TheBigOneby Trudy E. BellI’d been promising myself the cross-

country bicycle-camping adventure

of a lifetime since the 1980s. For

two decades, it remained a bright

image beckoning from off in the

mists of “someday,” whenever I

could afford the time. As the years

slipped by, though, I took only two-

or three-week bike tours — all that

dutiful work vacations allowed. And

then, one day, I found myself

breathing down the neck of fifty.

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If you don’t keep promises to yourselfwhen you hit the Big 5-Oh!, then whenwill you? So in June 2000, having beeninvited to speak on my book Bicycling withChildren at the summer rally of the Leagueof American Bicyclists in St. Paul,Minnesota, my daughter Roxana, thennine and just out of third grade, drove outto Wisconsin in a rental truck to take aweek to pedal into St. Paul as a shakedowncruise. Our intent after the rally: leisurelypedal 1,000 miles along the AdventureCycling Association’s Northern TierRoute back to Cleveland over the following

month and a half. At least, that’s what weplanned. But reality had very differentthings in store.The courage to embark

No one seems to write much aboutthe courage needed to launch a majoradventure. While cleaning the house, pay-ing bills, and packing the panniers, I foundthese physical actions symbolic of thedeeper pilgrimage the trip represented,with all the overtones of stripping our-selves down to the basics. As we drove thetruck to the drop-off Ryder terminus inMenominie, hauled out our Bike Friday

Family Tandem, mounted the four pan-niers, and attached the Samsonite suitcasetwo-wheeled trailer, I found my heartpounding, my tongue dry, and my eyes onthe edge of tears. Dropping the truck keysinto the mailbox felt like saying farewell tothe last link to life support. Mounting thebike with Roxana and 100 pounds of gearwas the ultimate metaphor for a singlemother’s island-like responsibility in life.After offering a prayer for our safety, weshifted and pedaled off in low gear. Inshort, here I was finally embarking on mylifelong dream — and I was terrified.

Deliverance from Deliverance“Aren’t you afraid?” I was asked

repeatedly. “You know, being a womantraveling alone with a child on a bicycle?”Hey, I’d lived in New York City for seven-teen years. And I’d seen that chilling movieDeliverance in the 1980s, which chroni-cles the horrors that befall several huntersvacationing in Appalachia. And they weremen. A few friends flatly declared their dis-approval of what they perceived as irre-sponsibility in exposing Roxana to roadrage and sociopaths. The message:Whatever chance did a fifty-year-oldwoman have on the road with a nine-year-old girl? Of course, I was afraid — to thepoint of being deliberately vague about myroute in email messages, checking in bytelephone with my mom every night sosome reliable person would have record ofwhere I was, and telling strangers that wewere meeting up with friends. But, after afew days on the road, it gradually dawnedon me that Roxana and I were uniformlyreceiving the greatest courtesy and respect,even from the Harley-Davidson motorcy-cle clubs prevalent in the Midwest. Timeafter time, people commended the fact thata mother would devote a summer to trav-eling with her daughter, affording her bothmaternal attention and incomparablememories. Three times, completestrangers came to our rescue. Many othersoffered to include us in their prayers.Indeed, after a few weeks, it was clear thatlittle Roxana was offering a mantle of pro-tection to me, which I might not haveenjoyed as a woman alone. A mother anddaughter seemed to bring out people’s pro-tective instincts. The message from reallife? Deliver us from Hollywood and thenightly news.Planning our route — and reroutingour plans

As both St. Paul and Cleveland are onAdventure Cycling’s Northern Tier cross-country bicycle route, initially I thought:Great! The whole way is already mapped,complete with phone numbers of camp-grounds and motels! As an afterthought, Iripped out the relevant pages of the detailedtopographic maps in the DeLorme Atlas &Gazetteer for every state on our route, justin case we needed a detour around con-

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What I learned on my summer vacation by Trudy E. Bell1. One reason I seek adventure trav-

el is that I adore the disorienting sensa-tion of culture shock, which makes mefeel vibrantly present and alive, andslows time to the delectable molassespace I remember from toddlerhood. Butby the fourth week of our Long Ride,especially when I was physically spent,unremitting newness bordered on sen-sory overload. It was as if every day adump truck heaped with unfamiliarstimuli unexpectedly towered over mybrain and the driver yelled out: “Whered’ya want it, lady?” and, without waitingfor a reply, suddenly pulled the lever soit all thundered out at once in an enor-mous jumble — and then he abruptlyroared off. Next Long Ride, I’ll make aparticular point of training on unfamiliarroutes for mental preparation as well asphysical conditioning.

2. Even in this e-everything era,ATMs were amazingly few and farbetween on our route. Travelers’ checksin twenty- and fifty-dollar denomina-tions were still a good idea ($100 onesencountered resistance, though, becausesmall enterprises did not have enoughcash in the till). And, despite cellularphone companies’ claims for universalwireless coverage, we often did not haveservice in hilly sections away fromtowns.

3. Instead of carrying all the film,

batteries, energy bars, and dehydratedfood we’d need on the trip, I shippedcaches ahead to ourselves care of U.S.Post Office’s general delivery in severalsmall towns along our anticipated route.The system worked extremely well, tothe point where post offices forwarded abox elsewhere when our route changed(at no additional charge!). Roxana alsofound it wonderful to receive postcardsfrom friends. And I was unexpectedlygrateful for 35-mm slide film plus filmand batteries for my 24-mm APS cam-era, which turned out not to be readilyavailable outside major cities.

4. For two weeks away, almost any-thing can wait until you return — infact, mundane life actually feels magical-ly suspended. Two months away, how-ever, life goes on: The heels of my shoeswore down enough to need replacement,and Roxana completely outgrew hershoes and lost a molar.

5. For two months away, I also hadto plan for the house. I made sure thatmy mortgage payment, utilities, andcredit cards were on “auto-pay” directlyfrom my checking account. Even so, Iasked a reliable adult friend to gothrough my mail once a week for noticesof packages at the post office, and toleave messages with my mom about free-lance paychecks or anything else thatlooked personal or urgent.

6. I hired the eighth-grader nextdoor to walk through my entire houseeach morning and evening, from attic tobasement, just to make sure no pipesstarted leaking, no animals had entered,etc. She also collected the mail, openedwindows as needed for ventilation, andturned the porch and garage lights offand on. Her father also kept the lawnmowed. The family’s kids played in myyard. All together, this activity kept theplace looking occupied.

7. The last week before departure, Ideliberately ran out of food and thor-oughly cleaned the house and refrigera-tor.

8. Even though we returned in mid-August, I told clients I was unavailableuntil after Labor Day — giving us twosolid weeks of down time to recover. Weboth badly needed sleep. It took twowhole days just to go through the mail.Roxana practically began living with thefriends she’d missed all summer. Shealso needed school clothes and supplies.I wanted to write up the trip while it wasstill vivid in experience. My fingers wereunexpectedly stiff from two monthswithout typing. And, unexpectedly, Isuffered enough mild post-trip depres-sion that it took a fortnight for me to feellike getting back in work harness again.

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struction. It was the smartest thing I didbecause we spent at least as much time offthe Adventure Cycling route as on. Veryearly, I learned the wisdom of consultinglocals about our planned day’s route. Localcyclists were always accurate, but we alsogot some terrific route tips from travelingsalesmen who knew every local wateringhole. Not only did they steer us aroundconstruction blockades, they also directedus to roads that were paved rather thangravel, that were flat rather than hilly, andthat had water or ice-cream stops or specialattractions rather than just uninhabitedscenery — all important for travel with achild. They also noted campsites andattractions omitted from both sets of maps.And when we needed to cut the middle ofthe trip short to make up for lost time (seesidebar on p. 26), the DeLorme pages wereessential for devising a new route.Calculating our mileage

Six weeks, forty-two days, a thousandmiles, no problem, I thought. On a bike,averaging twenty-five miles per day wouldbe scarcely more than the distance Roxanaand I pedaled round trip to and from herschool. Because the school round tripstotaled three hours a day, even if we

moseyed along at half that speed under fullload, I figured we’d have plenty of timeeach day to smell the roses. But I was com-pletely caught off-guard by headwinds —the proverbial “hill that never ends.” Forthe first three weeks, the direction of stiffheadwinds seemed to be defined as thedirection we happened to be traveling atthe time –– first west, then south, theneast. Next, I was thrown by the real hills.Hills in the legendarily flat Midwest?Believe it, at least in the so-called “driftlessregion” that Ice Age glaciers never groundflat. Western Wisconsin and easternMinnesota get hillier, not flatter, as theyapproach the St. Croix River. Dubuque,Iowa, has bluffs worthy of San Francisco. Itwasn’t West Virginia, but it was challeng-ing. Enough so that at one point Roxanadeclared, “This isn’t fun. It’s just hardwork.” I took her comment very seriously,feeling it was far more important thatRoxana actually enjoy her first cross-coun-try tour than that I have the full-up birth-day experience of bicycle camping. So, inour third week, lump in my throat, Ipacked up all the camping equipment intothe trailer and UPS’d it back home, com-mitting us to credit-card touring for the

rest of the trip — in a stroke, lighteningour load by forty-five pounds.

Last, I was deceived by Roxana’sstrength. At age nine and a foot shorterthan me, she was sturdy, muscular, fit, ath-letic, and strong enough to lift me (five feet,five inches, and 130 pounds) off my feet.But, physiologically, a child — even a jocklike Roxana — has nowhere near theendurance of an adult, even one like me.Moreover, as much as Roxana loved thebike, she loved doing other things as welland found too much of a good thing a bore.As often as possible, my beloved little stok-er just sat on the saddle and let her feet bepushed round by the pedals. Thus, thecaptain found herself manhandling notonly the weight of herself, the bike, and thegear, but also the weight of the stoker aswell — even uphill or into the wind. As aresult, our trip average never exceeded sev-enteen miles a day. Yes, our riding daysranged from twenty-five to nearly forty, butrarely did we pedal two days back to back.Usually riding days alternated withrest/sight-seeing days. Result? We cycledonly 655 miles out of 1,000, making uptime in the middle by renting anotherRyder truck and, ironically, motoring

across flat Illinois and Indiana to the Ohioborder.The dream machine

What stands out still in our memoriesare the people we met. Our first day out ofMenominie, Wisconsin, we were overtak-en by Ken Walsh, a lean man in his fiftiesin a baseball cap and shouldering a fullbackpack, pedaling a Huffy Superia. He’dleft Green Bay, Wisconsin, the same daywe’d departed Cleveland, and despite hislow-end equipment and complete inexperi-ence, had strengthened to the point of rid-ing 100 miles the previous day. He washeaded west and planned to keep goinguntil he got tired of his adventure.

At a family biker bar, King’s in tinyMiesville, Minnesota, we met a Harley ladyas tattooed as Ray Bradbury’s IllustratedMan, who declared with a hearty laugh,“The way I figure it, we all die — and atleast I’ll die colorful!” South of Red Wing,we found ourselves in the midst of anannual St. Paul-to-Chicago AIDS ride,whose 1,700 cyclists were raising four mil-lion dollars by pedaling 500 miles in aweek. A veritable party on wheels, menand women in bright red jerseys passed usin singles and groups, always with a cheer-ing word, a honk of a handlebar squeaky-

toy pig or turtle, a twirl of a helmet-mount-ed propeller, or the swish of a cluster ofrainbow ribbons.

One day in Iowa that started out asour worst turned into the magical best.That morning, nine steep miles out ofElkader and thirty miles from anywhereelse, after dodging merciless logging trucksand wrestling our steed on the dun-coloredwide shoulders of shifting soft sand andlarge gravel, we coasted down intoLittleport with legs and wills of jelly.

“This may be the night we use ouremergency camping gear,” I warned anexhausted Roxana. Hearing a radio’s musicfrom a barn, we crunched round on thegravel to surprise a carpenter planing adoor. After providing us with much-need-ed water, he suddenly offered, “It’s notmuch, but you can stay here. The wife willbe home shortly.”

When she drove up in her truckmoments later from her job as an embroi-derer for Land’s End, his first words to herwere a gruff, “Here are your houseguests.”With this awkward introduction began awonderful afternoon and evening withopen-hearted Kevin and Jess Ashline,whose twenty-nine-year marriage hadwithstood more tragedy than most of uscan conceive — including a flood the yearbefore that had invaded their just-refin-ished house with four feet of mud andwater. Grateful that their family had sur-vived, they were stoically starting over. Allwalls were stripped of wood or sheetrockfrom shoulder height down to the floor. Sogracious to us strangers were they thatKevin caught one of his horses to giveRoxana her first bareback horseback ride,and Jess pressed me to borrow a book thatI had begun reading in their guest room.They also invited their neighbors andfriends for a cookout to meet the visitorswith the odd “double bike.” It was thenthat it began to dawn on me how inspiringour trip was to others. Often before, whenI’d seen a long-distance touring cyclist onthe road, I’d raced over to look on the rigwith envious eyes while my ears soaked uptales of the road. Now we were awakeningdormant dreams in others. Once, a sixteen-year-old in a prom gown gaped at Roxana,speechless that a girl younger than she was

on such an adventure. Another time, bar-tender Jerry, after refilling our water bottlesand refusing payment for pretzels, confid-ed, “You know what I’ve always wanted todo? Buy a camper and drive up the coast ofMaine, eating lobster in every little townalong the way.” Most poignant was a hel-meted older couple on an immaculatemotorcycle, the wife in a sidecar, weakenedfrom her thrice-weekly regimen of dialysisfor disease, now circumscribing her owndreams, who whispered: “You did it!”Savoring the ending

The last 150 gently rolling miles inOhio were more the leisurely trip I’d origi-nally envisioned. And, independently,friends and neighbors created the best pos-sible surprise ending. Several cyclingfriends rode out to meet us the last day toaccompany us back on the home stretch.Neighbors walked a silver ribbon acrossour street that gleamed with the letters“Welcome Home!”, tooted party horns,clapped, and greeted us with hugs.Balloons and crepe streamers danced onour house stairs and adorned bushes nextto hand-lettered signs reading,“Congratulations!”, “You did it!”,“Welcome home, Trudy and Roxana!”And, as the ultimate surprise, my businesspartner, Dave Dooling, up for a conferencefrom Huntsville, Alabama, had called outreporters and cameramen from theCleveland Plain Dealer and Channel 19/43TV news to record it all. Late that night, asRoxana and I drifted off into exhaustedsleep, her voice rose drowsily from the pil-low, “Thank you for taking me on the biketrip, Mama. I loved it all — even on thedays I complained.”

Trudy E. Bell is the author of Bicycling withChildren: A Complete How-To Guide(Mountaineers, 1999), The Essential BicycleCommuter (Ragged Mountain Press, 1998), and ofseveral regional ride guides to the mid-Atlantic states.A professional science and technology journalist, shealso writes frequently about bicycling, adventure trav-el, and history. She welcomes comments from readers:Contact her at t.e.bell@ieee.org or visit her website athttp://home.att.net/~trudy.bell (which includes a fullon-the-road account of the “Half-Century Summer”).

Homecoming. Friends and neighbors staged a surprise welcome-home reception, and called out TV and newspaper reporters, and photographers.

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