‘Twas the night before Christmas…

Or at least that’s what it feels like. It’s the same combination of excitement for it to come and sadness that it will soon be over. Just 30 miles between me and home.

Things I’m looking forward to:

• my people!
• wearing cotton
• sleeping in the same bed every night
• going for a run
• making dinner
• movie nights
• seeing my niece & nephew
• work

Things I’ll miss:

• meeting new people every day
•  impressing strangers
• eating lots of ice cream
• my facebook cheering squad
• moving my body every day

Stranger: So you must be a big cyclist, huh?

Me: HA. No, I’m actually a runner. But running across the country would take too long. I’m not Forrest Gump.

It’s surprising to hear myself identify as a runner. I’ve been running since I was 15, but I’ve never felt like I was “good enough” to call myself a runner; I’m just someone who runs. Even after running a marathon, I still shied away from the term. I thought of runners as people who won races, trained in the rain, who “fueled” and joined running clubs. I just ran to stay fit and sane.

But presented with the even more foreign-feeling label cyclist, runner suddenly seemed right. I’m more at home on two feet than two wheels. I’m in control, I’m moving at human speed (sometimes sub-human speed), my whole body is working together. And I’m in the elite sidewalk-cruising class of pedestrian, insulating me from the stress of the open road. It feels good to finally embrace this this native mode of movement as a part of me.

So for all of you out there on the road, don’t be fooled. I may be riding a bike, but I’m a runner.

“You look like you’re going a long way!”

I was stopped at a signpost alongside the bike path, still about 10 miles out of Eau Claire. A smiley woman approached me, introducing herself as Susan. She made gratifying impressed noises as I filled her in on my trip, explaining that I’d been on the road for almost 7 weeks already, en route to Boston.

Susan herself was on a mission to bike all the state trails in Wisconsin. Each summer she and her husband came up from Florida to spend a few months in their home state, and Susan spent the time traveling from town to town, cruising the rail trails. We spent about ten minutes chatting, and just like that, I found myself invited to stay at their home in Lake Geneva- two renovated train cabooses-turned-tiny house. Yes please.

I hadn’t yet decided on my route from Madison to Chicago; should I head east to Milwaukee then down the lake shore, or cut straight across southeast Wisconsin? Susan and her cabooses decided it for me. I’d make for two long days in a beeline for Chicago, with Lake Geneva as my midpoint.

The ride from Madison was the best kind of ride day: sunny, warm-but-not-too-warm,  with several towns dotting the route to break up the day. The kind of rare day that makes me smug thinking about my friends at work, breathing stale office air and chained to email. After a hairy few miles on a busy highway, I sought route advice from a couple sitting outside a bike/coffee shop (best combination!). I spent the rest of the day cruising easy, working my way southeast along the alphabet soup of quiet county roads.

I rolled into Lake Geneva along a short rail trail, which deposited me straight at the cabooses, still on the remaining rails. “You found it!” Susan was waving from the deck between two cabooses- one for her, and one for her husband Nels. “We’ve been married for 30 years, we don’t need to be that close all the time.” A tiny dog leaps up at the gate, licking me ferociously in a terrible imitation of a guard dog.

Sometimes I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I feel myself relaxing. Riding all day to stay with stranger is one of those times. Will they be nice? Too nice? Overwhelming? Judgy? Racist/homophobic? Unbearably religious? And at the top of my mind after days of terrible news from the Las Vegas shootings: will they be infuriatingly anti-gun control? I know I am supposed to be broadening my horizons on this trip, but there are days when my emotional resilience is too low to be accepting of stances that are at odd with my worldview. Two months into this trip, I’m having more and more of those days. I needn’t have worried.

Susan has the type of exuberant energy that my introvert self usually finds exhausting. But her joie de vivre is so genuine that you can’t help but be energized too. And Nels, a quietly funny semi-retired talent rep (for Cheap Trick!), is her perfect foil. They show me around the two charming cabooses, letting me in on the secret catchphrase for life in a small space: “Excuse me, can you move please?” I am soon fluent.

The evening is a perfect end to a beautiful day. Yummy spaghetti squash, salad, and banana ice cream. Animated conversation (punctuated by Bella’s yips and jolly “excuse me’s). We even ventured into the gun control topic, lamenting the lack of common sense and open-mindedness that surrounds the issue to the point of stalling any and all action. Full and at peace, I went to bed in my caboose, (generously donated by Nels for the night), ready for tomorrow’s surprises.

As they wave me off the next morning (laden down with homemade French toast and plenty of road snacks), I am grateful to have stumbled into such good souls. I needed the boost of beautiful strangers. Especially ones who shared my dismay at the state of gun control in our country, and who offered their humor, generosity, and warmth as an antidote.

I was headed to Madison to stay with Grace, a friend from my days in Cardiff. The forecast for the next few days called for 15mph headwinds. Already feeling a bit off (allergies? anxiety? enlarged spleen? hypochondria?), I decided EFF THAT and booked a seat on the Greyhound to Madison. How easy to be back in a land of busses and trains!

Well, it was a nice thought. As it turns out, Greyhound is not really set up to accommodate bikes. The official rules say that all bikes must be boxed up and will count as oversize baggage. I heard, but did not heed. How busy could this route be? My one concession to uncertainty was a refundable bus ticket. If they really wouldn’t let me on, I’d just call up my new friend Jean who’d graciously offered to shuttle me to Madison if I got stuck. I was hoping I wouldn’t need her help.

As it turns out, the Sunday bus from Tomah to Madision is pretty popular, part of the route from Minneapolis to Chicago. Upon seeing my bike, the driver scowled. “You know that’s supposed to be in a box, right?” “I know,” I responded, “But I’m riding cross country, I wasn’t going to box it up for an hour-and-a-half ride.” *internal cringe* Very ingratiating response Sara, really a winning attitude to start with. I backtracked: “If it doesn’t fit I understand, but can I please try?”

He didn’t respond, but helped me shift a few bags and lay the bike in on top of them. I could feel his eyes rolling as I packed my panniers into the next bin. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do, I got sixty people getting on in Wisconsin Dells.” “If I have to get off there I’ll figure it out.”

I finally boarded, only partly relieved. We crawled through traffic, arriving at the next stop over an hour late. There was indeed a mob of people waiting (an orderly, Midwestern mob); no way was the bike going to fit with all their luggage.

I waited self-consciously on the bus as people boarded, feeling my stomach grow tighter with every person who walked on. Twenty minutes went by. I knew the driver must be trying to finagle all the baggage in. I guiltily trooped up to the front, standing uncertainly at the top of the stairs. “I was just coming to find you. There’s no way that bike’s getting in there.” He paused, just long enough to make me sweat. “The only thing I can think of is to see if someone up front will trade seats with you and you can hold it in the aisle.” Really? I was not expecting a proposed solution.

I stood at the front of the bus with what I hoped was a charming smile and asked, “Would anyone in the first few rows be willing to switch seats with me so I can get my bike on the bus?” Blank stares. Then muttering in German (Russian? Polish?). Shoot. They probably didn’t understand me. Finally, a woman in the second row said she would move. Thank goodness.

The driver and I maneuvered the bike up the stairs (still no smiles from him, but he was accommodating me so I couldn’t be picky). I tried valiantly to hold the bike up in the middle of the aisle, but as soon as we started moving it leaned over onto the German/Russian/Polish dude. He said nothing, and I pretended it hadn’t happened. It was a long forty minutes to Madison. But at least I was going there!

We finally arrived, and the driver and I man/woman-handled the bike back off the bus. Bags gathered, thanks given, and composure gathered, I opened my phone to look for an Uber…only to find I had no service. Seriously? As soon as I arrive in a metropolitan area my service drops? I had originally planned to ride to Grace’s place, as it looked like a nice route along bike paths for most of the way. But now, standing in the dark in an unfamiliar city and on the wrong side of a divided highway, the prospect seemed daunting. But I had no choice.

Or so I thought. I found a savior in a nearby Arby’s: wifi. I got just enough signal to summon my knight in shining armor (aka Savannah in her SUV) before it gave up. But she heard the call anyway, and picked me up, and didn’t get annoyed at me bundling my bike and bags into her nice clean vehicle, and put up with my nervous small talk as she drive me north into the city. And I arrived, and there was a cat to greet me and it was all ok.

So you can take a bike on a Greyhound. But you shouldn’t.

I went to church this morning. I haven’t been to church of my own accord since…ever. But the last few days have been a struggle, and in a place where I don’t know anyone and all the yoga studios are closed, church seemed like a likely prospect for quiet and community.

I’ve been passing dozens of Lutheran churches a day in the Scandinavian-heavy Midwest. All I could think was to look for an ELCA church, which I’ve been told are pretty progressive. The website for Peace Lutheran Church proclaimed, “all are welcome regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status.” I figured that probably extended to “amount of spandex worn.”

I am always uncomfortable heading into churches, especially non-Catholic ones. I may not have much to say for the Catholic church, but at least I know the choreography. How awkward am I going to feel standing in a sea of believers and not even knowing when to stand?

Walking in, I got three hellos before I even made it to a discreet-enough pew near the back. A smiling curly-haired redheaded woman in pastor’s robes came over to introduce herself, asking if I was visiting. I told her briefly about my trip, and she welcomed me to the church, saying she was glad I could be there this morning. Moments later, a lean grey-haired woman slid into the pew beside me, introducing herself as Jean. “I saw you at the library yesterday. Where are you biking from?” I had just enough time to tell her before the service started.

I didn’t know any of the songs, but I’ll take any excuse to sing. I had Jean on my right singing alto and an older gent on the left bringing in the bass. Luckily Pastor Dawn sang the melody in soprano, so I followed along as best I could. The theme for the day was re-examining the familiar, to gain fresh understanding of prayers and traditions that can become rote repetition. I could get behind that.

What I really enjoyed was the sermon. Pastor Dawn talked about prayer, about how people pray, what it really is. She likened prayer to a conversation, a two-way communication with God that often tends to be one-sided. People ask for help, give thanks, or seek guidance, but don’t always remember to listen. Part of prayer, she said, is leaving space and time to listen for a response.

Now I’m not a praying lady, but I have been thinking a lot about listening. There’s been a current of unease following me the past few days. I’m struggling to breathe, a sure sign of anxiety lurking below the surface, ready to spring. I’ve experienced isolated instants of panic as a truck rushes past or I pick up speed down a hill. Unfortunately, bodies aren’t very good at providing specifics, and my mind is an excellent deflector. I’ve been flitting from Facebook to YouTube to email, unconsciously avoiding a moment of quiet, labeling it “boredom.” In other words, I haven’t been listening to myself.

Pastor Dawn was talking about listening to God, but I don’t think there’s much of a difference between prayer and mediation as I understand it. Listening to myself, waiting for the silence to take the shape of inner truth, is the same to me as listening for a voice of God. It’s laying aside the noise of living for a moment to reconnect with something more fundamental, a deeper truth, however we conceive it. I made a conscious decision to spend more time listening over the next few days, being open to whatever I heard.

Listening to others, embracing others, embracing community and connection.

At the end of the service Jean turned to me and asked if I had plans for lunch. She was an avid biker too and would love to chat. A perfect opportunity! We met up a bit later at a café in town and swapped stories over all-day breakfast. She was a second-career massage therapist who’d gone on several bike tours, both as tour staff and participant. She’d done one cross-country trip as a guide, but was happier doing shorter stints as the massage therapist-on-call. More free time, less filling water bottles!

Jean was a good listener. As we chatted, I found myself talking about what had brought me to church that morning, that yen for community. She understood, and didn’t seem to mind that I could take or leave the religious aspects of it. As I left, she gave me her contact information in case my plan to hop the afternoon Greyhound fell through. What a lovely encounter with a generous, kind, and sunny soul. I got exactly what I needed that day, and I’m grateful.

The Beginning: I should get up now so I can leave at a reasonable time…maybe I’ll just check facebook first…and the weather…and my email.

The Anxiety Rush: Will I be able to get where I need to be when I need to be there? Will it be hard? Will I get tired? What if I crash?

Blue-Sky Moments: Wow, it’s nice out today! This is a good road, not too busy, good shoulder. This is fun!

The Pre-Lunch Slowdown: Why am I moving so slowly? What’s wrong with me? I’m like molasses! Maybe I have an iron deficiency? Or lime disease? Oh, I’m hungry, never mind.

The”Luxurious” Lunch Stop: Mmm, it’s so nice in here, all warm and friendly and chairs with cushions. I don’t want to leave! If I keep eating than lunch is never over…

Begrudging Inertia: FINE. If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all day.

Afternoon Optimism: If I keep up this pace I’ll be there early!

The Grind: Only 15 miles to go. You can do it. Maybe this truck will stop and pick me up! Nope. Asshole. No one understands your pain! Drama queen…You can be grumpy as long as you keep peddling.

The Last-Minute Rebound: Two miles to go! This town is actually kind of pretty. Ooh, maybe there’s a cute fruit stand on the way! And maybe my host tonight will have a bathtub!

End of the Road: Hello. I’m tired. Where is your shower and what is the wifi password?

Imaginary conversation riding through Diamond Bluffs, Wisconsin

I like big bluffs and I can not lie.

Really?

No, I’m bluffing.

Wow, that was a real cliffhanger.

Come on, don’t be so stone-faced.

Stop! One more pun will put me over the edge!

Daddio just left for the airport to go home (I called him his first Uber). This time tomorrow he’ll be picking the grandkids up from daycare, greeted by gleeful shouts of “Papi Papi!!!” And he’ll have a huge smile on his face.

Still, we’ll both miss riding together. A few days ago during a water break he said, “just in case I don’t remember to say it later, I’ve really enjoyed this time biking with you.” Me too Daddy.

My dad went from a summer weekend biker to a 50+ mile-a-day touring cyclist in 4.5 weeks. He climbed mountains, battled headwinds, raced thunderstorms, and walked away from a crash. He rode with stitches, carpal tunnel in his hands, and with knees missing ligaments. He waited patiently for dozens of roadside pee breaks and for my painfully slow morning routine (he’s had practice waiting on my mom and I for years).

My dad makes people smile, he asks them compelling questions about their lives and the places they live. He shares his story with them, finding common ground in retirement, grandkids, history, or wherever he can. He accepted all our hosts and encounters as they were, and was grateful for whatever they had to offer. He helped an old lady put groceries in her car on our way through a parking lot.

My dad and I have taken a few trips together over the years, visiting Civil War battlefields and California wine country. He’s a good person to have along. He gets excited about natural sites and museums and memorials like you’re supposed to, not cynically like me, and it’s contagious. He’s always saying, “Imagine what it must have been like for people living here then,” putting himself in their shoes.

Not many people get the chance to take this kind of adventure with a parent. I know I’m lucky. I think it was interesting for my dad to spend time with me as an adult, a competent, organized, independent person on a mission. And it was interesting for me to see my dad out of the family context, chatting with strangers. Up until the last few years, it had been decades since my dad did what he wanted to do. He worked because he had a good job and a family to support, not because he loved it (or even liked it sometimes). Even on this adventure together, he always referred to it as “your bike trip,” deferring to me on directions and decisions. I hope he feels some ownership too, and that he’s inspired to embark on his own journey, whatever that may be.

quiet, well-groomed, and broad-shouldered.