyatt Earp and home of Monmouth College, which I think may have tried to recruit me years ago. From there it was an easy morning's ride into Burlington, Iowa.

I got a little behind on my observations of state quirks...

Favorite Ohio quirk: A lot of rural homes in Ohio have swimming ponds instead of pools, with a sandy beach on one end and cobblestones the rest of the way around. A diving board, pontoon platform, and/or small boat are optional furnishings.

Favorite Indiana quirk: Just east of Indianapolis, and noplace else I've seen, the farmers plant morning glories along the edge of their cornfields. The vines climb the cornstalks and flower and look pretty. Then the following year the field is planted in soybeans, and the vines have nowhere to climb (soybean bushes only grow to about a foot high), so they sprawl out into the field about 10 or 20 feet and flower there. I assume they probably get killed by the broadleaf herbicide that's applied before corn is planted again, but still it's a nice touch. I got a photo. [I later learned the morning glories were unwanted weeds that had a permanent foothold in the road ditches. This was before Roundup-ready soybeans dominated the market.]

Favorite Illinois quirk: practically all the county roads are numbered on a strict Cartesian coordinate system. This means that if you're looking for the address 815 2300 N Rd, you can be sure to find it precisely 23 miles north of the county line, and precisely .15 miles east of 800 E Rd, if there is one. The down side is that if 2300 N Rd veers a quarter mile south at some point along its route, it will be called 2275 N Rd there, and your map may not reflect the change! Diagonal roads are named for the towns they connect, as all the county roads are in Indiana. (That can get confusing, since some of the towns apparently no longer exist.)

My next Internet access will be at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri, so I'll write from there! I hope to also update the photos on the Web site; sorry it's been so long, but I haven't had the technology at hand. --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on October 6, 2004]

Let's just say I misjudged the distance from Fairfield, IA to Rutledge, MO. I started getting anxious about the time before I was even in Missouri, but I called ahead to my destination and was offered a place to sleep in the barn that night. Encouraged by the prospect of not having to pitch my tent, and imagining at least three walls and some comfy straw, I pedaled on.

The sun set while I was in Memphis, MO, still several hours' ride from Sandhill Farm. I bought a hot dinner, put on an extra layer of clothing, turned on my lights, and set out in the dark. This was my first experience navigating by the stars, and it couldn't have been a nicer night for it: the sky was crystal clear, and my headlight was frequently the only light for half a mile. Since I was headed south, I watched Saggitarius pour tea while I rode. The road was hilly, but I had gotten my second wind over dinner and followed the painted stripe through twists and turns because I couldn't make out the fresh black asphalt in the darkness. I almost missed the turn for Sandhill Farm because my dying light wasn't strong enough to illuminate their sign. I straggled in around 10 PM and was directed to the barn, which turned out to have only two walls and a course gravel floor, but I made do.

In the morning everything looked much better. Sandhill Farm has been a commune for more than 30 years, producing 700-800 gallons of sorghum syrup for sale, plus honey, tempeh, 80% of their own food, and a variety of small crops for trade with neighboring farms. There are currently only 6 full members, plus one child, three interns, and a half dozen visitors like myself. (Most of the visitors had been there before, so they knew their way around.) Membership has been as high as 20 in the past. Members share income as well as expenses (and possessions, including cars), while interns are paid a stipend plus room and board. Everyone takes turns preparing meals and doing childcare; other jobs are divvied up based on personal preference. It's a very informal structure, but it works for them.

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, in contrast, is organized as a set of co-ops. There's a co-op for the land, one for the phones, one for the cars, several for meals, and several for composting. If you or your co-op need something, you buy it from another member or co-op. I have the impression that money is always changing hands there. It's no accident that Sandhill and DR are so close together: DR was founded by Sandhill residents who wanted to start an ecovillage, and they got a lot of support from Sandhill. Now the support goes both ways, and they share dinner once a week.

At Sandhill, the emphasis is on producing viable food for themselves and for market, so they haven't experimented much with solar power or energy-efficient construction. The engines run on gasoline, the heaters on propane, but they eat very well! DR, meanwhile, is all about experimentation. There are people living in old silos and tents and mud huts and trailers and a two-story dormitory made of strawbales. DR has a common house that was recently completed and looks great, but it doesn't have the family feel of Sandhill's common house. There are currently 26 residents at DR and they're actively recruiting more, though new residents will have to build their own homes. I should mention that most DR residents are in their 20s, while Sandhill spans the whole range from 9 to over 60.

I spent two days at Sandhill, minus a morning and evening at DR, just at the end of the sorghum harvest. I helped with loading the cut cane from the fields onto trailers (good thing I had heavy boots!), sticking labels on bottles, stoking the fire, and bottling the finished syrup. So if you see a bottle of Sandhill Sorghum, I may have helped make it! I also helped a little with food preparation, washing dishes, etc. I moved to the hayloft of another barn for the second and third nights, which was much more comfortable. All in all I had a great visit at Sandhill and would have liked to stay longer, but the road was calling me... so off I went again!

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on October 6, 2004, immediately after the post about Sandhill and Dancing Rabbit]

Hi, folks! Sorry to send so much at once, but I was out of dialup range for quite a while. In my last message I promised to tell you why Abundance Ecovillage and Fairfield, Iowa knocked my socks off. Here goes...

First and foremost, the people here are dynamic and energetic and talented. My host, Lonnie, is probably one of the biggest movers and shakers environmentally speaking, so my perceptions may be skewed by the people he introduced me to, but even so... here are some examples; I'll try to get the facts straight. Lonnie's father worked in hydroelectric power, so that was his introduction to renewable energy; since then he's learned enough about solar and wind power and permaculture that he teaches classes and consults both in Fairfield and in Hawaii.

He built his first strawbale house twelve years ago from locally-grown straw and lumber; that's the building I stayed in. His second was "experimental" and looks rather more like a hobbit hole than a traditional house, but Michael and his partner live there. Michael makes biodiesel fuel from used sesame oil he gets from the ayurvedic spas in town, and he uses it to fuel his own vehicles as well as the ecovillage's emergency generators. He also tinkers with electric cars, including a Sebring-Vanguard Citicar of the type I drove in high school.

Lonnie's third strawbale house is the one he lives in now, next door to the one I stayed in. These two houses are not at the ecovillage but two miles away, in a development where all the houses are off-grid: they produce their own electricity and heat, cool themselves in summer, and catch more than enough rainwater for household use. Lonnie says there are probably 40 such houses in Fairfield, with only 3 so far on the ecovillage site. So this is not just an ecovillage thing; it's all over town.

Lonnie's next-door neighbor Grover took a course from him in Hawaii, decided to move here and build his own house, and now teaches organic agriculture in Chiapas when he's not gardening and working here. Lonnie's wife Valerie is from Paris but caught the farming bug and now handles most of the farming at the ecovillage, from planning to market. She was out of town most of the time I was there, so I didn't get to talk to her much.

Brian was working his way across the country as a construction worker this summer when he stopped in Fairfield and decided to stay as an unpaid intern for the ecovillage. He's 24. He helped Lonnie teach a permaculture / renewable energy class at the University here in town just a few days ago, and the plan is that he'll supervise a permaculture intern program that will be held at the ecovillage next spring. And there are five more fascinating people who live in the first "model" house at the ecovillage, plus another group building a house right now, and still more who plan to build but haven't started yet. I met quite a few, but I can't keep their names and bios straight!

Second, there's a great sense of community and a spirit of working together all over town. After the movie Thursday night, Lonnie and I went for dinner at a Thai vegetarian deli (!) where, over half an hour, everyone who walked in the door not only knew Lonnie but was involved in some exciting piece of the puzzle: organic CSA farming, running the farmer's market, organizing the upcoming "Bioneers" conference, and so on. We left there for the health-food store -- the largest such store I've seen since leaving Minneapolis -- and he ran into another friend and the mother of one of his recent students. Friday night we attended the monthly Art Walk, when downtown businesses host art shows and concerts all evening. Then on Saturday there was a harvest festival (supplementing the weekly farmer's market), which was chaotic at times but very entertaining and profitable. It seems like everybody's working on something exciting to bring the community closer together.

Third, the cult factor of Maharishi University of Management turns out to not be as much of a turn-off as I had assumed; that's what's kept me from visiting Fairfield before. Although Lonnie is a devotee of Transcendental Meditation and goes to "the dome" daily to meditate (as required of all MUM faculty and students) and has pictures of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on display in both his houses, it's not something he talks about (unless asked) or has imposed on Brian. Same goes for the ecovillagers, many of whom are building their homes in accordance with Sthãpatya Veda™, the Maharishi's version of Feng Shui. It's a personal thing, apparently.

But I'm not the only one who's been scared away from the place because of TM's reputation as a cult; Lonnie says even some of the townspeople who don't meditate avoid events attended by meditators, even though the events may be completely unrelated to TM. (Note: very few people have learned TM in recent years because Maharishi set the price of training in the US prohibitively high. This is clearly counterproductive to the discipline as a whole and to the ideals it stands for, but nobody wants to go against Maharishi's wishes.)

Fourth, I had no idea any of this stuff was here, even though I lived less than two hours' drive away for four years. Grinnell is proud of (or at least resigned to) its reputation as the hippie capital of Iowa, but it appears to be in second place. For example, while Grinnell College was debating whether to allow students to have a garden on campus, MUM was committing to grow essentially all its own food, with students participating in every part of the process. It would have been useful to know that.

Finally, the name "Abundance" is right on target. Most ecovillage projects I've seen seem to start from the assumption that to live sustainably, you have to give things up: flush toilets, TV, hot showers, etc. Lonnie and his friends seem to be demonstrating that you can have more than enough clean water, more than enough hot water more than enough electricity and food and income and everything you need for satisfying life ... and still leave more than enough for the community of life around you. So my ecovillage map gets a big ol' dot in Fairfield. I don't know that I'd want to live there per se, but I do know that wherever I do live, I want it to have the dynamic, the community spirit, and the potential that I saw there, and it's good to know where to turn for a model!

Lonnie has an extensive library of books, magazines, videos, etc. in the house where I was staying, covering everything from The Far Side to the most obscure points of permaculture, computer programming, and electrical generation. I only looked through a couple of these, but they're worth mentioning: Computing Across America: The Bicycle Odyssey of a High-Tech Nomad by Steven K. Roberts is the book that some of you seem to want me to write about my trip. Trust me, Roberts has done a much better job than I could do. Not only does he write better prose (and better puns) than I do, but his trip was much more hard-core than mine, in pretty much every respect. So next time you think I should write a book, read this one instead. He even looks kinda like me. Ecovillage Living: Restoring the Earth and Her People is a compilation by Hildur Jackson and Karen Svensson of essays and case studies from around the world. Lots of luscious photos and useful information.

Favorite Iowa quirk: unlike Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where essentially every road is paved, most county roads in Iowa are gravel. The paved ones are designated as county highways, and though they might not have any additional signage on location, Delorme's Atlas labels them like highways, making them easy to follow from town to town. I got used to this convention on my previous bike trip, so I was disoriented early on in this trip when it turned out not to hold true in other states.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on October 10, 2004]

Hi, folks! I've arrived safe and sound at the home of my friends in St. Louis. I'll be here until at least Wednesday.

I followed the Great River Road -- primarily Missouri highway 79 -- most of the way south. I have to say that I cannot recommend it as a bike route, even though it's promoted that way on state Web sites and signs all along the way. In fact I would actively discourage anyone from riding that route until it has a paved shoulder. I hear that Illinois' Great River Road is better for biking, and I would have crossed, except of course that I didn't have my Illinois maps anymore. I can be very pigheaded sometimes.

Once I reached the metro area, I had a difficult time getting into "St. Louis City" from St. Louis County... you'd think no one had ever tried it by bike before. I stopped for directions five times in two hours. But once I got into the city it was smooth sailing. My mood was improved by stopping to celebrate at a genuwine Waffle House. My friends, I have tried waffles and chicken sandwiches all over this country, and nobody compares to Waffle House. I may have to stop there again on the way out of town! :-)

Now I'd like to take the time to share a few stories from the last few weeks. Story number one: Both of the bicyclists who have invited me to camp in their yards -- Mike in Cincinnati and Mark in Peoria -- toyed with the idea of hopping on their bikes and coming with me, but neither did so. The day I left Sand Hill, I met someone who had no reservations about leaving her settled life and traveling with me. Unfortunately she was a dog. She ran along with me for about seven miles; I stopped every few miles and tried to convince her to go home, but she would not be deterred from this new and exciting lifestyle. Eventually I enlisted the help of another dog owner to distract her while I rode away. I was sorry to lose the companionship, and I have to wonder what sort of unhappy home life she was leaving, but I couldn't have a dog along with me.

Story number two: The nights I slept in the hayloft at Sandhill Farm, I kept hearing rustling and gnawing sounds downstairs in the barn. I was worried that some mouse or rat was getting into my food, so I checked a couple times but found no damage to my gear or supplies. But the morning after the story above, I was repacking the bag that sits behind my bike seat, and I happened to reach into the plastic bag where I keep my toilet paper and trowel, and I found a cache of acorns! Not just any acorns, either; somebody -- chipmunk? totoro? -- had very carefully selected about 30 perfect specimens of all the same type and size and placed them very neatly in that bag. I should mention that the outer bag was zipped closed except for an inch or two, so this must have been a very small creature. My food was untouched... I'm afraid this hardworking critter may have hoped -- dreamed -- that the bread and Fritos and mixed nuts would still be there this winter, along with the makings of a cozy toilet-paper nest. And I ruined it by thoughtlessly riding off with it all. I felt like such a cad. I left the acorns at the foot of a tree for the next furry woodland creature to discover.

Story number three: Ever since I wrote that positive writeup about Fairfield, people have been telling me -- in person and online -- that it is a creepy place, and had I stayed longer I would have picked up on that. So I'll share my one kinda creepy story about Fairfield: During the First Friday Art Walk, Lonnie and Brian and I visited a really neat used book store / coffeeshop / restaurant / performance space called Revelations. One of the performers was a singer that my friends thought highly of, so we stayed for a number of her songs. At one point she decided to sing "My Girl." A female couple came in the room, and presumably inspired by the sound of a woman singing a love song to another woman, they started to dance cheek-to-cheek. I don't think the singer saw them, but in any case when she got to the chorus she couldn't bring herself to say what it was that made her feel that way; she just let it hang, and her guitarist -- her husband -- awkwardly played the chords without her. When she did it again the second time, the disappointed couple walked out. The third time through, the singer improvised lamely, "What could make me feel this way? I don't like to say... It could be any number of things... I've got sunshine..." Now, first of all, that song is pretty innocuous... it could just as easily be about a daughter as a lover. Or a man named Mike Earl. Or the singer's hairstyle, which was curly. Second, even if the words "my girl" were objectionable, they don't rhyme with anything in the song, so she could have said "my boy" or "my man" or "my dog" and nobody would have minded. But third, everybody knows the words, so when she didn't sing them we were all thinking them anyway. The next morning I asked Brian whether Fairfield is a GLBT-friendly place, and he said the Maharishi had spoken out against homosexuality at some point, and so the University had been known to ask people to leave on the basis of sexual orientation. But this was off campus, off hours, and it was just a song, for pity sake! I have to wonder whether the singer got picked up by the Thought Police after the show. What if she'd sung something really incriminating, like "The Wanderer?"

So that's my one and only bad impression of Fairfield. I could, however, say a lot more about any of the three communities I visited, so please ask any questions you may have! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on October 13, 2004]

Hello again. I'm having such a good time in St. Louis that I decided to stay an extra day! That and the weather is a little rainy for riding the (packed-dirt) Katy trail, and I've decided to bypass Kansas City and Lawrence, KS on my way to Oklahoma. Like Madison and Chicago (both of which I bypassed earlier), Kansas City is just a short bus ride from Minneapolis. St. Louis is not. Visiting St. Louis is a rare treat.

On Monday I biked into downtown and ran a bunch of errands. A number of people had warned me that St Louis is not very bike-friendly, but I've noticed that the locals say that everywhere I go, and it turned out not to be true, at least in comparison to Cincinnati or Muskegon! There were actually marked bike lanes on the road most of the way, and no one gave me any trouble. I love the beautiful old buildings surrounding downtown, many of them with elaborate capital-M Masonry.

One of my errands was to pay my respects to the Gateway Memorial Arch, this being its biggest year since its construction: 200 years since Lewis and Clark started their journey here, and 100 years since the biggest of the Worlds Fairs was held at Forest Park (which itself is larger than Central Park in NYC). All the centennial hoopla was this summer, but the signs and banners are still up. I've ridden up to the top of the Arch twice before, so I refrained this time.

St. Louis has a light rail line now, new since my last visit. Unlike Minneapolis, they decided to build it down in a trench, away from other traffic. It's been successful enough that they're already building a second line. Maybe I'll get a chance to ride it today so I can compare it to Minneapolis's Hiawatha Line [which had opened just before I left Minneapolis].

Yesterday I accompanied my friend Malinda to work at the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center, which is a private suburban home and grounds that were given, under the watchful eye of a wealthy foundation, into the care of the Missouri Botanical Center. The botanists and neighbors have worked out a complex and fascinating compromise whereby the grounds can be restored to native prairie and used for education, but only of 30 people at a time, and there can be no signs or cars parked on the road, and staff and volunteers must wear orange so that the neighbors can see them. I helped to "clean seeds" (separating seeds from chaff) that had been gathered at another local prairie plot, and earned myself an orange T-shirt with the center's logo. The experience of working around a table with the other volunteers -- older ladies -- brought back memories of my two years at the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library. Good times.

Thank you all for your questions! This one is worth a whole sermon on its own...

Q: My impression is that you've spent more time bicycling than seeing the places and people where you've been. If I travel I like to make it "worthwhile" by having time at the destination i.e. reduce the travel-time/destination-time ratio.

A: So do I, when travel is not the point of the trip. For instance, if it takes Greyhound three days to get me to the Grand Canyon and three days to get me back, I'd better be there at least five days. But on this trip the road is the real destination, and the "destinations" I've described, the dots on my map, are just stops along the way. There are several reasons why I think this is important:

1. I think a lot of harm has been done by the desire to get places as quickly as possible. If you drive through any of these Midwestern states on an Interstate highway, it will look "empty," just a bunch of featureless farmland punctuated by highway exits leading to truck stops and an occasional godforsaken town. That's the impression a lot of city-dwellers have of the country. They don't understand country music or politics because they don't see any of the lifestyle behind it. But if you travel the same states by bicycle, taking the back roads, you see that there are houses every quarter mile and towns every five miles or so, with real people living lives as real as your own. I can't blame them for feeling alienated from the people who speed past them without stopping, and I can't blame them from feeling reactionary against social changes that have passed them by just as indifferently. I don't want to be indifferent. These people are part of the world I live in, and the roads they live on are not just a means toward my end. OK, I'm done channeling William Least Heat Moon now.
2. If I spent as much time stopped as I do traveling, I'd need at least another year to complete this same trip. Not only wouldn't that work out with the change of seasons, but I'd also have to find employment all along the way, which I'm sure would build character, but it's not the experience I'm looking for.
3. I don't want to outstay my welcome. Most of the red dots on my map [friends and family] had offered me open-ended invitations to "come visit sometime," and I only specified the time a few days in advance because that's as far ahead as I could predict. Two nights seemed a reasonable length of stay in most cases.
4. When I stop, I get out of shape. Each day I'm not pedaling decreases the distance I can travel the first two days out. Unless I have a lot of flexibility about where to stay those first two nights, I can't afford to diminish my range by sitting idle two or three days a week. That said, I can't go too fast, either. When I "cut a burning trail across Illinois" into Peoria, I could only keep it up for three days, and I was glad to slow down again.

Q: I can see how weather would be a factor... How'd you decide to leave so late in the season?

A: Well, the deciding factor was that my roommate was leaving in early August, and if I left earlier one of us would have had to pay my share of the rent. But I chose this route -- detour to Ohio and all -- with the August departure date in mind. If I had started earlier or headed south sooner, I would have had a lot more uncomfortably hot traveling days. As it is, I think it's worked out well; the approach of autumn just spurs me on, which is kind of nice. Besides, who ever heard of a migration starting in July? :-)

Thanks for the feedback. Keep in touch! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on October 17, 2004]

One of the reasons I gave in my last message for staying an extra day in St. Louis was that there was rain in the forecast, so I planned to spend most of Wednesday indoors. Well, Wednesday turned out to be beautiful; all the rain came Thursday, the day I left town! I had made plans to meet my host, Corey (Malinda's husband) at Waffle House on my way out of town, so I could buy him breakfast. Unfortunately I told him the wrong intersection, so he never found Waffle House and I had to eat without him.

The rain gradually picked up while I was eating, and I decided to inaugurate the new raincoat one of Malinda's coworkers had given me. Although it turned out to be an excellent windbreaker, and I'll be very glad to have such a nice windbreaker, it was not waterproof, and I got completely soaked. By the time I realized what was happening I was already on the Katy Trail, and there was no shelter to be found, so I couldn't change into something dry without getting my dry things wet. As long as I kept going, I stayed warm! Again we see that the best laid plans are best laid aside...

Katy Trail State Park is the longest rail-trail in the country, at 225 miles. It's also the one and only flat route across eastern Missouri, from St. Charles (just north of St. Louis) to Jefferson City, where the land starts getting flat, and on to Clinton (southeast of Kansas City). It follows the Missouri River much of the way, which means it parallels Louis and Clark's journey, and there are many historical markers. It also follows a line of sandstone bluffs much of the way, so that frequently there's the river on one side and a sheer cliff on the other. The bad news is that the trail surface turns to mud in the rain, and it rained all day Thursday. The towns in the flood plain are small and far between, so that a traveler may have to go 30 miles or more to camp or find groceries. And the available information about services along the trail is inconsistent and misleading at best. And if you stray off the trail and try to follow a road, it will rapidly become steep and winding, with no shoulder.

I was in a pretty foul mood when I got to my first campground, in Klondike, at the top of the bluffs, and found that all the campsites were flooded. The good news is that some of the campsites had little shelters over the picnic tables, so I set up camp on top of a picnic table and was dry and cozy, once I changed clothes. The campground also had a "camp kitchen" that was a pleasant place to eat dinner. So that was Thursday the 14th.

Friday and Saturday I made slow progress due to the spongy trail surface, a strong headwind, and being out of shape from taking three days off in St. Louis. I made barely more than 30 miles each day. Friday night I stayed in Hermann, which has a colorful German heritage and was beginning its Oktoberfest weekend with help from revelers from all over. There were a lot of loud drunk people in the campground, and a few very nice quiet ones. My neighbors were a young couple from Kansas City, both high-school teachers, who let me taste the wine they had bought (Hermann has a half dozen vineyards) and gave me a small watermelon from their garden.

Saturday I discovered a wonderful place. The Katy Trail info had said that Jim's Bar & Grill was the contact for camping in the tiny town of Tebbett. But when I got there, Jim suggested I try the hostel next door instead, where for $5 I could sleep indoors and have a hot shower, a microwave oven, coffee, and other amenities. The Turner Katy Trail Shelter is a self-serve hostel intended for use primarily by nonprofit youth groups; it has beds -- and bikes! -- for 34. All they ask is a very modest fee, and that you clean up after yourself. What a deal! What a thoughtful gift to the community!

It looked like I was going have the place to myself, but at 8:00 six cyclists straggled in, all on upright bikes, half of them pulling trailers. They had come from Sedalia in two days, doing 60+ miles a day on the same trail where I've had trouble doing 35 a day, and were hoping to reach Hermann before Oktoberfest ended. As they were groaning around and popping Excedrin like candy, one of them asked me if I was traveling alone, and I said yes. "I would never have the motivation to do this alone," he moaned. I have to agree -- I wouldn't choose to travel that way on my own either!

I got up early this morning (Sunday) and rode the 15 miles into Jefferson City in time for church. A number of church members took an active interest in my trip and were able to give me good advice about road conditions -- shoulders are my main concern -- to the southwest. One of them offered me a room in his house for the night, so I took the afternoon off and ran errands in town. "Jeff City" is laid out along a series of ridges that parallel the river, which makes for very easy cycling in one direction (NW-SE) but lots of steep hills the other way (NE-SW)!

Although I'm grateful to the Katy Trail for getting me through the hills of eastern Missouri, I'm planning to abandon it tomorrow and strike out on the US highways for a while. The shoulders are reportedly good, the campgrounds are frequent, and I can travel the direction I'm headed instead of northwest, which is where the trail goes from here. Wish me luck! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on Oct 23, 2004]

Sorry for the long message, folks, but I was out of dialup range for almost a week!

In my last message I said I was going to hotfoot it out of Missouri on the US highways, since I had learned that they, unlike most most Missouri highways, have paved shoulders. Like most information I've gotten from local people, this turned out to be true only within an area of a few miles! I left Jefferson City on Monday morning headed southwest on US 54. When I saw the generous expanse of shoulder -- 10 feet, practically a bike lane -- I was so happy I started singing gospel: "I got a little piece o' pavement... to myself, I got the whole shoulder to myself!" My mood was further lightened when I turned on my radio and encountered some phenomenal radio reception. I was listening to weather reports from so far away I couldn't believe they were talking about the same day! Apparently Columbia, MO was having thunderstorms and a tornado watch while I had clear skies and Smooth Jazz (tm) to balance out the screaming semis a few feet away.

The shoulder lasted until I got to Lake of the Ozarks, which is the mutant offspring of suburban sprawl and tourist trap. I try to maintain a fairly positive tone on this list, so I'll just say that Lake of the Ozarks is no place for a bicycle. As soon as I started riding Tuesday morning I noticed my back tire felt spongy. I stopped several times to examine and pump it, but I couldn't convince myself whether or not it was losing air, so I kept going. As I headed down a hill and out of "town" in morning rush-hour traffic, I saw the highway's shoulder resume ahead. Again my heart leapt with joy, and I swerved onto it... at about 30 MPH. The right wheel of the trailer hit a bump, and the trailer balanced on its left wheel for about 20 feet while I tried to figure out what was happening and what I could do about it. If I had swerved back to the left the trailer might have landed back on its wheels, but there were cars coming up behind, so I kept going right. As the trailer crashed down on its left side, the cargo slipped out of its bungees and skidded on the asphalt upside down for about 10 feet before I got everything stopped. The autoharp's waterproof kayak bag now has a few small holes in it, as does the tent's storage bag, but both the tent and harp appear to be fine. At the time I was very upset about what had happened, but in retrospect I'm just glad it wasn't worse!

A little later, I crested a long hill on the highway and felt a familiar bump-bump-bump beneath me. My back tire was completely flat! I had just checked it for the umpteenth time a few minutes before. I found a mysterious gash in the side wall of the tire, but I didn't find a corresponding hole in the tube. Didn't have time to investigate; just replaced both tube and tire. This was the crummy BMX tire I bought in Peoria. I put on a much sturdier one that I bought in Fairfield. While I was replacing the tire, my mind was whirling to revise my travel plans for the day... surely after all these misadventures it must be 2 or 2:30 already. The sky was so overcast I couldn't tell how much daylight I had left, so I got out my watch ... 12:30. I just started laughing... so much had happened, and the day wasn't even half over!

Toward the end of the day Tuesday the shoulder ran out again, and the folks I asked said it would be intermittent all the way to Kansas. As grateful as I had been to ride on a shoulder, I was just as glad to leave the highway behind and hit the county roads again, now with reasonable slopes. They were so quiet! The corn-and-soybean hegemony of the upper midwest was at last broken up with fields of hay, pasture, clover, sunflowers, and winter wheat, all of which host fewer crickets than I've been used to hearing. I stayed Tuesday night at Pomme de Terre State Park, near the fishing town of Nemo. Wednesday I continued on back roads to Prairie State Park, near Liberal, MO, and very close to the Kansas border. Prairie State Park is the largest expanse of native prairie in Missouri, but I didn't get to see much of it because visitors to most of the park are warned to stay in their cars to protect them from roaming bison! Fortunately the campground is outside the bison range.

On Friday morning I finally rode into Kansas. In high school and college, I had a tradition of always playing "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Song for America" by the band Kansas whenever I'd cross the border into Kansas. I didn't have the tape with me this time, so I sang the songs in my head. My father met me at Big Hill Lake Park, near Coffeyville, after one of the longest day's rides I've had: I rode from before sunup to after sundown with only one real break. I also rode through a pretty serious thunderstorm in the afternoon, but I was amply forewarned, so none of my gear got wet. Dad and I had never camped in a tent together before! It seemed like the thing to do.

This morning (Saturday), Dad loaded my trailer into the car, and I covered almost 70 miles into Bartlesville, Oklahoma in about 7 hours. The fact that I'm now in my hometown -- and that I bicycled here from Minnesota, by way of Ohio -- hasn't really sunk in yet!

Favorite Missouri quirk: In St. Louis, Panera Bread is called St. Louis Bread Company. Same menu, same decor, same Good-Vibes-lookin' logo, different name. The locals say Panera started in St. Louis, but I've heard that about several other cities. Maybe a bunch of chains merged.

Second Favorite Missouri Quirk: Like most states west of the Mississippi, and unlike those east, any municipality is called a "city," even if it has less than 100 people or is part of an urban area. The neighborhood of St. Louis where my friends live is University City, and there's a building there called "City of University City City Hall."

Least Favorite Missouri quirk: No shoulders on the roads. Not even 6 inches, not even gravel or grass, just a ditch (and I mean a ditch) or a sheer cliff or a guard rail. I don't know what drivers do when they have breakdowns -- didn't see any. Maybe the cars behind just push them down (or off!) the road.

Second Least Favorite Missouri Quirk: The gubernatorial race. These candidates have nothing positive to say. Their radio ads are poison in listeners' ears. I hope they both lose.

Favorite Kansas Quirk: Kansas highways are represented by cheery orange suns, Kansas being the sunflower state. Every other state I know of [except Minnesota] uses black-and-white highway signs for all but the Interstates, which are red, white, and blue. But Kansas signs are orange!

I'll be in Bartlesville until at least November 3rd. I should have some new photos to share in a day or two! --Ben

[originally posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on November 1, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm still vegging out in Bartlesville, Oklahoma... It looks like I'll be here until Friday. A few highlights of visiting my hometown in this way at this time:

• I hadn't ridden a bike in Bartlesville for probably 8 years. Compared to other towns its size, it's a lot of fun to ride in. Never mind the excellent Pathfinder Parkway; the streets are noticeably wider here. Maybe I'll find that elsewhere in Oklahoma, too... I hope so!
• It's also been 6-8 years since I was in Oklahoma during warm weather. I got to see the woods while there are still a few leaves on the trees. I also finally got to try out my dad's souped-up electric lawnmower. I wish I'd had that when I was mowing lawns as a kid -- it's so quiet!
• More than two months of camping in ten states have given me a new appreciation for the wildlife in Bartlesville. The Pathfinder passes through a floodplain that floods just often enough to keep people from building there, but not often enough to keep a forest from growing to its climax stage. There's a lot of dead wood, which urban ecologists in other towns value highly for the birds and things that live in it. There are also a lot of vines on the trees -- not kudzu, thankfully, but Virginia creeper and wild grapes -- giving the forest a fanciful quality like a monkey habitat at a zoo. And now that I recognize pawpaw trees, I can see that Bartlesville is full of pawpaws. All someone needs to do is figure out how to make them fruit, and the town could host a regional pawpaw festival!
• Speaking of fruit, as much as I miss the fresh produce I got to sample in Wisconsin and Michigan, I'd trade it in a minute for Oklahoma in the pecan season. People are scavenging wild pecans all over town, and I don't blame them. I've never had a truffle, but I think wild pecans could compete with them in the delicacies-you-can-step-on category.
• I got to town just in time to volunteer in the last few days before the election. My parents and I went door to door to get out the vote and had a surprisingly good time. And tomorrow we'll attend a big party with friends to celebrate -- if we're lucky -- a conclusive end to the election! If we're really lucky, some of our candidates might win!
• Yesterday morning I gave the Sunday service at my parents' church, and it was very well received. If you're interested, you'll find the complete text here.
• I visited my high-school physics teacher on my 29th birthday and was startled to learn that he's still under 40... which means that when he was my teacher 10 years ago, he was younger than I am now! Morale appears to be up at the high school, thanks I'm sure to millions of dollars' worth of additions and new facilities. Some of the new classrooms are nicer than the ones we had at Grinnell College while I was a student there! But although the BHS building is bigger than it was when I was in high school, the student body and faculty have both shrunk. Unlike the mythical Sunnydale, CA, they can't blame a "hellmouth" under the school for the declining population; I think it has more to do with something else under the town... black gold... or the lack thereof...

Q: To what extent is your route "destination based" and to what extent is it based upon "trails"?

A: Well, as I expounded earlier, I consider trails and roads to be among my destinations, because I'll go out of my way to travel a good road. My route through Missouri was a good example. I had initially thought I would go from Indianapolis to St. Louis, then north along the river to Rutledge, MO (Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage) and Fairfield, IA (Abundance Ecovillage), and southwest from there to Kansas City. But when I looked at the topographic maps of Missouri -- and in particular at the Katy Trail, which is the only flat route through the hills near St. Louis -- I realized I'd be a fool not to take the Trail west from St. Louis. That meant going to Iowa first, which in turn is the reason I went through Peoria (instead of farther south) and had the adventures I had there... I hadn't considered Peoria to be a destination until I got there, but now you'll see it's a green dot on my map! A counterexample is my route south from here into Texas... I had a route in mind that would take me due south from Tulsa to Dallas, but now I'm thinking of visiting a "destination" in Oklahoma City, which will require a whole new route.

Q: What information resources were used and what process was followed to select the route? How long did it take you to plot the route?

A: Well, the general plan of heading south through the midwest and north along the east coast took about 2 hours to plan, and it was based on maps of average low temperatures I got from weather.com. If you look closely at my map you'll see gray dashed lines labeled "OCT", "NOV", "DEC", and so on, indicating how far south I need to be each month. Stage two of route planning is to get detailed maps of the next state I plan to visit ... I've been using DeLorme's Atlas and Gazetteer series because I know there's one for every state, and they're easy to find. These maps tend to show and/or describe about 75-90% of all campgrounds, bike trails, and other amenities I'm looking for; the rest I find via the Internet and draw on the map. (yp.yahoo.com is a good tool for finding campgrounds... even though most states have associations of campground owners, I find their Web sites are unreliable as sources of info.) Once I know roughly what's available, I leave the specifics of the route open until a day or two in advance, or sometimes less.

Thanks for the questions! Don't forget to vote! It might not hurt to pray, too... --Ben

You may be wondering what exactly one might bring on a long-distance, solo bicycle trip. Enough people have expressed interest that I figured I should take some photos of what I'm carrying and describe what goes where and why.

My bike is a 2002 BikeE CT XL semi-recumbent. Sad to say, BikeE has now gone out of business, so if any really unusual parts break, I'll be at the mercy of eBay, but so far I've only had to replace really standard parts like tires, bearings, and such. The CT was the cheapest model of the cheapest brand on the market at the time; it cost me $700 including fenders. There are now some semi-recumbents on the market for as little as $300! A few bike mechanics and other cyclists have looked down their noses and questioned whether the CT is suitable for long-distance touring, but once they learned how far I had gone, their attitude changed!

One of the undocumented features of the BikeE is that the main tube of its frame is open at the back, which means you can put stuff in there. That's where I keep my tire pump, patch kit, and bike tool, so that they're always with the bike, even when I'm not carrying anything else.

My trailer is a Bikes at Work truss-frame cargo trailer, the smallest size they make. I bought it for its versatility: it's great for moving furniture as well as touring. It hasn't required any maintenance at all in over 8000 miles! Its only drawback is a tendency to flip over when one wheel goes over a curb before the other, but that's probably the case with any two-wheel trailer whose hitch is low to the ground.

The rest of my gear was stowed based on when I planned to use it. Click a container and then click the (i) button to learn about its contents.

	My person: items I might need anywhere, anytime.
	White bag: items I needed to be able to reach without getting off the bike, or that I'd like to carry into a library or store with me.
	Gray bag behind the seat: items I needed to be able to reach when I stopped for a break.
	Blue bin: Stuff I didn't want to get dirty.
	Green bin: Stuff that could get dirty.
	Yellow waterproof bag: My autoharp -- an acoustic musical instrument that can't get wet! (note: after carrying this for the first four months of the trip, I left the autoharp behind to save weight.) The tent, rainfly and groundcloth also rode on top with (and later in) the yellow bag.

Additionally, I had a solar battery charger that rode on top of the trailer on sunny days and charged the AA batteries for my radio and AAA for my PalmPilot.

Of course there were changes to my gear during the course of the trip, but not as many as you might think. Here's a list of everything I replaced.

[sent to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo group on November 9, 2004]

Hi, folks! It's been three months now since I left Minneapolis. My trip is 1/4 over already! But 3/4 of it is still ahead...

After two weeks with my parents in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, I'm on my way to Texas! I had a great visit, but it feels good to be back on the road. On Friday morning I left Bartlesville and rode south to Owasso, where my cousin Tiff and her family (whom you may remember from the Halloween photo) live. I stayed with them all day Saturday and practiced my uncling skills. After so much time off, my knees are really objecting to the exercise. I took a long break on that first day and picked up pecans on the side of the road... in half an hour I got enough to last me a week or more. I'm getting really good at shelling them while riding. Mmm, pecans.

On Saturday we went to the Oklahoma Aquarium, which is a new addition to Tulsa. Tiff's husband Shawn thoughtfully drove us into town on the route he recommended I ride the next morning, but I'm afraid I was talking with the kids in the back seat and didn't pay enough attention! Sunday morning I thought I knew where I was going and so didn't look at the map and missed my turn and wound up going all the places Shawn had warned me away from. I found my way back onto the agreed-upon route just in time: there was Tiff with an electric razor I had left at her house!

I arrived at All Souls Unitarian Church (where I used to attend Sunday school and youth programs... remember Bill in Cincinnati? this is where I know him from) an hour late, but I was able to attend the second service and get some photos of the rather impressive renovations. I had hoped to meet an old friend for lunch, but she got sick at the last minute. As it turned out, I needed the extra time to get to my campsite for the night due to knee pain. I followed Tulsa's River Parks west to Sand Springs, then continued on roads to Keystone State Park.

On the road, I was passed by two thirtysomething cyclists with skintight suits and fancy mountain bikes. The man of the pair was disparaging yuppies as they passed. Then he looked over his shoulder and asked if I was going far, and I gave my usual response, "South for the winter." He laughed and said, "South is that way." (We were going west.) A few miles later I found them in the ditch: he had punctured a tire and was just leaving a message with his mother for her to come get them. He didn't have a spare tube, patch kit, or pump, though he swore he usually carries them. I helped him remove and patch the tube -- it was easy to find the holes because he had put goop in the tube that's supposed to prevent flats, and it was oozing freely from two holes. The patches didn't seal properly with the goop there, so the patched tube still didn't hold air. He insisted on giving me $4 anyway. I should have told him to "pay it forward," as Mike-in-Cincinnati did when he gave me two meals and a camp for the night, but I didn't think of it until I had already accepted the cash.

While in Bartlesville I had built a camp stove from two cat food cans, as my friend Bill in Ann Arbor had showed me. I bought fuel for it on Sunday and tried it out, and I'm very happy with it. So far I've used it to mainly to warm up the soup and oatmeal I previously ate cold. I experimented with cooking corned beef hash, but it left so much revolting grease on the dishes that I doubt I'll ever do it again!

Monday I headed south from Keystone Lake until I met up with OK-66 (formerly Route 66) and followed that southwest toward Oklahoma City. I stopped at the library in Bristow to verify that there was only one campground between there and Tuesday night's stop. By the time I pulled myself away from the computer, there wasn't enough time left to reach the campground before dark! The sun was setting as I stopped in Stroud to fill up my water bag in preparation for informal camping; the campground was still over an hour's ride away. I wasn't prepared for what I found: west of Stroud, there were no houses along the road, only barbed wire fences and no-trespassing signs. I wound up camping at the bottom of a steep embankment, where I was concealed from headlights ... but not, as I learned in the morning, from drivers in daylight!

Tuesday I continued along old Route 66, passing through Davenport, where I used to have a penpal, but I couldn't remember his name. I remembered that his parents owned a Route 66 souvenir shop, but I found two in town, so that wasn't a good lead. I'm writing on Tuesday night from Arcadia Lake in Edmond, just north of Oklahoma City. My plan is to ride into OKC tomorrow, send this message, see some sights, and ride back out of town to the south by evening. Tune in next time to find out how it went!

By the way, those of you who read my October 31 sermon -- and in particular those of you who were lucky enough to see Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd speak in Minneapolis on October 27 -- may be interested in seeing the strings of Great Story beads I've been collecting and carrying around the country with me. I scanned them while in Bartlesville and put up a Web site to show them off. Enjoy! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on November 14, 2004]

Hi, folks! I made it to Texas! Last time I wrote, I was poised to ride into Oklahoma City from the north.

Wednesday dawned clear and dry in Edmond, but with rain clouds moving in at an astonishing pace. I got rained on all the way into town as I rode past childhood landmarks: Enterprise Square USA, the Kirkpatrick Center, the church we used to think looked like the Legion of Doom from "The Superfriends," several familiar parks, and finally my grandparents' old house. Shepherd Mall, a block from the house, has finally found its calling as an office park; I never saw its parking lot so full when it was a shopping mall.

The rain finally stopped as I reached the Oklahoma City National Memorial, so I left the bike uncovered. The museum was very well done, very emotionally intense, but I found the babble of recorded voices overwhelming and had trouble paying attention. My bike stayed dry while I was inside, but as soon as I started riding again another cloud burst over the city!

I rode south in a downpour, and the tornado sirens blew just as I found a motel. The place was named the Swank Motel. Near as I can tell they misspelled "Skanky," or perhaps "Squalid," but it provided a dry, well-lit place to repack my bearings again (after the rain), and the Mexican restaurant next door was excellent!

I woke Thursday morning with a new pain in my left knee, in addition to the aches that had been with me since Bartlesville. Between that and the wet, cold morning outside, I had trouble getting going, but the stale smoke inside was worse! I decided I would ride as far as Norman and seek medical attention there, reasoning that a town known for its football team would be familiar with sports injuries. But the address Blue Cross gave me for an urgent-care clinic turned out to be a hole in the ground! Fortunately I was feeling so much better that I laughed it off and went on down the road (US 77).

In Purcell I was tempted to stay in a motel, because the day had gotten quite chilly and the night promised to be below freezing, but the motels were expensive, so I kept going. In Wayne I asked at a few farmhouses, but the people suggested I try the town park, and I was unable to reach the police to ask if it was OK to stay there. I wound up camping in a fallow back corner of an out-of-use pasture outside of town. I wore every piece of clothing I had and stayed nice and warm, despite the wind and cold. The sky view was incredible!

In Paoli Friday morning, I stopped for coffee and wound up talking with the cafe owner about the cattle driving he did in the '70s. He gave me my coffee for free and assured me that I'll remember this trip for the rest of my life. I certainly hope so -- it would be a shame to forget it all! US 77 turned out to be a great ride, since it parallels the interstate, but I didn't dare follow it south of Davis because it heads right into the Arbuckle Mountains, and my map showed a double hairpin turn near Turner Falls! So I turned east at Davis and rode into Sulphur.

Sulphur is just like I remember it from several childhood visits, only there's more to both the town and the Chickasaw National Recreation Area than I realized. Black Sulphur Spring is as smelly as ever, and the spring-fed Travertine Creek continues to offer a spectacle that's rare in Oklahoma: transparent water! It's enough to make an Okie question whether all bodies of water are really supposed to be brown. I camped in a secluded, southern part of Chickasaw because it was the only campground with showers! That decision meant that I started out Saturday morning with two miles of steep hills to scale with my stiff, sore knees. But they stopped hurting around 10:00, so I was able to keep going all the way to Texas!

I was tempted to stop at Lake Texoma State Park in Oklahoma, but all my fond memories of that park are specific to early August, so it just wouldn't be the same. Instead I crossed the lake farther to the west and found a campground just south of the state line. I noticed that there are still live insects at Lake Texoma: mosquitos, crickets, and grasshoppers. At Lake of the Arbuckles, one day's ride north, all the insects had already been killed by frost. I could do without the mosquitos, and I sure could do without encountering any live fire ants in Texas, but it's lonely camping without crickets singing.

I had a wonderful visit in Oklahoma! It was really good to be back in my homeland during the warm weather for a change, and to see it from a bike, and to connect all the dots of the places I remember on the human scale of pedal power. Favorite Oklahoma quirk: In nine days of riding, not one Oklahoma motorist yelled anything rude at me like "Get off the road!" This is remarkable not only because people have yelled in every other state I've passed through (not counting Minnesota and Kansas, where I spent only a day each), but also because they used to yell at me all the time when I lived in the state and would bike or walk places. Maybe they were shocked into silence by my appearance, or maybe they just had their windows rolled up!

When you receive this message, it means I'm near Dallas. I plan to be there until Wednesday. Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on November 16, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm at the home of my friend Jimmy, whom I've known since preschool, and who joined this list three months ago without knowing it was mine. :-) He's been showing me the photos from his own cross-country bike ride in 1996.

It's not an accident that when I last wrote you on Sunday night I didn't say anything about Sunday: it was an awful day, and I didn't want to write until I'd had a chance to put it in perspective! I had planned to ride all the way from Lake Texoma to Wylie, near Plano, in time to meet my friend Sara and her family for dinner. But it became clear by early afternoon that I had been overly optimistic... not only are the Texas maps drawn at a much smaller scale than I'm used to, but my knees were hurting more than ever and really slowing me down. I called Sara, and we arranged to meet in McKinney, where I would get a hotel before dinner. Two hours later I called her again to say I wouldn't get into McKinney until about 8:00! Since her three-year-old son is on a strict schedule, we had to cancel our dinner plans.

Having promised myself a hotel, I passed up a number of nice-looking unofficial campsites and one crummy-looking official one and kept riding after nightfall. At one point there was a gap in traffic and i heard a flap-flap-flap noise behind me -- how long had the trailer had a flat tire? I'll never know. Over two hundred cars must have passed me while I fixed the tire, and not one stopped to ask if I needed help... I was pretty disgruntled. But I found a very nice, inexpensive hotel in McKinney, and I bought a pizza and a bottle of wine, and I gave my knees a hot soak and an ice pack and had myself a good old-fashioned pity party.

Things looked better on Monday morning. What a difference to be able to plot my progress on street maps instead of regional topographic maps! Suddenly I was covering five inches an hour instead of an inch every five hours! I slept in and was still able to meet Sara and her son for lunch in Plano. My rear tire went flat during lunch, but no sweat: Jimmy had told me about a bike "mecca" in Richardson, which was on my way into town, so I swung by and bought a durable new tire and tube, and I asked the staff whom I should see about my knee pain. They recommended one of their own part-time employees who is also a chiropractor. I was skeptical, but I left a message for him.

Monday evening I arrived at the home of my friend Chris and his wife Courtney, in Dallas proper. Last I had heard from Chris, he was active in some Republican groups at the U of Texas, but he now calls that a phase... now that he's a lawyer, he takes corporations to court for making respirator masks that aren't up to standard, and other such environmental offenses. His home is almost as "green" as Bill's in Cincinnati, which is saying something. Courtney is a grad student in social work. They have a bear-sized, one-eyed dog named Ollie and a medium-sized, overstuffed dog named Jack.

Tuesday morning everything happened at once: as Chris was leaving for work, I got calls back from the chiropractor guy and from the Texas Sports Clinic. On instinct I passed up an appointment with the clinic to meet with the chiropractor. He lived in Chris's neighborhood, so he picked me and my bike up on his way to the shop I had visited the day before. He gave me some tips about how to load the bike more evenly, then fitted me for proper shoes and insoles and pedals that clip to them. Using a special bike in the shop, he found the exact alignment of pedals I needed to prevent the harmful motions my knees had been making, and he installed my new pedals that way. Then he marked the proper seat position on my bike so that I can keep the pedals at the right distance -- fully three inches farther than I'm used to. He said there was no reason I shouldn't be able to ride out tomorrow.

So after another bike seller gave me a ride back to Chris's, I tried out the new equipment on my way to Irving, which is between Dallas and Fort Worth. Jimmy had warned me that Dallas was not a bike-friendly city, and on this stretch I could really see what he meant! In addition to heavy traffic and unreliable sidewalks and shoulders, I got two flat tires in as many hours. The new pedals will take some getting used to, but I think they're helping already.

But I did get to Jimmy's place by dark. He's a full-time grad student in developmental neuropsychology, and his wife Blythe works in physical therapy at the same university, and their 15-month-old daughter goes to daycare there as well. Come to find out, Jimmy's younger brother now practices physical therapy in Norman, Oklahoma, where I tried to find help for my knees last week! I guess I should have made more small-talk with Jimmy in advance of my visit! ;-)

Anyhow, all is well, and I'm headed out of the metro area tomorrow. I'll stop and see the dinosaur footprints and smell the flowers and rest the knees on my way into Austin, so I can't say yet just when I'll arrive there, but I'll keep you posted!

Q: You must share with us your method for shelling pecans while riding.

A: OK, then, I will! I crack the pecan by squeezing it in my fist against the metal tube of the handlebar, lengthwise. Then I rotate it on its long axis and crack it again, until the shell is shattered like a hard-boiled eggshell. I transfer it to the fingers of the hand I'm steering with, and use the free hand to pick the shell away. About 2/3 of the time, I get the nut meat out in two more-or-less intact halves; the other 1/3 of the time the meat shatters along with the shell, or the shell cracks crosswise so that the meat is nearly impossible to remove. But when I'm getting the nuts for free off the roadside, I can afford to waste a few.

Happy shelling! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on Nov 20, 2004]

Hi, folks! I'm holed up in a hotel in Clifton, TX, while a wild and crazy thunderstorm goes by outside. I didn't have to ride through this one very long, unlike on Wednesday...

Wednesday morning Jimmy's daughter was still feeling sick (don't know if I mentioned this before), so he stayed home to take care of her, and I was also in no hurry to leave because it was pouring rain outside. I got out the door around 8, headed south through the interurbs (?) between Dallas and Fort Worth. I passed two Waffle Houses before taking a hint and stopping at the third for lunch. I ordered hash browns "scattered all the way" for a change of pace and so sampled "Bert's Chili" for the first time. It had beans in it, but I figured a few wouldn't hurt me...

The rain continued nonstop until I got to my campsite at Cedar Hill State Park. I got a shock: Texas state parks are expensive! More so even than Michigan's! There was water standing on the ground, but no sweat, I just set up camp on top off the sheltered picnic table as I'd done in Klondike, MO. Only in Klondike there hadn't been any mosquitos. I didn't want to put on bug repellant after showering, so I put on my mosquito net and slept fitfully. I had the hardest time getting up in the morning. I slept in until well after dawn and then puttered around in a toxified haze for an hour before I remembered Bert's Chili. If I have this legume intolerance long enough, I'll eventually work out a system for reminding myself when I'm going to be sick... write a note on my hand or something. I also found that I'd gotten about 20 mosquito bites on my forehead during the night, so in addition to the freckles I now appear to have acne! I bet if I put on my short shorts, oversized T-shirt, sun hat, and faded red $1 beach shoes, I could really master the dweeb look.

Due to the late start, I didn't make it all the way to Dinosaur Valley State Park on Thursday as I had planned. When I got to Cleburne it was clear I wouldn't have time to reach the park before dark, so I went to Cleburne State Park instead -- it looked much closer on the map. It turned out to be nearly as far, but at least I got a nice peaceful night's sleep with no mosquitos! Friday I just rode the rest of the way to Dinosaur Valley State Park, near Glen Rose, southwest of Fort Worth. The main attraction of the park is the fossilized dinosaur tracks, but due to the rain they were underwater and not visible. I enjoyed the other exhibits.I stopped in at the nearby Creation Evidence Museum as well for their intriguing explanations of how the tracks are really only a few thousand years old, and the Earth used to be smaller, and it used to have a magenta crystalline sphere ten miles above the surface.

This morning I resumed my southerly course and got as far as Clifton, where I had planned to camp at the Texas Safari RV Park, but a huge thunderstorm hit just before I got to town, so I got a hotel room instead. The clerk was covered with burn scars -- she literally looked like a Halloween fright mask -- but her eyes were fine, and they lit up when I declined the first price she quoted for a room, as if she hadn't haggled since leaving India. When I saw the room, I realized the first price she quoted was very reasonable, but there was no way to tell that from the seedy-looking exterior. So now I'm hoping to dry most of my laundry overnight, so that I won't have to carry a bunch of wet clothes around for the few days that remain until I reach Austin on Tuesday!

Q: I can't picture or understand the modifications you described for the bike's seat & pedals, let alone shoes and insoles? I hope it didn't cost you a bundle.

A: Sorry I didn't describe it very well. The theory seems to be that there's one "biodynamically optimal" range of motion for pedaling, and my slapdash collection of shoes and haphazard seat position weren't getting me that, and so I was hurting my knees. The shoes have rigid soles, and the insoles provide arch support, so that my feet can't flex. Then there's a metal clip in the sole of each shoe that's adjusted to the angle that foot needs to be held at, and it snaps into the pedal so that the foot can't yaw or roll, it can only pitch. The whole setup cost me $70, much less than I would have paid for a clinic appointment! The prescribed seat position is the final factor, securing the other end of the angle so that my joints only move in the optimal range. One problem: my muscles are all pumped from 3000+ miles in the wrong position, so now when I try to ride in the right position, I have no strength or endurance. So I've been compromising, and I'll get it right by the time I leave Austin!

Talk to you then! --Ben

I made it! I'm safe and sound in Austin, Texas, my home for the winter.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on November 23, 2004]

I want to apologize for the somewhat negative tone of some of my recent messages. Between the pain in my joints and the weather and the differences of biking in Texas vs. in other states, at times I haven't been having as much fun as I'd like. Around Dinosaur Valley, I realized this was no good -- there's no point in making a trip like this if it's not fun! So I added an extra day to my itinerary in order to slow down and appreciate Texas more for what it is, rather than comparing it to, say, Wisconsin, which it isn't.

I also want to apologize for describing the hotel clerk with facial burn scars as looking like a Halloween mask. What I meant of course was that hers is the sort of face that Halloween mask makers use as models, on the theory that horrible tragedies produce faces that arouse horror, instead of, say, compassion. She was a perfectly pleasant person as far as I could tell.

Anyhow, Sunday and Monday I continued south and camped at Corps of Engineers campgrounds both nights (Belton Lake and Taylor Lake), sleeping under the picnic shelters because of the rain. I didn't have more mosquito trouble, but my perpetually wet laundry began to develop a certain personality. The high point of Sunday was passing through Crawford, Texas: "Home of the Pirates, President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush." Oh, so they're pirates! That might explain a lot... I have this vision of W dressed in pirate garb, saying, "Avast there! Hand over yer booty ur prepare ta be barded! Are ye with us or against us? Arr! Bring it on, ye scurvy evildoers!" I didn't stop in the Bush-themed gift shop for fear I would suggest something like that out loud!

When I got to the Taylor Lake campground Monday night, I found the whole place underwater, but fortunately each site had a very generous concrete slab for a picnic area, more than three times the size of the ones I'd seen before, and fully roofed over. I was able to push the picnic table out of the way and pitch my tent on the concrete in order to keep the bugs and wind out while I slept. In the morning I found not only slugs and snails and daddy-long-legs on my tent, but also a newt. I had the hardest time convincing the newt that I didn't want to eat it, I just wanted it to get off the tent. It was touchingly committed to playing the victim.

The high point of my day today, aside from arriving at my destination, was hearing a radio ad for The Bar Stool Company that sounded just like Weird Al's ad for Spatula City: "A giant warehouse of bar stools for every occasion! Don't forget, they make great Christmas gifts! And what better way to say 'I love you' than with the gift of bar stools?"

The weather today was seriously wild. In the course of one day's ride, I encountered cold, fog, drizzle, light rain, heavy rain, driving rain, hail, funnel clouds, sunshine, and sauna-like humidity. I took shelter during the hail and tornado warning at an elementary school north of Taylor. I parked my bike under an awning and went in search of a restroom and found the school apparently deserted... turned out the students and teachers were doing their best tornado-drill huddling in the interior hallways, and they never knew I was there! Probably just as well.

My friends Rich and Gloria live in the northwest outskirts of Austin, so I haven't seen the town yet, but there will be plenty of time for that in the coming month! You'll be hearing from me even though I won't be traveling; I'll have some more photos ready to share in a few days.

Favorite north Texas quirk: Generous shoulders on the roads. I think north Texas got all of Missouri's shoulders. Seriously, some of them are 15 feet wide. But once I passed Taylor, no more shoulders. I'll do some serious road research before I head east.

Second favorite north Texas quirk: donut shops. There are more donut shops per capita in the Dallas - Fort Worth greater metro area than anyplace I've ever seen. Who eats all those donuts? It's as inexplicable as all the popcorn shops in Minneapolis... popcorn? They must be laundering money.

In any case... I'll be in touch! --Ben

Photos sent with this message (and now available in this album) feature the alarmingly steep hill near the Bennetts' house in Austin, TX; the natural swimming pool at Barton Springs; the Texas capitol during the Aggie Day parade; the Texas School for the Blind and Vision Impaired where Gloria worked; and a day trip with Gypsy to Enchanted Rock State Park, the westmost point in my trip.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on December 13, 2004]

Hi, folks! I saw another chiropractor last week, and he helped tremendously... My joints are feeling much better, and I'm riding every day again, just running errands around the neighborhood. So any doubts about whether I'd be able to continue the tour can be put away now.

Some of you may have wondered about my e-mail address at "workscited.net," and some may have investigated that site and found a big red "out of order" notice on it. It was out of order for more than a year because it was programmed in a language that, as linguists would say, died... and I didn't have the spare time before the trip to translate its several thousand lines of rather inefficient code.

Well, guess what? I've had some spare time in the last 3 weeks, and WorksCited.Net is back up and running... mostly. The search function and a few other bells and whistles still need my attention, and I'm sure there are still plenty of bugs lurking in the corners. But it's now possible to view all the quotes in the database and add more! [2014 update: due to lack of interest in the site, I let the domain name lapse, so it's inaccessible again, but I'm pasting the referenced quotes below with links to Amazon.]

I'm telling you this because I read a lot of really interesting books in the months before my trip began, and I went ahead and compiled nifty quotes from them even though I knew I wouldn't be able to enter them in the database for a long time, and I've just now entered them, and I think you might enjoy them. So without further laborious explanation, here are my favorite quotes from my pre-tour reading: 

Granny D: Walking Across America in my Nintieth Year

There is an urge to just walk into the desert, away from the road, and be done with it.  There is also an urge to have some ice cream with chocolate sauce.  Life is what we patch together between those competing desires. p.4

Perhaps what I had done in taking this long walk in the wilderness was a kind of shoving of my old self out on the ice to see if I would please die, or if I would please be reborn into something new, forged in service to my deepest beliefs.  In either case, I knew that my old life had run its course. p.79

We were hiking now through rolling hills and rainy green pastures set off by rail fences.  Horses clopped over through the mud to see what was going on as we walked by.  At one little farm, a dog and a goat, obviously old friends, came out together to take a look at us.  They were joined a few minutes later by a pig.  I had a feeling that their spider friend was back in the barn, spelling out something. p.207

When you take on some leadership responsibility in the world, you must accept the fact that you will change lives.  Your intention is to do good for everyone.  But you will change lives in ways you cannot fully control, and sometimes things will go terribly wrong.  The hard part is to stay at it and not give up trying to do good in the world.  But my, it is hard when tragedy and defeat come visiting, as they do.  If love is your motivation, and if you respect the people you serve as your moral equals, you will do more good than harm over a lifetime -- by far.  But you will do some harm, and it may haunt you when you take a walk in your old age. p.233

If you are wondering whether or not I think I make it rain and snow by making a speech, I certainly do not.  That is not the way it works.  When you are doing the right thing, it just so happens that you arrive just when certain things are happening anyway.  Moses had wonderful timing, is what I mean.  We all have a little bit of that when we are in our soul's right groove.  And, when praying for such help, it is less rude, I think, to pray for some special help in fitting in, rather than to ask God to scrap and revise all His plans for the day -- He, of course, knew you were going to ask anyway and would already have made arrangements if that was proper. p.236

A career, in the end, is a much smaller part of our lives than we can possibly imagine at the time.  Our career distracts us from our real work, so we must learn to see past the limits of that blinkered world. p.257

Never be discouraged from being an activist because people tell you that you'll not succeed.  You have already succeeded if you're out there representing truth or justice or compassion or fairness or love.  You already have your victory because you have changed the world; you have changed the status quo by you; you have changed the chemistry of things.  And changes will spread from you, will be easier to happen again in others because of you, because, believe it or not, you are the center of the world. p.266

Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words 

No outward thing -- nothing, nobody from without -- can hurt me inside, psychologically.  I recognized that I could only be hurt psychologically by my own wrong actions, which I have control over; by my own wrong reactions (they are tricky, but I have control over them too); or by my own inaction in some situations, like the present world situation, that need action from me.  When I recognized all this how free I felt!  And I just stopped hurting myself. p.20

When you approach others in judgment they will be on the defensive.  When you are able to approach them in a kindly, loving manner without judgment they will tend to judge themselves and be transformed. p.40

There is a power greater than ourselves which manifests itself within us as well as everywhere else in the universe.  This I call God. ... To know God is to feel peace within -- a calmness, a serenity, an unshakeableness which enables you to face any situation. p.87

Who is Jesus?  Jesus was a great spiritual teacher who walked the earth. His life was governed by the indwelling Christ (the God-centered nature, the divine nature).  He taught us ours could be too. p.148

Are science and religion irreconcilable?  You might say that science operates pragmatically and religion by divine guidance.  If valid, they would reach the same conclusions but science would take a lot longer. p.149

The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry

We might sometimes reflect and recall that the purpose of all our science, technology, industry, manufacturing, commerce, and all finance is celebration, planetary celebration.  That is what moves the stars through the heavens and the earth through its seasons.  The final norm of judgment concerning the success or failure of our technologies is the extent to which they enable us to participate more fully in this grand festival. p.69

[Our] mythic commitment to continuing economic growth is such that none of our major newspapers or newsweeklies considers having an ecological section equivalent to the sports section or the financial section or the comic section or the entertainment section, although ecological issues are more important than any of those, even more important than the daily national and international political news.  The real history that is being made is interspecies and human-earth history, not nation or internation history.  The real threat is from the retaliatory powers of the abused earth, not from other nations. p.76

Just as the doctrine of divine transcendence took away the pervasive divine presence to the natural world, so the millennial vision of a blessed future left all present modes of existence in a degraded status.  All things were in an unholy condition.  Everything needed to be transformed.  This meant that anything unused was to be used if the very purpose of its existence was to be realized.  Nothing in its natural state was acceptable. p.115

It is clear that the primordial intention of the universe is to produce variety in all things, from atomic structures to the living world of plant and animal forms, to the appearance of humans, where individuals differ from one another more extensively than in any other realm of known reality.  This difference can be seen not only in individuals, but also in social structures and in historical periods of our development. p.134

The earth is our best model for any commercial venture.  It carries out its operations with an economy and a productivity far beyond that of human institutions.  It also runs its system with a minimum of entropy.  There is in nature none of that sterile or toxic waste or nondecomposing litter such as is made by humans. p.167

We can recognize the earth as a privileged planet and see the whole as evolving out of some cosmic imaginative process.  Any significant thought or speech about the universe finds its expression through such imaginative powers.  Even our scientific terms have a highly mythic content -- such words as energy, life, matter, form, universe, gravitation, evolution.  Even such terms as atom, nucleus, electron, molecule, cell, organism.  Each of these terms spills over into metaphor and mystery as soon as it is taken seriously. p.199

When the absurdity of progress through exponential growth was indicated a few years ago in a work entitled The Limits to Growth, a general outcry could be heard across the country.  That outcry was more than a justified criticism of the specific data or the time scale of future events.  It was resentment against the indication that the dynamism of our consumer society was the supreme pathology of all history.  ... the change that is taking place in the present is not simply another historical transition or another cultural transformation.  Its order of magnitude is immensely more significant in its nature and in its consequences.  We are indeed closing down the major life systems of the planet. p.206

These consequences [of our attitude that we are too good for the natural world] are now becoming manifest.  The day of reckoning has come.  In this disintegrating phase of our industrial society, we now see ourselves not as the splendor of creation, but as the most pernicious mode of earthly being.  We are the termination, not the fulfillment of the earth process.  If there were a parliament of creatures, its first decision might well be to vote the humans out of the community, too deadly a presence to tolerate any further.  We are the affliction of the world, its demonic presence.  We are the violation of earth's most sacred aspects. p.209

The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future by Thomas Berry

The Great Work before us, the task of moving modern industrial civilization from its present devastating influence on the Earth to a more benign mode of presence, is not a role that we have chosen.  It is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves.  We did not choose.  We were chosen by some power beyond ourselves for this historical task.  We do not choose the moment of our birth, who our parents will be, our particular culture or the historical moment when we will be born.  We do not choose the status of spiritual insight or political or economic conditions that will be the context of our lives.  We are, as it were, thrown into existence with a challenge and a role that is beyond any personal choice.  The nobility of our lives, however, depends upon the manner in which we come to understand and fulfill our assigned role. p.7

We initiate our children into an economic order based on exploitation of the natural life systems of the planet.  To achieve this attitude we must first make our children unfeeling in their relation to the natural world.  This occurs quite simply since we ourselves have become insensitive toward the natural world and do not realize just what we are doing.  Yet if we observe our children closely in their early years we see how they are instinctively attracted to profound experiences of the natural world.  We also see additional stresses, emotional disruptions, and learning disabilities that seem to originate in the toxic environment and processed food that we provide for them. p.15

We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being.  Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality.  We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us. p.49

These four symbols -- the Journey, the Great Mother, the Cosmic Tree, and the Death-Rebirth symbol -- experienced now in a time-developmental rather than a spatial mode of consciousness, constitute a psychic resource of enormous import for establishing ourselves as a viable species in a viable life system on the Earth. p.70

If the religious experience were simply some naive impression of the uninformed it would not have resulted in such intellectual insight, such spiritual exaltation, such spectacular religious ritual, or in the immense volume of song and poetry and literature and dance that humans have produced. p.78

Ecology is not a course or a program.  Rather it is the foundation of all courses, all programs, and all professions because ecology is a functional cosmology.  Ecology is not a part of medicine; medicine is an extension of ecology.  Ecology is not a part of law; law is an extension of ecology.  So too, in their own way, the same can be said of economics and even the humanities. p.84

We are so impatient with our given place in the universe that some persons are totally committed to discovering how we can get beyond Earth.  We have indeed been out in space, but some are under the impression that we have been off Earth.  In reality humans have never been off Earth.  We have always been on a piece of Earth in space.  We survive only as long as we can breathe the air of Earth, drink its waters, and be nourished by its foods.  There is no indication that humans will ever live anywhere else in the universe. p.92

There seems to be little awareness that government, independent of corporation pressure, is the most powerful force the people have to offset the immense size of the corporations individually and in their combined influence over a nation's affairs.  Big corporations require big government -- unless the people are willing to accept the corporations as the government. p.131

Among the primary evils of contemporary industry is that it is founded on uniform, standardized processes.  This is especially devastating in agribusiness, which demands uniformity in its products.  Nature abhors uniformity.  Nature not only produces species diversity but also individual diversity.  Nature produces individuals.  No two days are the same, no two snowflakes, no two flowers, trees, or any other of the infinite number of life forms.  Since monoculture and standardization are violations of both the universe covenant and the Earth covenant, we need to foster a new sense of the organic world over the merely mechanical world. p.149

One great advantage in the modern European contact with the indigenous peoples of the world is the perspective that it has provided people of Western European civilization with an occasion to reflect on the inherent consequences of the civilizational process itself.  For the first time, in the beginning of the colonial period, Western civilization could be seen as being weakened, both physically and morally, precisely through the civilization process itself. p.179

Women are also revealing Western civilization to itself.  Without this newly assertive consciousness of women, Western civilization might have continued indefinitely on its destructive path without ever coming to a realization of just what has been happening in the exclusion of women from full participation in the human project. p.181

Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth by Jim Merkel

Currently the world's wealthiest one billion people alone consume the equivalent of the Earth's entire sustainable yield.  All six billion people are consuming at a level that is 20 percent over sustainable yield. p.8

The four phases of a vision quest: 1) To separate from one's daily routine and go into the wilderness. 2) To embark on an epic journey, either metaphorical or real. 3) To allow for a ceremonial death and rebirth -- a death of ideas, actions, or beliefs no longer appropriate for one's new world. 4) To integrate one's reborn self back into the community. p.22

Imagine this scenario. What would happen if every worker were to offer their services at a price as close to the average global income as practical given their particularities, such as family size, geographic location, etc.? In essence, this means setting the price for one's products or services according to their needs, instead of attempting to maximize profits (what the market would bear or as high of a salary as you can negotiate). Costs would come down. Each household could work just enough to support their basic needs, including a reasonable level of long-term security. By having lower incomes, individuals would consume less. As product prices fall, others can work less and earn less. The entire economy would gently slow down, yet everyone would still have their needs met. It simply takes each person limiting how much income they take and how much they consume. I'm not really suggesting communism. But I am suggesting a voluntary taming of the appetite. p.37

Although there are infinite ways to share, the easiest is simply to take less. We take less (or share more) when we: earn less, taking less of the available work; consume less; make wiser choices; and purchase local products. You may be tempted to enthusiastically consume more than your share of available work and money and become a philanthropist, all for the joy of giving it away.  But this path is loaded with pitfalls, in terms of power dynamics and inner motivation. pp.52-53

Figure 6-4, Ecological Footprints as they Correlate to Income.
$100,000 and up:    40 to 60 acres
$50,000 to $100,000:    30 to 50 acres
$30,000 to $50,000:    25 to 40 acres
$30,000 and up (Europe and Japan):    15 acres and up
$25,000 to $30,000:    20 to 30 acres
$20,000 to $25,000:    18 to 22 acres
$15,000 to $20,000:    14 to 20 acres
$10,000 to $15,000:    12 to 18 acres
$5,000 to $10,000:    5 to 15 acres
$2,500 to $5,000:    3 to 13 acres
$1,000 to $2,500:    2.5 to 6 acres
$500 to $1,000:    2 to 5 acres
$100 to $500:    1.5 to 4 acres p.84

What would be the ecological footprint to travel across America once a year by plane, bus, train, car, bike or horse? Assume the journey is 6,000 miles round trip... Plane (economy class): 1.3 acres. Bus: 0.4 acres. Train: 1.8 acres. Car (20 mpg): 2.6 acres. Car (50 mpg): 1 acre. Bicycle: 0.22 acres. Horse: 1.8 acres. pp.106-107

On average, people spend almost one day a week (or about an hour and a half a day) working to pay for their vehicles. You could work four days a week, commute up to ten miles each way by bike, and still save time. p.155

Couples must remain free to choose their family size.  For this [one-hundred-year] plan to succeed, it has to be: Fully voluntary; Aimed at alleviating poverty; Fully supported by government; Locally driven; Bioregionally focused; Accomplished through education; and Dynamic. p.186

The 100-year plan offers a clear win-win scenario.  If humanity chooses one-child families for the next 100 years, a footprint goal of six acres is achievable without sustainability heroics. The high-income individuals, who now have the most privilege, need to step up to the plate and reduce footprints as an initial gesture of goodwill.  Then, after sustained, documentable reductions have been made, they will have the credibility to ask low-income countries to reduce population. p.192

God's Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams

If you believe a truck is coming toward you, you will jump out of the way. That is belief in the reality of the truck.  If you tell people you fear the truck but do nothing to get out of the way, that is not belief in the truck. Likewise, it is not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starvation.  When belief does not control your most important decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief in the usefulness of believing. pp.28-29

"Are you saying we're evolving into God?"
"I'm saying we're the building blocks of God, in the early stages of reassembling." 
"I think I'd know it if we were part of an omnipotent being," I said.
"Would you?  Your skin cells are not aware that they are part of a human being. Skin cells are not equipped for that knowledge.  They are equipped to do what they do and nothing more.  Likewise, if we humans -- and all the plants and animals and dirt and rocks -- were components of God, would we have the capacity to know it?" pp.53-54

"Does God have consciousness yet?  Does he know he's reassembling himself?"
"He does.  Otherwise you could not have asked the question, and I could not have answered." p.54

Light is analogous to the horizon.  It is a boundary that gives the illusion of being a physical thing.  Like the horizon, it appears to move away from you at a constant speed no matter how fast you are moving.  We observe things that we believe are light, like the searchlight in the night sky, the cloud-red sunset.  But those things are not light; they are merely boundaries between different probabilities. pp.86-87

The so-called speed of light is simply the limit to how far a particle can pop into existence from its original location. p.89

Ideas are the only things that can change the world.  The rest is details. p.127

"Walking Through Fear" by Frances Moore Lappe, in YES! a Journal of Positive Futures, June 2004

I think we are in a new evolutionary stage. We evolved in tight-knit tribes in which we faced death if we didn't have the support of the rest of the tribe. So little wonder that it can seem unthinkable to say "no, thanks" to the modern-day equivalent of our tribe -- our fear-driven culture. The problem is that our whole tribe -- if you will, the larger community of humanity itself -- is on a death march ecologically and in terms of the intensification of violence and conflict.  So breaking with the pack may be *exactly* what we should be doing. Saying "no" to the dominant culture that is trapping us in destructive ways of living might be the most life-serving thing we can do. Fear doesn't necessarily mean that we have to stop. It doesn't mean that we are failures. It doesn't mean that we are cowards. It means that we are human beings walking into the unknown, and that we are risking breaking with others for something we believe in. p.31

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on Dec 23, 2004]

Merry Christmas, everybody! And a happy belated solstice to those who prefer. Or vice versa, for that matter.

I'm writing with an update about my joint trouble, since many of you are on this list to learn what's involved in bike touring. Last time I wrote, I had just been to a chiropractor (recommended by a local bike shop) who said he saw no reason why I shouldn't finish my trip. However, in the two weeks since I saw him, there's been no improvement in my condition, so this morning I went to an orthopedist / sports-medicine surgeon for a second opinion. Although I'm shocked by how much money one can spend in two hours, I got some valuable information and some peace of mind. And several of you now have the opportunity to say you told me so... Merry Christmas! ;-)

1. The chiropractor had theorized that the reason my knees didn't start hurting until after I rested for 2 weeks in Oklahoma was that before then I had been doing continuous damage to the joints and not allowing them to heal. When I took two weeks off, he said, the kneecaps healed imperfectly, forming sharp points that then hurt when I resumed riding. I was relieved to see in the X-rays that this was not in fact the case. None of the X-rays showed any damage to the bones or the space between them (i.e. cartilage). That's a great relief!
2. On the other hand, the orthopedist says that whenever I feel this pain I'm doing damage to my tendons which will take a long time to heal, if it heals at all. He felt obliged to tell me that the best thing for my health would be to stop overstressing my body -- "overstress" meaning more than an hour of exercise per day! That is to say, I should stop touring. However, when he saw that I didn't throw in the towel right away, he conceded that the second best thing would be to lighten my load and reduce my daily mileage whenever possible. (It's notable that neither of the chiropractors I've seen said anything about reducing either the weight or the miles.) We talked about camping gear and various other heavy things I could consider leaving off my trailer... I was embarassed to tell him about the autoharp! Alas, that will be the first to go. :-( (Cue to Lori: you told me so!) Fortunately I have two more weeks here in which to back off on my daily miles, then work up to a sustainable day's ride. My hosts even have a stationary bike I can try.
3. When I told the chiropractors that I had lost weight on this trip, they smiled and nodded enthusiastically. When I told the orthopedist, he was dismayed. I assured him I'd gained some back in the month I've spent here in Austin, but he dragged me to a scale, and we found that even with my holiday pudge I'm 10 pounds lighter than I was when I left Minneapolis. He said this was the first time in his career he's told a patient to eat more. (Cue to Dad: you told me so!) The way he tells it, weight loss invariably affects the tendons, cartilage, and bones as well as fat and muscle, and so I should try to maintain my current weight when I leave here.
4. The orthopedist reiterated the importance of stretching (which I hadn't been doing until 2 weeks ago) but said that putting ice on my joints after exercise is optional -- rest is more important than cold. That's a relief; although my hosts here in Austin keep nice cushy cold-packs in the freezer, ice can be hard to find while camping. He was unimpressed by the supplements I got from the chiropractor -- basically gristle in a gel cap -- but didn't tell me to stop taking them. He also gave me a prescription for ibuprofen but recommended I not use it unless I feel I have to.

On the whole I'm very satisfied with the way the appointment went. The doctor was very attentive and generous with his time, and although he did recommend I give up and go home, by the end of the appointment he was parading me around the clinic as his "hero" and asking to see my photos, and he said he hopes I can complete the trip as planned. So it looks like I've got my New Year's resolutions in the form of doctor's orders: less cargo, less hurry, less pain, more food. How many people get news like that for Christmas? ;-)

I realize most of you will be accumulating more cargo this weekend, but I'll wish you all less hurry, less pain, and more food for the new year! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 4, 2004]

Happy new year! Between the tsunami and torrential flooding in the southwest US, I've been very glad to be on high ground... hope you're all high and dry as well.

Shortly after I last wrote you, a mutual friend of Marisa and her parents and myself flew in from Minneapolis for the holidays. Ironically enough, the Christmas-through-New-Years duration of his visit is what I had originally had in mind for my own stay here in Austin... I'm tremendously grateful to Rich and Gloria for putting me up for six weeks instead! My joints are about 99% painless now, and I'm planning to leave town by the end of this week.

I've made some progress in lightening my load, as the doctor ordered. I already mentioned that I'll be leaving my autoharp here with Rich, who used to play years ago... that's about 12 pounds. I also went to REI and bought a lighter tent. I initially considered the 3-pound, coffin-shaped REI Roadster, but when I got it home I found it was about 2 inches too small for comfort. I wound up with the 5-pound, kite-shaped Sierra Designs Hyperlight instead, which is extravagantly spacious for one person but can be pitched with just one pole in narrow spaces (e.g. the top of a picnic table!). I got a great deal on the tent because it was the last one in stock, and they couldn't find the sack and stakes that went with it, so they knocked 15% off the sale price and gave me a generic sack and stakes for free! Then they bought back my three-year-old tent for store credit! I'll miss it -- it was an excellent two-person, 4-season tent, and it served me well, but I just didn't do enough two-person, four-season camping to justify its 10 pound weight. The new tent is small enough that I hope to be able to fit it inside one of the plastic tubs on the trailer, rather than strapping it on top as I've been doing.

Other items I'll be leaving behind or shipping to myself include my colored pencils and drawing paper (about 1 pound), the cradle for my PalmPilot (light, but bulky), and a dozen or so trash bags (about 2 pounds), so all in all I'm about 20-25 pounds lighter than I was when I rolled into town.

I had been planning to head east via College Station, TX, which is actually northeast of Austin, but then I was referred to a Web site called Adventure Cycling that suggests routes through various parts of the country. Their "Southern Tier" route leaves Austin to the southeast, so I'll give that a shot... it will mean staying with my other Austin friends for two or three nights on the way out of town rather than leaving straight from northwest Austin.

Although there are no ecovillages in Austin, I did contact some folks who are working to start one. It's actually shaping up to be more of a cohousing development than an ecovillage, but some of the more eco-minded members of the group had me over for dinner on Sunday night, and we talked about permaculture and bike touring over some of the best legume-free vegetarian food I've had in years. Earlier that day, my friend Gypsy and I toured the Rhizome Collective, which had been featured in two local newspapers last week. I'll have some photos of the place on my next roll of film, but meanwhile you can take the virtual tour on their Web site.

Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 7, 2005]

Hi, folks. I've left my wintering ground behind, but I'm still in Austin until tomorrow. Just thought I'd give you a quick update while I have Internet access!

I spent the better part of this week trying to get in shape so I wouldn't hurt myself again as I did in November. On Monday and Tuesday I went on "reverse shopping trips," taking stuff back to the stores it came from or to Goodwill. I also tested some of the logistics of my getaway, such as whether it was a good idea to go down the "killer hill" in the Bennetts' neighborhood with a trailer full of gear behind me. Turned out not to be a problem, and it cut several miles from the distance I'd have to ride.

On Wednesday I planned to ride all the way into downtown, have lunch, then meet a college friend at "Town Lake" (the obstructed river that flows through town) for a short ride -- she was curious to see my bike in action -- and finally ride back to the northern edge of town before dark. All was well until I finished my lunch at the flagship Whole Foods Market and stepped outside ... and found that the temperature had dropped almost 30 degrees F! I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and had no other clothes with me besides my poncho. The light rain had suddenly gone from a mild annoyance to a serious health hazard. I biked to the home of another friend (Brigitte) and called to cancel my biking date... no recreational cyclist would want to be out in that. I waited an hour or so for the rain to stop, then called Gloria to see if she could pick me up in her minivan after work. She was glad to do so, so I was spared the misery of riding back. It wouldn't have been bad at all if I'd had my windbreaker suit with me, but I hadn't thought to pack it in the 70+ degree morning.

Thursday I packed all my gear aboard my trailer and headed south. I wasn't able to fit the new, smaller tent inside the green bin as I had hoped, but with the autoharp gone from the yellow waterproof bag, I was able to put the tent in there instead. I think the blue bin may have gotten a little heavier from the additional clothing I acquired over the holidays. The ride south along "Loop 360" (a memorable name for a highway, I must say) was very scenic, going as it does along the edge of the Texas Hill Country and right through a lot of the hills, but I didn't feel safe stopping on the shoulder to take photos. It would be prettier in the springtime, anyway... if you're curious I'm sure you can find photos elsewhere on the Web.

The ride to Gypsy's house took only 3 hours, so I was there by noon. We went to a movie (probably the main thing we've done together in 10 years of friendship) and played some board games. My joints felt fine when I first arrived, but my left knee stiffened up during the movie. Once I stretched it out again it was fine. I slept very poorly last night because Gypsy's housemates like to stay up all night playing computer games with the TV on. After a few hours I moved to the garage, where my gear was, and set up camp on the floor. Assuming Gypsy gets up soon, we'll drive out to see Pedernales Falls before I have to leave for my next overnight stay.

Q: Why hasn't Krispy Kreme come up with a plan to donate surplus doughnuts to charity?!

A: Probably for the same reasons most food retailers haven't... health code restrictions plus the questionable effect it might have on profits. While Brigitte and I sat out the rain on Wednesday, we were entertained by one of her housemates who was ranting about the Wheatsville Food Co-Op, where he works. It's the only food co-op in Texas, but to hear him tell it, it's getting less cooperative all the time under its new management, which is more concerned with profitability than the workers and members are used to. One of the co-op's traditions was that anything usable they were throwing out would go on a "Free" table outside rather than in the dumpster, but the new manager has threatened to fire anyone who marks merchandise as free. So they're just taking it home with them and distributing it on their own time!

Q: It looks like you've solved the whole weighing-too-little problem, eh?

A: With doUGHnuts? Not likely! I'm not actually a big fan of them; I've just been fascinated by how popular they are down here. The day after the Krispy Kreme kaper, I ate 10 donuts and was plagued by a gnawing hunger all day long... I think they actually made me hungrier. My challenge will be to keep eating nutritious, high-protein foods during the day while I'm riding, even though exercise suppresses appetite.

OK, last message from Austin, I promise. --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 15, 2005]

It's hard to believe it's been only a week since I left Austin! Here's what's transpired since I wrote last Friday morning...

Gypsy didn't get up until about 11:00, and she pronounced the weather unfit for a trip to Pedernales Falls, so we played a couple games of Settlers of Catan and then I rode on to Cat's. The trip took only a little over an hour, which surprised me and caused me to underestimate the following day's ride.

Cat has made great use of the three years since her graduation from Grinnell. She's been working in her field of anthropology with the same tribe of Kalahari bushmen featured in The Gods Must Be Crazy, and some of the photos she took there (http://kalahari.blogspot.com) turned out so well she bought herself a home digital photo studio (which is to say a really fancy printer), complete with framing machine. Then she got certified to do a handful of different kinds of massage therapy, and she went into business doing that. To top it all off, she got an inheritance that allowed her to follow her mother's footsteps into real estate management, so she's renting both halves of a duplex and bought a house for herself. The house was extensively (and eccentrically!) redecorated by its previous owner, so she has her hands full undoing some of that damage... when they're not full of her other jobs! We had a good time catching up with each other's adventures.

I left her place at about 9:30 in the morning, so as to miss rush hour, forgetting that it was a Saturday! I followed TX 71 most of the way to Bastrop, a town which, despite a name that suggests something you might use to flog an incorrigible child, was "voted most historic small town in Texas." I didn't stop to find out why but buzzed on through to the nearby state park. I was glad to have more than an hour before sunset, because it was my first time pitching my new tent. I know, that was stupid, but it all turned out well. The rainfly was missing a few bits (since the folks at the store were unable to locate the bag it came in), but I was able to improvise them using the spare parts I picked up in St. Louis.

I thought Sunday's ride might be too ambitious, but it turned out to be just right. I started to feel some knee pain in the late morning, but I took a leisurely lunch break and it cleared up. The weather was gorgeous in the afternoon: mid-70s and partly sunny. I got my first fire-ant sting of the trip when I stopped to take off a layer and stepped right in one of their millions of large hills. Somehow an ant got all the way up to my knee and then stung me four times in a neat row, which promptly swelled to the size of a nickel. I was lucky to get only one! I had thought the ants were dormant this time of year, since I hadn't seen them venture from their hills, but then I hadn't tried stepping in one.

Monday was hot and humid. I had to put everything away damp, and the laundry didn't even start to dry until midday when the sun came out. There were an unusual number of vultures along the road, but aside from that the ride was pleasant, following a lot of back roads with hardly any traffic (which made the vultures a bit more unnerving!). Because of the heat, and because I ran out of the foods I was craving, I was very tired by afternoon. My plan was to ride into Navasota (the only town I would pass through all day), get groceries, and then ride two hours south to a campground I knew of, but I was so tired I was tempted to get a hotel room instead. Then, on the way into town, I spotted a city RV park beside the little municipal airport! I set up camp and then rode without my trailer (zoom!) into town for groceries. My only neighbor in the park introduced himself; he's a former printed-circuit-board magnate now living in his parents' RV because his wife kicked him out. He says that I'm the fourth bicycle tourist to pass through this month.

Tuesday was oppressively hot and sticky. I stopped for lunch in the tiny town of Roberts. I have never waited so long for a hamburger in my life. I saw the waitress put it on the griddle right after I ordered it, but the griddle must have been cold or the burger frozen, because it was at least 20 minutes in the making, probably more like 30 judging by the number of country-music videos I watched. (I have to say, some of them are a lot of fun.) I had plenty of time to stare at the menu and estimate what the bill would be, and I left what I thought was a skimpy tip due to the unreasonably slow service. But when they rang up my order, it was several dollars less than I expected. I objected, saying I had ordered extras on my burger, and the staff thought this was hilarious. They said, "You may have to pay for tomatoes and jalapeños up north, but here in Texas those come with the burger!" I played along, though in my experience you're as likely to pay extra for tomatoes in Montopolis as in Minneapolis. I was happy to pay less for the burger, and my stingy tip was now quite generous... and when I got outside I found that all my laundry had dried...

Shortly after that I rode into the Sam Houston National Forest, the first federal land I've passed through on this trip. (I passed close to Manistee National Forest in Michigan but didn't venture inside.) It's beautiful and very peaceful ... at night. In the daytime it gets "healthier" (in neocon terminology) by the truckload. When I went to boil my water for supper, I discovered I'd left my stove in Navasota... I never took it out from under the campsite's grill the night before. I took this setback as a challenge... I doused a rolled-up bandage in fuel (methyl alcohol) -- a little less than I would have used in the stove -- and used the resulting fireball to start a pile of twigs burning in the grill. I've never seen twigs burn so fast and hot! My water was ready in half the time it would have taken with the stove. Of course the twigs generated a lot of soot all over my cooking bowl, but that was easily cleaned up. The next day I found a wad of fiberglass insulation (which is what the stove had used for a wick) on the side of the road, so I didn't have to sacrifice any more bandages to future experiments.

I spent Wednesday passing in and out of Sam Houston National Forest, ending up back inside it. The only interesting thing that happened was that I stopped for lunch in New Waverly at a concession trailer that had been designed for biker rallies. The couple who operated the place were motorcycle bikers for a while, then attended rallies with their food trailer, and somehow wound up serving breakfast tacos to commuters in New Waverly. We chatted for a while, and they gave me my ham-and-egg taco for free.

Wednesday night the weather finally broke. I was all snug in my tent by the time the storm started, and I felt rather smug -- putting in earplugs to sleep through the thunder -- until I discovered that an enormous puddle was forming beside and under half the tent! I felt like the fourth little pig who built his house out of nylon and couldn't get the door unzipped when the wolf came. Fortunately the bottom of the tent stayed watertight, and the puddle soaked into the ground by morning. I hadn't been in such a heavy rainfall since Ludington (almost six months ago!) and had forgotten how much dirt it kicks up. The tent was filthy in the morning! I decided since I had a short day of riding ahead of me, I would wipe the tent down thoroughly before putting it away, but this took about two hours. It was 10:00 by the time I hit the road, and then I stopped to use the Internet at a library for an hour. (This explains the "not dead yet" message you received from me.)

I stopped for lunch at a little roadside store advertising "hot tamales." The guy would only sell them by the dozen, because, come to find out, they were frozen that way. But he warmed a dozen up for me, and I ate them all at one sitting with a grapefruit for dessert/digestive aid. They were pretty sad little tamales, each about the size of half a hot dog, but they hit the spot.

I had planned to stop for the night at a campground called Tombigbee Lake, in the Alabama-Coushala Indian Reservation, but when I was a few miles from the place I saw a sign for another campground whose location would shorten the next day's ride by about an hour, so I went there instead. The proprietress is from Athens, Greece, and although there were a half dozen trailers parked here and there, I seemed to be the only person actually staying the night. As I was pitching the tent, I noticed that a ladder leaning up against a nearby tree was making a groaning noise when the wind blew. When the sun set, a light outside the bathroom shone right on my tent. Hmmm... I moved the ladder to the bathroom wall and unscrewed the light bulb: two problems solved! (I put everything back in the morning.)

I was on the road at sunrise Friday morning, knowing I had a full day's ride ahead of me. I made good time, mostly on two-lane back roads frequented by logging trucks. I was all set to report that, as in Oklahoma, no one in Texas had yelled at me from a car window. But today some Texans had to go and spoil it. They didn't yell per se, but several honked angrily, and two called 911 to complain about me, and one flipped me off. The sheriff's deputy who stopped to talk to me just made sure I hadn't been doing anything unsafe or illegal to inspire the calls and let me go again. I guess Midwesterners haven't cornered the market for passive aggressiveness after all.

It was a beautiful day for riding, though a bit chilly in the morning. I stopped midday to remove a layer, and I inadvertently left it on top of the trailer rather than stowing it inside, so it won't be traveling any farther with me. Fortunately long john tops and bottoms are sold separately.

For the past few days I've been trying to decide whether or not to ride into Beaumont, TX. On the one hand, an old friend used to attend the UU church there, and Sunday is fast approaching; but on the other hand, I haven't heard from her in years and have no idea whether she still lives in the area or what her married name is, and more to the point, once I got into town it would be difficult to go into Louisiana from there without riding on an Interstate highway... so I decided against it.

On the road I saw a little Suzuki Sidekick pickup... I think my bike has a longer wheelbase, and my trailer definitely carries more cargo. But it was fitted out with oversized wheels so that it looked like a baby monster truck. Mounted on the grill was a little blackboard, and written on this in chalk were the words, "Men fear me, women want me."

I stopped for the night at Village Creek State Park, east of Lumberton, which in turn is north of Beaumont. I opted for a "pack in" campsite with no electricity, etc., so instead of being surrounded by Friday night partiers, I have a little patch of woods and creek all to myself. It's a beautiful last night in Texas.

A few random reflections...

• The national forests are irreplaceable treasures! Go see them while you can! You may be wiping your butts with them tomorrow. I'm not joking. It's open season on trees out here, a penny an acre, while supplies last, and the less useful species that also happen to live here are just out of luck. It's not legal to hunt most of them, but try and keep 'em off your bumper!
• My Austin hosts had warned me that Texans can be a little self-obsessed... I was prepared for the omnipresent Texas flags and Lone Stars and various improbable objects shaped like the state (though the tortilla chips were a surprise). What I'm still having trouble with is that when I passed between College Station and Houston, I could pick up two different radio stations dedicated to playing only songs about Texas! These were in addition to the Tejano (Mexican polka) stations.
• Where I come from, "y'all" is a plural, familiar pronoun. Down here it's singular and formal, "all y'all" being the plural and "you" reserved for kinfolk. I knew such a dialect existed and that I'd probably pass through its territory, but every time someone calls me "y'all" I look around to see who else they're talking to. (Notice I have no trouble using "they" as a singular pronoun.)

Catch all y'all in Louisiana! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 16, 2004]

Long message this time... some remarkable things happened!

Right after I wrote that it was "a beautiful last night in Texas," I lay down to sleep and smelled a horrible smell... at first I thought I must have put my tent down over a previous camper's cathole; then I decided the smell was more like rotting brussels sprouts, so it must be someone's old garbage. (Either would be plausible; this was a very "primitive" campground with no restrooms or trashcans nearby.) But a few hours later when I stepped outside the tent, I realized the smell was everywhere... the wind had shifted, and I was downwind from a paper mill! The night was cold, so I stuffed all of my spare clothes into the sleeping bag for warmth and closed up the hood so that only my nose stuck out... but with the smell out there, I wanted my nose inside!

After a few hours of very poor sleep, I was wakened by a construction crew starting its day around 4:00 AM! Noplace I asked in Lumberton would allow me to plug into their phone line to send my e-mail, so I went on to Silsbee (TX), but I had no luck there either. (My best prospects tend to be computer stores, cell-phone dealers, and printers, but none of these are open on Saturday mornings, so I was resorting to convenience stores where business was slow.) I decided I'd try one last place and then head on to Louisiana.

I was stopped in the parking lot by an old man who said, "Whoa there! Where are you going and where did you start from?" He turned out to be the instigator of an initiative to get Silsbee named among the country's "Bike Friendly Cities," and he offered to put me up for the night in exchange for information about bike touring. After my exhausting night, I was happy to accept! Come to find out, J.P. (as his name is) served in the Army Air Corps during WWII, and his wife Helen was a "Rosie the Riveter" building planes. Helen taught foreign languages at the University of Oklahoma for a while, and then they settled in Silsbee.

J.P. bought a radio station and made a name for himself broadcasting all the sporting events no one else covered, such as girls' soccer and tee ball. He served as mayor and school superintendent, while Helen taught in the schools and ran the foreign-exchange-student program, taking in a handful of students from exotic countries in their own home. After they both retired, Helen was instrumental in turning an old ice house (which down here is a refrigeration plant, not a fishing shack) into a museum, and J.P. went into business selling and fixing golf carts. As such, he still knows all the movers and shakers in town, because they all golf!

So about a year ago, J.P. accepted an electric bicycle as a trade-in for a golf cart. This got him biking again, and he joined the Texas Cycling Coalition and the League of American Bicyclists. When the League came out with its list of bike-friendly cities last summer, College Station was the only one in Texas. The Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route (which I'm following on my way east, give or take 50 miles) passes through the nearby town of Kountze, so J.P. thought, why not make Silsbee a bike-friendly city and attract that tourist traffic? Why not do it before the next list is published?

The deadline for the 2005 list is March 31st, and J.P. is determined to do everything he can until then, at which time he will bow out and let other people run the show. He mobilized the good ol' boy network and took the newly named Big Thicket Wheelers from zero to 40 members -- with bylaws and a board and nonprofit status pending -- last week. Yesterday they got their 110th member. He's contacted everyone in the county who's dreamed of putting in bike trails or anything bike related and got them on board for the March 31st deadline. There may not be any ground broken by then, but there will be a really impressive paper trail!

Anyhow, J.P. drove me around the town as he was telling me all this, and I helped him move some of his hundred or so golf carts and swap some batteries. I met Helen, who has had a stroke and needs constant supervision; she has a daytime caregiver so that J.P. can get out. I also met their chihuahua, who took an immediate dislike to me and would not be persuaded of my good intentions. They put me up in their spare bedroom on the coldest night of the year, and in return I told him what amenities would make the town attractive to me as a bicyclist. Even if they don't get the award this year, they'll get more bicycles on the road, which can only help. J.P. fixed me a hearty breakfast Sunday morning, and I was on the road by sunrise.

I had a minor adventure when I tried to follow a shortcut that was shown on my map, but that turned out to be an unpaved, unmarked road through an oil field. I gave up and went the long way around. There's a swamp along the border of Louisiana and Texas. The road I took across was about 50% bridges and 50% infill. The bridges weren't widened when the rest of the road got shoulders, so every time I came to a bridge I stopped and waited for a gap in traffic before pulling out into the lane.

When I rode through a little town just across the border, I met another cyclist: a boy in his early teens riding a stunt bike so small I swear it could be concealed in a trenchcoat. We exchanged compliments and he asked the usual questions about where I was going and where from. "How about you?" I asked. "Oh, I'm from ... just down the road, and I was going about... 300 yards down the road." "Everyone has to start somewhere," I said sagely, "but where are you *going*?" "Ohh," he exclaimed. "I guess I don't know." "I've been there," I said, enjoying being the mysterious stranger in someone else's story. "I'm headed there, too. It's not a bad place. Maybe I'll see you there." "See you around!" he said and rode home to write a book or get counseling or something.

I rode hard all day and still barely made it to Vinton by sunset. Fortunately that should be the last long day for a while; I've chosen a route through Louisiana where the campgrounds are close together. Louisiana is the first state on this trip I've never visited before. Onward to new territory! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 20, 2005]

It was a mistake for me to call the night I spent in Silsbee "the coldest night of the year." That cold snap lasted for three more nights, and I continued camping out because my route was planned around campgrounds, and because I'm a stubborn fool! Between the Interstate and the railroad and the freezing temperatures and the rooster who crowed every few seconds, all night long, I slept very poorly Sunday night at the campground in Vinton. I took my time getting up and didn't hit the road until around 10:00.

I rode into the town of Sulphur, LA, and asked about the name, since I rode through Sulphur, OK a few months ago. This one was named for sulfur mines that were there before the town was founded. I ate lunch at a cajun deli in Sulphur where a constant parade of customers came in asking for cracklins and were turned away. I kept expecting the cashier to burst into a chorus of, "Yes! We have no more cracklins today."

The cultural difference between southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana is the most abrupt I think I've ever seen across a state line. The "y'alls" I told you about stopped as soon as I entered Louisiana; in fact the people here speak so clearly they have trouble understanding me! Cowboy hats and the cowboy identity pretty much disappeared as well. Pickup trucks became epidemic for 50 miles or so -- they were up around 80% of all vehicles on the road -- and then subsided as I continued east. Rangeland has been replaced by rice paddies and crawfish ponds. The ground is so wet in southern Louisiana -- let's call it "permasog" -- that most buildings are built a few inches or even feet above ground level, up on blocks like manufactured ("mobile") homes. The dead are buried in concrete vaults rather than directly in the ground, presumably to keep them from getting into the groundwater. About half the religious radio stations are now Catholic, and the Tejano music on the air has been replaced by zydeco. Cracklins, by the way, are pork rinds. A pre-cooked pork roast is called a "picnic." I'm not kidding... a Piggly Wiggly store was advertising picnics for 88 cents a pound, and they turned out to be shrink-wrapped, smoked pork roasts the size of whole chickens, and they said "picnic" right on the label. I have trouble imagining eating one of them on a blanket in the park.

Anyhow... my map showed that US 96 merged with Interstate 10 to cross Lake Charles (a wide spot on the Calcasieu River) from Sulphur into the town of Lake Charles. I decided to see whether there would be an access road or some other way for me to get across, but there was none; in fact the bridge over the lake is astonishingly high (they were expecting maybe the QE2?) and has no shoulders at all. I'm not sure what slow-moving vehicles do when they have to cross; maybe they have to ride on semi trailers. As I was studying my map to decide where I could travel safely, a driver coming the other way pulled over and crossed the highway on foot to give me directions to the state park.

Sam Houston Jones State Park was about 6 miles out of my way, but I had to detour around the lake anyway, and it was worth it for the peace and quiet. I got assigned a campsite right next to a lagoon -- wait 'till you see the photo -- but as the only tent camper I chose a site farther from the water. One thing I'll say for cold-weather camping: you don't have to worry about mosquitos... but I wasn't sure about alligators or snakes! I was tired of my space blanket getting my sleeping bag all wet with condensation, so I tried Marisa's suggestion of hanging the blanket from the ceiling. It made me feel like I was sleeping in a toaster, but it kept me warm through most of a 20-degree night!

Tuesday was short and uneventful. I took my time and reached a campground outside Iowa, LA by 3:30. The campground was overpriced, but the manager at least showed me a place where I would be out of the wind. South-central Louisiana is as flat as North Dakota, and the wind comes sweepin' down the plains. Wednesday was much warmer, with a warm night forecast. I expected it to be a slow and easy day, but after three nights of camping in the cold I was stiff and sore and tired. I also had a mouth full of canker sores to attest to the stress I was under.

I stopped for lunch in Jennings before heading via back roads to Egan, where my map showed a campground. When I got to the spot, around 3:30, the campground was gone. I flagged down a local who said it had been there, but it closed. I checked the yellow pages in a nearby restaurant and found a hotel 10 miles farther east. As tempting as the thought was of reducing Thursday's long ride, it would set me back $60, and besides, I was too tired to ride another 10 miles. I filled my water bottle at the restaurant and headed to a patch of land I'd noticed while looking for the campground.

It belongs to the Acadiana Beagle Club (this being Acadia Parish) and I presume it's a training ground for hunting dogs. It was posted No Hunting but not No Trespassing, and there was no fence or gate. I set up camp behind some trees. An hour later, when there was no longer any question of changing plans before dusk, some members of the Beagle Club showed up to their other property across the road and started feeding the beagles. I kept a low profile, and they had no idea I was there.

Thursday's ride was nearly 50 miles, so I budgeted the whole day for it. Fortunately I slept soundly and woke refreshed an hour before dawn. I was on the road before sunrise and reached my lunch stop, Rayne (Frog Capitol of the World!), before they had started serving lunch, so I just rode on. A solid night's rest must have made all the difference, because I reached Opelousas at the unheard-of hour of 2:00! The campground shown on my map was a city park. It's not really set up as a campground, but they let me use the showers in the football stadium, which were kind of horrifying. Camping in the middle of a city park in the middle of a city is an interesting experience; lots of different sounds.

I'll be in Baton Rouge this weekend! Stay tuned! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 22, 2005]

Hi, folks! I know it's only been a couple days since I wrote, but a lot has happened. Louisiana is certainly turning out to be a different traveling experience from the other states I've passed through!

Friday was one of those days when nothing goes quite as expected. I woke in the morning (in a city park, remember) to find Opelousas blanketed in heavy fog. I had a short day of riding ahead of me, so I decided to walk to a restaurant and get breakfast while waiting for my tent to dry. I asked a few passersby for a restaurant that might have some local flavor (as opposed to McDonalds, which was the first place they all named when I asked about breakfast) and wound up at a greasy-spoon diner with a menu that could have been anywhere in the country. I had to put Tabasco sauce on my eggs rather than the Crystal sauce that has been the standard condiment everywhere else I've eaten in Louisiana so far. The fog was just beginning to clear when I got back, and my tent wasn't any drier, so I put it away anyway. I tried to pay the folks in the park office for my overnight stay, but they insisted I could only pay the guy who hadn't shown up to take my money the night before, and he wasn't any more present in the morning, so I left without paying.

As I was leaving the park, I met two other bike tourists, an elderly couple from Lafayette (about 25 miles south) who turned out to be the authors of the Bike Louisiana Web site. They strongly discouraged me from following US-190 toward Baton Rouge. They said it had lots of bridges without shoulders. I figured, hey, no sweat; there were lots of bridges without shoulders on the road I took across the border! They didn't say that one of these bridges was FOUR MILES LONG. They also didn't tell me that the campground I was counting on was not open to me. Either of those facts would have caused me to reconsider, but instead they kept saying that the route featured on their Web site, which would take me 50 miles farther north, was much more beautiful. I didn't find this argument convincing. I stopped for a second opinion at the tourist information center in town, and the staff there assured me that US-190 had been repaved and now had a very nice shoulder except on a few bridges, and that there was no need to detour farther north.

I headed off down the road feeling a little bit smug that I had better information than those recreational tourists from Lafayette who probably hadn't set eyes on the highway since it was repaved. The shoulder was smooth, and I had a nice tailwind, and I made excellent time all the way through Krotz Springs and across the Atchafalaya River, which is at least as wide at that point as the Mississippi is in St. Louis, but only about half as wide as the Mississippi is in Baton Rouge. Then I turned south on the state highway that would lead me to my campground in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.

Now, I've heard of the Atchafalaya Swamp. I was looking forward to camping in the refuge, not so much because I was eager to sleep in another swamp, but because it's famous, and because it's national land. My map showed a campground about three miles down a state highway from 190. The road was marked as a state highway, but it was unpaved. Or rather, it was under an inch of gravel. This was no temporary fix; the road was paved in an inch of loose gravel and left that way. It was extremely tough going on my bike. I suddenly thought to wonder whether the campground actually existed. I tried to call the agency responsible for the refuge, but they didn't answer. I decided to go back to the highway, not so much because I couldn't get through the gravel that afternoon, but because if I did sleep three miles down that road, I'd have to get back through the gravel first thing in the morning!

Turning back turned out to be the best decision I've made in a long time, because next came the four mile bridge. It was not shown as a bridge on the map. It was not marked in any way with signs: "Danger: no stopping, next 4 mi." We just started across, and there was no shoulder and no way off. In broad daylight it was no problem -- the cars could see me half a mile away and had plenty of time to get out of my lane and pass safely. But crossing it in the morning fog would be incredibly stupid ... and unavoidable, since I wouldn't know where I was until it was too late! As it was, I got to see all I need to see of the Atchafalaya Swamp over the side of the bridge, and I arrived safely on the other side in the little town of Lottie.

I stopped at a convenience store and told my story to the clerk, who said that campground is only open to hunters anyway! I think she may have confused it with another at the nearby wildlife management area, since I don't believe hunting is allowed in a refuge by definition, but for all I know she may be right. She said there was only one hotel between Lottie and the outskirts of Baton Rouge, and it was probably booked solid. I called ahead, and they said they were indeed full up, so I hit the road again with the prospect of riding long after dark, as I hadn't done since I was north of Dallas. But when I got to Livonia I decided to stop in at the hotel and ask again. The desk clerk said a room had just opened up! It's been a while since I've been so grateful to plunk down $60 for a hotel room!

I had no trouble riding into Baton Rouge this morning (Saturday); I crossed the Mississippi around noon on another big scary bridge with no shoulders. [I later learned that I should have taken a ferry a few miles away.] I immediately got off the highway onto the Business Route, which was named on street signs as Scenic Hwy. It led me past all sorts of refineries and auto scrapyards and other scenic places on the way to downtown, and I got a flat tire. The fumes from one of the refineries were so bad I put on my dust mask, and when I took off my glasses later to clean them, the glass lenses were pitted!

I went and paid my respects to the Mississippi downtown, where there's a levy about 20 feet high with park benches along the top. The current is much faster than I expected it to be on such a wide river, about 10 mph. All the tugboats on the river idled their engines while a paddlewheeler of tourists gave a calliope concert for the entire riverfront; as soon as the music stopped, the barges started moving again.

The downtown library didn't have the maps I was looking for, so they sent me to a larger branch that was on my way to the campground. The second library turned out not to carry the maps either, so I'll have to look for them in New Orleans. I ran some other errands on the way out of town but started to get anxious about setting up camp, as a cold front was blowing in.

When I got to the campground, there was no one in its office. A sign advised me to go ahead and set up, so I did so at the far end of the lot. There were a lot of spiders in the grass, but they were harmless, so I went ahead and set up camp. I had everything situated and was about to have some dinner when the owner showed up and told me they no longer allow tents! She wouldn't make an exception and told me noplace else in town would take me, either. I had no choice but to pack up and leave as the sun was setting. Fortunately there was a motel just a mile farther down the road, and the owner gave me a rather foul-smelling suite for the price of a regular room.

Tomorrow morning I'll go to church and hope to meet some folks who will help me feel better about Louisiana. Really it's not the state's fault that my maps have let me down! And the food here is excellent. So wish me luck! I'll be in New Orleans in a few days! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 26, 2005]

I should have known better than to write you folks after having a bad day... my friend Joni once told me that "The only difference between a comedy and a tragedy is where you choose to end the story." By writing when I did, I left you with the impression that things are going badly, when really I just had a lapse in my usual good fortune!

I rode into Baton Rouge Sunday morning and got to church well before the 9:30 service. I introduced myself during the first service and then settled in to socialize during a pancake breakfast fundraiser for the youth (teenagers), who recently attended the Houston Rally. I attended many a "rally" (conference) in Texas when I was their age, but never as far south as Houston.

I met a lot of interesting people during the breakfast, and eventually I was introduced to a couple who had done some bike touring of their own. Richard and Holley biked around Italy and Cuba recently and have traveled all over the world. Their son Webb is a 1998 Carleton College graduate with a couple post-grad degrees, currently living with his folks between careers. They invited me to stay the night at their house, which is very large on an even larger lot, in an affluent neighborhood near the university. Richard is a professor emeritus of physics at LSU, about a half mile from their home. Holley is a family doctor working for a nonprofit clinic that is suffering from "founder's syndrome," so she's been reading up on the phenomenon trying to find any tips that could help her and her coworkers cope. I spent the afternoon researching my route through New Orleans and Mississippi, while Richard and Webb watched football on TV and Holley rehearsed her role as lawnmower-pushing chicken for a local Mardi Gras parade.

I left their house shortly after sunrise on Monday, having planned a couple possible routes for the day based mainly on where motels were available. One route would have me cross the river on a ferry and stay the night in Donaldsonville, which is only 1/3 of the way to New Orleans from Baton Rouge. The other route stayed on the east bank and took me as far as LaPlace, about 2/3 of the way to New Orleans. The choice between the two routes wound up being made for me because I missed a turn! So although I battled fatigue all day -- probably thanks to something I ate the day before -- I took the longer route to LaPlace.

My instincts told me that US-61 would be a great road to ride between the two cities, because the parallel I-10 would carry all the heavy traffic. Richard counseled me to follow the River Road instead. I compromised and did a little of each during the course of the day. Route 61 turned out to be very pleasant in my opinion, since it had wide, smooth shoulders and little traffic. It led through about 15 miles of scenic bayou, but with few bridges; mostly infill so that the road -- shoulders and all -- was several feet above the swamp. The River Road, on the other hand, was windy and had no shoulders and very impatient drivers, and many of the refineries smelled bad.

Some of the oceangoing ships that dock at the "Port of South Louisiana" are huge! It's hard to imagine how they can navigate the twists and turns of the river, let alone turn around 180˚ for the return trip, especially when equally large ships are coming the other way. I rode up on top of the levee whenever possible to get away from the traffic, and that was a lot of fun, but the road there was gravel, and I had to keep coming down to pass under the pipelines and conveyors that link the industries on shore to their docks.

When I entered LaPlace, I asked some locals where I could find one of the half-dozen motels. They soberly directed me to a place that was absolutely appalling... I turned around so fast in the parking lot that I slipped in the gravel and capsized. There were guard dogs all over the place, and the doorknob on one room appeared to have been removed with a shotgun! It took me an hour and a half to find another motel with a vacancy, but the room I got was fabulous... bigger than the two-bedroom apartment I shared in Minneapolis, and the walls were periwinkle, and there was a caged raccoon habitat just outside my door.

I was in no hurry to join the rush-hour traffic on US-61 Tuesday morning, so I watched two Buffy reruns over breakfast. I followed 61 through some more scenic bayous -- riding on generous shoulders all the way -- until I reached the suburb of Jefferson. There I joined the River Road for a while and finally got up on the levee, where a paved bike path took me most of the way into town. Once in New Orleans, I had some trouble finding good roads to ride to the Jackson Avenue ferry terminal, but I got there without incident.

The ferry ride was brief but exciting: in the strongest part of the current, the boat had to point at 45 degrees just to move in a straight line. It's hard to imagine that running a free ferry every 15 minutes can be more affordable for the city than putting in another bridge with a sidewalk and/or bus route, but I guess it is.

I had an easier time getting back into New Orleans from the state park Wednesday morning than I had getting there Tuesday night, because the road had a paved ditch on the eastbound side, and I was able to ride in that. I took a different ferry into downtown from Algiers, where many of the Mardi Gras floats are made. I arrived downtown on Canal Street, which is a wide boulevard with streetcar tracks down the center, newly restored after being removed 50 years ago. I saw another bicyclist riding down the streetcar right-of-way (which I learned is called "the neutral ground" for historical reasons), so I tried that and found it much easier than riding in the lanes of traffic. I made a beeline for the central library and spent an hour online before meeting the only person I know in New Orleans for lunch.

Phyllis was doing a telephone survey of library bookstores about eight months ago and interviewed me regarding the one I was assistant-managing in Minneapolis. I mentioned that I'd be passing through New Orleans, and she told me to look her up, and I held her to it, though of course she didn't remember me! She took me to a seafood restaurant off Bourbon Street.

During my hour on the computer, I got an e-mail from my mother about the premier episode of Nova ScienceNow, which had a feature about New Orleans and its vulnerability to hurricanes. I missed the episode on the air, but I was able to watch it there on the computer! It included footage of some sights I'd already seen, and some others that I saw during the stroll to the restaurant. It also made me very glad I didn't pass through here last August!

By the time we got back to the library it was already 2:30, so I headed straight out of town to a campground that's more conveniently located than the state park. It's even on a bus route -- I'll see if they can accommodate my bike! I'll do some more sightseeing tomorrow without my trailer and head out of town on Friday.

Q: National Wildlife Refuges do indeed allow hunting by definition. One of the Fish and Wildlife Service's main directives is to conserve and provide a place to hunt and fish.

A: I stand corrected! I should have known, since the Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense prefers to fight on the offensive, and the Department of the Interior is in charge of externalities, naturally wildlife refuges would be places where wildlife can be killed. I apologize for the confusion. ;-)

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on 1/29/2005]

The campground where I stayed Wednesday and Thursday night in New Orleans was very brightly lit all night, for security. The first night I draped the space blanket, which I assumed to be opaque, over the top of the tent to try to blot out the light, but some came through. Between that and the sound of the nearby highways and railroad tracks, I slept poorly. I woke around 4:00 with chills and put my hat on. With it over my eyes and earplugs in my ears, I finally slept soundly until 7:00. I had warmed up enough that I walked to the restroom in a T-shirt and shorts, but by the time I had made breakfast I realized I would need more clothes than that! I didn't want to repeat the mistake I'd made in Austin and go into town without warm clothes. As it turned out, the day didn't warm up at all, so I wore my windbreaker suit all day long.

I rode into town without my trailer (zoom!) and was soon in the French Quarter. I found a shop that could develop my film to CD and settled in for cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe Du Mond, which I had heard was a mandatory part of the New Orleans experience. At $3.50 I didn't mind giving it a try! Beignets are more like Indian fry bread than donuts -- sturdy enough for dunking. I'm not sure whether dunking them is strictly proper, but it keeps the powdered sugar from getting all over one's clothes and beard.

When I was satisfied that I had seen the waterfront, I rode north and found a bike shop. The owner examined my pedals and said that the persistent clicking sound is nothing serious. He gave me some spare BikeE parts he had left over (since my brand of bike is no longer made), and he showed me the new Giant "Revive" semi-recumbent bikes he's selling. They're very snazzy, much more attractive than the other recumbents in their price range ($650-$800). I also visited a Whole Foods store which turned out to be the smallest in the country, which I thought was funny because I'd just been to the flagship store in Austin, which fills a city block.

My last sight to see was the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the astoundingly long bridge featured in many a car commercial. It's difficult to photograph, especially on a gray day, but I did my best. On my way back to camp, I crossed a drawbridge on its sidewalk and got to see its workings up close while waiting for it to come back down. There was a chain at each corner of the counterweights, and each link must have weighed half a ton!

My neighbors in the campground were a honeymooning couple from Colorado. Their route is similar to mine, but they're going much faster in a VW camper. We enjoyed comparing notes about New Orleans. The husband is from Scotland, and his accent is identical to Mike Myers's faux-Scots accent. I didn't get their names, so they'll always be Shrek and Fiona to me! (Although I'm quite sure they didn't have a talking donkey -- or Eddie Murphy -- with them.)

Friday's forecast didn't begin to describe what happened... there were supposed to be scattered showers, but instead it rained all day long, and the wind was fierce. I had a strong headwind most of the way into Mississippi, but it was worst whenever I came near a lake, which happened a lot... US-90 was often the only dry ground for miles, with a bayou on one side and a lake on the other, and then vice versa. The highway was lined with "camps" -- vacation cabins built on the second floor, with a carport and boat dock underneath. Practically every "camp" had a sign by the road giving a fanciful or clever name for the place. Unfortunately for me there was noplace to stop... no stores and no privacy for miles and miles. But the traffic was light most of the way, so it was pleasant riding in spite of the weather.

I stopped for lunch at a bar and grill just across the Mississippi border. The waitress and customers were very curious and supportive about my trip, but I told them I was from Oklahoma rather than Minnesota to be on the safe side. Due to the rain, the dim light, and possibly a lack of road signs, I missed a few turns and took a long way around to Buccaneer State Park. I wound up going through the town of Lakeshore and running right smack into the Gulf of Mexico! The road from there to the park took me along a sea wall, with a terrific wind coming off the gulf and waves breaking across the road. I had to ride through a few inches of salt water, but the rain rinsed it all off!

By this point I noticed it was getting awfully dark. My internal clock said it was only about 3:00, but I wasn't wearing my watch and couldn't check the time on my other gadgets without getting them wet. Turned out it was already 5:30, and the sun was setting! I pitched my tent by flashlight during a lull in the rain. I stayed dry through the night, but my gear got soaked. I resolved to make it a short day (today: Saturday) so I could dry everything thoroughly before using it again. But then I decided I should visit a library before everything closed for Sunday... Before leaving the park I did some work on my bike. As usual after a rainstorm, the bearings on my front wheel had gotten wet, so I cleaned and re-greased them. I also cleaned and lubed the chain, which had gotten filthy in the wind and rain.

I spent all day following the Gulf, which was astonishingly calm after yesterday's storm. I mean, I've seen bigger waves on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. You would think a body of water that size would have big waves even on a calm day, but apparently the islands offshore reduce the wave action; that's all I can figure.

US-90 crosses the Bay of St. Louis on a bridge that's about two miles long. On a foggy morning, you can't see either end from the middle. There was a sidewalk, but it was so narrow I walked my bike for the first half mile, afraid that if I got on and rode, the trailer would fall off the curb and capsize into traffic. On a windy day like yesterday I'm sure that would have happened, but today it didn't.

I reached the Pass Christian library around noon, but they didn't have the maps of Alabama I was looking for. A librarian checked the catalog of the Gulfport library, 12 miles farther down the road, and found a copy there. So off I went. Gulfport has two giant casinos offshore, so there are lots of hotels and RV parks nearby, but the one campground that allowed tent camping was unexpectedly full when I called around 4:00, after using the library. I decided I'd had enough traveling and got a hotel room. This not only allowed me to dry out my gear and attend church in the morning (tomorrow), but I also got a coupon for Waffle House... the discount came to only 46 cents, but I was glad for an excuse to eat at one of my favorite restaurants.

Some reflections on Louisiana and New Orleans:

• So many places sell boiled crawfish in southern Louisiana that it almost doesn't make sense to advertise, like advertising cheese in Wisconsin. And yet I never actually saw anyone eating boiled crawfish. Maybe they're the cajun equivalent of north-Texas donuts.
• Having experienced Texas chili and Louisiana cayenne, I am convinced that cayenne is a superior pepper. Take the pepper challenge... maybe you're a pepper, too!
• I was really impressed by New Orleans. It seems to strike a good balance between its tourist economy and the other things it does. It also strikes a good balance between being cosmopolitan -- about 10% of the population is Vietnamese -- and having a unique local culture rooted in history. And best of all, many of the tourist attractions are free of charge!
• Louisiana drivers were extremely patient and considerate towards me (except on the River Road), even though I frequently had to share the road with them. I got the impression that people there are just more laid back than other places I've been.

So far Mississippi is pretty friendly, too! I'll write you again from Mobile, Alabama! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on January 31, 2005]

I was all set to go to church Sunday morning in Gulfport, but I underestimated how long it would take to find the place. Rather than arrive late, I decided to head on down the road. By the time the service ended, I was already in Biloxi!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The clouds were gone by 11 and stayed gone all day, and there was no wind, so although the temperature was cool it wasn't chilly. Biloxi is a big casino town, with lots of tourist attractions along the beach. I saw two of a species I had thought long extinct: cement waterslides! I guess the liability laws must be different in Mississippi. I also saw something I haven't seen since ... Indiana? ... a farm stand selling fresh produce! I'm close enough to Florida now that vine-ripened tomatoes and other goodies can be trucked in overnight.

I stopped at Gulf Islands National Seashore and enjoyed the visitor center but decided not to camp there. Instead I rode on to Sheppard State Park, a few miles west of Pascagoula. On the highway I saw a familiar sight: a bicyclist pulling a two-wheeled trailer of camping gear with a big orange flag on the back! We called "hey" to each other, but the highway median prevented us from having a conversation.

I continue to be amazed that every campground does things differently from every other. Sheppard State Park locks its shower rooms and only gives keys to those who ask to pay a deposit. I didn't ask, so I didn't get a shower! Fortunately the day had been cool enough that I didn't need one very badly.

I rode into Pascagoula first thing this morning (Monday) and went straight to the First Baptist Church. A member of the office staff patiently confirmed that yes, it is the church featured [as the "First Self-Righteous Church!"] in the Ray Stevens song and video, "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival," but no, the event did not actually occur. She said that it's not just tourists; some of the residents also think that song is the only memorable thing about the town!

I spent nearly an hour at the Pascagoula library getting phone numbers for campgrounds, but when I stepped outside and called them, only one allowed tents, and it was in Mobile, another 30 miles away. I decided to give it a shot. Outside Pascagoula, I saw another trailer with another orange flag. This one was a Burley trailer designed to carry a child, but its owner was using it to pick up aluminum cans from the roadside. I told him the story about how my trailer is made from recycled aluminum collected on trailers just like it.

I had been warned that a big stretch of US-90 was under construction, so I detoured to a parallel road... or would have, had the street signs not been all wonky near the state line. Instead I wound up on a less parallel road about 5 miles farther north than I would have liked, but it got me into town. The day was gray, and it began to rain on and off as I approached Mobile. I stopped for directions at a gas station, and the woman there really went the extra mile. She called ahead to the campground for directions, suggested a route for me, and gave me a free cup of coffee. The route she suggested was hair-raising at rush hour; I hate to imagine the other one that she said was less safe!

The owner of the campground gave me a key to the "office," a mobile (manufactured) home complete with kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room. It didn't occur to me that the little water heater wouldn't be up to the task of filling my bath and the washing machine at the same time, so I had a cold bath, but it was better than none at all!

I enjoyed my three days in Mississippi! I'm aware that I really only saw the coast, which was a lot like Florida, having been part of Florida historically. I'm looking forward to getting to the Florida coast in a few days. See you there! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on February 3, 2005]

As I write this, I'm still in Alabama, just across the border from Florida, but by the time I send it I'll be in Florida at last. I wound up staying in Alabama a couple days longer than I expected!

It rained all night on my little tent in Mobile but let up a few hours before dawn Tuesday. I left camp at a reasonable hour and headed straight for a big chain bookstore: the time had come to buy my Florida map. There were some stores in the nearby malls that I thought might carry chain lube, so I paid them quick visits.

In the Toys R Us parking lot, a mother of twins idled her minivan to ask if I needed directions. I told her I didn't think so, but she proceeded to tell me eight times with a pained expression that I shouldn't ride through the tunnel across the river, which I already knew because it's an Interstate highway. I didn't want to be rude, because she was trying to be helpful. What I didn't know was that there are two tunnels, so when I told her I was going to ride on the US highway, she thought I planned to ride through its tunnel. The only other way across the river was a bridge about three miles north of the tunnels. Fortunately I allowed plenty of time, having no other business to keep me in Mobile.

Rain started falling again as I was crossing the river bridge, and it continued all day and evening. When the Hazardous Cargo route caught back up with the tunnel routes, the US and Interstate highways intertwined together playfully on their way across Mobile Bay. The Interstate bridge is about 15 feet above the water and crisscrosses back and forth above the US highway bridge, which is only about 6 inches above the water! Must have been high tide.

I considered stopping for the night at Meaher State Park, but when I learned there were no showers (aside from the scattered ones in progress) I decided to go on to the town of Daphne. I stopped at a gas station to ask directions to the bike shop, and the woman ahead of me in line was complaining that the rain had been with her all day since she left northern Louisiana in her RV that morning, and she hoped it wouldn't follow her all the way to Jacksonville, Florida that night. Meanwhile I dripped patiently behind her. [My Uncle Dale counseled me later that I should have said, "Must be tough!"]

At the bike shop I bought chain lube and asked about the "Bike Route to Florida" sign I had seen at the divergence of US-90 and US-98. The clerk said that it's not so much that 90 is a good road to ride as that this stretch of 98 gets terrible rush-hour traffic, so they wanted to entice bike tourists away from it! He then proceeded to recommend a motel on 98...

If I could live Groundhog Day over and over again, like Bill Murray's character in the movie, I don't think I would bike all day in the rain. I'd watch the 6 AM broadcast of the Buffy musical until I was sick of it. I'd try all of the thousands of ways to order Waffle House hashbrowns, including the ones that involve Bert's Chili, without fear of getting sick the next day. I'd give my rig to the two Hispanic guys who were admiring it. Then I'd call a cab and give the cute, sleep-deprived waitress the ride home to Mobile she was fishing for, and then I'd go to the airport and fly to Pittsburgh to meet my new nephew. Among many other possibilities. But I had the next day to think of, and the forecast said that the rain would stop by noon, so off I went.

I got as far as Foley, Alabama, where I knew there were hotels and campgrounds. But none of the campgrounds allowed tents, and all of the hotels were full! (I later learned why: read on.) That didn't leave me with much choice... I headed down a county road and pulled into the first concealed, non-posted property I found, which turned out to be an out-of-season strawberry field. All I can say is that anyone who can claim nothing is real after being in a strawberry field is either hallucinating or a very stubborn existentialist indeed, because strawberry hillocks are really lumpy!

I woke well before dawn Thursday and picked about 50 slugs off my tent before hitting the road at sunrise. I stopped at a convenience store and told a curious passerby that I was having trouble finding places to stay. His response changed my day and nearly changed my whole trip: he said this area is still recovering from last August's hurricanes, so there are hundreds of workmen visiting from out of town, plus displaced homeowners and renters. He suggested I go farther from the coast, i.e. back north where I had just come from. That would be a good suggestion, if I knew of any campgrounds farther north, but I didn't! I called a hotel in Pensacola, verified that there was at least one room available in town, and decided to ride there and use the library in the morning to plot further plans. If I couldn't find better options down the road, I'd pack up my gear and take a Greyhound to central Florida.

But as I was approaching the Florida border, I spotted another cyclist and stopped to talk. I asked him about the extent of the hurricane damage, and he said it was really only bad for a 100-mile stretch of the coast; once I got east of Destin I should be fine. Then he invited me to use the Internet at his place. By the time we were a mile down the road, he had invited me to camp in his yard. By the time I met his wife, I was to sleep in their camper in the garage. By the time I woke from an afternoon nap in the camper, I had been invited to sleep indoors and have dinner and breakfast with them. They took me to an import grocery store, where I bought two pounds of halvah (energy food!), and to a buffet restaurant where I got their money's worth. Their rationale for helping me was the same that Mike's mother used in Cincinnatti: "I know if it were my son out there, I'd want him to have X." Bruce is a retired Navy dental technician who makes extraordinary wildlife-inspired jigsaw art when he's not out bicycling. He and his wife travel in their camper and have all sorts of campground guides. I was able to find enough places in these guides that do allow tents and are not booked solid (I called them to double-check) that I won't have to ride the bus after all; I'll just detour around the windblown area as far as Destin.

Q: I was wondering, how do you handle securing your possessions when you leave your trailer at a campsite?

A: I don't. I have faith in the average person's lack of chutzpah. When the tent is all closed up, there's no way to tell whether or not it's occupied, short of opening it, so the only people who would know for sure that my stuff is unattended are the ones who know I'm traveling alone: one or two of my neighbors in the campground. Same goes for leaving my bike unlocked when I go into a store: I could come out any second, unless you saw me go into the bathroom. Most people won't risk it. And if they do, I'm insured. So far the only item that's ever been stolen from me in my adult life is my previous bike, and that was locked at the time!

Wish me weather worthy of Florida's reputation! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on February 9, 2005]

I've had some good times so far in the Florida Panhandle! On Friday I followed the route Bruce suggested around Pensacola to the west and north, but even that far from the coast I saw lots of hurricane damage. The sides of the roads were littered with asphalt shingles and vinyl siding, even as construction workers were scrambling to put new flimsy shingles and siding in their places! Those who do not learn the lessons of the past...

It was still early in the afternoon when I reached my campground for the night, a place called Pelican Palms right next to an I-10 entrance ramp. I was having some lower-back pain from sleeping on the strawberry plants two nights before, so I lay down and read for a few hours. My neighbors in the campground were a young couple from Kansas City who came down "the day after the hurricane" because he's a licensed tree surgeon and can make upwards of $500 a day cleaning up after storms, and she's an OR nurse. But when they got here they found a huge bureaucracy designed to protect the hurricane victims from price gouging, and by the time they had gotten themselves properly re-licensed and certified and insured, the work was mostly done. So he's been doing roofing ever since at a much lower pay rate, and she's been turned down from every job she's applied for because she's overqualified, and for six months the two of them have been living in a tent between a highway interchange and a cell phone tower, and they're planning to go home in a few days.

I had a couple of options for Saturday... I could ride long and hard and reach the coast around noon and ride along the coast to Destin, or I could make it a short day and camp at Blackwater River State Park, in the middle of nowhere, and ride to Destin the next day. It was the Interstate that made up my mind for me... the sound and smell of traffic and trucks idling on the on-ramp interfered with my sleep, and I decided I was fed up with following highways. (I've been following US-90 more or less since I left Texas!) I'm not contributing to engine exhaust, so why should I breathe it all the time?

Blackwater River State Park sits in the middle of the state forest of the same name. It's nearly 5 miles from the highway and blissfully quiet, aside from the folks reenacting the Creek and Seminole Wars on their weekend, who fired fusillades and cannons all night long. It's still a lot better than idling trucks, if you ask me! In fact, that park made such a good impression that I made a point of staying at other Florida parks for the next few days, although they got progressively less secluded and less affordable as I continued east. They're still nicer than any parks I've visited since Wisconsin. Many of them were founded as commercial theme parks and, when they went bankrupt, were bought by the state, and they still have peculiar landscape features from their theme-park days.

I was prepared for Sunday's ride to take all day, so I hit the road at sunrise and rode fast and hard, at least by my standards. The ride was uneventful aside from a toll bridge (bicycles 10 cents) from the mainland to the barrier island, about 5 miles of calm, shallow water with a view of rays and other large fish milling around. Around 2:00 I arrived in the "Twin Cities" -- Valparaiso and Niceville, Florida. Niceville was nice enough; it gave me a marked bike lane all the way to Rocky Bayou State Park. The "bayou" looks more like a sandy lake than the swampy bayous of Louisiana and Mississippi, but I guess if it's a slow-moving river it qualifies. And as for "rocky" -- well, I haven't seen many rocks since entering Florida. The ground is all sand!

My neighbors in the park were a bunch of Cuban tree cutters, who had just cut down a big pine tree in their campsite -- I'm going to assume at the park's request -- and reduced it to firewood to the accompaniment of a loud radio, and then gave the firewood away to a constant parade of other campers. Fortunately they went inside to watch the Superbowl and took their comically obese pit bull with them. One of the other neighbors stole my jar of Nutella, carried it to a fallen tree, and gnawed a hole right through the side of the jar before I could stop him!

Monday was an amazingly beautiful day! It couldn't have been more pleasant... clear and dry and mid 70s, and my route took me along the gulf coast -- the real ocean, with waves -- on a paved bike path most of the way. When I passed through Destin (suggested motto: "Why Settle for Destiny When You Can Have the Real Thing?"), the bike path was crowded with snowbirds on their morning walks, many of them clutching cups of coffee. I thought it was odd that they kept bidding me good morning when it felt like 2:00 to me, but it was still only 11... time seemed to stretch out forever.

I ended the day's ride around 3 PM at Grayton Beach State Park, which apparently was voted America's best beach a few years back. It lacks many of the features I would think people look for in a beach, but it does have impressive dunes (the brochure says, "What appear to be bushes growing out of the dunes are actually full size trees covered with sand"), and the sound of breaking waves makes a nice change from (or at least a nice addition to) the sound of highway traffic. I waded in the surf for a while in the afternoon and returned after dark when I emerged from the shower house and discovered a clear, warm, moonless night. A gorgeous day like that can make up for an awful lot of bad weather and hostile traffic. I'm sure glad I didn't take a Greyhound from Pensacola! I woke around dawn on Tuesday and took my time getting ready. I made another trip down to the beach to look for my camera, which I had left there, but someone had already brought it to the park office, where I was able to reclaim it.

I guess I succeeded in getting well clear of New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. Although I was still seeing beads along the highway shoulders as far east as Pensacola, the day came and went without a single sign that it was Fat Tuesday. I followed the shore most of the day, but there was less bike path and more shoulder and sidewalk through a nearly continuous row of condos. They're building lots of new high-rises ... at least, I assume they're new and didn't just get blown down by the hurricanes! The day's destination was Panama City Beach, which I actually saw abbreviated PCB. Yummy!

St. Andrews State Park is just east of town, on a point of land where a lagoon meets the gulf. The campground is on the lagoon side, but it's a sandy Florida lagoon with little gurgling waves rather than a swampy Louisiana one with duckweed, and the sound of the breakers carries nicely from the other side of the park. I went for a long walk on the beach before sunset and got my walking shoes thoroughly soaked when a wave came up higher than I expected. There are worse things that can happen to shoes. En route to the beach, I stopped at an alligator-viewing dock, and there was a small alligator waiting there to view the people. Then while I ate dinner at my picnic table after dark, a blue heron stalked over and began fishing for its dinner about 30 feet from me. The deer are even more tame -- good thing I don't have any fresh vegetables in my tent!

Around the time I send this message, I'll be in Panama City (suggested motto: "If you Leave the First Letter Off our Name, You Deserve What You'll Get") trying to figure out where to go next. Stay tuned! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group, February 13, 2005]

I've really been enjoying the longer days lately... for the first time since October I can sleep in, take my time riding, and still get to camp well before sunset. Well, most of the time, anyway...

The ride into Panama City Wednesday morning was so easy I felt like I was coasting. Fresh off the bridge, I saw I convenience store offering free coffee, so I stopped in. As I was drinking my coffee in the parking lot, a young man sauntered over and said he had a BikeE similar to mine and a BOB trailer, and he was thinking of doing some touring. We talked for a while, and I mentioned that I was having trouble planning a route into Tallahassee. The difficulty was that the Apalachicola National Forest has only one road going through it from west to east, and all the campgrounds are on the north-south roads, and camping in the rough isn't allowed during deer season, which doesn't end until the 16th! This man strongly recommended that I follow US-98 along the coast, south of the forest, until I was south of Tallahassee, at which point I would find a rail trail into town. In fact, he said if I followed a marked bike route a few blocks away, it would take me past the library (which I was looking for) and to 98, where I'd find a good shoulder to ride on all the way. I was skeptical, because I've found people's directions to rarely be accurate, but I gave the bike route a shot. After the library, it led me deep into a residential neighborhood with beautiful live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

A word about live oak trees: when I first saw them in southeast Texas, I couldn't believe they were related to oaks because A) they grew all crooked, B) they had small, oval, evergreen leaves instead of big, lobed, deciduous ones, and C) I didn't see any acorns. But in this neighborhood I finally saw some that looked like oaks. They seem to be particular favorites of lichens and air plants like Spanish moss, which coincidentally also looks nothing like its relatives, namely pineapples.

I found the highway at last and headed out of town, past the Arizona Chemical Company, which smelled like a paper mill from a distance and was indeed processing truckloads of pine logs, but up close it smelled exactly like Worchestershire sauce. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that's what they were making.

The highway didn't have much of a shoulder, and it led through Tyndall Air Force Base, which from the road looks like a whole lot of nothing -- noplace to stop and rest. At one point I crossed the highway to stop on a little sidewalk and reapply sunblock. Someone thought this behavior was suspicious and called it in, so two military policemen paid me a visit while my hands were full of sunblock. They asked a lot of questions and ran my driver's license, but they didn't detain me further.

When people ask me my destination, Minnesota is not the answer they're looking for. All autumn I said "Texas," and all through January I said "Florida." I noticed an odd thing: people in the South were more impressed to hear I was headed to Florida than that I'd come from Minnesota, even when we were just 50 miles from the Florida border. The same is true within Florida: these MPs couldn't believe I was biking all the way to Tallahassee! All I can figure is they have no concept of how far Minnesota is... either that or they know that almost half the country's bike fatalities occur in Florida!

I rode into Mexico Beach shortly before sunset and made a beeline for the one campground that allows tents. They gave me a good deal on a site that was mud & gravel, but with a wooden picnic platform. I set my tent up on the platform although it smelled powerfully of cats and spent a comfortable night up off the ground. That night turned out to be one of those magical nights when everything dries... Had I known, I would have done a bunch of laundry!

Thursday morning I rode into Port St. Joe and did some more route research at the library, but I was surprised to see how late it was getting already. Come to find out I had just crossed into Eastern Time! I'm now south of Georgia instead of Alabama. Several people had recommended I visit St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, but it would add about 25 miles and an extra day, so instead I took a shortcut through St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge and got into Apalachicola by mid-afternoon.

The town of Apalachicola is conveniently located where the Apalachicola River flows out of Apalachicola National Forest and into Apalachicola Bay. (Suggested motto: "Mind if We Call You Apalachicola, to Keep it Clear?") The hotels there looked too pricey for my taste, so I continued across the bay to the town of Eastpoint. It was a beautiful day, but chilly, and with a stiff wind. The wind was at my back most of the day, which was great, but I really felt the gusts when I crossed the 5-mile bridge across the bay!

I was looking for a hotel rather than a campground because the night's low was forecast to be in the 20s F. As it turned out, the tenting campground in Eastpoint had closed anyway, so had I wanted to camp, I would have had to rough it or head out to St. George Island -- very scenic, I'm sure, but almost 30 extra miles. Eastpoint has only one remaining motel, but it's a really neat place, well maintained, affordable, and right on the water. Quirky, too: my room had a hayloft and an attached squirrel cage! I took pictures.

I took my time leaving my comfy motel room Friday morning because I needed to make a tech-support call to the makers of my keyboard, which was going through an uncooperative phase, and their phone center operates on Pacific time, despite being in India. So I watched two episodes of Buffy and changed my rear tire, whose slow leak was getting on my nerves. Cue ominous music.

I rode a final stretch along the Gulf coast (Apalachicola Bay) before turning north. The tide was out, and I saw millions upon millions of little sand piles on the beach. I tried to dig one up to find out what sort of shellfish had made it, but I found nothing in the bay sand besides smelly black organic matter, so I gave up. There were no shoulders much of the way, so I pulled off the road frequently to let cars pass, and I got a flat in the tire I had just changed! Still, I couldn't ask for a nicer day to stop and change a tire.

US-319 was much more fun than 98, a pleasant road through the forest with light traffic and good shoulders. I rode to Ochlockonee River State Park, which besides being fun to say is a very beautiful, secluded forest park. I went for a walk to see the white squirrels, which are not native and not albino, but were imported to the area as pets and released accidentally. They're quite striking.

My plan for Saturday was simple and elegant: I would ride to Tallahassee and stay at a campground west of town. Rather than follow the most direct highway route, I would go a few miles out of my way to the rail trail that connects Tallahassee to the Gulf shore town of St. Marks and enjoy the peace and quiet away from traffic. One small problem: I got another flat, on the same wheel that had two flats yesterday in two different tubes and tires. The problem was on the wheel rim, not the tire, so no amount of changing tires would keep the tubes from getting punctured; I put a patch on top of yesterday's patch but it was torn through in less than half an hour. I had to stop every 15 minutes and pump more air into the leaking tire... needless to say this slowed me down, though it did get me some upper-body exercise for a change!

Another cyclist stopped and asked how he could help. I told him I was headed for a bike shop in Tallahassee, and the only thing I thought could help me get there would be flat-fixing slime. He rode ahead and bought a can of automotive flat-fix which specifically said it shouldn't be used on two-wheeled vehicles, but we rationalized that the risk of a blowout was negligible at the speed I was going -- and away from traffic. The tires I use are meant to run at 80-110 PSI, and I need that much pressure on the rear tire because of the weight of the trailer, but the can could only manage about 60 PSI, so I had a spongy ride all the way into town, but at least I didn't have to stop every 15 minutes!

I got to the Organic Engines workshop about an hour before sunset. Organic Engines makes recumbent bikes and trikes, notably a heavy-duty utility trike that can carry over 1000 pounds! The owner, Dan, and his assistant were expecting me, and they quickly fixed the rough spot on my wheel and gave me some new tubes. I explained that I was headed for a campground west of town, and Dan invited me to stay at his house instead. I was exhausted from riding with a low tire, so I gladly accepted. Since I didn't have to hurry to the campground, I got to test-ride all the different vehicles. I wanted to try the utility trike under load, so Dan (175 lbs) climbed in the back. Since there are no hills here, I pulled him up the ramp of a loading dock. When I lost traction it was because I didn't weigh enough -- the trike is front-wheel drive, and the cargo sits over the back wheels -- but fortunately the trike backs up very well, unlike my trailer!

Dan is from Nova Scotia but married an American woman and moved down here. He had been doing custom welding for local customers but got into building recumbents at the same time the Internet came of age, so he was able to skip all the traditional marketing hurdles and go straight into the mail-order bike business. He's also actively trying to improve the neighborhood where he lives and works, so he bought a local coffee shop that was serving as a community gathering spot but was having management trouble. I took him out for dinner at an amazing pizza place (modestly named Decent Pizza) and we talked about community building and ecovillages and human-powered vehicles. Then he dropped me at his house -- which is also a fixer-upper, being a former crack-house -- and went back to his shop to work late into the night.

Next stop: Ocala!

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on February 18, 2005]

Hi, folks! I've reached the southernmost point of my tour: the home of my friend Diane in Marion Oaks, Florida, just south of Ocala. It feels good to be here! I had some misadventures this week, but the joke's on me and I get it, so imagine me smiling as I tell you all about it...

I packed up in Dan's house in Tallahassee Sunday morning and arrived at his coffee shop just after it opened. I checked my e-mail over coffee (Dan's urban-rustic house lacks a phone line, among other amenities that his lifestyle makes unnecessary) and then biked to church. I went to church today looking for my missing friend Alex, not for freebies, but the members insisted I share their potluck lunch. One of them offered me a room for the night as well, but I said I was headed out of town immediately. No one remembered having seen Alex.

I followed what my map showed as a bike route out of town. After I left the traffic behind, I got out my phone to make some calls and found a message from my mother's cousin inviting me to stay at her house north of Tallahassee... had I picked up the message while I was still in town, I would definitely have gone to catch up with her, but I was already about 15 miles east, so we settled for a phone conversation. Away from the beaches, Florida has actual soil instead of sand, and the bayous look more like the ones in Louisiana and Mississippi: lots of cypress trees standing around in puddles with their knees sticking up. Cypresses grow their roots in a shallow circle around the trunk, and when they fall over (e.g. in a hurricane) their circle of roots tips up in the air, just exactly like the base of a wine glass. I stopped for the night at a KOA that turned out to be the most luxurious campground I've seen in months... it has a beautiful, cozy game room, a homey feeling shower house, and complimentary continental breakfast and afternoon tea! Wild.

I had two options on Monday: I could ride east all day and reach Suwannee River State Park around sunset but have lots of camping options (close to Interstate 75) from there on south, or I could make a shorter hop southeast to Perry and risk not getting a campsite but be farther from the big highways. I was leaning toward the shorter route because I slept badly and had trouble getting up. But what cinched it was that, as I was finishing my complimentary Belgian waffle breakfast, rain started falling -- the first inclement weather I'd seen since entering Florida. By the time I left the KOA I was tempted to turn right around and check into a "kamping kabin," it was raining so hard. But I knew I could at least get a hotel in Perry, so on I went.

Bruce, my host from Alabama, sent me an e-mail warning me about fire ants. I was all set to write him back and say I'm already acquainted with them, thank you very much... but when the rain let up around noon and I stopped to take off my poncho, I must have put my foot down in another of their hills. They wreaked their fiery vengeance just above my ankle sock, stinging me about 30 times before I got them off. I was able to keep my elastic pant cuff from rubbing against the welts, but even so, by the end of the day my ankle was so swollen it was stiff. Not really painful, just uncomfortable. Thanks for the warning, Bruce... I'll try to be more observant!

Perry is quite the town for cheap motels. Not that I checked their prices... I'm talking about places that feel they have to advertise that their rooms are clean, or that their televisions are capable of color, or that they accept credit cards. That's how I know they fit my budget: they haven't updated their signs in 20 years. I passed at least two dozen such motels on my way through Perry, plus three campgrounds. Two of the three allow tent camping, and I chose the one closer to town so that I could run back in before dark and get groceries. I asked a clerk why the town has so many motels, and he said, "Tourism. We're close to the beach." Well, OK, if 15 miles is close. Another man I asked later said that before I-75 was completed, US-19 carried a lot of traffic through Perry, but that doesn't explain why the motels are still in business now... puzzling.

Around 3:00 Tuesday morning, the wind shifted and put Perry downwind from ... a paper mill! It was several hours before I got used to the smell and could go back to sleep. The day that followed was so humid that I could see my breath although temperatures were in the 60s F. So the good news is that my laundry didn't dry smelling like paper mill!

Steinhatchee is a little marina town on the river of the same name. There's no question about why there are so many motels and RV parks in Steinhatchee: the riverfront is practically one continuous marina, on both banks. I got a good deal on a tent site and settled down to do some work, since the afternoon was still young, but my keyboard stopped working again... Must be the humidity. So I spent the afternoon resting and reading instead. When I took off my shoes, I had trouble finding my right ankle bone through the fire-ant swelling, but I elevated the foot for a few hours and it went down. I met my first sand fleas at that campsite -- I'll take them over fire ants, mosquitos, and chiggers any day, because although their bites feel like pinpricks, they only hurt for a moment. And thank goodness my tent keeps all such varmints out! Knock on nylon.

I had a nice quiet ride down US-19 Wednesday, but when I got to Cross City and stopped in at the library, the librarian told me about a rail trail that parallels the highway all the way to Chiefland, which is roughly where I was headed. Happily I was on that trail, far from traffic, when I got distracted by a tangle in my headphone cord and wiped out on the asphalt. One of the few things I don't like about the BikeE is that its steering is unstable, particularly at the low speeds I travel. The front wheel really would prefer to trail behind its headset like a caster wheel on a shopping cart, and given an opportunity, like a loose grasp on the handlebars, it may express this preference by whipping around and pitching the bike over sideways. Had I not had so much practice getting my feet out of their pedal clips, I might have landed hard on my hip and elbow, as I've done a few times on Minneapolis ice. As it was, I got my foot under me and was able to roll onto hands and knees like any good kid. I bruised a hand and skinned a knee and had to realign the troublesome front wheel, but otherwise all was well. It's hard to get discouraged on a beautiful day!

I saw my first signs of Florida agriculture Wedneday... In the panhandle it was all forestry, hunting, fishing, and tourism. No citrus orchards yet; just hay fields and pasture. I pity any livestock set out to graze a field full of fire ants! Outside Cheifland I turned back west to Manatee Springs State Park. Manatees (or as an explorer in 1774 put it, "the monstrous amphabious maneta") living in the famous Suwanee River like to spend the winter in this spring-fed stream because it stays a constant 72 F year round. It also makes for good viewing, because the water is clear, unlike many Florida bodies of water, which are stained black with tannin. I didn't see any manatees, but the area around the spring was very pretty and interesting. I walked there with some fellow campers who have toured by bike in the past, so we shared stories.

On the highway Thursday morning I saw a man walking, pulling a big duffel on a luggage cart. I did a U-turn and stopped to talk with him. He said that reading the Bible in Greek a year and a half ago had convinced him to get rid of all his worldly belongings (except the duffel) and live in what he called the "Celestrious Realm," which I took to mean the more or less natural world. He told me that traveling faster than 25 mph damages the soul, and that I should camp illegally more often and "shit in the woods" whenever possible, the better to lead a celestrious life. He also warned of the sinful "water mines" (groundwater pumping) though he reluctantly admitted he drinks bottled "spring water" himself. He aspires to one day get all his water from melons. So for those who think I'm crazy for biking around the country... Well, it depends whom you compare me to...

I felt really good on Thursday and was able to go a lot faster than usual without getting tired. Didn't get any flats for a change, either! But the traffic was kind of aggressive on US-41 and left me a little shaken by the end of the day. The campground at Rainbow Springs State Park used to be a private RV park and is not contiguous with the rest of the park. It was immediately clear to me that the campground is not the main attraction: it's the crystal clear water of the river. I called up Diane and arranged to go canoeing with her first thing in the morning.

Another cyclist in the campground saw me pull in and came over to talk. He's not touring at the moment, just serving as a campground host (a volunteer who lives in the park for a season), but a friend of his is headed west by bike and stopped by for the night. It's amazing how many people have made trips like mine, and how many people have never heard of such a thing!

I slept in Friday morning and made a hot breakfast and was able to thoroughly dry the tent before Diane arrived at the campground. We rented a canoe and paddled up the Rainbow River to its source in the other part of the park. Along the way Diane pointed out cormorants, egrets, and other wildlife. The water is some of the clearest in the world, very popular with scuba divers. I was still kind of rattled from the previous afternoon's traffic, so I accepted Diane's offer of a ride into town. We were able to fit all my gear into the back of her pickup. We stopped at her local grocery store on the way home, and she seemed to know everyone there, just like Lonnie did in Fairfield. It took us over an hour to buy three items, but we had some great conversations!

Most people I meet here aren't native to Florida, but I've met enough Floridians to be able to offer you: A guide to Florida vowels (tongue in cheek):

1. "mean" is pronounced "main"
2. "main" is pronounced "mine"
3. "mine" is pronounced "mon"
4. "man" is pronounced "Mayan"

"Florida," by the way, has two syllables and rhymes with "sorta."

Q: What kind of computer, PDA, etc. are you using? Seems to be holding up pretty well, in spite of keyboard problems.

A: Yes, it is, though I have to admit I'm on my second one. Before my first trip in 2002, I bought the least expensive PalmPilot that met my needs, specifically because I wanted it to be durable but disposable. I started with a Handspring Visor Deluxe, plus a folding keyboard, a modem, and a backup card. When the Visor wore out I went to buy another and got talked into buying a more souped-up model, the Platinum, for the same price... actually I bought two, just in case. The price was right. Number two is still fully functional but it has some water stuck in the screen, and I'm holding number three very carefully in reserve. Now that my keyboard isn't working reliably, I've obtained a spare keyboard (thanks, Marisa!). All told it adds up to about $500.

I'm going to take a well-earned vacation for a few days while I wait for the rest of my mail to catch up with me. I'll have two rolls of new photos to share with you in a day or two! Happy Presidents' Day! --Ben

 

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on February 23, 2005]

Late Sunday morning, Diane drove me out to Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. Like a lot of Florida's state parks, it used to be a private attraction and so seems a little bit Disneyish. We got on a quiet electric boat and cruised through a lush, sluggish river just as we might at Disney World, but the boat wasn't on a rail, and the wildlife along the river was actually wild and live! The main part of the park is kind of like a zoo, only all the animals are native to Florida. (Lucifer the Hippo, left over from when the park was a zoo, is officially a naturalized Floridian.) Most of the animals have been rescued from near death and recuperated in captivity so long that they now can't be released into the wild.

The manatees put on a great show, crowding around for one of their many daily feedings, since they've eaten all the underwater grasses that would be their natural diet. There's a "fishbowl" floating observation room right above the spring that gives a good view of the manatees and fishes underwater. It may be the best way to satisfy human demand for seeing manatees up close without disturbing the actual wild manatees.

I left Diane's place late Monday morning and followed a route she recommended to avoid traffic returning from Sunday's Daytona 500. I've got to hand it to her: the route had a shoulder about 90% of the way, which is unusual for Florida, and it may be the best route advice I've received on this trip.

Ocala National Forest has much sparser underbrush than other Florida forests I've seen, so that I could imagine just pulling over and finding a place to camp, now that deer season is over. The underbrush at Apalachicola National Forest was so thick I think I'd be hard-pressed to find a place to stand, let alone lie down! Mid-afternoon, I started seeing hikers on the Florida Trail, which runs through the forest. I stopped to talk with one of them, who lives near the forest but had spent the holiday weekend hiking and camping and was on his way home. He told me there were a lot of "Rainbows," or modern hippies, camped at one of the primitive campgrounds, and sure enough, I saw a bunch of college-age folks wearing hemp and tie dye when I passed near there.

I stayed at the Salt Springs campground in the forest (as Diane had recommended), and Tuesday morning I rode north into Palatka. I stopped for lunch at a Huddle House, which turned out to be pretty much what it looked like: an imitation of Waffle House, but with about twice as many items on the menu. Their chicken sandwich couldn't compare. If I eat there again, I'll order something I can't get at Waffle House!

I rode pretty hard all afternoon to reach St. Augustine. When I crossed US-1 I started giggling... here's this modest, normal-looking highway that parallels the Atlantic coast all the way from the tip of Maine to Key West, and here I was crossing it on my bicycle! US-1 is not always the closest highway to the coast; when it's not, that honor goes to State Highway A1A. None of the other highways are named that way, which makes it all the more memorable.

I had high expectations for Anastasia State Park, and they were only heightened when I learned a campsite would cost me $25, more than any other state park I've ever visited. Must be really great, right? After talking with some other campers, I can say that some of the sites are very quiet, but mine was not; instead of surf I heard highway traffic and airplanes and what sounded like a rocket engine being tested. On top of that, the park has only one dumpster for 139 campsites, and judging by the assertiveness of the squirrels, a lot of campers don't make the trek to the dumpster before bed. While I was paying my respects to the Atlantic, a squirrel gnawed a hole in my canvas saddlebag and made off with the empty Nutella jar I was planning to wash for storing fragile things. I got back and found him busily gnawing through the plastic jar to get the dregs of Nutella! I was glad I hadn't left the jar in my tent, because he could easily have clawed through its nylon walls. After the squirrels and I went to bed, raccoons took up the night shift, launching a fresh assault on my trailer every 20 minutes or so. In the morning I found muddy footprints all over the bins and a bunch of sand inside, where they had managed to squeeze in a paw or two.

After I got packed up, I started calling around to try to find a better deal on a campsite. I was dismayed to find that all the private campgrounds near St. Augustine were actually more expensive! One wanted $40 for a tent site! The nearest affordable campground I found was in Jacksonville, which wouldn't leave me much time for sightseeing in St. Augustine. I made one last call to the hostel shown on my bike map. The manager said a bed for the night would cost me $18, but when he heard I was traveling by bike, he said, "In that case it's $15... and that includes breakfast!"

So I rode into town (past a number of $30 hotels! cheaper to get a room than a campsite...) with a light heart and the prospect of a dry bed at the end of what was forecast to be a very rainy day. But the sun came out and made the air so muggy that I changed out of my bright yellow-orange shirt (thanks, Uncle Carl!) into a white one to stay cool. I climbed to the top of the historic St. Augustine Lighthouse and walked around the Castillo de San Marco National Monument. St. Augustine is considered the oldest city in the US, meaning the oldest European settlement. The Castillo withstood at least a dozen hostile attacks because it's made of coquina (seashell stone), and cannon balls just bounced off its walls. The lighthouse has a similar history: Anastasia Island was the only place on the coast where a lighthouse would remain standing, because the rest of the coast is all sand.

I was surprised to find that the hostel has a pirate theme (http://www.piratehaus.com). I was able to dry all my gear on the rooftop deck before the forecast cold front finally moved in late in the afternoon, and I explored the nearby historic district, which is a lot like New Orleans' French Quarter, only Spanish, and many of the roads are closed to vehicles.

My high-school friend Scott sends the following in response to the smelly paper mills question: The process of refining pulp involves two really smelly things: Ammonia (tons of it) and the actual pulp itself. If you have ever smelled wet, decomposing cardboard you would recognize it as a component of the paper mill odor. In the pulping process, the reclaimed paper/wood chip product is kept wet while it is agitated and cooked and it breaks down into a fibrous pulp. This partial decomposition yields the readily identifiable aroma. When I was really young, my dad worked for a paper mill in Arkansas and the odor of the working factory could bring me and my infant sister out of a deep sleep.

Thanks, Scott! Let's all use less paper and make the world a little less smelly... :-) --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on February 26, 2005]

I know it's only been a few days since I last wrote, but as I write this I don't know when I'll next be online, so I figured I should take the opportunity.

I stayed up late Wednesday night talking with fellow travelers in the hostel: a young woman from Ireland headed west and a young couple from England headed east via Greyhound. All three have been to the US before but have never been to the midwest; they go back and forth between the coasts through the South because there are more interesting stops that way... I guess they don't think there's much of anything between Minneapolis and Portland. Much as I'd like to promote the northern states, I've ridden that stretch by Greyhound myself, so I'm not sure I can. I had a nice complementary breakfast of pirate pancakes and coffee and was on my way. As I was loading the trailer, I met a former manager of the hostel who now lives in an apartment in the same building because she likes the stream of travelers.

I should mention that the other bike tourist I met at Rainbow Springs State Park (just before Ocala) lent me his Adventure Cycling map showing a bike route all they way from Ormond Beach, FL to Savannah, Georgia. I've resolved to stick to this route and see how I like it.

I've said before that pedaling the BikeE uses different muscles than riding an upright bike or climbing stairs, which was a major selling point when I had to climb three flights after each ride. The down side is that after climbing the 14-story lighthouse Wednesday, my calves were intensely sore for days! The up side is that that soreness didn't interfere at all with my bicycling.

State Highway A1A north of St. Augustine looks a lot like the Gulf coast in the Florida panhandle: lots of vacation homes and condos, and lots of wind-pruned vegetation. In fact the trees and bushes are so severely pruned by the wind that they grow together into an impenetrable thicket which may look nice in the green season, but right now it's olive drab and looks like a wildfire waiting to happen. The campground that charges $40 for a tent site is right in the middle of this briar patch! I don't see the appeal.

Jacksonville Beach is a neat little town. It's full of the surf shops and sports bars you'd expect to see in a coastal town near a big city, but every business seems to have a bike rack, and every rack I saw had bikes parked at it. I don't know how many of the tourists bicycle, but the employees sure do! There were scattered showers all day -- very scattered. I managed to be under cover every time one passed by, and I was able to restrain myself from going out until the rain had stopped, so I didn't get wet even once.

I had my choice of two city campgrounds, one on either side of a ferry. (The city of Jacksonville is geographically enormous because it annexed the entire county in 1967, so what used to be county parks are now city parks even though they're far from town.) I chose the farther one -- Huguenot Memorial -- and got a great deal on a campsite: $5.75. Of course it's right across the river from a Navy air base hosting a huge aircraft carrier, but the helicopters and jets stopped flying over sometime between 10 and 11 PM, and quiet descended. That's when the rain started. It was just a light rain, but it had a strong and gusty wind behind it.

When it hadn't stopped by 9 AM, I called the camp office and had them sign me up for another night - no point traveling in this weather when I could stay put for just $5.75. I had plenty of food, and my gear was dry inside the tent. It didn't stay that way. By noon the tent was taking on water above and below, the top had blown off my green bin allowing the contents to marinate, and my new keyboard had started malfunctioning just like the old one. I shouldn't have gotten it out in wet conditions, but after I finished my only book I thought I'd get some work done. The amount of work I got done pays for half the price of the keyboard, so I didn't even break even with that purchase.

The storm was officially called a nor'easter on the weather-band radio. The rain stopped by Friday evening, but the wind kept right on blowing at 15-25 mph, flapping the tent fabric so hard I had to wear earplugs. But it settled down by this morning (Saturday), and I was able to pack the gear -- mostly dry! -- without losing anything to the wind. I'm really impressed at how my tent held up! A neighboring Kmart-special tent crumpled up like a dead spider.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on March 4, 2005]

Hi, folks! I made it to Savannah a day earlier than I had planned, and I'll be here at least until Sunday.

You last heard from me on Saturday morning, after I'd weathered a wind storm in my tent. The bike-map route brought me around Jacksonville without going into town. I stopped at a sadly quiet little strip mall for lunch and was able to send that message. I rode as far as the town of Callahan and got a hotel room, since there were no campgrounds for another 30 miles -- at least not on the route; since I had only the route map I was unaware of anything more than 10 miles on either side of the route.

A heavy rain started falling overnight. I took my good sweet time leaving the hotel Sunday morning in the hopes that it would let up, but eventually I had to go out and get wet. The rain kept right up all day long, without a single pause. I stopped for lunch right across the border in St. George, Georgia, at a little place that was only accessible via a dirt road that had turned to an inch of mud. The locals assured me that was nothing, that by tomorrow it would be about 3 inches deep, and cars would get stuck in it. But the BBQ sandwich was worth the trouble.

My route took me right past the entrance to the Okeefenokee National Wildlife Area, but I didn't feel like stopping at its visitor center while soaked to the skin. Maybe some other time! The area around the Okeefenokee is all tree farms, miles and miles of pine trees in neat rows. Like Wisconsin, only with palmettos in the understory. There are campgrounds near the town of Folkston, but I didn't think I could find a place to pitch my tent that wasn't marshy, so I asked some convenience-store clerks where I could find a cheap motel. They were so quick to answer that I asked if the place was OK, remembering the motel in La Place, LA where the doorknob had been shot off one of the rooms. This one turned out to be fine. Of course the rain stopped shortly after I unpacked, but that's the way it goes! I stood at the door of my room marveling at the dry parking lot in the moonlight.

Reflections on Florida: I really enjoyed the Florida panhandle, with its forests and beaches and affordable state parks. The main peninsula of the state was a little touristy for my taste. The best advice I can give fellow travelers is to keep your eyes open for brochures and guides and coupon books that may be useful, because you can be sure that no two of them contain the same information, and you're unlikely to find all of them in the same place. For example, there's a great booklet about all the state parks, and there's a free highway map of the state showing all public campgrounds, and there's another booklet listing all the private campgrounds, and there are at least three free books of coupons for hotels. Not even AAA's TourBook has all that information in one place.

Monday was uneventful, except that I missed a turn and found my own route for a while. I think it may have been more direct, less trafficked, and better shouldered than the route I was supposed to take, but of course I can't be sure. Even Robert Frost admitted he couldn't travel both roads, so how can he be so sure that his choice made all the difference? In any case, the same thing happened to me again on Tuesday.

Monday night's stop was Satilla River Vacationland, a spooky-looking place on account of all the Spanish moss hanging like cobwebs from seasonally dead trees, and a legion of apparently uninhabited RVs. Tuesday was windy! I had a fierce headwind most of the morning, but then it turned and pushed me in the afternoon, which was a lot better than the other way around. I saw a tree by the road that I first thought was covered with air plants (like the one I photographed in Austin), but when I got closer I saw they were clumps of white flowers -- the dogwoods are starting to bloom! The red maples are also colorful, with their cranberry-red, winged seeds. I saw my first cotton fields along the roadside; at first I thought someone had disemboweled a sofa in the wind, but no, the cotton had actually grown there on those twiggy plants. I gather these are the remains of last year's harvest.

I passed a feed store where three guys were talking in the parking lot amid drifting clouds of dust blowing from nearby fields. One of them had a beagle who abandoned his owner to run along with me for about three miles. When I stopped for lunch, he waited patiently for me to come out so he could run with me some more. I finally lost him when I got a good downhill slope. I hope he found his way back.

I stopped for the night at a little campground near the town of Odum that has the most ancient pair of owners I've ever seen. They say they've owned the place for 18 years, and from the looks of it it's been going downhill for at least 5. But they gave me a good deal on a site and invited me to sleep in the social hall (the one building that didn't reek of mold) to avoid the predicted frost. I wasn't going to take them up on it, but then I decided that was silly, so took my tent down and moved inside. But when the night got cold, a draft blew in under the door and made the big open room at least as chilly as my tent would have been... maybe more so, because the tent fills with body heat, and its vents are designed to close when they're blown on. I didn't turn on the thermostat because there was a big sign warning DO NOT TOUCH, so I just froze.

When I got into the town of Reidsville, I stopped at a grocery store for some badly needed provisions -- the bike route had led me through such small towns that I hadn't seen a supermarket in days -- and then checked my e-mail at the library. While I was there, I followed a hunch that the next day's prescribed route might be out of my way. Sure enough, it would take me about 20 miles farther north than I wanted to go! Having just gotten back the feeling in my fingers and toes a few hours before, I had no interest in going farther north just yet. The librarian and her daughter helped me choose a more direct route into Savannah. Along the way the librarian made some outrageous generalizations about Black people (who are the majority of Savannah's population), within uncomfortable earshot of a Black patron. And then she said she wasn't prejudiced! I guess it's relative... I'm not prejudiced compared to her, and she's not prejudiced compared to the Imperial Grand Wizard. But he probably doesn't work in a public library.

Right outside of town is a state park with the almost saurian name of Gordia-Alatamaha. At least I imagine local children learning its name alongside ichthiosaurus and diplodocus and iguanodon. It's a very nice little campground, considering how close it is to the highway and the town, and the bathroom was heated like a sauna -- a very welcome change from the night before. I got up bright and early Thursday morning, thanks partly to the cold, but didn't freeze my extremities this time.

I followed US-280 east from Reidsville to Pembroke (rhymes with "cook"), postponing as long as possible the question of whether I would stay the night there or continue to Savannah. I decided to go for it, even though it meant a 65-mile day, because there was a hostel waiting for me, and I fully expected it to be as nice as Pirate Haus. That's really 95% of the reason I rode into Savannah a day early: I wish I'd spent a second night at Pirate Haus, or rather, I wish I'd spent my first night in St. Augustine in comfort and companionship rather than under siege by raccoons.

But not all hostels are as nice as Pirate Haus. The Savannah Hostel turns out to be more like a homeless shelter, which at $22 a night is disappointing. I'll give the owner the benefit of the doubt because he's taking care of a small child and working 56 hours a week and is obviously beyond burnt out, but that's the only slack I can cut him. I could go into detail about what's wrong with the place, but what it needs is fresh management. Anyhow, I bonded with the other five guests (a young couple from Sweden who couldn't find a hotel room, a retired couple from Alaska whose camper is being repaired, and an aspiring cartoonist from Nebraska by way of Taiwan) over unfavorable comparisons to other hostels we've stayed in, and we all have to agree it's the cheapest place to stay in town except for actual homeless shelters or the homes of friends. But enough about that.

The ride into town was pleasant, except that I learned why the bike route had kept me off roads with shoulders wider than 2 feet: wide shoulders in Georgia are textured so that they make noise when cars attempt to drive on them, which means that they rattle the brains out of bicyclists who attempt to ride on them. So I rode in the lane whenever traffic allowed, with one eye glued to my helmet-mounted mirror. That's not a posture conducive to sightseeing, but I did notice when rural Georgia gave way to the fabled Old South charm of Savannah. It's hard to describe, and since I haven't taken any pictures of rural Georgia I won't be able to show you the difference, but the fact that I didn't take any pictures there and I'm bound to take at least a dozen here tells you something.

For one thing, spring is at least a week farther along here. By the end of the weekend there may be leaves on the deciduous trees, and if I'm lucky maybe even blooms on the magnolias. Here's hoping spring is in the air where you are, too! (Or autumn, for Nathan in Australia...) --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on March 7, 2005]

I spoke -- or wrote -- too soon in my negative assessment of the Savannah Hostel. Although you can see at hotel review sites that other people have had bad experiences with the manager as well, he warmed up as the weekend progressed, and I really enjoyed talking with the guests from around the world, and that made up for a lot.

I started out Friday morning by going to the visitor center, since there seemed to be a consensus that that was the place to go, but it turned out to be little more than a ticket counter for the many commercial tours available: you can see the historic district on foot, on a rented bike, in a horse-drawn carriage, or in a noisy diesel bus made to look like a trolley. My second stop was City Market, which I hoped would be a farmers' market, but it's a pedestrian mall. An Internet cafe there let me plug into the phone line, and I caught up with my e-mail over coffee. Next I headed for the riverfront, where I saw containerships much taller than those I'd seen on the Mississippi, but shorter in length. I guess the channel on the Savannah River must be deeper than the Mississippi's to allow the taller ships.

The main attraction on the riverfront is supposed to be the assortment of quirky shops, bars, and restaurants, but I've been through so many towns in the past month that storefronts don't make much of an impression anymore! But I enjoyed the way the place is laid out: the riverfront is so steep that most of the buildings' first and third floors are both on ground level, with the second floor only accessible by catwalk.

The trouble with historic districts is that they rarely have modern photo labs! My search for one led me to a mall in the southern part of town. On the way I stopped at a library to determine whether I needed to buy maps of North and South Carolina. I decided I did, and I was able to do so at the mall. The traffic on the way back into town was just awful. Had I known I'd be out until rush hour, I would have put off some of my errands until Saturday! At least I didn't have my trailer along. I got back to the hostel, met the new arrivals (two young couples from Florida), and made a big mess of spaghetti. It's great to cook for myself for a change, with a real stove and perishable food and leftovers!

Saturday was more relaxed. I accompanied the folks from Alaska on a tour of the First Black Baptist Church, which was founded in 1775. I missed the beginning of the tour, so I'm not clear on whether it was a stop on the Underground Railroad or a coordination center. The best part of the tour was the guide, who has personally researched the history of the place and encouraged all her guests to question what they're taught in school about slavery and American history. One curious feature of the church that's still being researched is Hebrew graffiti on the ends of the upstairs pews! It was the guide herself who figured out that it was Hebrew script.

I spent most of the afternoon researching my route through South Carolina at the library. Then I hung out at Forsyth Park -- sort of the Central Park of the historic district -- until the hostel's "lockout" period ended at 5:00. Forsyth Park is world-class people-watching. I think if I were playing People Bingo the only squares left uncovered would be women in hijabs and Hare Krishas. A lot of new guests arrived at the hostel Saturday night, including a pair of young men from Australia and another from Japan. A college sophomore from Atlanta moved into the bunk above me and told me all about how the world works. I remember when I knew everything...

I stayed at the hostel until lockout Sunday morning (10:00) and then checked out the Tree Climbing Championships on my way to church. This is not kids' stuff, but the kind of climbing done by professional tree trimmers, with helmets and ropes and harnesses. The winners from this regional competition go on to the worldwide championships.

The UU Church of Savannah calls itself the Jingle Bells Church (http://www.jinglebellschurch.org) because John Pierpont was serving as its music director at the time he published "Jingle Bells" and a number of other ditties. He wrote the song while he was still living in Massachusetts... anyone driving a sleigh in Savannah would be pulling it through mud. I was interested to visit the church because most of the congregation were actual Southerners, unlike in Florida where they were mostly snowbirds from New York and thereabouts.

In the afternoon I rode out to Bonaventure Cemetery, which despite its fame is not shown on the tourist maps and not, as far as I can tell, included in any of the bus tours. As a result it was very quiet as well as beautiful, and I enjoyed it very much. While I was riding in the cemetery, I heard a snapping sound from underneath me. I thought one of the welds in the seat back might have broken, since that was a recurring problem on my previous BikeE, but they were fine. A few minutes later I went to adjust the seat position and found that one of the two bolts that holds the seat onto the frame had broken in two! I scrounged for something to replace the bolt with and settled for a spare spoke -- it was a very narrow bolt -- but you can believe I rode very gingerly for the rest of the day!

I rode out to Skidaway Island State Park, southwest of town. Had I not known about the hostel, I would have tried to use the park as my base of operations while seeing Savannah... I'm very glad I didn't do that, because it's a long ride on narrow roads with lots of traffic. The hostel was much more convenient, despite its faults, and it cost the same.

Addendum: I got a replacement bolt on my way through town Monday morning, so you can stop worrying about my seat falling off. See you in Charleston! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on March 11, 2005]

Greetings from "The Most Historic City in the Country!" As you already know, I rode back through Savannah Monday morning and got a new bolt for my seat, plus a spare just in case, and I stopped at a gelato shop to send you all an e-mail.

I had asked around quite a bit about whether bikes are allowed on the big Tallmidge Memorial highway bridge across the Savannah River. Civilians said no, police officers said yes. When I got to the on-ramp, there was indeed a sign prohibiting bicycles and pedestrians, but the police were right that no one objected to my crossing. The view of town wasn't as spectacular as I had thought it might be ("Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" says the town's squares are visible from the highway bridge, but that must have been the earlier bridge this one replaced) so I wasn't tempted to disobey the other signs and stop to take a picture.

Once in South Carolina, I could finally understand why the city was called Savannah: the coastal plain between there and Charleston ("The Lowcountry") is a marsh with tall grass that at a distance looks a lot like an African savanna. The city is so full of trees that I hadn't seen the resemblance. I was surprised at how quickly the water was flowing through channels in the apparently flat marsh ... until I saw one flowing backward and realized I was watching the tide go in and out!

I'm always a little unsure about distances when I cross from one state map to another. The South Carolina map is drawn to a larger scale than any I've used yet, so that places are closer together than I expect. It was a nice surprise when I reached my campground outside Bluffton, SC early in the afternoon! I took a nap and watched some TV.

I mentioned to the campground's owner that I was having trouble finding fuel for my stove. Folks down here evidently don't have much trouble with their cars' fuel lines freezing, so they don't need to stock Heet in auto-part stores, let alone every corner gas station. I tried looking for Sterno as a substitute, but few people have heard of it and no one seems to know where to buy it. However, the owner returned a few minutes later with a big bottle of denatured grain alcohol labeled as sootless stove fuel left over from when she and her husband had owned a boat with an alcohol stove in the galley. She gave it to me for free. A few minutes later I found a big fiberglass batting on the ground -- I think it had blown in on the wind -- and helped myself to a pinch for a new stove wick. My last wick got rained on right after I ran out of fuel, so I couldn't dry it out, and squeezing it would ruin it, so I had to toss it and was considering using Spanish moss until I could find more fiberglass. Anyway, I'm back on hot food!

It rained off and on overnight and still couldn't make up its mind Tuesday morning, so that I was tempted to stay put for another night -- the price was hard to beat. What got me moving was the forecast of frost for that night; the campground offered no shelter from the wind, and the social hall was locked at night, so I couldn't take refuge on its comfy sofas. In that regard, at least, I thought I could do better down the road. So off I went.

The rain stopped around 10:00, but the wind kept gusting all day, so that I revised my route to avoid a three-mile-long bridge. This meant that I didn't pass through the historic town of Beaufort, but I can live with that omission. Toward the end of the day I rejoined US-17 (the main road from Savannah to Charleston), and I pulled into the town of Point South. The cheaper of two campgrounds had better shelter and was farther from the Interstate, so I was well satisfied. For another $25 I could have stayed in a hotel with an indoor, heated pool, which was tempting, but I reasoned that $25 could buy a lot of breakfast at Waffle House at 4 in the morning or whenever the cold woke me up!

As it turned out I stayed warm until 6:00, just half an hour before dawn. I crawled onto my bike and was in the warm restaurant in minutes. It was not a happy morning at the Waffle House. Near as I could make out, the shift that had just ended had left an overflowing dishwasher and a filthy grill for the new shift -- just one cook and one waitress to handle the morning rush -- to clean up. The food was OK anyway, and I was glad to have it.

I followed US-17 all the way into Charleston because there was no other option. The drivers were remarkably generous considering how little they had to offer me. I'll do my best to take a better route out of town! The day's ride was 63 miles; I could have stopped sooner, but Charleston's two hostels were calling me. The two hostels were started independently about two years ago, half a mile apart, by women in their early 20s fresh out of the local college. Both are managed by other twentysomething women, and they offer similar amenities at similar rates. I thought it would be neat to stay at both of them, but I had no intention of actually doing so... it just worked out that way!

I went to the Historic Charleston Hostel when I rode into town because it had better reviews online. It's a very small place, just 14 beds, and 10 of them were taken by an Alternative Spring Break group from a community college. I got the last bed Wednesday night, and there were no vacancies for the following night, so I called over to the other hostel and made a reservation there. I was exhausted from the long ride and went to bed early, but the spring break crowd was up late playing a heated game of Monopoly, and the walls were thin. After a few hours I put my earplugs in and was dead to the world... slept great! The hostel provides free grits, which the college group's advisors prepared with cheese, and they gave me their leftovers.

When the manager learned I was going down the street to the NotSo Hostel that night, she told me all kinds of nasty rumors about the place. She wasn't trying to get me to stay -- she didn't have a bed to offer me, after all -- she just had a grudge left over from when she lived there, under its original management. I checked out the accommodations before checking into them, and her info appears to be out of date at least, if not completely unfounded; in fact I liked the second place better and signed up for two nights on the spot. I'm afraid her cattiness makes me think less of her and her establishment... but hey, she's got a lot of responsibility and she can't be over 23. I was pretty catty at that age myself. And here I am gossipping to all of you...

I grabbed some lunch and spent the afternoon sightseeing, but since I'm neither a Civil War buff nor an architecture aficionado, I had trouble grasping Charleston's charm. I can see it's up to its ears in history; I can see that it has a hodgepodge of Gothic, Colonial, and Victorian buildings, but that doesn't float my boat like Savannah's canopied streets and stately parks. I wore my church clothes the whole time I was in Savannah because I felt like a T-shirt and warmup pants wouldn't be appropriate. Charleston doesn't feel that way.

The NotSo Hostel is a much larger place than the other: more beds, more bedrooms, larger rooms, thicker walls. In addition to the college students on spring break, there are a number of professionals -- a general surgeon, an EMT, a teacher -- applying for or temporarily filling positions in town. All sorts of people. I did a little more sightseeing this morning (Friday) and then took the rest of the day off. I'll investigate happy hour tonight and catch a tour tomorrow morning on my way out of town.

Wish me dry days and warm nights! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on March 15, 2005]

When last I wrote you on Friday evening, I was about to go in search of a bar with happy-hour specials on food. I found an Irish-American pub that fit the bill. Then I walked to the riverfront and watched the sun set. A tremendous, gusty, cold wind blew in as the sun went down, so I had to keep walking to stay warm!

I saw a lot more on foot than I did on my bike, and I think I got a better impression of what people like about Charleston. I saw a scene that pretty well sums it up, but the light was wrong for taking a photo, so I'll have to describe it. Near the waterfront there was a stately colonial-style mansion, well maintained and richly furnished. Outside there were two cars painted the exact same shade and luster of silver, so that I would bet they had the same owner and had been purchased to match. One was a Rolls Royce touring sedan with British plates. The other was a VW Golf hatchback!

After a hearty breakfast Saturday morning, I rode to the Unitarian Church in Charleston, which is the second-oldest church in town and the oldest Unitarian church in the South. Its exterior is under renovation, but I had been assured that the "perpendicular Gothic" interior would be open for tours that morning at 10. It was not. I waited for half an hour and called the office phone, but I couldn't wait all morning, so I left disappointed.

Back at the hostel, I loaded up my gear and went to tighten the new bolt on the seat (since it was slipping) and promptly snapped it in two. I'm glad I bought a spare! I started to think maybe I shouldn't be traveling... but I'm not superstitious. Why should bad luck come in threes? The manager of the NotSo Hostel warned me that my route through North Charleston would take me through "the ghetto," but she couldn't suggest a better route. It was fine, and traffic was very light, and the weather was gorgeous. I saw a toothless old woman dueling with sticks with her grand or great-grandson, a toddler. She was totally on the offensive, yelling "hyah! hyah!" and parrying his stick as he tried to hold his ground.

Just when I think I've seen every kind of campground, I stay someplace like the Charleston KOA (actually in Goose River). It has a zoo, featuring a cougar, a raccoon, and an alligator. Most of its other amenities are closed either for the season or for renovation, including the women's restroom, but campsites are still full price!

For those who do believe bad luck comes in threes: I somehow managed to lose my South Carolina maps (just photocopies -- I may have thrown them away) shortly after making camp! The good news is that I remembered the remainder of the route well enough that I didn't really need them anymore. That night I found what I thought were bedbugs in my tent and on my person, and I was afraid I'd gotten infested at the hostel. (They admitted they had had an infestation, and one of the rumors I had heard was that they hadn't properly taken care of it.) But I didn't find any more after that night, so they may have been some other kind of bug... let's call them KOAcroches. Anyhow...

Sunday was a very short day's ride, because I wanted to be sure to take advantage of free camping in Francis Marion National Forest, and my route didn't pass through very much of it. Francis Marion is mostly pines with a few deciduous trees in the dense underbrush -- none of the palmetto, live oak, and magnolia that characterized Florida and Georgia's forests. When I found a promising-looking side road, I stopped to put on tick repellant before heading into the forest. I followed a smaller branch road that was marked off-limits to motor traffic, and it led me to a good-sized clearing where I made camp. As soon as the tent was up, I got inside and checked for ticks. I didn't find any, but I stayed in the tent most of the afternoon anyway because there wasn't much of anywhere to go. It was a hot day, and it felt good to just lie around in my boxers without worrying about being seen! Once the traffic died down for the night, the forest was amazingly quiet, and I slept very well.

Monday was much cooler, but not uncomfortable. I passed two fellow travelers going the other way on the divided highway: a man pushing a cart so wide he had to walk in the ditch, and a bicyclist with heavily loaded panniers. I followed US-17A into Georgetown, ate a hearty buffet lunch -- including the best candied yams I've had in years -- and continued northeast on US-17 to Huntington Beach State Park. This was my first SC park, and I was very impressed -- they gave me a good deal on a great campsite, close to the seashore.

This morning (Monday) I brought my breakfast to the beach and watched the sun rise over the water. Then I strolled over to Atalaya, the summer home of Archer Milton and Anna Hyatt Huntington. I last crossed Archer Huntington's philanthropic footprints at Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico. His Moorish mansion, built during the Depression using as much local labor as possible, is now a national monument in its own right. It's also well on its way to becoming a ruin! I considered visiting Brookgreen Gardens, a park across the road that features many of Anna Huntington's sculptures, but I balked at the admission fee.

The coast from Georgetown to the NC border is called "The Grand Strand," and Myrtle Beach, where I'll stay tonight, is its centerpiece. I meant to mention earlier that most of the coasts I've passed have names, for marketing purposes... Mississippi's is the Emerald Coast, the Florida Panhandle is the Hidden Coast, northwestern Florida is the Nature Coast... there were others, too, but I get them confused. I kept expecting to encounter the Friendly Coast, maybe near a town named Casper. Anyhow. Grand Strand.

Favorite South Carolina quirk: this state is as obsessed with its flag as Texas is with its Lone Star. But the South Carolina flag is actually quite charming; it features a crescent moon over a palmetto tree. I bought a "Palmetto State" sticker for my bike. It sure beats Georgia's Confederate stars and bars...

Looks like my next missive will come to you from Fayetteville, NC. See you there! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on March 19, 2005]

I had planned to ride into North Carolina Wednesday, but I didn't quite make it... it was farther than I thought (remember I had lost my maps), and there was a constant, cold rain that really took the wind out of my sails. I had to stop at several shopping centers during the day just to warm up and dry off so I could keep functioning.

The town of Myrtle Beach is absolutely packed with hotels, and in this off season they're competing madly for business. I could have gotten a room for just $24 ... if I had felt like stopping at 9 in the morning! I thought North Myrtle Beach might have comparable deals, but it's a less competitive market, so the prices weren't as low. There were plenty of camping options as well -- two of them boasting over a thousand sites each, though most of the RVs I saw were in off-season storage -- but I was soaked through and my tent was plastered with mud splashed by the heavy drops falling from tall pine trees. I kept going to Little River, just shy of the border, and was lucky to find a room there under $40. Naturally the rain stopped as soon as I unpacked ... that's the second time that's happened!

Thursday was cold and drizzly and generally unpleasant. The hotel owner wouldn't let me bring my bike inside, so I had to postpone re-packing my front wheel bearings although I could hear them complaining about being wet; there was no way I was going to work on the bike in the drizzle.

North Carolina has a network of bicycle highways that are not only signed on the road but are also shown on my maps! (If you can remember back to August, you may recall my frustration at not being able to find any map showing where Wisconsin's signed bike routes lead.) I had planned to follow one of these east along the coast to Wilmington, then pick up another one and follow it northwest into Durham. However, when I got outside Thursday morning I decided I didn't want to go an extra 40 miles east after all, especially since there was a state park due north. The hotel owner warned me that there wasn't much at Lake Waccamaw State Park, but I was unprepared for how remote it is! It's on the south side of the lake, but the only road in comes from the north -- you have to go all the way around, and it's a big lake, "the largest of the Mysterious Carolina Bays."

By the time I got to the campground the sun was setting ... and I saw that it's a primitive group camp (i.e. there are no individual campsites) and I was the only person for miles around. I was so tired that I went ahead and made camp anyway... the worst they could do would be to give me a free ride to a warm night in jail! When a ranger came by, I figured the jig was up and started apologizing for my misunderstanding... but he informed me that they do actually let individuals camp, and he registered me without further ado.

Friday was so much better than the last couple of days, I practically fell in love with North Carolina! The day was sunny and warmer and I got to ride on quiet back roads. With its fields (freshly treated with liquid manure) and forests and friendly people and paved rural roads, North Carolina keeps reminding me of Wisconsin. I slept in a little and re-packed the bearings, which were swimming in rusty water after soaking for two days, but the sun seemed to hang in the sky all afternoon. A young man in Elizabethtown called me over and gave me a glass of sweet tea and introduced me to all his friends, who were hanging out in the front yard, and griped about how the landlord doesn't like him having so many people hanging out in the front yard. It struck me that this was only the second time I'd received Southern hospitality from actual Southerners, the rest having been Northerners who'd moved south as adults.

I spent last night at Jones Lake State Park and picked up the bike route first thing this morning. The roads it follows are not much better than the ones I chose myself the last few days, but it's kind of fun to not have to consult the map every few miles; just watch for signs. In the little town of Cedar River, southeast of Fayetteville, I met a Christian cycling group called The Cycling Cell that had just finished a 10-mile "time trial" -- training for a race. They were incredulous that I had traveled 7,000 miles and took lots of photos. I had to explain some of my leftist bumper stickers, which was awkward.

I'm writing from a small town east of Fayetteville. I should be in Durham Monday evening, so next time I write I'll have photos to share! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo group on March 27, 2005]

Happy Easter! Just a quick update since I have Internet access tonight.

Friday's plan was simple enough: I would bike from Durham to a shopping center on the near side of Raleigh, meet my sister's childhood friend Amber for lunch at 11, and then ride north to Falls Lake Recreation Area in the afternoon. But about a mile from the rendezvous, I got a flat on my left trailer tire -- the first one it's had in the whole trip. I went to patch the tire and found that I was out of patches. I tried using a scrap of an old inner tube, as I remembered doing when I was a kid, but it didn't stick; evidently I have the wrong kind of cement for that old trick. So I got out a new tube, and for the occasion a new tire as well. Pumped it up to within 10 pounds of the recommended pressure. A few seconds later, it exploded, just as its partner had done a few days before. I had no other tube.

When I called Amber to say I couldn't make it, she offered to pick me up in her SUV. I was skeptical, but she routinely hauls a double bass, among other orchestral instruments, and lo and behold my entire rig fit in there! So we had lunch after all. Amber graduated from the same Oklahoma high school as my sister and I and moved to Raleigh right after college in Indiana, so she's been here ten years now. She teaches every kindergartner at a private school to play the violin, and the older kids she teaches any stringed instrument in the orchestra. In her spare time she gives private lessons, plays in various ensembles, and sings in her church choir. She invited me to stay the night at her townhouse, and since the day was drizzling and threatening thunderstorms, I accepted. Naturally it cleared up as soon as I got settled, but we were grateful for the chance to talk some more.

She left me there and went off to work. I called Erik because I had left my trailer flag at his house that morning, and he obligingly brought it over, then drove me to a bike shop where I got a new tube and patches. Amber came home for a snack and was then gone again to sing in the Good Friday service at her church. I spent the afternoon and evening researching my route through Virginia, and I cooked dinner for the two of us: a "Gullah gumbo" mix I had bought at the Lowcountry Visitor Center in South Carolina. It was very tasty and simple to make, and Amber was glad to have a meal waiting for her.

My decision to stay there instead of at Falls Lake meant that I rode almost the whole day on Saturday. After a drizzly morning I stopped for lunch in Louisburg, home of the International Whistlers' Convention, which must not be very big, since the town has only two hotels. The afternoon was dry but cloudy; I didn't see the sun all day. Saturday was the first and only day that North Carolinians yelled and honked at me. There was a car race near where I was headed; maybe that raised the testosterone level of drivers for 50 miles around!

When I got to Medoc Mountain State Park I warmed and ate the other MRE I got last week. It was a vegetarian pasta dish with essentially no protein, so I added pepperonis. I was puzzled about Medoc Mountain, since I couldn't see it above the treetops, but according to my map it's only 100 feet high! A park staff member dropped by to tell me that my site would be free of charge because the ranger had "had an emergency" and wouldn't be available to take my money.

Sunday was another gray and sunless day with occasional drizzle. As I rode through Roanoke Rapids, NC, a man and two boys rode alongside me on their bicycles. They asked me half a dozen times where I was going and where I'd been before they were willing to believe my answers. They had more trouble believing I was bicycling to DC than that I had already ridden thousands of miles... it's the Florida Effect all over again: DC is Far Far Away, and going there is a big event that calls for big vehicles.

I was feeling really tired at the start of the day, but by early afternoon I was feeling great, so I buzzed right by my Plan B stopping place, although it looked nice enough. The Plan A place, north of Emporia, VA, was a Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camping Resort. You may remember that in September, on my way into Indianapolis, I was going to stay at a Jellystone Park but found that the truck stop next door would let me camp for half the price. When I got to this campground, located between a highway and a railroad track, with thunderstorms threatening, I found that the motel next door was a few dollars cheaper. I wonder if all Jellystone Park Camping Resorts are so conveniently located next to cheaper accommodations!

So here I am in Virginia. Unless something delays me, I'll roll into DC Friday evening, so I may or may not write again before then. --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on April 2, 2005]

Hi, folks! I'm safe and sound at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC! It's hard to believe I've completed my three months in the South and crossed Virginia in less than a week!

First, to right some wrongs... I neglected to mention what my friend Scott is doing in Chapel Hill, even though I've described what everyone else I visit is doing, and even though Scott has friends on the list who doubtless would like to know. He's continuing his career in nonprofit management as the staff assistant for the North Carolina Family & Children's Resource Program at UNC. He enjoys the work and the office environment, but he's having trouble getting used to the slower pace of work (and life in general) compared to Minneapolis.

I previously estimated here (and several times in person) that I had travelled some 7,000 miles thus far. That estimate was based on 50 miles a day for 8 months, minus the weeks I didn't travel. Looking at the map, I can see that it's probably only been somewhere between 4,200 and 5,000 miles so far... the entire trip will be about 7,000 miles when I get back to Minneapolis. Sorry for the mistake!

So... I buzzed through Virginia in record time. That's not because I didn't want to see Virginia, or because I was in a hurry to get to DC (though I have always wanted to see the cherry blossoms) -- it's entirely because of where I could find campgrounds. Virginia's campgrounds are almost exclusively located along its Interstate highways, so I followed the parallel US highways due north through the state. Unfortunately this means I didn't see much of Virginia... in fact the only photos I took there were of some kudzu in Richmond.

I also left spring behind: as I rode north, the tender green leaves retreated into their buds, and so did most of the dogwood blossoms. So I'll get to watch spring arrive again during my week here in DC! A few of the magnolias and cherry trees have already gotten started, but they should really cut loose in a few days.

The trouble with riding on highways isn't so much the drivers or the clearance with passing cars -- after all, I have yet to have a mishap, so how bad can it be, right? No, the problem is that the sound and smell of traffic tends to drive me batty, and I make bad decisions about when to stop for a rest and where to camp for the night based on how frustrated I'm feeling at the moment. I mention this phenomenon because you'll notice it was a recurring theme this week.

I last wrote you Sunday night from a cheap (but nice) motel. I was tempted to stay there a second night because rain was falling hard Monday morning, but the air was warm and I had a tailwind, so I hit the road. The rain stopped as I passed through the town of Petersburg. I then had a choice: stay at a private campground near the highway, or go several miles out of my way to stay at Pocahontas State Park in the middle of nowhere? Middle of nowhere sounded good to me, and I had a notion that the park might be historically connected to the princess Pocahontas, which would be neat. But it wasn't, and camping there was surprisingly expensive, and the drivers along the back roads were much less friendly than the ones on the highway.

Tuesday morning I repacked my troublesome front bearings before they rusted and then rode right through the middle of Richmond, Virginia, because I couldn't find a good way around it. I probably should have stopped and looked at something -- the capitol building designed by Thomas Jefferson, for example -- but I was going strong and just plowed right through town. I stopped at a campground right beside the Interstate and considered looking for someplace quieter, but the price couldn't be beat ($8), and I was feeling resentful about the expensive state park, so I just wore earplugs and toughed it out.

I was surprised to find that I could hear morning birds singing through the earplugs Wednesday morning. They're my alarm clock, now that the days are getting so long. Wednesday night's stop was a KOA just south of Fredericksburg, refreshingly far from the highway in a deep valley. It was so intensely quiet after the previous night's highway roar that I forked over $30 for my campsite with something close to gratitude. Then the wind changed, and I had to listen to the highway and railroad all night long! I think I'd be a much happier camper if I could just give up the illusion of control and realize that one rarely gets what one pays for!

While I was still griping foolishly to myself, I saw a sign for Bike Route 1! (Recall that I didn't follow this bike route through Virginia because I couldn't find a map showing where it went, so I couldn't plan nighttime stops around it.) I studied my maps and figured it couldn't take me too far out of my way, so I followed it... until I missed a sign (or a sign was missing) and I had to go back to the highway. The amount of signage on the route is not adequate without a map.

I rode through historic downtown Fredericksburg ("the most historic town in Virginia") but didn't take any photos because the day was gray and dreary. As I passed the turn for Belmont horse track, I couldn't help singing the song my friend Victoria made up as a young horse fancier. The part I can repeat in mixed company goes,

We ain't ridin' the Belmont, we ain't ridin' the Preakness,

We ain't ridin' the Derby or none o' them fancy races.

We ain't ridin' nowhere, we ain't ridin' nowhere,

We ain't ridin' nowhere, 'cept for that damn human race.

That damned human ra-yay-yace.

US-1 was not a bike-friendly road at all, but the drivers were very considerate. I stopped at a bike shop and bought a Washington-area bike map and noticed that it showed Bike Route 1 not far from where I wanted to go. I asked how to connect in with that, but it meant traveling an extra 3 hours that day and another 3 the next, so I just stuck with the highway! For the rest of the day I heard muffled explosions, coming, I presume, from the Quantico Marine base. I stopped for the night at Pohick Bay Regional Park, which is as quiet and natural a place as you could ask for right on the edge of a major metropolitan area. I believe it's the very closest campground to DC, at least on the southwest side.

I only had to ride about 2 miles on the highway Friday morning; near Mount Vernon I picked up a bike trail that parallels the Potomac River all the way into town. I stopped at a park called Gravelly Point for a first view of the Washington skyline, and I wound up watching a mother trying in vain to get her young son to take an interest in the airplanes at Reagan National Airport. It's an ideal place for watching planes, and she was really fascinated by them. I had dreamed about bicycling on the National Mall... what I hadn't bargained on was the mobs of weekend tourists. I had to slow down to their walking speed and just go with the flow. But it is really incredible to be here on a bicycle!

My friend Marisa, whose parents hosted me for 6 weeks in Austin, is a Ph.D. linguistics student at Gallaudet University, where most of the students are deaf or hard-of-hearing, and the classes are taught in American Sign Langage (ASL). I'm not sure how much she appreciates the analogy, but as a hearing person here I really feel like a muggle visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! The little campus is nestled right in the middle of town, but its neighbors seem to ignore it. All the buildings are designed around customs and practices unfamiliar to me, and everyone's making dramatic, significant gestures whose meaning is lost on me. I'm just glad I have Hermione -- er, Marisa -- to help me make sense of it! For example, after treating me to dinner in the dining hall with her friends, she took me to a one-woman play about growing up as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults). All the members of the audience who didn't know ASL had to sit up front, so we could hear the interpreter!

I'll be here in DC through next weekend. Happy Daylight Savings Time! (Those of you reading from other countries can join us in pretending to lose an hour tonight, if you wish.) --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on April 8, 2005]

Hello again! I'm still in Washington, getting ready to move back into the Gallaudet dorms for a second weekend after spending the week in a hostel. I apologize for the length of this message, but I've been busy!

I last wrote you on Saturday morning. The weather was just miserable all day: cold and rainy and windy. I stayed indoors as long as I could stand to -- Marisa let me use her computer while she was in a study group all afternoon, so I filed my taxes and caught up on stuff -- but then I insisted on going outside. Marisa thought I was crazy, not only because of the weather, but because the neighborhood is considered to be very unsafe. I figured I had seen worse weather and worse neighborhoods, but even so I didn't make it off campus. By the time I got back to the dorm, my pants and shoes were soaked with shockingly cold water.

We went to see a movie on campus instead. Marisa warned me to bring earplugs because the volume is usually turned way up for the hard-of-hearing folks, but I didn't think it was louder than a typical theater. The dance party we passed on the way back to the dorm, however, was louder than any music I've ever heard!

Sunday morning I packed up and left Gallaudet for All Souls Church, riding through the neighborhood Marisa had warned me against the night before, and I have to admit it looked pretty questionable in the daytime, too. I had no trouble finding the "Congregation X" group of young adults from Arlington, Virginia, who were visiting All Souls, and we talked over lunch, which the church provides free to first-time visitors. But no one invited me home, so off I went to Hilltop Hostel, just inside the District boundary from Takoma Park, Maryland, and just half a block from a metro station. It made a nice base of operations for sightseeing, and a nice ever-changing group of fellow travelers to chat with.

Late Monday morning I rode the Metro to the National Mall. I checked on the cherry blossoms, but most of the trees were still a day or two from full bloom. After a visit to the Smithsonian Castle, I settled in at the new Museum of the American Indian. As long overdue as this tribute is, I have to say it was worth the wait. It sidesteps any pretense of "objective" anthropology or sociology by exclusively using the first person... that is to say, *all* of the narration on the walls is attributed to whomever said it, rather than belonging to the faceless Smithsonian institution. Since I'm a bit of a stickler for citations, I was impressed.

And each nation that's represented got to design its own part of the museum, from the carpet to the rafters. A dozen or so nations present their "Universes" -- their mythological understanding of how the world works, and when you step into their alcoves, you enter their worlds. Between the alcoves are little storytelling niches where creation myths are illustrated with tasteful (I thought) animation. I was disappointed to learn that these animations are not available on video; you have to travel to the museum if you want to see them. Maybe in a few years they'll change their minds about that.

The section of the museum that deals with the centuries of "Contact" between Native Americans and Europeans doesn't pull any punches -- in fact, I recognized a number of presentation strategies that were borrowed from the Holocaust Museum. But then the final section shows how tribes are picking themselves up and moving beyond survival to what they call "survivance." Some of my fellow hostelers who were expecting a history museum were put off by this emphasis on the present and future, but I felt it was very appropriate.

I had read about the well-used Bombardier ice-fishing vehicle that was lifted into the museum's second floor for the Métis nation's exhibit. I not only agree that it was an appropriate expense, I think more of the nations should have contributed modern artifacts like that. In the context of the exhibit, the big beloved workhorse really says more about their lifestyle than any number of words or pictures could have done.

The museum's cafeteria is another tour de force. McDonald's and Pizza Hut reportedly tried to sneak in, as they did in all the other museum cafes, but in this case they were kept out. Each counter has relatively healthy, often organic or fair-traded food inspired by the native cuisine of a different region of North or South America. (Not all the foods are indigenous; fry bread for example was invented during the forced migrations in the 1800s, but it's part of the Indian experience.) I expected it to be overpriced like all other museum food, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and quantity I got for my money.

Before heading back to the hostel, I stopped in at the Air and Space Museum and caught the 3-D IMAX film about the International Space Station. Like most of the Air and Space Museum, it's a few years out of date and more than a little jingoistic, but I like 3-D movies and I like the ISS, so I was happy! And in a few days the Shuttles will be flying again, so it won't be a grievous misstatement to say that the US is doing most of the work of maintaining the station.

Tuesday was forecast to be the only truly glorious day of the week, so I took my bike out for a spin. I followed about 3/4 of the Rock Creek Park bike trail, all of the Capitol Crescent trail, and the very end of the C&O Towpath. I was eager to see the towpath because it supplied the climax of Granny D's walk across the country -- the nonogenarian skied the last 100+ miles into town because she was running late for a press conference and an unexpected snow fell. Early in the ride, I stopped to study the bicycle map -- which was both imprecise and inaccurate -- and another cyclist stopped to help me. He was going much the same way, so I followed him. His name is Leroy Badger, and he lives in Utah but has ridden more than 15,000 miles since 2000, in both organized rides and informal jaunts all over the country. He had a fancy road bike and a spandex suit, but without my trailer I had no trouble keeping up with him.

Wednesday morning I biked to Shaw Ecovillage [2015 update: now defunct]. As an urban nonprofit organization, it has more in common with the Rhizome Collective I visited in Austin than the ecovillages I've visited in rural areas. The basic idea is that the adults in the organization raise money and the youth -- teenagers -- decide how to spend it to improve the neighborhood. They've created community gardens, painted murals, and started a community bike shop. Because I visited during the school day, there were no teenagers at the shop, but the college-grad day managers, Max & Wakeel, were eager to talk with me. We had a little mutual admiration society going for a while, and then they gave me a great deal on some bike parts.

I dropped off my stuff at the hostel, scarfed down some lunch, and then took the metro up to REI in College Park, Maryland. There I finally found the most recent edition of the Maryland-Delaware Atlas and Gazetteer, which none of the local libraries -- including the Library of Congress! -- have purchased. I didn't want to purchase it either, of course, since I'll only be in Maryland a couple of days, but I took some notes that should get me as far as Baltimore, where every library has the most current atlas on the shelf. I also bought a bright yellow poncho to replace the one that blew away while I was in church on Sunday. The sales associate turned up her nose at the $4.99 vinyl poncho, saying it was "not exactly performance," but I don't spend enough time in the rain to justify a $60 high-tech rain jacket! And I don't want to, thanks!

From Maryland I rode the Metro all the way through town to Arlington, Virginia, and met my friend Elisa's mother, Susan, for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. Susan is in her final year as a fourth-grade teacher; she could have retired earlier but decided she wasn't ready yet!

Thursday morning I rode the Metro to the Air and Space Museum and caught a shuttle bus from there to the museum's new annex near Dulles Airport, called the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, or as the bus drivers say, "the Hazy" (pronounced hah-zee). It's basically a big hangar full of planes and spaceships that didn't fit in the main museum. More informative exhibits are being built, but for now most of the vehicles have only a small panel to describe them. Even with the enormous new space, the planes are so close together -- and lit from so many directions -- that it's difficult to get a camera angle without a spotlight or another plane in the way. But the planes are still mighty impressive -- like the last SR-71 Blackbird and Concorde to fly, or the Space Shuttle Enterprise, or a Spacelab module that flew 9 missions.

My high-school friend Joe came and picked me up from the museum for lunch. He lives and works near Dulles, so it made more sense for us to meet at the museum than in DC. He's working for America Online. As much as he says he dislikes Oklahoma, having emigrated after his divorce, he's now dating a Tulsan and is flying there as I write this.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on April 14, 2005]

What a beautiful week of weather! I don't know when I've ever experienced seven days of perfect bicycling weather in a row. Unfortunately I wasn't able to appreciate the first five because I was sick, but I was dimly aware that I would otherwise have been appreciative!

I was sick when I last wrote you, on Friday morning. (It bears mentioning because this was my first illness in nine months of traveling.) A cold that had been building in my throat moved into my nose Thursday night and kept me from sleeping, and I was glad to be leaving the hostel before I could infect everyone there. [I may have caught it at the hostel, which did not have great hygienic practices.]

Marisa had just finished her qualifying exams, so both of us slept until noon on Saturday! Then that afternoon we went to a Japanese-inspired street festival on Pennsylvania Avenue in honor of the cherry blossoms. We bought some mochi rolls that turned out to have beans in them, and I ate them anyway (cue ominous music).

On Sunday morning I went to see Rev. Rob Hardies speak at All Souls Church, and I must say he puts on quite a show -- the closest thing to a charismatic Unitarian minister I've ever seen. It helps that his congregation is so remarkably diverse -- if he asked them to speak in tongues, I bet they could converse in at least a dozen -- but his dynamism probably contributes to the diversity as well. His associate minister is popular as well; both of them actually got standing ovations on Sunday, even though she wasn't present -- it was announced that she had just gotten married in Massachusetts [historical note: Massachusetts had just legalized same-sex marriage, which the UUA strongly supported].

Anyhow, his sermon gave me a lot to think about, which is why when I started feeling wretched and despondent as I rode out of town I thought at first I was reacting to the themes of the sermon, rather than the previous evening's legumes. I did finally figure it out, but I had nothing to eat for dinner but lentil soup (which hadn't caused me problems in the past). Between that and the tail end of the cold, I wasn't a happy camper until after lunch on Tuesday!

I passed through Baltimore on Monday and have nothing interesting to say about it except that all the public libraries there are called Enoch Pratt. I could tell the curse of the legume was wearing off Tuesday afternoon because when I found out Susquehanna State Park's campground was closed -- after riding all day to get there -- I just shrugged it off. I stopped for water at an adult day-care center, and the director, who was just leaving for the day, offered to let me camp on the grounds because "no one's here overnight anyway." Alas, I overslept in the morning, so I was still there when folks started arriving!

I had planned to cross Chesapeake Bay on US-40 and ride into Delaware, but when I got to the foot of the bridge in Havre de Grace, Maryland, I learned it was off-limits to bikes -- no exceptions. I was referred to the local florist, a man named Richard who has bicycled "all over" (mostly Utah) and makes it known on both sides of the bridge that he'll drive bicyclists across. He told me that Delaware is a horrific place to bicycle due to hostile motorists, and to make sure I didn't go that way he drove me most of the way to US-1, bound for Pennsylvania. So I didn't go to Delaware after all.

Instead I went on a tour of the Herrs Snack Food factory in Nottingham, PA! I saw lots of cool assembly-line equipment and learned how they put all their byproducts to useful purposes, but I wasn't allowed to take photos. The quality-control robots were especially cool, knocking green potato chips out of mid-air and detecting incorrect seasoning levels inside sealed bags. [2015 note: while eating my complimentary bag of chips after the tour, I bumped my scabbed right knee against the concrete picnic table and tore the scab off, causing a scar that I still have today. I guess I didn't feel like writing about it at the time!]

Even with only 30 miles to ride today, and even with a bicycle map of Philadelphia in hand, I still had a hard day's ride. People who print bicycle maps of hilly places without any topographical information should provide a tow-rope service on all the hills; that's what I think.

Anyhow, the latest in the series of beautiful days saw me as a guest in the home of Jay and Elsa, my new nephew's paternal grandparents, whom I had not previously met. I'll spend most of tomorrow on a bus to Pittsburgh, and by the end of the day I'll meet the new nephew himself! The bike and trailer, meanwhile, will rest in Jay and Elsa's garage.

Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on April 29, 2005] [additional text subsequently added from the week's journal entries]

Hi, folks! I'm back in Philadelphia, staying at my nephew's grandparents' (Jay and Elsa's) house. I hope to get back in shape (and see some sights around Philly) before I venture into the Garden State!

I took the commuter train into downtown Philly and the Greyhound to Pittsburgh and the city bus to Becca and Daniel's house without incident.

The following afternoon Daniel, Becca, Nicholas, and I went to the CMU carnival.  The "booths" this year evidently had to be educational on the theme of "science."  The KGB group, ever contrary, made its booth educational about discredited sciences such as phrenology. From there we attended the KGB "defectors" (alumni) party, where Becca was widely recognized for defining the role of Recording Secretary.  KGB has been in existence for 17 years, so that it's theoretically possible for a freshman member to have not been born when the group was founded. After dinner in Squirrel Hill, we went to another party at the home of some CMU friends, where most of the guests were also KGB defectors.  A good time was had by all.

The next morning we all went to Becca's church, where Nicholas was dedicated.  In the afternoon, Becca and I went to the co-op to stock up on bulk foods; Becca's stocking scheme is nearly identical to the one I came up with independently in Minneapolis.  Daniel made a bead for my Great Story strings out of Sculpey clay.

The idyllic weather continued all last week, in spite of ominous forecasts to the contrary. But over the weekend we got some actual snow... none of it stuck where we were, but Elsa said when she drove through the mountains she saw cars with nearly an inch of accumulation.

Daniel was away on a business trip for several days, so I helped out around the house in his absence. I enjoyed having the run of the kitchen and watching the baby while 'Becca was occupied.

While 'Becca and Daniel were at work, I used their computer to get the last of my database-driven Web sites back up and running; it had been out of commission for over a year. It used to be called PersonalTimeline.Net, but now you'll find it at My.WorksCited.Net [2015 update: not anymore!] I'd appreciate any feedback on how to make it more useful and usable.

Last Friday, Elsa drove (in the aforementioned snow) from Philadelphia past Pittsburgh, through the very northernmost tip of West Virginia, to her hometown of East Liverpool, Ohio. On Saturday 'Becca, Daniel, Nicholas, and I met her there for a Passover seder at her father's house -- so there were four generations present. It was the first time I'd attended a seder with Jews rather than Unitarians! Daniel's grandfather, Hirschel, has lived in the same two houses in East Liverpool for all of his life with the exception of college and military service.  He was a dentist and his wife was an artist.  We also met Daniel's uncle Leon, a PR Writer, and his aunt Suzie, a high-school drama teacher.  We had a fully scripted Passover seder.  As the youngest reader, I asked the four ritual questions.

I met up with Becca after work at her church for the meeting of her Girl Scout troop.  She's one of three leaders, and they had their hands full with seven Brownies ... one in particular.  I gave a short explanation of Braille (having brought my slate and stylus to town) at the beginning, and they sat still for that, but when they put on blindfolds they dropped right into the role of the young, untamed Helen Keller.  Nicholas watched wide-eyed and gave a healthy startle response to every joyous scream.

On Wednesday (yesterday), Elsa picked me up on her way back through Pittsburgh, and we took a scenic route -- even more scenic than the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which is saying something -- through the mountains back to Philly. We stopped in Johnstown and went to the Flood Museum. Andrew Carnegie and his rich buddies were never held responsible for the mismanagement of the dam that caused the flood, but Carnegie did help rebuild the library: it was the third library (of hundreds) to be named after him. Today the museum -- which places the blame squarely on the owners of the dam -- is located in his library!

Today was forecast to be the only sunny day all week, so I hopped on my bike and rode downtown to see some sights. I was able to follow off-road bike paths most of the way into town, so it was a very pleasant ride, and most of Philly turns out to be pretty flat ... I must have hit all the hills on my way into town! My stories about what I saw today can wait until the photos are developed, but my general impression is that Philadelphia is like a cross between DC and Minneapolis... which is to say, I like it!

I rode into downtown on a bike trail called Forbidden Drive.  In horse-and-buggy days it was a turnpike, following a creek through a deep valley, but automobiles were banned from the road (hence the name), so now that most of the horses are gone, it's a pedestrian and bicycling trail.  Horses are still welcome. Downtown, I met a cyclist named Jeb who was pulling a trailer like mine, but much older and twice as long, with two old rusty bikes on it.  He said he was collecting unwanted bikes from shops around town and bringing them to a nonprofit organization that teaches kids to fix them up, much like the Chain Reaction Youth Bike Shop I visited in DC.  I followed him to one of the shops and bought a tire.  He said he and some friends are planning to bike up to New York this summer.  I told him if he keeps hauling that trailer around he'll be in pretty good shape for the ride!

So that's what's new here... I leave for New Jersey on Saturday and will arrive in New York City toward the end of next week... whether I bike in or take the train will depend on what I learn about biking conditions. --Ben

25.0 mi

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on May 3, 2005]

Greetings from Montclair, New Jersey, just a stone's throw from Manhattan. Well, maybe a little farther than that.

I have one more story to tell about Pennsylvania... back when my sister and I were kids, our parents used to take us to a restaurant called Ha Pah Shu Tse on the Osage reservation in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The restaurant closed a long time ago, but the owner, John Redcorn, is still in business: I found some of his products for sale at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian! I bought a package of fry bread mix for 'Becca and Daniel and one for Jay and Elsa, and I cooked it for both households to rave reviews. I don't mind plugging the Ha Pah Shu Tse Web site at http://redcorn.com !

Anyhow... so on Saturday I left Philadelphia in a light rain and headed northeast into New Jersey. As soon as I'd crossed the Delaware River, before I'd ridden 100 feet in the new state, three drivers had shouted rude things at me. Fortunately this was a fluke; other drivers have been more polite.

My New Jersey maps are drawn to a larger scale than I'm used to (1 inch = 1.2 miles!) so I reached the home of Mom's cousin Joan and her husband Lloyd, which is in Ewing, near Trenton, around 2:00. Joan is a statistician for a market-research firm, and Lloyd teaches math at what he calls "the worst school in New Jersey." (It's in Newark, not Trenton.) They've both been under a lot of stress for the past few months because they bought a new house that's not yet ready to be moved into, and because their (Jewish) son married a Pakistani-American and honeymooned in practically all the countries the State Department recommends Americans avoid. The wedding sounds like an adventure in itself: four separate ceremonies in two days!

Joan and Lloyd treated me to a generous Sunday morning brunch, so I didn't hit the road again until 11:00, but New Brunswick was only about 25 miles away. The weather was good, and the roads were nice, through some beautiful, pale green forests... it would have been just great if I hadn't gotten three flat tires! That would be a record, except for Dallas... Actually, it was a great day anyway!

I rode through Princeton, which was every bit as pretentious as one might expect. I stopped at a bike shop, but the clerk was so rude to me I walked out, even though I really needed some tire patches! Had I known that Princeton students were staging a campus filibuster to protest alumnus Bill Frist's plan to undermine the filibuster, I might have stopped to see it, but I felt so... underdressed or something that I couldn't wait to get out of town.

I got a hotel in Edison, just past New Brunswick, and my friend Allen met me for dinner. Allen is in his tenth year as a Ph.D. student in molecular biology, studying the evolutionary history of cellular enzymes, which, he explained, don't evolve much because their functions are so essential to survival. I hadn't seen him in four years, but it turns out our paths will cross again this August in Iowa!

I took a sufficiently out-of-the-way route from Edison to Montclair that I avoided most of the traffic, but even so it was like a single continuous suburb. I got a fourth flat tire! I had expected the trip to take all day, but I arrived in Montclair around 1:00! Turns out this was very lucky: today I rode the same road at rush hour, and the traffic was crazy... if I'd tried it with my trailer, it would have been a nightmare.

Uncle Dave is taking time off of work as a flight instructor following an operation and doesn't plan to go back until next week, so we've got lots of time to catch up. I'm staying in his son Ethan's room -- Ethan is driving trucks for the Marines in Iraq. Dave's daughter Audrey is away at school most of the time, so he appears to enjoy the company and the excuse to cook. I'll be making day trips into New York City for the next few days -- the general consensus seems to be that I'd be crazy to bicycle into town, and the hostels there sound pretty awful, so I'll just ride the bus across the river and back each day. I should have some exciting stuff to say next time I write, so don't go unsubscribing! :-) --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on May 11, 2005]

It's my last night in New Jersey! If you've looked at my photos since my last message, you have a pretty good idea of what I've been up to, but here's a brief rundown:

I stayed in Montclair with Uncle Dave longer than I'd originally intended because my friend in Poughkeepsie isn't available to see me until this Saturday, and because he was willing to put up with me. ;-) I've made myself useful around the house. Last Wednesday Dave drove me around Brooklyn and Queens, and then he took me to his workplace so I could try flying the jet simulators. Now, I flew a real plane once, a single-engine propeller plane that I had helped to free from Oklahoma mud. The owner handled take-off and landing; I just tried to fly the thing in a straight line, but it was so difficult that I lost any interest I had had in flying. But if the simulators are accurate -- and Dave swears they are -- these corporate jets practically fly themselves. The avionics tell you what to do, the autopilot does what you tell it, and the rudder pedals are totally unnecessary as long as there's no crosswind. Anyhow, it was fun!

Thursday I rode the bus into Manhattan and walked the length of Central Park. Then Dave and I drove to Poughkeepsie to see my cousin Audrey inducted into Phi Theta Kappa, and we brought her home for the weekend. Friday I went to the American Museum of Natural History, which still beats the pants off the Smithsonian. The recently renovated Hall of Ocean Life is spectacular, and the new Hall of Biodiversity is excellent as well. If you go to http://www.amnh.org, you can read a transcript of the planetarium show I saw about whether there's life on other planets... the script is so detailed you can imagine the visuals.

Saturday, as it happened, I met the best friends of all three of Dave's kids: Ethan's girlfriend Heather (who met him after he joined the Marines but before he was sent to Iraq), Audrey's lifelong best friend, and Daniel's friend Dan. (Yes, there are two Daniels in my family, and soon there may be three Heathers.) Sunday we drove Audrey back to her school, which is in the Catskill Mountains where spring has not yet sprung.

Monday I borrowed Ethan's car to check out the roads I'll ride when I leave here tomorrow, because this corner of the state is not covered by njbikemap.com. The roads look OK, but I'll want to avoid rush hour, and the campground I'm headed for is up a few miles out of my way and up in the mountains, so I might chicken out and get a hotel instead. I burned $10 worth of fuel just driving out there and back!

Tuesday I biked to the town of Paterson, which I'll pass through when I leave, but I wanted to be sure to see the Great Falls on a nice day. As picturesque as the falls are, few New Yorkers go to see them because Paterson is a very blue-collar town. This morning I returned to Manhattan and rode the subway to the southern tip of downtown, Battery Park. I walked from there to the World Financial Center, where there's an exhibit about the plans for the WTC site. Ground Zero itself just looks like a construction site at present, but I got a photo of a nearby building that hasn't yet been repaired from the blast. From there I walked through Greenwich Village to Washington Square Park, where professional chess players crush the overconfident and take their money. But business was slow, because the park was being set up for NYU's graduation festivities.

That's about it... I'm set to hit the road as soon as rush-hour traffic wanes tomorrow morning. I'll write again before I cross into Canada, towards the end of next week. See you then! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on May 20, 2005]

Greetings from Whitehall, New York, where the Hudson River valley becomes the Lake Champlain valley. I was planning to wait to write until my last day in the US, but I have time now and won't then, so...

I left New Jersey on Thursday the 12th and saw a little bit of the Catskills. The rocks are really beautiful: lots of gneiss and schist. I crossed the Appalachian Trail on Friday at the Bear Mountain bridge. I didn't have to wait long to meet my first hillbillies: the guy who checked me into my campsite had only three teeth. One of the other campers insisted that I was lying about how far I had bicycled and then demanded that I confirm that I was as "wacked" as he is. "C'mon, say it: you're wacked like me."

The series of flats in my rear tire that I thought I had fixed in Montclair continued, so I stopped in Fishkill to get the rim looked at. (The punctures were occurring on the rim side of the tubes.) The husband-and-wife owners couldn't find the problem, but they did install a new rim band and a "thorn-resistant" (i.e. thick) tube in my size. So far, so good! It probably helps that I'm out of the city, too!

On Saturday I passed through Poughkeepsie, and my friend Anna showed me all around the Vassar campus -- which is more like an arboretum than a shady lawn -- and the art museum where she works. She treated me to lunch in the dining hall, and I felt pretty cool hanging out with the college crowd ... until I learned that Anna's friends had assumed I was her father! Don't get me wrong, her father is a good-looking guy and one of the most influential environmentalists in the state of Minnesota, but he's gotta be 20 years older than me...

In Hyde Park that afternoon, I toured the grounds of FDR's house and would have gone to see Vanderbilt's mansion, but the driveway was dauntingly hilly. Hyde Park would be a nice weekend destination: lots of inexpensive motels, and all the tourist destinations are connected by a walking trail through the gorgeous, forested valley.

On Sunday I went farther than I'd planned, since the campground wanted $30 to let me set up my tent in the rain. Hudson, NY is a nice little town with an old-fashioned main street, like Hudson, Wisconsin but about three times the size, and located on the actual Hudson, and with a more diverse population. I got a room in "The first motel ever converted from a movie theater and located in a small community," according to the plaque outside. The clerk told me that the rates are about to go way up in two weeks; when I asked what the attraction was, she said, "antiques." I hadn't known there was an antique season... I wonder if they have to put blaze-orange vests on anything that's not for sale?

I arrived in Albany on Monday and stayed through Thursday morning with my college friend Eleanor. The Empire Film Festival was in progress, so we attended and cast ballots on several showings of short films from around the world. The best of the bunch was "West Bank Story," a musical about love and hate among feuding falafel vendors. I got to explore downtown Albany a bit. I was particularly impressed by the Empire State Plaza, although Eleanor tells me it's "a textbook example of totalitarian architecture." I just think it's an efficient use of space: in about the same footprint as the Minneapolis Convention Center, there's a parking ramp, convention center, five government office buildings with plenty of windows, a park (on the roof of the convention center) and a performing-arts hall ("The Egg"). An overpass doubles as a stairway to the State Museum and amphitheater seating. Very cool. And the whole plaza looks as good as new, even though it was built before I was born.

The State Museum features the first permanent exhibit about 9/11. I got sucked into a film made by a pair of French brothers who had intended to chronicle a day in the life of NYC firefighters, but instead they got the World Trade Center impacts and collapses. One of the brothers was in the lobby of WTC 1 while bodies were falling from the tower -- each sickening THUMP on the lobby roof made every firefighter wince -- and when WTC 2 was hit, and while WTC 2 collapsed. The smoke was so thick they couldn't see the other tower and didn't know what had happened, but when they stepped outside everything was covered in ash and paper. Fortunately they evacuated the lobby before tower 1 collapsed as well! It's an extraordinary film.

Yesterday I had a very short ride to a campground in the town of Schaghticoke, near Mechanicville. My campsite was right on the edge of a plateau overlooking a stream valley. I swear the sun rose earlier than usual up there: it woke me at 5:30 this morning! I parted company with the Hudson River at Hudson Falls and continued north with the Lake Champlain Canal. I was getting nervous about crossing the mountains tomorrow, so I gave away about two pounds of clothes to some folks who were having a garage sale. I shouldn't need so many now that summer is really here.

In Fort Ann I met a cyclist named Richard coming the other way. He said he's been on the road for 12 years and hasn't paid to camp in 10... he knows the northeast in detail and knows where he can camp without disturbing anyone. His trailer is custom-built with a heavy steel frame carrying an even heavier load -- including a huge solar panel charging a car battery and an inverter so he can use appliances. No motor on the bike, though; he rides a mountain bike (these being the mountains) for the low gearing. He says he lives on about $20 a day from his disability check... Who says the fun and games have to stop when you lose an eye?

For my part, I got a hotel in Whitehall, and they gave me a discount for arriving by bicycle. I'll be in the Adirondacks for the better part of three days, and I'll reach Montreal on Tuesday and Ottawa on Saturday (a week from tomorrow)! I'll write again from there. --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on May 31, 2005] ]

Hello again. I've covered a lot of ground since I last wrote, so I'm going to leave out a lot of details and focus on telling stories which I hope will interest you.

I last wrote from Whitehall, New York, just south of the Adirondack mountains. Fortunately for me, Lake Champlain forms -- or rather, is formed by -- a pass through the mountains. Here's a brief natural history of the area: http://www.lakechamplaincommittee.org/learn/natural-history-lake-champl… . So when I say I went "over the mountains," what I really mean is that I went between them. Even so, there were several places were I had to climb 500 feet all at once, and once I had to climb fully 1000 feet. I guess you could say that was the "high point" of the trip... unfortunately the weather was such that I couldn't see much of anything!

I should mention that I rode all the way through New York on an official state bike route. New York has at least four of these, possibly five by now, and not only are they signed on the roads and mapped online, but the state will mail paper maps to anyone free of charge. The paper maps don't show campgrounds, so I still had to do some research on my own, but they do show the topography of the route, and that was very helpful... I didn't need to buy or photocopy any other maps of the state. I hope other states follow New York's example; it really makes bike touring much easier.

Anyhow... the weather was just awful all the way to Montreal: cold and rainy and very windy. I made such slow progress that I stopped several times to make sure my bearings weren't rusting, the brakes weren't dragging, the tires weren't low, and so on. In Keeseville, after crossing that 1000-foot pass, I got a motel for the third time in a week (a record I don't care to repeat), but it turned out to be the nicest place I've stayed in a long time... more like a guest suite in someone's home or a bed-and-breakfast than a cheap motel. Motels in New York, unlike anyplace else I've ever been, supply little envelopes as a not-so-subtle suggestion that you should leave a tip for the housekeeper, but this was the only place where I felt that was called for, because the room was just impeccable.

In Plattsburgh on Sunday the 23rd, I was studying my map when a pedestrian approached me and helped me figure out how to get through town. She turned out to be the coordinator of some local outdoorsy group, and she offered to buy me lunch, but I was anxious to get down the road and declined. I kicked myself for that decision for several rainy miles because there was noplace else to stop, let alone eat, but then I found a marvelous natural-foods store where I got a great deal on a fantastic sandwich, and they let me check my e-mail while I waited in vain for the rain to let up. By this time I was well into bilingual territory, so I evesdropped on some French conversations trying to get used to the sound even though I didn't understand a word.

The bike map showed Golden Hill State Park just south of the Canadian border, and I had verified that camping is allowed at that park, so I planned to stay there Sunday night. But when I got to the place, no one had heard of the park... turns out it's several hundred miles away, near Niagara Falls! (I've notified the map people of the error.) Fortunately there was a private campground not too far away. They don't get many tenters... in fact, I was the only transient in the place; everyone else lives in the campground permanently!

As you approach the Quebec border, signs are more and more bilingual, and more and more people speak French as their primary language. When you cross the border, English disappears altogether and doesn't resurface until you reach Montreal. I had been warned of this, since I don't speak any French, but I was pretty sure I knew the way to Montreal and wouldn't need to ask directions. I was wrong. To say that the rural Quebeqois are "provincial" would be cliche but also an understatement... I can sympathize with their not wanting to adopt the language and culture that surround them on all sides, but they ought to at least know that the town of Chambly is a few kilometers due east of Montreal (due north of where I crossed the border) and not, as several of them tried to tell me with dramatic gestures, far to the south! Fortunately, I was back on the plains where the rural roads follow a grid, so I just zigzagged northwest until I hit a highway that I recognized on my Montreal map, and I found my way into town from there.

I stayed three nights in the Alternative Hostel, one of more than a dozen in Montreal. It's a very nice place, beautifully decorated, well maintained, and centrally located. I went out Tuesday night to sample the city's fabled nightlife, but I'm not much of a nightlife person and was unimpressed. I did sample some crepes, though, and they were wonderful. If I could get crepes at one in the morning in Minneapolis, I might go out at night more often!

On Wednesday I went to Mont-Royal Park and the Biosphere. In addition to its rather unfocused exhibits about water, the Biosphere features a very nice exhibit about the life and works of Buckminster Fuller. One amusing irony: Fuller the futurist failed to predict that people would one day want to use radios inside his domes. The steel framework of the Biosphere effectively blocks all FM, TV, and cell-phone reception! [Of course, he intended the Biosphere to be a temporary structure, so futureproofing was never part of its design.]

Thursday I tried to get up and leave for Ottawa, but I had one of my disabling bouts of fatigue... I can't blame it on legumes this time, because I hadn't eaten any, unless the folks at Couche-Tard (an urban convenience store) slipped some into my cheese-and-pesto sandwich. When I tried to carry one of my heavy tubs down the hostel's four flights of metal stairs in my sock feet (not the brightest idea, but I wasn't thinking clearly), I slipped and fell down the stairs on my back with the tub on top of me. I scraped a patch on my back that I knew would rub against the back of my bike seat, so I decided I'd have to stay another day in Montreal. I went back to bed and had all my energy back by noon, so off I went to see more sights.

The Biodome, not to be confused with the Biosphere, is an ecological zoo similar to the rainforest exhibits at many zoos around the world: rather than display one or two species in isolation, they strive to put a whole ecosystem together in one climate-controlled room. The rainforest and polar exhibits couldn't compare to the award-winning ones at the Omaha Zoo, but I was mainly interested in the St. Lawrence Valley exhibits, so I could learn about where I was going. I was most impressed by the diving ducks... totally ordinary looking brown ducks that would suddenly dip under the surface and swim about 25 feet down to the bottom of their tank, ignoring the fish, root around in the gravel for up to a minute, then rocket back to the surface in a stream of bubbles and emerge -- totally dry. Other hostellers were equally impressed: "You went to the Biodome? Did you see the ducks?!!"

When I was in Pittsburgh, I got to talking with Daniel about the Star Wars prequels. Daniel is a big fan of the original movies, but he said the dialogue in the prequels is so bad, it would be a blessing to watch them in a language you couldn't understand. There was a theater right next to the Biodome, so I decided to put it to the test! I watched "Revenge of the Sith" in French and understood about a dozen words, but I didn't let them distract me from the pretty pictures and music. When I told the ticket clerk what I was doing, she said she'd seen the movie in both English and French, and she preferred English, in which she isn't fluent!

I rode from Montreal to Ottawa on a bike route I'd found on the Web... basically just following the Ottawa River as closely as possible. There were hundreds of other cyclists on the road. Unlike in New York, this time whenever I strayed from the route, I hit gravel and hills! Also lots of French speakers, even though by this time I was on the Ontario side of the river. My back healed reasonably well, considering that, in the rain, and pressed against the back of the bike seat, my wet bandage and shirt kept sticking to the scab and peeling it off.

I rode like crazy Sunday morning to get to church in Ottawa, because my friend Leela, who's a student minister, was speaking. I missed the first half of the service but was just in time for the sermon, which was excellent and well worth the extra exertion. I didn't announce myself to the congregation, but somehow word got around, and all sorts of people wanted to talk with me about my trip. One couple invited me to stay at their house, which is two days' ride down the road.

If you look at my master map you'll see that I have a long distance to cover in this final month but no more scheduled stops... Now that I'm on the home stretch and will have plenty of thinking time, I welcome any questions you may have about the trip as a whole. (Some of you have sent such questions already; I've been saving them.) Just reply to this message, and I'll think them over as I ride through Ontario and send my responses when I get to Michigan! Happy trails! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on June 12, 2005]

I made it to Michigan! I've got a lot to tell -- it's been almost two weeks, after all -- so I'll put the travelogue in this message and some more general observations in the following message.

On Wednesday, June 1st, still in Ottawa, I went to the Canadian Museum of Nature, which is less than a block from Leela's apartment. More than half the exhibits are closed for reconstruction right now, but I enjoyed what I got to see; it's like a museum of natural history that focuses on Canada. They had a few exotic species in the "creepy crawlers" exhibit, but everything else was native. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit on medicinal plants, where the plants in question were growing all over the room.

The next morning Leela and I went for a bike ride up to the "hogsback" waterfall. It was her first time on a bike in many years; I'm glad I could provide the inspiration to get back on the saddle again. That afternoon I went to the Museum of Civilization (across the river in Hull, Quebec), which I expected would be a lot like the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian because it looks like it -- both began with the same architect -- but it's more of an anthropological history museum. The whole bottom floor is devoted to the First Nations, but the upper two floors are all white history. In both cases the emphasis is on artifacts, from individual beads to entire buildings and boats. Unlike the American Indian museum, the plaques were all written by the omniscient third person, and they were written in English, French, and sometimes Inuit! I got overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of stuff in the museum, and by the mobs of schoolchildren running around ostensibly on a scavenger hunt, so I left and went for another, longer bike ride up into Quebec.

The Ottawa metro area claims a larger network of bike paths -- 170 km -- than any other city in North America. I was glad for a chance to get away from the city for a while. In the evening, Leela let me tag along to the gathering at her church to mark the end of her internship. (It actually ends today, June 12, after which she's serving the church on the other side of town for a year.) The congregants read poems and sang songs to her and basically testified to how great she's been for them. I was glad I could be there to see it.

After rush hour subsided on Friday the 3rd, I followed bike trails all the way out of the city and was able to stay off main highways most of the way to Fitzroy Provincial Park. I was stunned by how quickly French disappeared from signs as I left the metro area... Fitzroy is no farther from Quebec than Parliament Hill is [which is to say, across the river], but only one of eight signs in the campground was translated!

Saturday was opressively hot and humid, and because of an oversight on my part I had to ride some 105 kilometers instead of my target 80 to make it to my destination. I went through 5 liters of water plus a liter of other drinks -- that's more than I drank in a day while hiking the Grand Canyon in the peak of the summer!

I joined Trans-Canada Highway 17 -- my companion for the remainder of my time in Canada -- outside Petawawa. I stopped for a rest and watched a backpacker approach the city limit. When he got there, he put down his pack, got out a sign that read "ALBERTA," and put the pack back on in preparation for walking down the highway. The very first car to come along stopped for him! He hadn't had that sign out of the pack more than 30 seconds!

I stayed the night with members of Leela's congregation who live in Deep River, a planned community whose road map looks like a profile of a plate of spaghetti. Kit is a retired forester, originally from Australia, and Norma is a retired nurse. They've traveled all over the world.

Sunday night the heat wave broke in a brief but enthusiastic thunderstorm, complete with hail and very close lightning. I thought I had chosen a campsite on high ground, but when I opened my door, I found a lake! Fortunately the rain only lasted a few minutes, and I was able to move my tent to higher ground. I didn't notice when the "hydro" (which we Yanks would call "electricity") went out; I only noticed when the campground lights came back on at 3 AM! Next day I heard there had been funnel clouds not far away.

Monday night I stopped at a campground whose owner kept telling me I'd want to swim in the tea-colored lake, even though I was reluctant because my back still hadn't healed from the scrape I got in Montreal. Finally I thought to ask if there were showers... "No!" he said, "That's why I'm saying you'll want a swim!" The biting flies there were just awful. I thought I'd encountered them in Michigan last August, but those were different. These are smaller, they bite holes larger than their heads, and they don't turn off the tap when they're done, so you get a little drop of blood that either smudges on your clothing or dries in place as a painful scab. And they're much better at getting into a tent than mosquitos are. Fortunately they're also easier to smush. They haven't been as bad anyplace since then, thank goodness.

The lunch I bought in North Bay on Tuesday didn't even hold me until I got out of town, so I stopped at a convenience store that advertised burgers and such. The young clerk told me they only run the grill on weekends, and I must have looked disappointed (and tired), because he pushed an armload of "energy food" [empty carbs] on me for free. It wasn't what I would have chosen, but I was glad to have it.

On Wednesday I stopped to talk to another bike tourist, a young man named Joe who left Victoria, BC a month ago and is headed for the "maritimes" (the east-coast provinces). We commiserated about having to ride highway 17, and he said he was really worried about getting into Ottawa and Montreal, since his Ontario map showed the highways becoming freeways. So I pulled out my local maps and showed him how to ride the bike paths all the way into and out of each city. I had been planning to keep those maps as souvenirs, but he can make better use of them. He, in return, warned me that there's noplace to camp in Sudbury, and motel rooms are scarce due to seasonal labor. I counted myself lucky to find a nonsmoking suite for $95. By US standards that's a steal ($60), but I stayed three nights in Montreal for less!

I boned up on Canadian news and politics by watching the Comedy Network for hours. Thursday morning I went to Dynamic Planet, a museum of mining funded largely by INCO (the International Nickel Corporation), hoping it would mention the industry's efforts to lessen or remediate the environmental damage done by mining. On the way into Sudbury I had passed a sign demonstrating the progress that's been made in foresting some of INCO's monumental slag piles. The museum and mine tour didn't mention either the problems or the solutions, but I did learn a lot about mining.

I was going to see how far I could get that afternoon, but weather forecasts were screaming about severe storms and possible tornadoes before sunset. A policeman at a rest stop strongly encouraged me to get off the road ASAP, and he suggested some places I could go. There aren't a lot of people I'll take travel advice from, but cops are among them. The storm never showed up, but I had a nice rest.

On Friday I met several other bicyclists on the road. There was a young couple from Niagara Falls [Ontario] on their way to the west coast, pulling a heavy trailer. I suggested they travel through the US instead for better roads, but they said they'd never get through customs... turned out they were selling hemp jewelry to pay for their trip! They were sitting out the heat of the day in a restaurant... what a concept! I should try that sometime... except the heat of the day lasts until about 5:00 these days. The next bunch were three Mennonites with bushy beards, dark blue long-sleeved shirts (in the baking sun), and straw hats. Then there was a pair of young men from Ottawa on their way home from Calgary. All agreed that the Trans-Canada Highway was rotten for riding, but it was the only road, so they were resigned to it.

I stopped Friday night just short of Blind River. I had planned to stop for groceries first, but this place had a restaurant... and a lake to swim in... so I treated myself to a refreshing dip and a big dinner. There was a man at the restaurant who was very proud of the fishing trip he'd taken his kids on, and kept ordering more strawberry shortcake: "Just keep it coming!" The lone waitress/cook finally lost her temper and said he should just order the food he wanted so she could make it all at once. She also had to school him on how deviled eggs are made, because he didn't understand why she couldn't just whip those up for him and his kids. It was pretty entertaining.

When I got to Bruce Mines around 4:00 on Saturday (yesterday), an ominous thunderstorm was moving in. The town's municipal campground was closed, and folks in town referred me to an island offshore (in Lake Huron) where there are cottages for rent. Such places often allow tent camping as well, so I rode out to the island. They didn't allow camping, but the price was reasonable and the rain was starting, so I got a cottage. Naturally the storm passed within the hour, but that just gave me more of a chance to explore the place. The cottages were all wood construction with no insulation; they close for the winter. Running water was direct from the lake, so I had to buy a jug of ozonated water for drinking. I took a canoe out for a spin -- quite a challenge with just one person and some waves coming off the lake! Good upper-body exercise for a change!

I was able to ride back roads more than half the way today. Sunday morning traffic was so light I didn't really have to avoid it, but it was nice to sample the quiet and countryside. I saw a lot of fields, but none appeared to be cultivated. When I got to Sault Ste. Marie on the Canadian side, I was so excited that I didn't stop until I got to the bridge... one look at it told me that I needed to rest first! It's long and tall, two lanes with no sidewalk or shoulder. Pedestrians are not allowed, and bicycles, as I learned, are only grudgingly tolerated. I stopped in at the duty-free shop and bought a T-shirt with my remaining Canadian money, since my white shirts have worn out from constant use. The view from the bridge is fantastic, but I couldn't stop to take pictures, so you'll just have to see it yourselves!

The border guard was so suspicious of me I thought he was going to search me... I hadn't thought ahead to what questions he might ask, and my off-the-cuff answers were too vague. Traffic got all backed up behind me, while drivers in the other lane were waved by with barely a glance at their IDs! But he did let me through.

So now I'm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan! I enjoyed my time in Canada, but it's good to be back in the land of More Than One Road.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on June 12, 2005]

Some reflections on my ride through "the north": The region I rode through is referred to as "Northern Ontario" even though it's south of most of Ontario -- it's just north of most of the inhabited part. Sometimes it's just called "the north" or even "northern Canada" even though it's actually south of most of the Canada-US border and the majority of the provinces!

To be blunt, Trans-Canada Highway 17 is not appropriate for bicycling. Had I encountered the prospect of riding for a week on two-lane highway with intermittent shoulders and no alternate routes earlier in the trip, I would have boarded a bus instead. But after months of riding through the South and the Northeast US, it didn't seem like such a dumb idea. Besides, Canadian cyclists ride it all the time, and most of them survive, so how bad could it be?

I will say it has three big advantages over similar highways in the States: most of the drivers are Canadian, the speed limit is just 90 km/h (about 55 mph), and because all the tourist traffic is on one road, so are all the campgrounds, motels, etc. The informational signs are more standardized than any I've seen before: if you see a tent symbol you know tent camping is allowed; if RV camping is also allowed there will be a trailer symbol. Imagine that!

The best standardized symbol I saw was for a "naturist beach" near Montreal. It showed the man, woman, and child we all know from restroom signs, standing rigidly in rear view, with their bums showing, and a waterline in the background. (The woman, lacking her trademark dress, had hips.)

I lucked out with the conversion factors: the exchange rate from US to Canadian dollars was about the same as from miles to kilometers! So all I had to remember was that 5 = 8: instead of averaging 5 mph and 50 miles a day, I was going 8 and 80 km; highway amenities advertised as "5 minutes" away were 8 km or an hour's ride away; and a $16 campsite was really only US$10. I also lucked out because it's a very affordable time to be an American tourist in Canada. It's not just the exchange rate... I think it's actually cheaper to eat out than to buy groceries and cook the same food yourself! I don't understand why that's the case.

I passed a town named Espanola and another one not far away named Spanish. Think how many town names we could get out of all the different ways you can say Germany! That's almost as confusing as the town west of Ottawa named Kanata... but I guess New York, New York is worse!

I really enjoyed listening to CBC Radio, but I was thrown by a news story about how Canada needs more "affordable hosing." I think Wal-Mart might have some good deals on rubber garden houses, eh?

I will never criticize Americans again -- not even Texans -- for excessive flag waving, because the Canadians have got us beat. You'd think it was mandatory or something. What I don't understand is that the stars & stripes are often flown side by side with the maple leaf, at equal height... what's that supposed to mean, "God Bless the U.S. Eh?"

Thanks to my father's friend Bill for the questions below:

Q: Other than larger muscles in certain places, did the trip change you? I presume you've read Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," about another road trip. Is there a story behind your trip that you are discovering, too?

A: Well, thank goodness I don't have Pirsig's problem, but I have appreciated the time touring gives me to reflect on my life. Doris "Granny D" Haddock put it better than I could. I've gained a lot of confidence in my survival skills, but most of the real life-changing transformation happened in the first week of my first bike trip. This leads me to say that anyone looking for a transformative experience shouldn't wait until s/he can spare a month or a year -- a week might do the trick.

Q: What did you learn? Will your life be different now?

A: My goal in taking such a long trip was not to change my life but rather my lifestyle... I was in a sort of rut, and I needed to see what else was available before I got more set in my ways. Now I'm in a different rut, so having a home and job again will be a refreshing change! I do intend to settle down eventually, but now I might do it by buying a campground, for example (but only after I spend the coming year in the Twin Cities). I've learned too many things to list at the moment; maybe I'll make a list for the Web site.

Q: What impression did you get of the USA in 2005 and the people along the way, blue states and red?

A: Well, I still believe our civilization is a sinking ship, but now I'm a lot more relaxed about it. I'm glad I got a chance to see the petroleum dinosaurs walk the earth, and soon now it'll be time for whatever comes next. But getting back to short-term politics, to the extent that the blue-red categories are valid, there are very few states that are solid colored. What we've got is blue polkadots on a red background. But I think the stereotypes get in the way of our working together and learning from each other. We're all doing what looks right from where we stand; we're just standing in different places.

Q: Do you trust people more or less now?

A: Definitely more. An awful lot of bad things could have happened to me at the hands of other people and didn't. Never mind the obvious assault and theft; think of all the statistics about how badly people drive when they're on the phone, adjusting the radio, gawking, or falling asleep. Either I've been very fortunate (they say God looks after innocents and fools), or people are more trustworthy than we give them credit for. Plus I've received a lot of generosity from strangers and only rarely regretted it!

I've got some more questions saved up for next time. See you in Wisconsin! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on June 18, 2005]

I strained my right Achilles tendon just before I wrote you last time, so I made an effort to cut down on my daily miles. I decided to forego the Midwest Renewable Energy Association's annual Sustainability Fair this weekend (you may recall I visited their location in the second week of my trip and nothing was going on at that time) because I'd have to ride fast and hard for six days... besides, it happens every year. My joints are feeling much better now.

I followed the Hiawatha Tour bike route shown on my maps through most of the Upper Peninsula. It took me down highways that had low traffic and good shoulders, which was a nice change. There was only one hill; otherwise flat farmland and pine forests with a ferny understory. I stopped for lunch in Rudyard and talked with the diner's owner. He gave me a bumper sticker that says I ate there. He and the waitress were perplexed that they get so many bicyclists. I explained that anyone using the same map as me would come right by, but that didn't satisfy them... I guess they don't see why a diner would appeal to bike tourists.

I stopped Monday night at Garnet Lake campground in Lake Superior State Forest. The wildlife around the lake was very vocal, especially something that sounded like a timberwolf! The swarm of mosquitos hovering above my tent (trapped under the rainfly) was so loud it almost kept me awake.

The Hiawatha Tour joined US-2 Tuesday morning, and I followed that highway all the rest of the way into Wisconsin. It's a lot like the Trans-Canada Highway, only with paved shoulders and less interesting rocks... lots of motels and campgrounds and wilderness on either side. I had heard a lot of rumors about "Yoopers" from friends who've lived in Michigan (you know who you are), but I found them to be very friendly and civilized, no more provincial than anyplace else I've gone.

I had planned to ride through Manistique (suggested motto: "C'est Manistique") Tuesday afternoon, running some errands and seeing some sights before continuing west to a state park, but on my way into town around 3:00 I saw a motel with a campground... and an indoor pool and a free breakfast... so I set up camp and then went into town. The sight I had looked forward to seeing, a floating bridge, has recently been replaced with an ordinary bridge, but I had a nice ride anyway.

I waited to leave Manistique until the rain stopped Wednesday morning. It didn't return all day, though there was drizzle on and off, and the wind was very strong at times. I met a cyclist coming the other way with hardly any gear. He was coming from northern Wisconsin, going to someplace in northern Michigan -- but on the mainland; he pointed to his right hand like a true Michigander. He hadn't yet figured out how he would get across the four-mile-long Mackinac Bridge... he might have to take two ferries instead. I may have been a bit patronizing when I told him his week-long ride was "a good start," but he was disdainful of my trailerful of gear. He says he sleeps in a couple of trash bags stuffed with leaves, with a shirt over his head. I think he's risking being mistaken for a corpse!

I rode through Hiawatha National Forest most of the day, and on the far side, at Rapid River, I stopped in at the ranger station and was glad I did. Their map showed some municipal campgrounds that were exactly where I needed them to be! Thursday was cooler and very breezy, but I still made over 50 miles, from Escanaba to Iron Mountain. I crossed into Central time, so now dawn comes at 4:30 AM! In Escanaba I had needed earplugs to keep out the highway noise, so I stopped at a more remote county campground outside Iron Mountain hoping for some peace and quiet. But alas, it was full of families who wanted to play their radios. After two weeks of highway riding, I wanted to throw every radio in the lake, but earplugs work for that, too.

I felt rotten in the morning (yesterday) and really didn't want to get back on the highway. I stopped in Florence, WI to use the Internet and supplement my breakfast... just after that I left highway 2 behind and immediately felt 100% better. The coffee may have helped a little. There's a joke that small towns in Wisconsin (and other states, I suppose) consist of just a church and a bar, and the church is optional. Well, the town of Spread Eagle, WI, has six bars and no churches, and half the bars feature dancers. And Romeo wants to know what's in a name...

I spent the rest of the day riding through Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. My older US map shows these as two separate forests; I'm not sure whether the merger means there's less forest than there used to be or just less bureaucracy, but in any case it's a beautiful, quiet place. I'm guessing that the mix of hard and softwood trees is not suited to industrial logging like the other national forests I've visited... diversity is strength!

The weather was gorgeous, and I got in a full day's ride in spite of the lousy start. Toward evening I decided I hadn't had enough silence yet, so I headed for a campground 3 miles from the main road rather than one right beside it. A lot of other folks had the same idea, but fortunately they weren't into making lots of noise... except for a bunch of unsupervised teenagers near me, but after I chewed them out they settled right down! Be quiet or the crazy piebald man will get you!

Q: I can't believe your perseverance in sticking with the BikeE. Granted it is a well made bike, but it would not be my first choice as a long distance tourer!

A: I get that a lot from people who are familiar with the BikeE... they like it for around town but wouldn't take it touring. I'm not the only person to tour on one; the guy I met in upstate New York had ridden from coast to coast on a BikeE, then sold it (to a collector!) and bought a conventional mountain bike. But I stick with it for the same reason I bought it in the first place: I haven't found anything I like better! The seat position in particular is better for my neck and back than either an upright bike or a more expensive recumbent. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary.

Q: I can imagine a variety of emotions you might be having on the home stretch; what have you been feeling about it?

A: I'm sorry to say that mostly I'm eager to be done. I've had a lot of fun, but it's starting to get a little tiresome. I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and enjoy the ride, not only because that's the point, but because I'll hurt myself if I ride too hard. The days are nearly 16 hours long now, so I can afford to take lots of breaks, but it's tempting to just keep riding until I'm exhausted and then stop early in the afternoon.

A word about regional foods... I eat a lot of hamburgers because they're satisfying. In North Carolina, when you order a burger "all the way," it comes with coleslaw and chili on it. Order a burger with "the works" in Ontario and it will come with bright green sweet pickle jelly! All through Ontario there's a dish called poutine which is fries with brown gravy and cheese. (I didn't get up the nerve to order "pogo" for fear it might be opossum!) In the UP they haven't heard of poutine, but that's OK because they have "hot hamburgers" -- a hamburger on white bread smothered in brown gravy. Also pasties (meat pies).

Q: Do you have a short term plan for when you get back "home"?

A: I'm committed to living in the Twin Cities for the next year, so I'll get some sort of job while I lay plans for the longer term. Depending on the job, I may stay for several years, but this trip has really verified for me that I don't want to settle permanently in a city.

Well, folks, I've got less than a week left to go! Next time I write you this migration will be complete, and I'll be back where I started, give or take a few miles. See you there! --Ben

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on June 24, 2005]

I made it! I'm writing from St. Paul, the end of my wheeled migration. Here's what happened in the final week...

I had a short day last Saturday, getting myself in position to go to church the next morning in Woodruff, Wisconsin. Father's Day weekend is a popular time to go camping, but I was able to get a sweet beachside spot at a private campground on Big St. Germain Lake. I had my tent up by 2:00 and rented a transparent-bottomed kayak, which would have been a lot more interesting had there been more to see under the water, but I had fun anyway!

Forests gave way to tree farms as I rode into Woodruff Sunday morning. Northwoods Unitarian Universalist Fellowship has its own building -- which they paid off after 7 years and are planning to double in size -- and a congregation of about 60, but they only have services alternate weeks. This being an off week, we watched a video and discussed it.

I planned to follow the Bearskin-Hiawatha State Trail south for the rest of the day. Just as I reached the trailhead, I turned a sharp corner and must have hit a bump or something, because the trailer tipped over and skidded 180 degrees. The hitch twisted its hose clamps around, and the tongue of the trailer went right through the spokes of my rear wheel! It took 15 minutes and three people to get it extricated. Fortunately there was a bike shop nearby, and the spokes were straightened out in short order. (The mechanic was so grossed out by how dirty my bike was that he wore gloves to work on it! The name of the shop was "Clean Machine.") I put the hitch back on with new hose clamps, and away I went.

The trail was surprisingly quiet on this beautiful Father's Day... I guess there weren't many fathers who wanted to bike or walk on their day. The first campground I tried in Haefford Junction had recently reverted to a soybean field, but less than a mile away I found another that wasn't on my map. It's a run-down place, but it met my needs. My neighbor was a truck driver spending the weekend with his two sons, having divorced their mother. He says his daily life is a lot like mine, since he cooks meals in his truck cab and often turns off of the highway to sightsee!

Monday was not nearly as much fun as recent days had been. It was hot and humid, and there was no shade to be had on the road I was riding. Before that started, though, I stopped for groceries in Tomahawk and met a man in a wheelchair who's done some touring both in a racing chair and a hand-cranked trike. You just don't know how many people have toured until you start talking with them! So... after hours of grinding away in the heat, I straggled into the little town of Ogema looking for food, and all that was open was a bar that only served frozen pizza, so I choked that down.

A cold front blew in soon after, bringing cooler temps and some rain as I rode into another part of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. I had trouble finding my campground and was frustrated as well as exhausted when I made camp and collapsed. The thought occurred to me that, alone in the forest with zero cell phone reception, if I were mauled by a bear, I wouldn't be found until the weekend campers arrived to claim their reservation... but I was so tired I couldn't really care! The campground was eerily silent all night -- no crickets or frogs singing; not a single sound except for the occasional rustle of some animal going about its business.

Tuesday was a much better traveling day, and I made great time. The town of Cornell was founded by the same man who founded Cornell University but had its boom as a transfer point for pulp wood; their major landmark is an antique "wood stacker" -- like a grain elevator for logs. Now the railroad line has been turned into a bike trail.

I camped near the trailhead in Brunet Island State Park. There was a lot of rustling in the leaves during the night, most of it raccoons. I had brought my food into my tent because the park didn't seem like a place where the raccoons would be tame, and they weren't, but then I heard what sounded like the roar of a bear not far away! It seemed to be angry at the raccoons, if I may make such a judgment from the swatting and chattering that followed. I made loud noises while I put fresh batteries in my flashlight, and by the time I stepped outside with the light, the only eyes that shone back at me were those of a raccoon quite far away. I was glad that my sleeping bag, which hasn't been washed in months, leaves no doubt as to what sort of animal I am. All the same, I didn't sleep well the rest of the night!

I rode down the Old Abe State Trail, which unlike most Wisconsin trails is paved, to Chippewa Falls. The trail took me right past the Leinenkugel's brewery, but I skipped the tour. I had lunch and ice cream in town before hitting the hot country roads -- between cornfields now -- to Menomonie. If you can remember back to August 11, my second night on the road, you may recall that I felt "gypped" to pay $15 for a campsite outside Menomonie. It's a good thing I didn't make it to the campground a mile and a half farther down the road, because it turned out to be $18 plus coin-op showers... I would have thrown a fit. But now I'm used to the variation in prices, and I was happy to make use of the swimming pool.

All night I listened to the howling of the Interstate, wondering how I lived with that banshee in my backyard for four years! It was much more noticeable after two quiet nights in the forest. I hit the road very early on Thursday, hoping to avoid the heat of the day, which was forecast to be in the mid-90s F. I followed Route 12 west from Menomonie -- a road I had avoided on the way out just because it's a US highway, but now that I read the maps better I knew it would be a quiet ride. I went through my 2 liters of water by 9:30 and stopped to refill at a bar in the town of Wilson. The folks in the bar -- getting an early start on the day's drinking -- asked about my trip as I stood sweating my shirt through, and before I knew it they had bought me breakfast. It was the best I'd had since leaving Waffle House territory, and it held me until dinner!

My friend Lori from Minneapolis bought a house with her boyfriend south of Roberts, Wisconsin, which is within commuting distance of the Twin Cities provided she leaves really early. I reached her house around 2:00 and was relaxed and composed by the time she got home from work. We had a lot of catching up to do! This morning I enjoyed the luxury of a hot breakfast followed by the luxury of staying indoors while a thunderstorm passed by.

I had planned to ride northwest and cross into Minnesota at Stillwater and ride into St. Paul on the Gateway State Trail, the same way I left in August. But I missed a turn and was in Hudson, Wisconsin before I knew it... and so it made more sense to just cross the river there. There's a bike lane on the Interstate 94 bridge, and once I found the way onto it, I was pretty much home free... a signed bike route led me practically all the way to the home of my friend Matt, where I'll be staying while I search for an apartment.

Really the only eventful thing that happened on the way in -- I got here at 2 PM -- was that I stopped to refill my water bag at a convenience store's soda fountain and got soda water by mistake... so I was belching all the way into town! So far I've seen very little that's changed since I left, so it's easy to forget that I went away at all... and then I woke up and it was all a dream! As I write this in an 8th floor dorm room, the sun is setting behind the beautiful Minneapolis skyline and the dense urban forest between the Twin Cities. I know there have been a few big changes in Minneapolis since August, so maybe it'll hit me when I cross the river!

Funniest / worst signs I've seen all year:

• Our Lady of Suffering Home for Unfortunate Children (Wisconsin)
• Squat 'n' Chomp (one in Georgia, one in upstate New York, both appeared to be BBQ restaurants)
• Beige & Beige (gourmet restaurant outside Philadelphia)
• Life's a Bleach, Then You Dye (somewhere in the South)
• Watch for Dangerous Wind Currents (highway sign, Austin)
• Bilbo Road (street sign in one of the Carolinas)
• Mistakes are the stepping stones to wisdom (on a dentist's sign near Philadelphia)
• We appreciate / your time-limited / waiting (on a medical clinic. Would "time-limited waiting" be impatience?)
• Cozy food, warm beer, cold rooms (on a motel restaurant in the UP)
• Mosquito Trail (street sign, Ontario)
• Sagola Republic (highway sign for two towns in Wisconsin)
• ... and one on my latest roll of film you'll have to see to believe...

Well, this is it for the travelogue, but don't unsubscribe yet! I'll write again in a few days when I have my last two rolls of photos ready for you, and after that I anticipate a few more additions to the Web site. Until then...

The road goes ever on and on, Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with weary feet Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. -- J.R.R. Tolkein

Thanks for reading! --Ben