This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

We rode well over 500 miles on our bicycles this summer. I know i can speak for both of us when i say that Emily and i have a new relationship with the open road. This is not the first time we have traveled. Amtrak, Greyhound, car, truck, sneakers, and bicycles -- we have explored North America with many modes of transportation. Our new long distance journey gave us a new exposure that we had yet to experience. With the open road and wide, blue sky, we had no reliance on anyone else but ourselves to get us to our destination. We have seen so much (yet so little) and have now done it with our own legs, over hills and through rain, wind, and heat.

We have a new friendship with bicycling.

* * *

On August 5th, Emily and i rode from Yellow Springs back to Dayton. We called up our friend Eric to help us around the city. Emily took off for Chicago on a Greyhound bus, leaving her bicycle behind for a month until she returns to Ohio for college in September. I packed by blue bicycle in a cardboard box and was swept off to the airport by Eric and his friend. Unfortunatly, the airline made me pay for oversized baggage and then misplaced my bicycle somewhere between Dayton and the Raleigh-Durham airport. I picked up the recovered box today with minor damages.

When will we return our bicycle wheels to the pavement of these country roads? An unanswerable question, but it will be inevitable that our patience will wear thin and we will give in to the temptation of the open road. Emily will be training in Yellow Springs for the next year, riding on some of the smoothest bicycle trails in the midwest. I will be doing my usual routine in Chicago and hopefully exploring the paths around that city. Summer 2005 is distant, but planning is already in effect: Vancouver to Tijuana. The three continent bicycle tour.

Write me if you are interested: bicicletas(at)okcancel.org