NEXT: Yellow Springs, Ohio

We made it home on an Amtrak train--Macomb, Illinois to Chicago in a three hour blur. I always enjoyed the train, but compared to bicycling, there's not much of a view.

Our decision to take the train home and not to ride our bicycles was primarily to save time. We wanted to return to Chicago to see our friends and say goodbye to a couple leaving for Europe and a friend leaving for Palestine. We will be leaving as well: Monday is our scheduled departure for Indianapolis. We found six dollar train tickets to the racecar capital of the world, and from there we will pedal our bicycles about 150 miles to Yellow Springs, Ohio. Yellow Springs is host to the SEAC Activist Training Camp (http://seac.org/atc), where emily and i will attend until the fifth. I go east and emily heads back to chicago, and our duo cycling adventures for this summer will conclude.

Until then, we will keep this site updated with our stories and photos on the road. Thanks for being a part of it.

 
now i can breathe
and wander streets i have never seen

Indianapolis

Amtrak didn't want to let us on the train because there is no cargo space on Hoosier State train line. The station superviser tried to deny us boarding. Luckily, my persistence and the train conductor's kindness helped us find a spot for two big bike boxes in the coach. We slept soundly from eight till midnight, squeezed into small uncomfortable seats.

There is a hostel in Indianapolis that you could easily mistake for a cozy bed-and-breakfast. Emily called ahead and the gentleman running the hostel gave her the access code to the back door. We tiptoed in at 2:30am and fell asleep on the couches in the living room. We woke up at six and decided to leave a note and some money in the kitchen. Hopefully we'll come back some day to meet that gentleman face-to-face.

I don't think we'll make it to the Ohio border today. It's over 70 miles and we're getting a late start. We seem to be good at late starts...

spiceland, in

yesterday found a natuarl food store
after we thought a tire store took its place
nice to have a vegan lunch with choices

today we are in spiceland heading for the border of ohio

today i'm whinny
hopefully i'll change my mood soon

time to get going

the Indianapolis Scavengers

While riding out of Indianapolis two days ago, we passed numerous people who gave us a smile or a cheer. We almost felt like we were a bicycle team riding on a long-distance race. When we would stop in small towns throughout Indianapolis, we received the usual question, "Where you from?" It felt too complicated to say Chicago and then have to explain that we started in Indianapolis and took the train. So i decided that emily and i are the "Indianapolis Scavengers." I stopped telling people that we're from Chicago and let them assume that we're from Indy. And with all this country traveling, my southern accent is coming back. Emily's Chicago accent ("Hey, guys") is a contrast to my reclaimed country twang. We joke back and forth often.

Last night, as the sun disappeared, we crossed the border into Ohio. It was an accident, a funny one too, cause we were looking for a cheap motel on Route 40 East, just outside of Richmond, Indiana. When we reached Ohio, we suddenly realized we had gone too far and asked for help in a truck stop. They kindly told us that the motel we were looking for was on the other side of Richmond. They pointed us in the direction of another motel further east on 40 and we headed on our way. This morning was beautiful, beginning out ride with a mist hanging over the cornfields right outside out motel door. You couldn't picture this sight if you tried. We'll have photographs up soon.

Today, we reached Dayton much sooner than anticipated. a good 12-15 mph pace pushed us through the outer towns of Dayton. We'll reach Yellow Springs by late afternoon.

antioch college

we made it to yellow springs
it is funny to walk around this town thinking this
will be my home in less than a month

in every other small town we have passed
the towns continue to be a mystery
we don't know a town except their grocery store and library
we sometimes get to know a few people from quick conversations

but know this small town i will know
the store owners, the librarians, the people and places

walking around this campus i
wonder where i will find my favorite spot

its a different feeling knowing
i will be here in september

so i guess we'll see what happens.

Photos: from Indy to Yellow Springs

more photographs have been uploaded for your viewing pleasure...



www.okcancel.org/bicycle/photo/yellowsprings

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

Don't lose hope. You will find love where you least expect it.

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~Ernest Hemingway