Last Day
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 talking about. Our leader suggested we leave 100 yards between us and ever since I found it was my preference.
Part way through the journey a friend asked something to the effect "I want to know your big ah-ha, the big take-away, what was the most memorable experience?" I remember asking Rotary Youth Exchange students these types of questions and they never really wanted to answer. I now have some understanding why there were hesitant; the key experience is the entirety of the journey. A simple example comes to mind. I was cycling on the Erie canal towpath for 2 days. When I first got to the Erie canal I read about channel being dug from 1817 to 1825. It was a smaller canal that what we have today, but still it was dug mainly by hand. So you stand by the Erie canal, maybe seeing a few hundred yards of the canal, and think "Wow, this was dug by hand. That is an incredible amount of hard labor." For a few minutes you ponder what it was like - what shovels and picks did they have? What type of boots did they wear? How did they move the dirt to make the banks and the towpath? You are left with a certain feeling of amazement for such an achievement. When you are on a bike, and you pedal 120 miles over two days, you see the canal goes on and on and on. You imaging people digging and digging and digging. You see the amazing locks big enough to lift large barges, culverts big enough to drive through, many lift bridges with adjacent small villages that sprang up because of the canal. There are strange gigantic gates that can isolate one part of the canal (in case of a big levee failure???). I because to wonder what is it that I are not seeing because it is below the surfaces. You think about the immensity of what you saw in 120 miles, which is just a portion of the entire 363 miles of the canal system. It is like comparing 200 years of canal to 120 miles of canal.
The adventure as a whole is similar. The big ah-ha for the cross country trip was experiencing America going by at a pace that could more easily be absorbed, internalizing - mile after mile, day after day - just how big and diverse our country is and yet how everywhere there is a unity that is so vastly larger than any of our small perceived unique differences.
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