In the bike-ginning

9/5/17 - 9/7/17

The plan is to bike to Boston. A lot of people asked why, which is a very good question, one I’m still working on an answer to. What I tell them is I need to get my bike there for school starting next fall. What I don’t tell them is how trapped I was feeling and how I want an adventure and how lonely I am and keeping myself busy helps fight that. I am also super excited to be staying with about 10 different friends from throughout my life over the course of the trip. In other words, not only do I need to get my bike to Boston but I need to ride it there.

I was unable to find a place to stay in Northfield for my first night because although I have many friends at college there I was leaving before the term officially started. Luckily Julie Gleason happened to be driving to Rochester, my planned second night, and I was able to catch a ride. Thank you! There I got to hang out with a couple friends in the area, ate a killer salad and played some pool. I also made some new friends in the dorm common room, unfortunately however I will never see them again and they’ll just think I dropped out of the college or something.

I woke up at the crack of dawn so I could leave with my host as he went to school. Unfortunately, although the early start, I didn’t get out of town until past 11 dashing my plans to be at camp by lunch. I stopped at the grocery store and the cashier thankfully agreed to watch my bike while I shopped for the essentials including two giant bags of Snickers bars. A doctor friend had told me I would need 5000 calories a day and a chocolate malt would be ideal in the first hour after I finished biking. However, he said it would be acceptable to eat a couple candy bars instead, and I thought that might be a bit more transportable.

Turns out I am more out of shape than I imagine and my loaded bike proved much more difficult than I remembered to move. I walked my first hill, although in fairness it was a gravel road which is no fun. I was disappointed to find myself more out of breath from pushing my heavy bike than from when I had tried to ride up the hill. Due to my overestimate of my level of fitness it was a very long day. When I saw the sign for the state park I plan to camp at I was overjoyed. Until I saw the hill I had to climb to get there. As I was steeling myself for the pain I glanced a building off to the right. Painted on it in faded letters were the words “Campground in field behind barn.” In my exhausted state I ignored the sketchiness of it all and decided to go for it. The nice lady in the house told me to set up my tent in the backyard and even accepted the crumpled 14 dollars I gave her and handful of dimes although she had hoped to charge me 20 bucks. The second my head touched my balled up fleece pillow I was out.

I woke up late around 9:30. Didn’t roll out of camp until two hours later. This was becoming an unwanted theme. The first thing I hit on the road was a construction site. Multiple people told me the road was closed and I couldn’t make it through, but I’m stubborn. When I reached the workers I found the road was indeed closed and blocked by big machines, trucks and piles of dirt. Some guy stopped his dump truck to tell me I could probably walk my bike through. What he didn’t tell me was that no one was going to stop what they were doing. This meant after politely waiting 10 minutes for a break in the loaders continuous dirt moving I realized I had to just go for it. My bike is not easy to move, as I’ve already mention, especially not in foot-deep dirt. I dragged it as quickly as I could while ducking under moving machinery arms and dogging massive trucks. With the loads they were carrying they couldn’t have stopped even if they’d tried. Finally, I made it to the other side and realized a massive ditch cut across the road. With only one option I let my bike pull me down into the 20-foot hole, then slowly dragged it up the other steep side. When I realized if I didn’t speed up a load of dirt would be dumped on me the adrenaline kicked in and I finally got out of there.

I decided to add an extra night and shorten my day of biking. Thinking I had plenty of time I took an 8-mile detour to get my glasses fixed at a jewelry shop. Turns out they hate when people do that because they don’t actually have the tools to fix it. I later performed surgery with the only thing I have, the sticky part of the Band-Aid, but now my glasses are still in one piece! Anyway, I continued on exhausted from the extra distance or maybe just soar and tired because I’m once again very out of shape. I should mention now that I say out of shape because I don’t want to admit that maybe you can’t just decide to bike across the country with no training and be fine, although I’m also out of shape. I ended up making the day even shorter because my butt hurt so bad I had to pedal the last 8 miles standing up.

I rolled into my campsite excited to eat my pasta and sleep. As I was setting up camp a man came over from his trailer. We started talking and he asked what I was having for dinner. I told him pesto at which he exclaimed “What the f*** is that!?” This was followed by his pitying invite to join him and his family for venison steaks. What luck! My only thought was that I thankfully wouldn’t have to do dishes that night.

The man and his wife stuffed me with grilled venison, ham, potatoes, pasta salad, pickles, watermelon and veggies. Mom would be so proud; I didn’t dip the veggies in ranch and I even turned down the beer they offered. We spoke around the fire and I learned all about their jobs constructing asphalt plants, who knew asphalt plant creation was such a big industry. It was an incredible time and it was nice to share their company. I was surprised at how much we all connected coming from such different backgrounds. The great night ended grandly as they gave me all the leftovers in Ziploc bags.

To break my chain of late departures I set an alarm this morning. I ended up rolling out around 10, which, all though not much, was better than the day before. I rode to Prairie du Chien and went thrift shopping. I unthinkingly only packed shorts and being cold all the time was getting old. I decided to eat at a sandwich and soup place which turned out to be so incredibly delicious. Added bonus, while waiting to order some women started asking me questions and when I mentioned the 5000 calories goal they bought me a caramel apple bar. It’s massive and I still haven’t finished it.

I set out and started the dreaded 50-mile push to camp around 2 o’clock. It was pretty miserable. Silver lining, I got to sit in the dirt by the side of the road eating venison steak and thinking how much faster the protein would make me pedal. It didn’t. I finally got to the halfway point and decided that it was high time I got that malt, even though I wasn’t done for the day. It was magical. After I got back on the bike I just started pushing. Ten minutes later I was at the town that was apparently 11 miles away. I honestly have no clue what happened but one second I was thinking about how I had only gone 5 miles and suddenly I was there. I think maybe the venison finally kicked in. Long story short, I was at camp 45 minutes later feeling great.

Now I’m in my hammock trying to type this out on my phone. I was using the voice translator but then someone walking by start talking to me thinking I was calling out to them, so I’m back to typing. It's been a crazy long three days and I’m so happy. I’ve seen so much! Including raccoons, possums, deer, skunk and assorted birds, all dead on the road of course. After a satisfying meal of pesto, I am content and ready to sleep. Life is good.