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In September, 2002, Greene and I set out again, across the middle of America this time, with my sister Susan and her two wheels as our traveling companions. photo: Judy Schaper
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Denver to Montreal september 11 - october 9, 2002 |
It was the summer of 2002, and I was planning an autumn trip to the west coast: Peter and I would visit friends in Seattle, then he would fly back to New York and I would head to Southern California to see my parents. From California I�d go on to Denver to climb a 14,000-foot mountain named Quandary with my sister Susie before flying back to New York on September 12th. I made the plans, bought the tickets � and then found myself looking at a map of the United States, thinking, why fly? |
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Looking at the map of the U.S., Ohio and Pennsylvania hadn�t particularly tempted me; nor had the idea of pedaling into New York City. Wisconsin and Quebec sounded better. I told Peter to buy a ticket to Montreal and I'd meet him there on October 9th, the day before my 37th birthday. We'd have a romantic bed & breakfast reunion and then take the train back to New York together. With this deadline in mind (and since I had never bothered to sit down and calculate how far it actually was from Denver to Montreal) Susie and I were in a bit of a hurry, but still we had time to discover a little bit of that vast part of the world that is the middle of America. |
We found dying shells of towns: wild west, depressionesque almost-ghost towns where most of Main Street was boarded
up, leaving only a post office,
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For most of a journey it's the map and the rising and setting sun that guide your days. But sometimes you have to listen to your stomach. Our guidebook mentioned a place called Junie Mae's Roadhouse Barbeque on the shores of Lake McConaughy. The description was entitled "pork out" and included words like grill, ribs, potato salad, "bake their own," buns, sausage, "make their own," smoke, and brisket. We didn't have to read that twice. So what if only rode forty miles that day.... We pedaled into the sandy lakeside campground right across the street from the restaurant, set up our tent, and settled down at a table at Junie Mae's. |
And then sometimes, you just have to go wherever the
wind blows you. The prevailing wind across North America blows west to
east. Everyone says so.
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Every town was marked by a water tower and a grain
elevator, but most
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Susie abandoned me in Mason City, Iowa (she hadn't
originally planned on riding even that far). But before she caught a Greyhound
back to Denver we holed up for a day at the Holiday Inn,
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Greene and Bob (the trailer I was pulling instead of
carrying panniers) and I then headed up through the southeastern tip of
Minnesota, across Wisconsin, towards Michigan. The leaves were beginning to change as I flew along the
Root River Trail
in Minnesota, the centerpiece of my first and only 100+ mile day, which
began in Iowa and ended in Wisconsin. Northeastern Iowa is home to a large Amish population, but by the end of the
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Meanwhile, back in Denver, Susie had done some research for me and learned that Route 17, the road east across Ontario from Michigan, was cycling hell: a busy two-lane shoulder-less highway. October 9th was looming impossibly close anyway, so that information was all I needed to decide that once I'd crossed the International Bridge from Sault Ste.-Marie, Michigan into Sault Ste.-Marie, Ontario, I would catch a Greyhound the four or five hundred miles to Ottawa before pedaling the last 150 miles into Montreal. |
No longer in a rush, I rode into the UP � Michigan�s
Upper Peninsula -
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It's funny how sometimes a trip is over before it's over. Nahma was the end of this trip. Oh, I rode several hundred more miles, and made it to the perfect room that Peter had reserved at the Petit Prince B&B in time to have the champagne chilled and waiting for him, but the days after the bus pulled into Ottawa were about getting there, instead of being there. And that, of course, is never what a good adventure is about. So the indubitable delights of Canada will have to wait for another trip. This trip was about America, about being surprised and unexpectedly charmed by a country I thought I knew. |
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� 2001 Erika Warmbrunn. All rights reserved. No part of this web site may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author. |
by bicycle across Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin & Michigan |