Some Final Words, for Now

Total number of miles: 5,209
Total number of days: 97
Total number of riding hours: 478


I arrived back in Eugene this afternoon (surprising my parents a good deal in the process, by showing up unannounced on their doorstep). There were lots of reasons for me to stay and continue to explore New York or the east coast at large, but ultimately, as my mind started preparing to go home, I found myself wanting to take the quickest trajectory possible. I drove from NYC to Milwaukee with a friend in an epic sixteen-hour marathon, and hopped on Amtrak's next "Empire Builder" from there, passing up the opportunity to stick around and explore Milwaukee or Chicago for a bit. I didn't even stop in Montana to visit my little sister along the way (sorry, Amy).

The solitary train ride was a fantastically appropriate way to end this trip: it directly retraced my ride through much of Wisconsin, to the point where I could see my ghostly self navigating paths from my window; it afforded me some much-needed time to catch up on sleep, as well as the first quiet solitude I've had in days; it chose one of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful ways to enter the Pacific NW, by way of the Columbia Gorge; it gave me the blessed gift of slowing down my life once more, returning me to a frame of mind similar to riding, where I am content to arrive when I arrive, and time has little relevance beyond the position of the sun.

When I made the decision to be done, I knew it was the right one, and I still think as much. Passing through endless miles of wilderness and expansive plains filled with pronghorn and coyote on the train ride home, though, left me longing to be on the other side of the Plexiglas that kept me separated from the crisp air and the austere vistas of approaching winter. I think it's less the case that I'm ready to be done, and more that the rest of the world is ready for me to be done, but that's okay; I think it's more prudent to heed the season's warnings than to entertain my desires for movement. I started seeing snow on the ground as early as eastern Pennsylvania, and though the weather has been relatively sunny for the last couple of days, it hasn't gotten above 50 degrees, and has consistently dipped below freezing at night. Animals much smarter than myself are already starting to migrate or stow food in anticipation of hibernation, whereas I've spent the summer burning through most of the physical (read: fat) and financial reserves I have.

Finally, the recognition I deserve: a readerboard in Davis Square, Somerville, MA.

So what to make of all this travel? I've learned many a lesson this summer, both practical and existential; indeed, I think this much time for self-reflection opens the doors to an intense amount of personal growth, as long as one is open to such growth occurring. Unfortunately, I don't think I have any succinct pearls of wisdom to offer, except maybe to tell people not to doubt themselves; that I think everyone has the capacity to be stronger than they give themselves credit for. An open mind, an ounce of common sense, and a little humility will carry you far. Other than that, I think life lessons only carry lasting meaning in the context of direct personal experience, and not the vicarious word of another (with an exception to be made for basic survival, e.g., don't go swimming in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River). In the words of the great Levar Burton, you don't have to take my word for it; get out there and discover your own truth, whatever it may be.

Well, maybe just one. Traveling by train reminded me of something I experienced while heading the opposite direction earlier this summer. I've only ever carried a somewhat disjointed perspective of the country, climbing on a plane in, say, Seattle, and touching down in far off LA or DC, worlds apart from each other, with different people, different behaviours, and different expectations of life. To be sure, I've observed an astounding amount of differences in people across the country, but this summer I got to witness them with a continuity that only slow terrestrial travel can afford; I watched Oregonians turn into Idahoians turn into Wyomingites into South Dakotians, Minnesotians, Wisconsinites, Yoopers and Michiganers proper, Ohioers, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, Vermontonians, New Hampshirettes and Massachusettsers (my apologies for any made-up demonyms), comprising a pastiche of humanity the width of a continent. And though such differences abound according to the necessities or histories of a given region, in the end we really are all just people, with all the same passions, the same insecurities, the same needs, the same concerns, the same capacity to love each other, to sacrifice for one another, to give and to share even when it doesn't make sense to do so. As I traveled from state to state, and as the similarities began to stand out more than the differences, a very simple idea occurred to me: the only borders that exist between people are the ones we make for ourselves. To the extent that this notion applies not just to political geography, but to social interactions, and perhaps life in general, I think it bears repeating: the only borders that exist are the ones we make for ourselves.

And what now? What on earth follows almost four months of solitary travel? How do I fit back into the life I left behind? Do I even still fit?

Well, I don't really know the answers to any of these questions. I do know that being apart from my family (and friends) for this long has magnified their importance in my life, and I would like to be able to be closer to them than I have been for the last several years. I'm planning on applying to graduate schools for Fall 2010, and to that effect, it doesn't really matter much to me where I am over the next year, as long as I get to be close to my loved ones. If you want to find me, though, your best bet would be to look in Eugene, Portland or Seattle, or somewhere in between; I get the feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of floating back and forth.

But most important to me is to be able to maintain a sense of peace in my heart that I found in northern Michigan, and has stuck with me ever since. I have mild concern that that feeling may disappear in the hustle and noise of city life, but I'm not too worried. I think what I learned in Michigan was how to find peace in moments, not just places; if that is the case, then I've no cause for worry, because life is full of nothing but opportunities to find and recognize that peace.

A million thanks to all of you who followed me along on my travels this summer, who gave me support, company, food, housing, directions, wisdom, stories, laughter, and more; it's nothing trivial to say that I really couldn't have done it without you.

To the extent that I created this blag to communicate my experiences with bicycling, I don't think I'm going to continue with some mundane narration of my day-to-day life (lord knows the intertubes already have enough of that), unless something interesting happens to me that's bike-related. A lot of stories still remain untold: meeting Crash, the intrepid world traveler who trades everything he needs for custom jewelry, and was once attacked by pirates in the Carribean, whose current goal is to kayak down the Mississippi; cracking my rear rim beyond rideability in Middle-of-Nowhere, South Dakota; stealth-camping amidst one of the country's largest populations of law enforcement in Comstock, NY; that cryptic citation for public nudity in the Badlands; dissecting fruitfly ovaries at Brown University with my friend Alan; I guess at this point, you'll just have to come find me if you want to hear them. But! There will certainly be more bike trips in the future, so it might not hurt to check back in every few months or so, if'n
you're interested, that is. Until then, friends...

Love,
Scott

East Coast Shenanigans

Sorry it's been so long in writing; the last several days have been a nonstop barrage of music, gigs and travel. Not counting all of the impromptu jams with different musicians, or sitting in with other groups' sets, with the Yellow Hat Band I've played seventeen shows in seven cities in four states in ten days. It's funny to say, but three months of biking doesn't even come close to a week and a half of touring, in terms of the toll that it's taken on my body; in contrast to the ten or more hours of sleep I was getting each night on the road, I've averaged less than five since arriving in Boston; after a summer's worth of nary a health problem to speak of, I got sick as a dog from too little sleep, too much drinking, and too much sharing of food and water with other people in the exact same boat as me.

The variety of venues we've played in has been astounding: we did a workshop with a high school band in south Boston; we've played at several different bars in Providence, Northampton, Manhattan, Brooklyn and elsewhere; we took part in a multi-band performance art piece that toured Manhattan on the top of a double-decker tour bus in pajamas; a scenic ferry ride to Staten Island; a bowling alley in New Jersey; paraded around the Amherst campus; spontaneously crashed into subways and bars, horns blazing, to duck out as quickly as we appeared.

Playing on top of a tour bus in Manhattan.

And it's finally over now. Tonight was the last show, the celebratory dinner for the successful completion of Honk!, Pronk, Bronk, Bonk, and any other -onk that people cared to tack on to an already gratuitous list of music festivals. Tears were shed, toasts were made, Italians were hugged, but it's time for the bands to start heading their separate ways, at least til next April.


The last ten days has worn me out beyond all reason, and I know beyond any doubt that I'm not going to continue riding on from here. I never intended to have any milestones or goals along the way (except to get to Honk), but after more than a week on the east coast, I finally got to see the Atlantic Ocean last night. Walking along the New Jersey coast in a raging storm at 3am, salty spray and foam tumbling over me, the wind tearing away my warmth, I looked out into the black waters, and found a sense of completion and finality that I wasn't looking for, but that filled me with certitude, nonetheless. It's time to go home.

So! I'm catching a ride to Chicago with a person from Rude Mechanical Orchestra, and then figuring out my way west from there. I'm pretty romantically attached to the idea of traveling by train, so it'll still be a while til I get there, but look out, West Coast! Here I come!

The Summer I Almost Rode my Bicycle from Eugene to Portland

Number of miles: 5,188

Number of days: 83

Number of days it would take me to pedal the circumference of the world, at this rate: 398

Percent likelihood of this happening anytime soon: 0

Oh, how dearly I wanted to be able to write that title without the inclusion of the word "almost", but alas, there simply wasn't time enough. I considered at least crossing the border into Maine, just to plant my foot down and say that I'd been there, but I guess that honour will be saved for another trip. But I won't leave yinz on tenterhooks, if you're wondering: yes, I made it to Boston on time (well, Cambridge, technically). Now back to where I left off:

I still haven't quite gotten used to the east's notion of national forests, with all of their grandfathered private property; here, it's commonplace to find outright cities well within national forest borders, along with all their requisite commercial amenities. Even stranger, though viewed as some sort of park, the Adirondacks are not national forest or national park or even state park, but rather a strange amalgamation of public and private lands that enjoy some kind of protected status.

Adirondack Loveliness

Fortunately, one does not need to understand their politics to enjoy their beauty, and beautiful they were. The weather has been fairly predictable, with rainy mornings burning off into blustery, crisp, sunny afternoons, which makes perfect weather for riding through the forest, passing through cascades of tumbling leaves. The thought has occurred time and time again over the last week: I've wanted to see the Northeast for several years now, but I don't think I could've picked a better time and a better way to see it.

Sunset over Lake Durant

And the states are getting so tiny! You mean to tell me that each one of these dinky little places has the same number of senators as, say, Oregon? I could eat Rhode Island for breakfast! I crossed Vermont in less than a day, and that was following a less-than-direct route through the mountains. Vermont and New Hampshire both share a quiet, unassuming dignity and splendor; rather than trying to charm with glitz and glamour, they tend to sit back and let you arrive at the ultimately inevitable conclusion that, yes, it really doesn't get much better than this.

My last night on the road before Boston, I stayed in the garage of an abandoned house. These types of houses are easy to come by, and I've stayed in similar places a number of times on this trip, but this place was a bit different, in how suddenly the family departed. My guess is that it was foreclosed upon; there was a lock box on the doorknob, but the house was still full of stuff. The fridge was mildewing and the toilet cracked from improper winterizing, but the house was otherwise frozen in time; a calendar on a door read November 2008. They took the furniture and whatever else they must've deemed important, but it was surprising to see what'd been left: I found two rifles, entire wardrobes (including a seriously snazzy suit that fit me like a glove), a motorcycle; I slept on a cozy futon, a pair of warm Sorels inserts on my feet. I sometimes wonder what the ex-owners would think of me lying there, enjoying the ghosts of their former lives, but I think it would be okay with them (inasmuch as losing a home can be okay); if I were in a similar position, I would like to know that it weren't all just sitting there unappreciated, for no better reason than financial disagreement.

Well, if you've been paying good attention, you may've noticed that I've started to talk as though my trip ends in Boston, which brings up the question: what now? While it's certainly true that I'm putting down my bicycle for a while, it's because I've got some serious fun to tend to (because, you know, my trip hasn't been fun enough): it's time for Honk! Fest, the rip-roaringest music festival of the globe.

Honk! Fest! Attracting over 25 different brass and percussion ensembles from around the country (and in a few cases, the world), we will together watch Boston crumble at our feet like the walls of Jericho, from three solid days of brassy madness. I have the good fortune to be reuiniting with my long-lost love, the Yellow Hat Band of Seattle, for this event. After Boston, YHB, along with several other of the bands, will embark on a weeklong mini-east coast tour, through Providence, Northampton, New Jersey, and NYC.

So, the real question is, what happens after NYC? In short, I don't know yet. There are still many places that I want go while I'm over here, and friends that I want to visit, but I don't know how much bike trip I have left in me; my body is holding out surprisingly well, but my bike needs some serious maintenance if I'm going to continue riding it any meaningful distances (I've just been sort of riding it into the ground, lately, knowing that it just needs to get me to Honk!, and that I can take care of the rest later). Moreover, there's only so long that I can struggle against the ever-worsening weather.

Most importantly, though, I'm missing home, wherever that is: I'm missing being settled, and I'm getting awfully strong urges to start settling down for the coming winter. I want a kitchen that is mine; I want to be warm, and have reliable access to electricity; I want to have more than one set of clothing at my disposal (even if I end up wearing the same stuff, anyway); I want to spend time with friends and family, people I've known for longer than a day or two (no offense to all the people I've met along the way); I want my cat on my lap and my magazine subscriptions. I want Northwest beer served in a 22 at 10% minimum, dammit!

But. You never know. I know that all of these things will be waiting for me, whenever I decide I'm done, and it's hard for me to imagine not being on the move anymore. Before arriving in Boston yesterday afternoon, I spent a good amount of the morning walking around Walden Pond, and sitting on its well-worn but well-loved banks. Such treasured and tender moments seem to happen on a daily basis, and I know that there are a hundred more waiting just over the horizon for me. I think, though, that those same moments can be found in more mundane surroundings, and it's really more a matter of outlook than opportunity. This trip has certainly taught me, amoung other things, a deep appreciation for simple things, and I'd like to think I can carry that sentiment with me in whatever I do with my life.

Walden Pond

So. No answers as of yet. At this point, Honk! comes first, and then we'll see where my feelings and the weather guide me. Fortunately, I've been practicing that for three months, now...

It's a Hell of a State, too

[Editor's note: this entry was written last Saturday, Oct. 3rd. Evidently, the author has a hard time meeting deadlines, what with the scarcity of internet connections.]


Something happened while I was in Pittsburgh. I rolled into town with the sweat of several hot and muggy days clinging to my skin, but it's been almost nonstop rain and biting cold since getting on the road. The world must've decided that fall is here for good, but I don't think I've ever experienced such a discrete and sudden transition in seasons. Fortunately, as seasons go, autumn is far and away my favorite one, and October my favorite month; the weather has managed to dampen everything but my spirits, which have been soaring quite high.

In quite the unexpected turn of events, I met another cyclist on my first day out of Pittsburgh, Mike, who was also headed to Massachusetts, also in a rather roundabout fashion. We ended up riding together for a very enjoyable few days, as far as Ithaca. (Though we were headed in the same direction, he had a few more days than I did to get there, so we ended up parting ways as he took a more indirect route through the Finger Lakes region.)

The impossibly narrow gorge of Watkins Glen State Park.

I can't tell if I've actually gotten better at finding shelter at night, or if there's just more of it to be found, but I've been having enormous success at finding a covered, dry, secluded place to sleep every night; despite the inclement and steady rain, I haven't had to pitch my tarp since the beginning of Minnesota. The other night, Mike and I slept in a beautiful abandoned swan house, with sliding glass doors, a sunken (empty) pool, the whole building lined with fragrant cedar (I initially thought it was a giant sauna).

But oh! how cold it's been. I've been consistently wearing three or four layers on my torso, legs and feet during the day, and pretty much everything I have with me at night. My sleeping bag is only rated to 35 degrees, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the rating is equated with the temperature at which death occurs, not the cessation of comfort; either way, I'm pushing it to its limits. It's also been hard to stay properly hydrated, because my water is almost always too cold to drink.

But what a tradeoff! Through my shivering eyes, I've seen some of the most beautiful landscapes of my entire trip here in New York. I haven't even gotten to the Adirondacks yet, but I can tentatively say that New York has been the most consistently scenic state I've seen this summer. It's seems a pretty safe bet to just head down any road in any direction, and you won't be disappointed. Today was an uncharacteristic (and much appreciated) full day of sun, and I passed through mile after mile of burgeoning streams, waterfalls, gorges, all immersed in a rolling sea of hills set aflame by the fall foliage. I'm headed into a couple days of national forest tomorrow morning, and I can scarcely imagine how it'll manage to improve.

Chittenango Falls at dawn.

It is a bit sad, though, in having such a definitive deadline ahead of me; for the entirety of the summer, I've pretty much made things up as I go along, and explored places or stayed with people as much as I cared to, but that's no longer the case. I need to do at least 65 miles a day to get to Boston my Thursday evening, and I'm seeing a lot of things fall by the wayside as a result: I had the misfortune of missing a nonlinear dynamics lecture by math god Steven Strogatz at Cornell by just a few hours, and couldn't stick around for the next one; I stayed with a fantastic couple in Ithaca, who I would've loved to have gotten more time with (and who, amoung other things, sold me a new digital camera to break); a man I cycled past on a rural road invited me in to explore his land trust shared with twelve families, and to stay for a warm shower, food and laundry, but it was during the middle of the day, and I needed to cover more miles; the list goes on.

I think, though, in the grand scheme of things, that this phenomenon is a reflection of a broader truth, namely that there just ain't ever gonna be time enough in the world to do everything you want to. You just have to manage the best you can, and really, I'm managing pretty damn well. Minute by minute, mile by mile, I still pedal with a smile on my face, and that's plenty good enough for me.

The Final Word on G20

"Radical marching band playing on steps of cathedral, and riot cops continue to launch smoke bombs at them."

-- Twitter update from Thursday night protest

Okay, a few final words about Pittsburgh before I continue on my way. First, some might wonder why one would want to protest against the G20 summit at all?

Simply stated, the G20 is a group of the twenty most powerful leaders in the world who get together to make economic decisions that inevitably impact the lives of the other 6,000,000,000 people on this planet. These leaders are mostly white, almost always men, and most certainly wealthy, and as such, represent only a very small slice of the world's population. Protesting the G20 summit is an attempt to make sure that other voices are represented and heard as well, many of whom reject capitalism, globalization, free-trade, and other values intrinsic to the G20 economies. For these beliefs, and to show solidarity for others who feel marginalized, I chose to protest the summit by helping to bring music to the streets, to provide a backdrop for the message that so many thousands of people had to deliver, which I think can be succinctly boiled down to this: money can't be given more importance than people's lives or liberties.

Tuesday

I arrived in Pittsburgh last Tuesday evening, just as the sun was setting, and high-tailed it to Jessica's house, the clarinet player in Breakaway Marching Band (and a real charmer if I've ever met one), where I would stay for the rest of the week. I spent the evening with her roommate, Rob (trombone and melodica player in BHB), and Matt (sousaphone), who showed up from New Orleans later in the evening. I stayed up until the 2am tomato canning project got started, when I decided my efforts would better spent sleeping after my 97-mile day, and went to get started on the first of several nights of too little sleep.

Wednesday

The band headed down to Carnegie Mellon University by bicycle, where we played in a student march, protesting the profiteering of universities from education. BMB happened to have a beat-up but perfectly playable baritone for me to play for the week, and I just stuck it in my saddle bag, sans case, bell sticking out the top. After marching, we stayed outside the library for a spell to run through our repertoire for the week (which I had never played before). Right as we finished our impromptu rehearsal, the sky opened up and let loose like a fire hose. We rode our bikes home through the downpour, only for me to find a pool of water collected inside my horn, and a sizeable puddle in my saddlebag, my poor, poor camera floating helplessly at the bottom, sealing its fate.

After drying off and warming up, we headed back out at night to downtown, where a free protest concert was taking place (Joan Jett!). Our ranks swelling with the addition of Ben (mellophone, New York) and Stormy (percussion, Humboldt), we led a crowd away from the concert and went caroling through the neighborhoods, singing and playing traditional protest songs. Toward the end of our route, we found the road barricaded with a battalion of police in full riot gear. At this point, many in the band decided it was too early in the week to get into trouble, and slipped away down a side street, to live another day.

Thursday

Several of the folks in the band are involved in the production of a radio show for Pittsburgh's IndyMedia station, and for the week, their show and studio space transformed into the focal point of all independent media in the city. Their were at least a dozen people at the studio at any given time, people calling in live to give updates about police activity, people checking police scanners, and lots of folks working to constantly update their website (www.indypgh.org), which collated various updates, Twitter feeds, videos and more from all over the city. It was a fascinating perspective to be continually plugged in to media which provided such a drastically different perspective to the newspapers and news channels. On Thursday morning I got to check out the studio space and watch the action unfold through the mics and headphones.

In the afternoon, we biked to Arsenal Park to play at a march that was quite distinctly not sanctioned by the city, and that everybody was expecting to be the flashpoint for the week for the mounting tensions between police and protesters. This proved to be more or less the case, though certainly not the worst of what the week would have to offer; riot police quickly informed us over loudspeakers of our impending doom if we did not immediately disperse, followed rather quickly by lobs of tear gas and the deployment of the LRAD system, a sonic, eardrum-shattering weapon that can be focused at crowds (and, somewhat flatteringly, was also the first time it was ever used in this country). The black bloc retaliated with dumpsters used as battering rams, and a game of cat and mouse ensued through the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, with the crowd continually splitting up in different directions and reuniting a few blocks later. We ran around and played until it seemed wise to leave. On our way home we stopped at a farmers' market, where we saw several battalions of cops armed with rubber bullet rifles pass through toward the fleeing crowd, police tank in tow.

After dinner back at the house, several of us decided to bike up to the north end of town to watch a mock trial of the G20, accompanied by lectures and speeches. Most unfortunately, Stormy's bike chain snapped halfway there. Faced with the prospect of being stranded a few miles from anywhere we wanted to be, no open businesses in sight, and a long uphill walk back home, we opted for the most ridiculous yet practical option: Jessica and I rode our bikes with Stormy on the broken one in between, and we pushed her uphill all the way back home. Resigned to missing the trial, we decided to fashion some costumes for that night's protest, Bash Back, a reclaiming of the streets in the name of LGBT rights. We ended up making pink bandanas by dying strips of bedsheets with beets.

Bash Back ended up being a rather thinly veiled guise to, well, bash back at the police for all the day's activities. The crowd quickly headed to the location of the G20 welcoming dinner, leaving the streets strewn with broken windows and flaming dumpsters in their wake. They rendezvoused with another group outside the G20 building to block the exit, and all hell broke loose with the police. They were out in full force, more than a thousand of them, and wasted no time in throwing tear gas every which way, tackling people, beating people, arresting people. The band retreated to the nearby steps of the Carnegie Mellon cathedral, where we utilized the archway as amplification into the scene of chaos unfolding before us. Tear gas canisters bounced off of Stormy's tom, and I distinctly remember blasting one back into the army of police with my mighty lungs after it landed in the bell of my horn, but I'll admit that my memory may depart from reality a tad here. We ended up having to run around the streets for hours hiding from the storm troopers, because the police had barricaded the road where we had parked our car, and after watching a protester get smashed into a brick wall by a cop in full-body armor about twenty feet from the car, we decided we could wait until the coast was clear. The streets raged into the night, well past me returning safely home and into bed.

Police by the hundreds.

Sadly, many innocent students got swept up by the police in the process; I later watched a disturbing video of a skyway full of students being gassed, and the police refusing their pleas to be allowed to exit, even from a young girl who was bleeding from her neck.

Friday

The day of the officially sanctioned protest saw several thousand people turn out from all walks of life: union workers, socialists, Code Pink, raging grannies, Tibetans, anarchists, you name it. We took the stage at the beginning to send off the march, and then joined in the fun. The march was surprisingly and pleasantly uneventful, at least as far as conflict goes. Afterward, we went to the city jail to play for the protesters who had been arrested over the course of the week.

"Free Tibet Before Free Trade"

I spent that evening at home, quietly listening to the night's events unfold on the radio. There had been a plan to have an anti-police brutality vigil that night, but as a small crowd gathered, so did a number of student onlookers, and the police came and unleashed another night of arrests, gas and physical violence on the innocent bystanders. I think Friday night was the worst of it, which isn't terribly surprising to me; after a week of thousands of police being given all kinds of special riot gear, and holding it all week long without getting a chance to use it, it doesn't seem like a stretch for them to look for any excuse to get to use them when everything is finally over. This viewpoint may seem unfair to police and their professional demeanor, but I disagree; I saw so many unnecessary and blatantly excessive uses of force this week against completely
innocent people who posed no threat, it's hard for me to sympathize with their position. Intimidation and unmitigated violence is no way to protect and serve.

Saturday

I woke up at 7:30am, after several days of five hours of sleep per night, ready to pack up and hit the road. As I looked blearily out the window into the pouring rain, though, and back at the comforts of my warm bed, I quickly concluded that nothing was worth getting out of bed at that moment, and ended up taking a much-needed full day of rest. By Saturday evening, protests seemed to have died down to a couple of diehards standing off with the police with a Wu-Tang sign, and some students playing hackysack.

Sunday

Back on the road again, finally, despite all weather reports telling I should do otherwise.

In closing, I can't say that I can condone the actions of some of the protesters, such as the breaking of windows (even if it was a McDonald's), but any wrongdoings that I saw by protesters are thoroughly overshadowed by the policies of our and other governments that continue to rape and pillage the environment and cultures in the name of economic "progress". When one tries to live the best one can, being morally and ethically responsible to one's fellow beings, I can understand and sympathize with the feelings of frustration and futility that arise from a lifetime of oppression and marginalization. I do hope, though, that this week's events can start a conversation that focuses more on how we can start doing things right for each other than what it is we're all doing wrong.

Okay, I'm off my high horse now. I'm curious how many people actually made it all the way through this post; if you did, please send me an email with the words "Wu-Tang" in the body: scott(dot)rinnan(at)gmail(dot)com.

La Revolucción, en Fotos

"This is so cool. I mean I know the riot situation and everything is harsh, but a friggin marching band? That's just awesome."

-- response to a YouTube video of BMB in action.

The last four days have been an intense mixture of music, emotion, tear gas and crowds. I've been trying to write about my experiences here at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh every day, but every day, as now, I've found myself at a loss for words. Until something comes to me, I thought I'd just post some pictures instead.

My "war tuba".

Storm troopers at the ready.

Five minutes before the police barricaded and teargassed the skyway with the students inside.

The bombs bursting in air.

Students fleeing from tear gas.

A press photographer getting his eyes flushed.

Jail solidarity for the arrested protesters.

Protecting the jail.

The Breakaway Marching Band in action.

A very happy horn player, indeed.

Reporting to You Live

After Toledo's relatively poor welcome to the Buckeye State, it was a refreshing change of pace to arrive at Oberlin College, buried deep amidst the drabness of Ohio's agricultural heartland. I literally know a dozen people in Seattle who've graduated from Oberlin, and thought I should stop by and check out the Midwest's most dependable hipster factory while I was passing through. I stayed with a great guy, David, fellow outdoors enthusiast and all-around good guy, who helped to introduce me to the campus' extensive student co-op network, and, in the process, about half the student population. The night I arrived, David and his roommates were having a triple birthday, in the form of a curanto, a traditional "barbecue" from the island of Chiloé in Chile. The rather elaborate dish involves digging a large hole in the ground, heating up several large stones in a fire until red-hot, placing them in the hole and piling alternating layers of cabbage leaves, clams, beef, pork ribs, chicken, sausages, onions, potatoes and garlic, and covering it all up to let cook for hours as a sort of pressure cooker. To be sure, the karma that one will enivitably reap from the destruction of so many creatures' lives for a single culinary dish is outweighed only by its sheer tastiness.

After my meat-filled visit to Oberlin, it was back on the road for a very drizzly, muggy two days travel through the hills of eastern Ohio, and into Pennsylvania. The hills surprised me, both in their existence (I guess I didn't really know when Appalachia began) and their scale. Miles and miles of the steepest hills I've ridden on this trip passed underneath me; if it hadn't been for traffic, I'd've easily been able to cross the elusive 50 mph threshold. I followed the ups and downs all the way into Pittsburgh, which is where I am now, and will continue to be for the next couple of days.

I've met up with some local brass band brethren, the Breakaway Marching Band, and together we aim to fill the streets with music for as much of the G20 protests as we are able to. Today was my first day playing with them; we took part in a student march and rally at Carnegie Mellon, and went "caroling" this evening, leading a crowd of people in protest songs, parading through the downtown area. It poured buckets and buckets of rain earlier today (mostly the bike ride back home), to the point where I ended up with a large reservoir of water inside the bell of my baritone and the contents of my saddlebag immersed in a pool at the bottom (including my poor, poor camera). The next two days (the actual dates of the G20 conference) are filled with more parades, protests, dances and workshops, and I'm planning to attend as many of them as I can.

The police presence here is obscenely huge, and it seems as if everyone is gearing up for conflict, no doubt exacerbated by relentless media reports of nonexistent violent protesters. Tomorrow's major protest and march, beginning at Arsenal Park, is distinctly un-sanctioned by the city, and everyone is looking to that event to be the fuse that sets everything off. I expect it'll be largely peaceful, but we'll see! I'll try and keep this updated if there ends up being anything fun to share.

How Not to Handle a Situation

"C'mon, buddy, what'd you dump?" the police officer asks me again, as I stand there, legs spread, hands on my head. He pats me down from head to toe, and everywhere in between. My eyes are locked on his partner, who stands idly by, eyeing me back, his right hand resting none too surreptitiously on the butt of his taser gun. "Nice one, Scotty boy," I think to myself. "Real smooth."

I ended up leaving Ann Arbor a bit later than I would have liked to, mostly due to errands, correspondence, and an enticingly comfortable couch that lulled me into a skewed perspective of the passing of time. It was no problem, though; I'm in no particular rush right now, and I've been riding pretty fast lately. I just wanted to make it through Toledo by nightfall, and I'd be fine.

Cruising through back country Michigan farmland, I found myself thinking about the miles passing underneath me, and my trip as a whole. I was impressed that I'd made it this far without getting into any kind of accident, especially given some of the harrowing roads I've been on with no shoulder and RV after RV trying to run me off the road. Evidently, it would've behooved me at that point to jump off my bike and find some wood to knock on, because not five minutes later, I swamped my front tire in a deep pile of gravel in the middle of an intersection. I went down into the gravel quickly and gracefully, with all the efficiency of a raptor in mid-dive. It wasn't too bad; my bar tape and right arm was a bit shredded, but, more consequently, also broke the camera that I bought specifically for this trip, thus reinforcing my belief (for the fifth time now) that I am simply not meant to own digital cameras.

I picked myself up, reattached my saddlebags, straightened my handlebars, and walked to a nearby graveyard to sit under a tree for a spell and wait out the coming nausea (I've found that whenever I get a strong rush of adrenaline from something bad, it's quickly followed by feeling sick to my stomach). By the time I'd sufficiently recouped myself and was ready to get back on the road, I'd noticed that a little more than an hour had slipped by because of my stupid wreck. I looked at the map, and quickly realized that this would likely put me smack dab in the middle of Toledo by the day's end, which was most undesirable (finding a good place to camp in big cities is generally challenging). I noticed a state park just past the edge of town on the shore of Lake Erie, and decided to set my sites for that.

I pedaled and pedaled, doing my best to emulate the wind, that omnipresent antagonist of cyclists everywhere. As I entered the outskirts of town, though, with a rapidly dropping sun and its waning light at my back, I realized no, I would not be making it out of Toledo tonight. Having just crossed the border into Ohio, I didn't yet have a state map, and thus no knowledge of the layout of the town. I decided to aim for the waterfront, reasoning that I would likely find some park along its edge if I followed it long enough. My reasoning led me into the heart of the industrial district, reeking of a fetid, toxic soup of ag/industry runoff (though in retrospect, the whole town actually smells that way). Miraculously enough, though, sandwiched between the factories and the lake was a small neighborhood of projects, with a couple of adjacent parks. Success!

I pulled into a parking lot that turned into a mooring dock at the far end, and was bordered by a swath of trees. I found myself a suitably acceptable place tucked well back in the bushes, set up my sleeping space, grabbed my headlamp, my book and a beer, and headed back to the waterfront. I took a bench overlooking the water just in time to see the sunset. In my last hour of riding, I'd been pushing hard and fast just to get to this little spot, and I was exhausted. Oh, how good it was to just sit.

I sat there until dusk had passed, and the stars began to appear. Everyone else had already pulled their boats out of the water and gone home; even the bats had come and gone. I sat on the bench reading and nursing my beer, when my tiredness really began to hit home; it was time for bed.

I got up and started walking across the parking lot back to my bushes. As I was walking, though, I noticed a car's headlights behind me, beginning to pull into the lot. I continued walking forward, but as they got closer, decided it would not be a good idea for me to disappear into the bushes in clear view of another person. Instead, I decided to veer a little to my right, taking aim for a Port-a-Potty that was just ahead of me. Just as I arrived at it, the car pulled around to the side of it, and right as I was opening the door, I noticed it was a police van. For some inexplicable reason, I still continued on into the bathroom, and as the door shut behind me, the thought sank into me like a ton of brick: "Oh, shit. I just did about the stupidest thing I could've." I immediately walked right back out of the bathroom, but it was too late. Two officers were rapidly walking toward me, their flashlights out and directly in my eyes.

"What'd you dump in there?" the first cop asked me immediately.

"I promise you, nothing." I reply weakly.

"Put your hands on your head, please," he instructed, with superfluous courtesy.

"Any poky objects or anything that could hurt me on you?" he asked. Except for the book in my hand and the (cringe) open beer in my pocket, I don't have anything on me: no money, no i.d., everything is back, out of sight and out of reach, in the trees. I realize the difficulty of the situation; without anything to identify myself or verify my story, I need to somehow convince the cops to let me wander off into the bushes, after just making myself appear suspiciously criminal. Much like my collection of lost or ruined digital cameras, this was the fifth time on this trip that I've had to deal with the police, and I like to think that I know how to conduct myself. These, however, were cops on the beat in the projects of a crappy city, and, though I had none to offer, knew they would take no guff.

He had me take off my shoes, not so much to search them, I suspect, but more to prevent an unlikely attempt to run. I got to work explaining myself, how I'm just passing through (quite true), how I was planning on camping out (quite true), how all my stuff was back in the bushes (quite true), how I would never try and camp somewhere if I thought it was illegal (not quite true), how, excepting the half-drunk bottle of beer in my pocket, I didn't have any drugs (quite true). They ran my info through their system, and it came back to them squeaky clean (of course). They absolutely did not believe me that I didn't dump something in the bathroom, but they had no evidence to go on. They promptly evicted me from the park, as well as all other city parks, but, most pleasantly, did not give me so much as a warning for being in the park after it was closed, for having an open container of alcohol, or for camping illegally. They waited while I disappeared into the trees to gather my belongings, and followed me until they saw I was out of the park and back on my way down the street.

As soon as they were out of sight, I stopped to evaluate my situation. I resigned myself to riding all the rest of the way through the city and to the state park I had originally hoped for (another eighteen miles), when I noticed that my rear flasher had just run out of batteries, and I had no replacements.

"That's it," I thought, "I'm not going anywhere tonight." I promptly ducked right back in to a park that was adjacent to the first one, and quickly buried myself back along a tree line, this time a little farther away from the parking lot. As I drift off to sleep, the smell of rotting sewage wafting on the wind, I ran through the laundry list of the day: bike wreck, broken camera, hassled by cops, evicted, lost my beer, no tail light. Knowing full well that that whole stupid experience was nobody's fault but my own, I couldn't help but think, "Man, Toledo sucks."

A Lake is Not an Ocean

I've met several people around here who compare the Great Lakes to oceans; I will certainly grant them that they are quite large (a sincere understatement, to be sure), but I suspect that anyone who makes such claims has never actually seen an ocean, or at least, not the Pacific, or at least, not the Pacific of the Northwest. It is quite true that the Lakes are unbelievably massive expanses of water that you can't see across, but as far as I can tell, that is where the resemblance ends. An ocean demands your attention from the minute it enters your senses, and indeed, it enters them all; the taste of salt on your lips, the smell of decaying seaweed, the mist of spray on your skin, the constant din of the ebbing and flowing waves, the sheer magnitude of sprawling sea from horizon to horizon. It shapes the land and ecosystems for miles inland; scarcely the bystander, it creates the weather. An ocean is something to be feared and respected if you have any sense at all; never before have I sat humbler than on a beach on the Olympic Peninsula. Lake Michigan, by contrast, approaches you with an unassuming splendor, to the point where you can miss it behind some trees if you don't know it's there. I feel incredibly lucky to have ridden along its shores for several days, but there was never, not for so much as a second, confusion in my mind as to what lay before me.

Lake Michigan: not an ocean.

The U.P. was not quite what I was expecting for pristine wilderness, at least where I was. I get the impression that the inland and northern areas are more untouched, but they are not really accessible by bicycle or car, and I'm okay with that; that's how it should be, really. I expect I'll get back there someday and explore Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore by backpack.

Traveling through the U.P., though, was well worth it, in that it enabled me to explore the northwest of Michigan proper. Following the Lake Michigan shoreline, I traveled down the Tunnel of Trees scenic byway, a narrow (and largely-abandoned, post-Labor Day) road that meandered through hills and forest. The forests were filled with squirrels blacker than night, certainly blacker than they have any business of being, and giant puffballs, a mushroom larger than a basketball (that I later found out to be both edible and delicious).

Giant puffballs (note the quarter for size reference).

I then hopped on a bike path that circumnavigated Little Traverse Bay (and apparently has done so since before the invention of automobiles). Traverse City led to Cadillac which led to a 100-mile rails-to-trails that took me all the way to Grand Rapids, through Lansing, through Hell, and finally to Ann Arbor. I've taken a rest day here, exploring the town and campus, visiting my dear friend Sarah (a transplant from Seattle who inexplicably decided to return to her native Midwest), and even taking in the new Harry Potter movie. Ann Arbor, in as many words, is way too hip for its own good, but it seems like a plenty nice enough place. I'm going to see what its dumpsters have to offer tonight, and then it's back on the road tomorrow.

Contrary to popular belief, it's actually paved with asphalt.

Looking at a map, it's crazy to realize that I don't have all that much farther to go before I get to Boston. Again, that's not necessarily the end of my trip, but anything after that is just icing on the cake. 1,000 more miles is looking like it ain't no thing (and that's not me bragging, I promise).

The Food Chapter

Number of miles: 4,013
Estimated average number of Calories consumed per day: 3,850
Number of times I've eaten meat on this trip: 6
Number of times I've had to resort to shopping at Wal-Mart: 0
Number of times I've resorted to stealing from Wal-Mart: 1

I'm sitting in a restaurant, empty plate in front of me, mildly sad that my meal disappeared so quickly. I don't think I remembered to chew. I eye the couple eating next to me, and note the woman lightly picking at her plate. Yes! Conditions are perfect, the only trick is working the timing between when they're done but before the waitress comes back. I wait until I see her pick up her purse. At that cue, I lean over and politely ask a question I already know the answer to: "Excuse me, are you finished eating that?"

Up until just a few weeks ago, it would've been accurate for me to say that I'm always hungry. Surprisingly enough, though, I've recently noticed a slight decrease in food consumption. Maybe my body is reaching some sort of equilibrium of efficiency.

Given the sheer amount of energy that one must consume in order to counterbalance the amount spent on a trip like this, it's very easy for food to become the focus of attention all the time. I constantly daydream about meals that I can't have (oh god, my kingdom for a Paseo sandwich); I think about what I'm going to eat next, what I can afford to buy, how to maximize calorie per dollar ratio whole still maintaining some semblance of nutritional content. Unfortunately, real food is also extremely hard to find while on the road. I don't know when was the last time you tried to do your grocery shopping at a gas station or mom 'n' pop hole in the wall, but almost everything readily available is processed beyond belief (and no, it really doesn't have to be this way). So, I do the best I can within these constraints and my relative lack of a kitchen, and sometimes just have to rely on the fact that whatever crap I put into my body right now will be sweat out within a couple of hours.

I'm carrying a little pop-can camp stove that I use to cook my dinners, and to that end, I always try and keep well stocked in the staples: olive oil, salt, chipotle powder, lime, onion, and garlic at a minimum. I usually have some vegetables to add to this, most often tomatoes, zucchini, avocado and carrots (yes, I know some of these are fruits). All that is needed now is a can of the best thing to ever happen to canned food, and the possibilities are endless (and yet, somehow still end up coming out the same every time anyway). It might be a bit extravagant to carry all of this around, but it makes such a big difference in quality of life to have something resembling real food every night; besides, I burned myself out on macaroni and cheese six weeks ago.

Some other staples: tortillas (in place of bread), nut butter, some type of jam, cheese, dried fruit, nuts, cereal, and any fresh fruit and vegetables when and wherever possible. Some things never get old; I could probably eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for the rest of my life and die happy. Likewise, dried pineapple and crystallized ginger will never go out of fashion. Other things get old fast: good as it is, I don't think I'm going to be able to eat Indian food again for a while.

Dinner in the works.

I rarely go out to eat, but when I do, it's either for something local that I'll never be able to have somewhere else, or for something fatty and deep-fried as possible. The local food can be kind of iffy sometimes (I stayed away from the Rocky Mountain oysters), great others, uninspiring and repetitive others. (I swear on my life that all people eat in northern Michigan is smoked fish, fudge, maple syrup, wild rice, ice cream and pasties.)

One of the hardest things has been missing out on the benefits of a garden, though I've still been able to do some foraging along the way. Right now there are apples everywhere, little native blackberries if you keep your eyes open, even mushrooms if you know what you're doing (I successfully identified and ate my first ever mushrooms just yesterday, the robust laetiporus). There are often little farmers' stands selling whatever is in season, and even tables set near the roadside of rural houses, piled with free extras.

My biggest craving has been for any kind of fermented food: yogurt or kefir, sauerkraut and kim chi, beer (of course), kombucha, I haven't been able to get enough of any of these. More than anything, though, I crave more of an investment with my food. I dream of spending long hours in a kitchen sweating over tedious projects: baking bread, making sushi, pies with lattice tops. When I'm done with this trip, I expect I'll spend a few days living in a kitchen to make up for perpetual snacking that has become so routine. In the meantime, though, let's hear it for handfuls of dry cereal!

Companionship, solitude and loneliness

In writing this blag, I have consistently shared my experiences in the first-person singular, because this blag is meant to be just that: a first hand account of my experiences and interactions with the world at large as I pedal my fool self through it (with me pretending all the while that people care what I think). There have been times, though, where it has been a stretch to maintain this singular account of my journey, because in truth, I often am not cycling alone. I have ridden with friends (both new and old), lovers, strangers and acquaintances, other cyclists out for a dayride or in it for the long haul, a priest, children, turkeys and more. My path has intersected many a time with that of another traveler, all the better when we happen to be headed in the same direction for a spell. It gives us all an opportunity to share and contrast information, stories, warnings, and I've often learned something invaluable, such as the existence of a spectacular bike path that parallels the route I was planning to take.

My most recent traveling companion was Shannan, a friend from Seattle who has spent the summer (more of it than me, actually) on a bike trip of her own. We had the good fortune to rendevous in South Dakota, and the better fortune to be headed in the same direction for a spell. She recently ended her trip back in Stevens Point (alas, graduate school beckoned). I mention her specifically because I found her story to be inspiring (certainly more so than mine), given that she had never ridden a bike much more than around the city before hopping on and pedaling for a good 3,500 miles or so. Good job, kiddo.

Shannan was headed to Stevens Point for a friend's wedding, which I was fortunate enough to be invited to last minute (literally the day before), when it turned out I'd be in the neighborhood at the right time. I was planning on going to the wedding ridiculously underdressed in my Chacos, a longsleeve plaid shirt and a $1.50 pair of Goodwill jeans I had just bought for the cold. (They were both dirty, rumpled and smelled of campfire.) In fact, the groom himself lent me a decent change of clothes to wear. All I did was fashion a highly unfashionable belt from the shoulder straps of my saddlebags, and I was ready to go to the first Catholic mass of my life (at least, that I'm aware of).

The wedding itself was very, um, Catholic, to say the least. But! It was also very Wisconsin-y; at the reception, the bride and groom were playing a game of corn hole before a toast was even made. The opulence of the reception, the four-course dinner and free-flowing booze, the music and the shaking of my behind and the fancy hotel room (albeit shared with five other people, and me on the floor) all stand in such stark contrast to the minimalism and simplicity of biking that it was a bit jarring to my system. It was fun, and great to be welcomed by such warm and inviting people, but also good to be back on the road the next day.

It's getting late in the season now, though, and I'm seeing fewer and fewer people on the road in non-car form; I'll probably be riding alone from here on out. I haven't seen another cyclist for a week, and I haven't even had so much as a conversation with someone in three days (to be fair, I haven't seen many people at all), excepting a cop last night who asked me if I was planning on sleeping where I was. I enjoy the solitude, but the loneliness that can often accompany it is hard to bear. The rural isolation here coupled with the ever-shortening days, and I'm suddenly finding myself with hours of free time every evening between when the sun goes down and when I'm ready to sleep (hence, for example, this overly long post).

Well, enough then. I squandered my extra hours this evening running around town trying to accomplish things I never got accomplished, and lost a biking glove in the process; I'm just grumpy and feeling sorry for myself, and ready for this day to be over.

Happy 60th anniversary, G&G! Happy 21st birthday, Amy! It's about time. Love to all...

A Slight Change of Plans (with hyperlinks!)

One evening as I was on my way to Milwaukee from Madison, I found myself in a fantastic brewery (a 9.5 on the Rinnan scale) in Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin.  Leaning back in my chair with my paws wrapped around a pint of bourbon barrel brown, I reflected upon the days ahead of me, the roads yet untraveled, the cities yet unvisited, the untold opportunities that will inevitably grace my path, and I arrived at a simple and unassailable conclusion: fuck it.  Ain't no reason to battle the sprawling 'burbs of the Windy City when I have the time and ability to explore the U.P., everyone's favorite non-Olympic peninsular region.

So!  No Milwaukee.  No Chicago.  No Three Floyds brewery.  No brassin' it up with Environmental Encroachment (at least, not till Boston).  No Bean.  And a hearty yes! to autumn-coloured deciduous forests aplenty, isolation and funny accents.

I've spent the last few days taking a ridiculously circumlocutious route through Wisconsin, in a brazen attempt to hit every bike path and brewery between Madison and Michigan.  I'm resupplying in Stevens Point, and then headin' out to the nether regions of the Midwest.  Sorry, Chicago, maybe next time.  Frostbite awaits!

Changing seasons, changing landscapes

I've begun to feel the summer transitioning into autumn. It can be subtle sometimes, piercing others: a flaming red tree contrasting with the foliage of its neighbors; shade, once so vital for cover, has become chillingly cold, even in the high afternoon sun; the noticeable loss of precious minutes of daylight. Last night the temperature got down to 36˚. I feel positively jubilant about the onset of fall, but a little worried, too; in terms of time, my trip is barely even half over (if that), and in the waning hours of light and the growing cold, I fear I have a hard month or so ahead of me.

Wisconsin has udderly (yes, udderly) stolen my heart. Every facet I've seen of this state has been something to love. (Well, last night I was disappointed by a locked Trader Joe's dumpster, but that's really my only complaint.) I entered Wisconsin from the outer suburbs of the Twin Cities, and wended my way along the Mississippi river. The land was unexpectedly and uncannily similar to how I imagine the river's delta region: warm, boggy, slow and expansive; an alligator would not have been out of place. At some point I serendipitously happened upon a bike trail that split off the highway and into rural marshland. This one trail ended up connecting to a whole network of rails-to-trails bike paths that I've been able to follow for almost the entirety of the state. By the time I leave Wisconsin, I will have spent more than half of the miles here passing through back-country forest and w

etlands. The Sparta-Elroy trail passed through three ancient train tunnels blasted from the hillside, the longest of which was three-quarters of a mile long, freezing cold and containing

nary a photon of light, save for the pinpoint exits at either end.

Entrance to the world's coolest bicycle tunnel

I was hoping to make it to Madison for critical mass on Friday night, as I previously mentioned. Didn't happen, not by a long shot, but arriving Sunday morning proved to be magnitudes better. The city just happened to be throwing their first annual bicycle celebration day (I'm sure it had some more official and impressive sounding name), with giant swaths of city streets and highways open only to bicycle traffic, and replete with street bands and a procession of species and food and bike booths, and much more. I met a couple of other cyclists who have done long-distance tours before, including a great guy named Scott Stoll, who rode more than 25,000 miles circumnavigating the globe, and wrote a wonderful book about it. Another fellow, Keri, rode the Trans-Am route with his son a few years ago, and most graciously shared a round of beers and stories with me, and even showed me around campus.

Penny-farthings owning the streets of Madison

Madison is a beautiful town, strangely sandwiched between two lakes on an isthmus the width of my forearm. It has something of a reputation for being the Eugene of the Midwest, or, as my Couchsurfing host put it, "seven square miles surrounded by reality". I'm beginning to realize that Seattle is not really a bike friendly town at all; sure, it has gobs of cyclists, but is almost totally lacking in supportive infrastructure. (To any of you who defend Seattle by pointing out the existence of the Burke-Gilman trail: boooooo.) This whole damn state seems stitched together by well-maintained bike routes, both in and out of cities. I've really only ventured through the southern parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, which are not exactly renowned for their aching beauty, but from what little I've seen, I am already planning my next trip to come back and explore the northern lake regions and into the U.P.

Enough. To Milwaukee! I am determined to find some good beer in that city, and salvage its reputation in my mind.

South Dakota, Come and Gone

Number of miles: 2,435
Fastest speed: 45.6 mph

Total number of hours spent riding: 223

Equivalent number of consecutive viewings of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (extended versions): 19

In the proverbial blink of an eye, South Dakota has come and gone. Bland as a state it may be geographically, it completely surpassed my expectations, to the point where it might be my favorite state I've passed through yet. It was a welcome relief after a month of serious mountains to have a straight, flat shot, with the wind at my tail much of the way. And contrary to the generally surly attitudes of Wyomingites, South Dakotians have been above and beyond friendly and helpful; I've been given taken out to breakfast by strangers who approached me while outside a grocery store, I've been offered places to stay, showers, ice cream on a hot day, and a hundred other kindnesses.

Welcome to South Dakota

I took my first rest day at a couch surfer's house in Rapid City. Arik, the host, was wonderfully generous with his house and food and instruments, and his place turned out to be something of a hub of activity in the city; four other couch surfers were there with me, along with any number of neighbors and friends and even dogs that seemed to drift in from the bushes and hang out and tell stories for a spell. I walked into his house dirty, tired and sunburnt; after finding myself a mason jar of water and noting the NPR on the radio in the background, I knew I'd be staying a day. Rested and rejuvenated, I set out for the Badlands.

As fortune would have it, the weather was on my side. Normally the Badlands are, well, bad, nay, hellishly scorching this time of year. Turns out, though, that this whole region has been having the mildest summer on record, and I headed out to them under a welcome cover of clouds, and passed through with a gentle sun. The Badlands are truly other-worldly; I really think at least one away mission from an episode of Star Trek should have been filmed there.

Heading into the badlands...

...and the subsequent citation.

The nightly storms have been incredible, far and away more violent than anything I experienced in Wyoming. With the sprawling openness of the land and skies, you can see a storm coming from far away, but they roll in fast. There have been nights where my tarp simply did not provide me adequate shelter, but one of the more fortunate features of the landscape of South Dakota is the abundance of abandoned barns and houses; I've slept in several of them, and I really don't know what I would've done without them. (Consequently, I've found an old abandoned pot plantation on more than one occasion.)

Some of the local weeds.

I'm in Minneapolis right now, staying with a Mennonite intentional community, whose members are quite well-versed in the arts of dumpstering and biking and all those nifty city things. I think I'm going to stay for a day and explore the city, and then it's off on a whirlwind metropolitan tour of Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago by way of the Mississippi. I was kind of hoping to be in Chicago in time for Critical Mass next Friday, but that's still a good 500 miles down the road, so probably not this time.

The Roadkill Chapter

In my roadside journeys, it is only natural that, over the miles, I should come across many a squashed animal. Here is a brief photo essay* of the more interesting ones I've come across so far:

Ironically, this was probably hit while picking at some other roadkill. Any ornithologists out there care to identify (Lanie, I'm looking at you...)?

Okay, seriously, wtf? No body, no nothin'.

Apparently this coyote wasn't quite Wile E. enough.

That's vun! Vun batty bat! Ah ah ah!

I bet that made a terrible sound.

...and with her last dying breath, she coiled herself into a message dicipherable only to those amoungst us her are blessed with the gift of parseltongue. Thus began the mystery of the corn snake...

I really hope that this porcupine popped one of the tires of the car that hit it.

Pepe Le Mort

Any minute now, it'll jump up and start singing...

*idea for this photo essay graciously borrowed from the illustrious Ms. Katherine.