Biking the Road
My friend M made a 3200 mile bicycle tour from Seattle to Delaware ten years ago with a group called Wandering Wheels. They’re a Christian-based organization, and the trip is like some sort of pilgrimage, connecting with the beauty of nature and stopping to rest at various churches along the way.
I recently got a hold of her scrap book from the trip. She took pains to collect her journal entries, photographs, maps, letters and postcards into a very nice hard-bound volume called, “Are We There Yet?” It was by no means an easy trip, made more a pilgrimage by the hardships endured and the 40-day duration of their travels. At the end, they baptized themselves in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, washing their bodies and their spirits clean.
I’ll share a few things that came to mind as I read her story:
- Horatio’s Drive - The story about Horatio Nelson Jackson and the very first coast-to-coast automobile trip had a lot of similarities to the bicycle tour, lots of flat tires and vehicle repairs along the way. Every leg of the journey was a trial, and his companions made all the difference.
- Travels with Charley
- In John Steinbeck’s classic memoir of his travels across America, he mentions briefly that he went to church every Sunday in a different town. He was most fond of the fire and brimstone sermon, where being told he was a foul sinner somehow made him feel better about himself.
- Wade’s Review of the Camelbak - A few week’s ago, I read a review of the Camelbak hydration system on the Vagabond Journey Travelogue, where Wade said that the thing leaks. When I saw in the beginning of M’s book that she was using this piece of equipment, I wondered what she thought of it. Near the end, she writes, “My CamelBak plug came off and stuff started spraying everywhere. I don’t think I’m going to use that anymore.” So there you have it.