Seeing America

Photo credit: Michelle Moyer-Litwiller Who would have guessed that biking across the country would become a social affair?  I had my wife Karry, two brothers, two sister-in-laws, my daughter, and a niece join me for various stages of the trip.  I had some friends join as well and make new friends along the way, including Rudy and Michelle, who took the colorful picture above. Even with family and friends around, cycling for me is most often a solo experience.  I do bike close enough for conversation, but usually only for part of the day.  I enjoy the chance to observe and ponder as I bike along.  I suspect part of the reason is years ago in Boy Scouts a hike leader noticed we were marching in "tight formation" where the only thing we could see was the pack of the scout a few feet ahead of us and the path below our feet.  To make the point, he asked us to describe several interesting features we had just hiked by and not one of us, except the scout in front, knew what he was t

Riding 3670 miles across the United States meant a lot of  scenery goes by.  There is plenty of time to look around and notice the details.  From a ride across South Dakota in the ‘80s I knew to expect a lot of corn as it is the USA's largest acreage cash crop.  Where does all that “field corn” (as my farming grandfather called it) go?  What was it used for?  Of the 92 million acres of corn grown in the USA, one third is for feeding cows, pigs, and chickens, a third for making ethanol, and a third for exports to feed cows, pigs and chickens, and some for human consumption. I also saw a lot of soy beans, America’s second largest cash crop at 88 million acres.  I like edamame and soy sauce, but surely all those soy beans must be used for something else.  Almost all the “meal” from soybeans goes to animal feed.  80% of the oil is consumed by humans.  Nearly half the harvested beans are exported. The monoculture “crop” that really surprised me the most as I pedaled down the road was ya

As I cycled through Cleveland on 9/11 I was struck by all the flags, tributes and memorials.    It was a Saturday morning and I had to wait for first light to get started on the day’s ride.    The roads were empty, except for a few other bikers and the occasional car.    The route was on Lake Avenue (as in Lake Erie), with beautiful homes on each side and glimpses of the big lake to the north.    Small USA flags were common in the front years.    As I stopped shivering and finally woke up, I realized often there were 11 flags.    Streetlight poles had flags, bikeways through parks had amazing displays of flags, and I even went by Boulevard of 500 Flags.    This was no temporary display, there was a big blue point-of-interest street sign.    The more I rode, the more flags I saw.    There were more flags on display than I have ever seen, even on 4th of July. What I saw in Cleveland was my grandfather’s patriotism.    Grandpa Deane proudly flew the flag and took it down each night until