Winds of Change

It's still windy over here on the East Coast. Having ridden 5,000 miles from Oregon to North Carolina, I'm heading home early to be with my family during a rough time. Hannah will continue on to Boston.
We're still a team. We're still committed to completing this journey and embracing the challenges, no matter how huge, to making that happen. Updates may be sparse in the last month but we'll post when and how we can!
Thanks to all of you for reading, watching and supporting.

Roots and Wings: The Conundrums of Bicycle Migration

It started out as a typical evening. Seeing the sun low in the sky and feeling some sluggishness in the legs, we started looking for likely places to settle for the night as we passed through the tiny village of Waverly, Georgia.

At the familiar sign of the fire truck, we pulled into a huge circular driveway and scoped out the scene. The firehouse was brand new and surrounded by a rolling green lawn, a rare open space in the midst of the thick pine forest. The building's tall garage doors were open, which meant someone was there. Perfect.
Fire stations are the best free camping spots, offering protection from the highway, a water spigot, grass, and the security of an institution that local hooligans will not mess around with. Firemen tend to be welcoming but too busy to waste their time and yours fussing over you. Sometimes they offer use of their shower, kitchen, bathroom, etc.
We leaned our bicycles against the side of the spacious garage. There was nobody inside except a dog guarding the smaller doors that led to the firemens' inner sanctums. He barked a few times. Warily, we stood back. Then he trotted up to us and we realized that he was just a puppy, all sad grey eyes and wagging tail, not a fierce guardian after all.

Once extricated from his cave, the fireman on duty said he didn't see why not. We picked out a camping spot on the grass around the back of the building and the pup hung around as we pitched the tent and arranged our gear, playfully snatching a shoe or a glove to be chased in a circle. When I walked back to the front of the building to fill up our water bottles, I asked the fireman what the dog's name was.
"Either Rambo or Napper, we're not sure yet. He just showed up a few days ago."
That explained his uncertain alliances. The rest of the evening, we had a friend. As we prepared our dinner, he helpfully rustled through the bushes to find scraps of bread and old food. In return, he got some of our chips and bits of leftover pancakes.
Sitting in the grass eating chili, trying to avoid the puppy's longing gaze and the sand gnats' stinging bites, we saw a truck pull up at the front of the firehouse. A young man and woman got out, he in full tuxedo and she in a flowing white dress. Hannah observed that they must have just gotten married.
"Congratulations!" I shouted over the lawn, waving and beaming at them stupidly.
"It's just prom!" They shouted back. I laughed it off, a little too loudly.
Hannah teased me. I defended myself. Prom is our culture's practice-wedding, a young woman's special day of glamor followed by a romantic evening that traditionally culminates in sex. The fact that white prom dresses are acceptable proves my point. Maybe one day they'll appreciate the subtle irony of my comment.

After the prom couple left a few other firemen arrived and they got down to the business of grilling burgers and dogs on their fancy gas grill. Typical men, we thought to ourselves. And they didn't even invite us.
I noticed one of the firefighters walking back and forth to a far corner of the lawn. Later, after the men retreated to their sanctums, presumably to watch football, pup and I checked it out. I could hardly believe my eyes. One of these charred-meat-eating, fire-extinguishing, pickup-truck-driving tough guys was growing vegetables. A few five-gallon buckets filled with dirt held young squash and tomato plants, and tender sweet peas grew up out of a window box set up against the edge of the woods.

Things aren't what they seem, was the lesson of the evening. A prom is not just a prom, man's best friend (and cyclists' worst enemy) can change his mind about who's worth guarding. Homegrown tomatoes, it seems, hold a special place in the heart of Georgians. We slept well with our new friend curled up outside the tent - our fuzzy alarm system.

Nights like these are bittersweet now. We're on the last leg of our journey, leaving the Deep South behind for New England. We talk a lot about how we can make the lessons of bicycle touring last, how we can transition back to a stationary life without taking things for granted, without accumulating all the unnecessary stuff that seems to come with sleeping in the same place every night.
Living out of four panniers is so simple. We carry just the food we'll eat in the next 48 hours (plus some staples), a stove, a couple of dishes, bedrolls, a couple changes of clothes, and our tent. Of course we have some optional items as well - phones, iPad, books, journals. Forty pounds of gear each. We could carry it on our backs, but we prefer to let Cynthia and Edith do the heavy lifting.
It's not just the simplicity we'll miss, though. It's the constant movement, discovering something new every day and watching the landscape change slowly before our eyes. Any traveler knows that there's a strange kind of comfort in leaving the familiar behind day after day.

Facing the reality of our bicycle tour's final days, we awoke grumpy. Grumpily, we
had breakfast, packed up, said goodbye to the puppy, and for a change I was ready before Hannah and started down the highway first. We were headed north, now, toward Savannah. A swift headwind picked up out of nowhere, but grumpily unwilling to give up my lead, I plunged into it. A few miles down the road, I gave up. Certain habits do become comfortable in this life of constant change; letting the one who seems impervious to headwind lead the way is one of them. In Hannah's draft, I can ride all day. Wind in my face, I am a wimp.
We ride on. Traffic is busy for a Sunday and a deeply grooved rumble strip hogs the narrow shoulder. The highway turns due east through a marsh, and I spot an elegant tall bridge ahead to our left. That is also the direction the wind is coming from. Like a girl at prom who sees the fat kid coming toward her and knows she will have to dance with him, I know we will have to cross the bridge. It's fate. Still, I'm not above whining as we approach.

Nature needs no windsock to tell you which way she would advise you to travel if wind is a concern. The small park next to the bridge where we stopped served the same purpose: Palm trees head-banging to the gusts, a fountain flowing horizontally over a pond. A lone soda can whipped out of the window of a car at the crest of the bridge and sailed toward us, bouncing effortlessly down the road and still gaining speed as it passed.
We gathered our mettles. I shot a video for posterity. We reminded ourselves that if we must die, this would be the best way to do it. Following a dream, each day feeling more and more in our element.

What is about that element? I wondered as I ponderously echoed Hannah's slow pedal strokes up the bridge's steep grade. For most of human evolution, we were a migratory species. It's only relatively recently that we invented agriculture and settled down. The instinct to follow the herds - and the sun - with the changing season is as basic as our continuing habits of living in familial groups and selecting a mate based on physical characteristics.
Migration has its benefits. Those who walk frequently leave a smaller footprint. Even if a traveling group of humans were to use up all the resources in a given area, the ecosystem would have a chance to recover once they'd moved on. Any waste left behind would be removed by sun, wind and rain.
That process would have had benefits for our migratory ancestors, too - they weren't living in their own filth. On their feet for most of the year, they would have been much healthier than we are today. Socially, they were probably better off as well. Imagine the time they would have had to think, talk, invent culture and pass it on to the next generation.
Of course, there are too many of us now to return to a migratory past. Then again, we have instinctively found ways to work migration into our daily lives.
I watch the cars and trucks whizzing by me, impervious to the wind which grows stronger as we climb. Every day most Americans migrate to work and home again, to soccer practice or school or doctors' appointments. After that, we jog or walk the dog or watch the travel channel on television. When we get a vacation, what do we do? We board an airplane or hop on a bicycle to temporarily relocate ourselves. Retirees are also notorious for their migratory habits. Like us, they see the benefit in following the sun from the northern climes to the south, then running off again when the heat gets too much.
Almost everyone has experienced how the physical experience of movement - even from behind the steering wheel - holds a special connection to our mental state. Thoughts seem to move best through my head when pavement rolls beneath my wheels. Countless songs, books and movies have been written about being on the road. When those ancient tribes adopted the plow and the ox and settled down, they clearly didn't do so without reservations. We carry those reservations with us forever.

Have I hit upon the true cause of road rage? If so, I wish I could explain it to the drivers behind the wheels of the 5,000-pound death traps now hurtling by us and convince them to slow down and enjoy the ride. We've finally reached the crest of the bridge.
The one concession the wind has made us up to this point was to hit us directly in the face at a constant speed. But the structure of the bridge throws us a curve ball. At the top are two fat trusses, and the wind rips around them at an angle so that suddenly we are hit with a side gust that nearly sends Hannah into the lane of traffic. Still, we are okay, and I unglue my eyeballs from the road to sneak a peek at the Atlantic which lies beyond the marshy St. John's river. It's a lovely view. And now we start down the other side.

With the help of gravity, we double our speed at least six miles per hour. Our wind combined with what is already coming at us is enough to lift Hannah's mandolin, which is strapped to her load with a bungee cord through the handle on the case, clear up into the air. It looks like an oddly shaped black fin. It's one of the few superfluous possessions we've acquired in our five-month journey, a reminder of all it attempts to replace - the piano, the record collection, evenings spent with good friends playing music together. Yes, we have enjoyed our migratory interlude. We are also looking forward to getting home.

Nothing is what it seems. A calm morning can give way to a stormy afternoon, a deserted firehouse can be the social gathering point for a rural community. In our oil-addicted culture of lost hunter-gatherers, I see potential. Mass bicycle migrations, old folks and babies and musical instruments in tow, following the harvests across the continents instead of making it come to us on refrigerated trucks. It's never too late to go back to what works.
As for Hannah and me, we'll be riding until summer peeks over the edge of the Pacific Northwest. That sounds like a good time to travel home.

Sustenence and Saddle Sense

We've been published on the Brooks England Blog! Brooks makes the best leather saddles available and they were kind enough to offer us a good discount on our saddles when we told them about Food Cycles Bicycle Tour. Here's the first couple of paragraphs, and a link to the full post!

Every Brooks saddle owner has had this experience. You pull up in front of the store, school or work and some non-cyclist approaches you to gawk at your saddle. It’s sleek, they say, but where’s the padding? You couldn’t pay me to sit on that thing!
On our tour through the southern United States, my partner Hannah and I have these interactions frequently. But the odd looks we receive outside the grocery store are nothing compared to those we receive inside. Passing on the fried chicken, ramen noodles and “sports” drinks, we stock up on eggs, prunes and salad greens, then refuse the plastic bag at the checkout line. We know we’re marking ourselves as weirdos – but hey, we already did that when we walked in with spandex on our bodies and metal in our shoes.

Since we left the progressive west coast and began heading across the southwestern deserts, we’ve stuck out like sore thumbs, but that’s okay. Seeking out pockets of the local food movement across the “Belly of America”, we’ve also found a new definition for the term “eating sustainably”. It’s how we keep ourselves moving forward day after day, to complete our goal of riding 6,000 miles in six months.

Click here to read the rest of the post...

Kale Chips: The new alternative fuel source?

If there was a magic wand in the culinary world to turn the vegetable-indifferent into fiends for leafy greens, it would be kale chips.
How generous of the kale plant, already packed with calcium, iron and vitamin A, to become a crispy, lip-smacking treat with the simple addition of olive oil, a few seasonings and heat. No one can resist the power of the kale chip - even those who turn up their nose at carrot sticks and salad greens.

Hannah and I have snacked on kale chips from our oven many a time prior to cycling cross-country, but we hadn't considered its potential as a dried food source that could help power us down the road. The summer and fall before we took off, we dried apples and onions, fruit leather and tomatoes, preserving the bounty of the farm and packing it into boxes to be mailed to us along our route, providing relief from the deep-fried diet of the southern tier.
Kale seemed too abundant, too common a vegetable to deserve our time and postage, but at our recent volunteer stint at Coldwater Gardens in west Florida, we realized that it is the perfect lightweight and nutritionally loaded food for the long-distance cyclist.

It was a rainy afternoon and the rest of the volunteers were crowded into the greenhouse planting seeds. Unable to resist the call of the shiny food dehydrator and the luxurious beds of kale waiting to be picked, I enlisted Hannah's help and went chip-crazy. There is no "recipe" but procedure is important, so read on to DIY.

Note: For those who don't have access to a garden full of kale already, you'll find it reasonably priced at just about any farmer's market ($2.50 or so for a good-sized bundle). It's also easy to grow yourself year-round. (Hint: In hot climates, kale makes a better winter crop. Or you might be able to grow it in a shady spot or construct one using burlap or a shade cloth. If kale gets too hot it will attract aphids.)

Step 1: Pick your kale. Italian or Dinosaur Kale (the variety with flat, rounded leaves) lays nice and flat and tends to be less brittle when chipped. On the other hand, we really enjoy the flavor of Red Russian (the purply, frilly leaves) and don't mind ending up with a thousand fragments of kale all over our faces when we eat it. Go for nice, big leaves and chop off any long stems.

Step 2: Remove excess moisture. If you're making kale chips on a rainy day, as we did, or if you choose to rinse the leaves before consuming (use your best judgement), the water droplets will interfere with your kale's ability to absorb the all-important olive oil. You can either pat it dry with clean kitchen towels or spread it on your cookie sheets or dehydrator racks and put it in the oven/dehydrator until the water evaporates off. Use the oven's lowest temperature to avoid crisping the kale prematurely.

Step 3: Season. This is where we get creative. Mix olive oil with soy sauce or salt, plus onion or garlic powder, pepper. More fun additions are paprika, nutritional yeast, powdered ginger or cayenne. Now the trick is to lightly coat the leaves. Best technique is to dip your fingers into the mixture and massage it onto each leaf. That way you can control the amount of both the seasonings and the oil. If your leaf is dripping, it'll turn out too greasy. If you only sprinkle it, the edges will burn or just dry out and lose their flavor.

Step 4: Apply heat. In the food dehydrator, we dried the leaves for about 3 1/2 hours at 135 degrees Fahrenheit. In the oven, 15-20 minutes at 350 will do it, flipping the leaves halfway through.

Step 5: Consume immediately or store. Florida is about as humid as it gets, so we enlisted the help of the other Coldwater Gardens workers to eliminate a large pile of kale chips as soon as they came out of the dehydrator. Then we used a vacuum sealer to make convenient snack-packs out of the rest. At home, where the air is slightly less saturated with moisture, kale chips will last a day or so in a ziploc bag before getting soggy. But really, you're better off finding an unsuspecting vegetable-hater to consume the rest.

Ten days later: Our vacuum-sealed kale chips didn't stay crispy, but we found a multitude of uses for them. We crumbled them into scrambled eggs and snuck them into sandwiches. If it weren't so darned hot, they would be great in soup or some sort of cheesy pasta thing. Kale in our bellies, we pedaled eastward, closing in the end of the southern tier route. Have salt and calcium, will travel!

Waffling on Nutrition (a bad idea when traveling by bike)

The cleverly waffle-shaped signs of the southern states' most ubiquitous 24/7 breakfast joint began calling to us somewhere around Gulfport, Mississippi.
When you ride a bicycle all day, all thoughts, no matter how lofty or brilliant, eventually deteriorate into variations on the theme of food. Despite the many distractions the gulf coast has to offer, the Waffle Houses' promise of buttery biscuits and endless coffee dominated our mental scape just as it does the sand dune-built-cities.
The next morning, awakening in Alabama, Hannah and I succumbed. Instead of firing up the camp stove as we normally do to cook a sensible and nutritious breakfast, we hurriedly rolled up the sleeping bags and tent and backtracked to the nearest franchise restaurant bearing the charming black-on-yellow signage.
We parked Cynthia and Edith against the window, walked in, and answered the volley of usual questions from a nice middle aged couple sitting at one of a handful of tables in the diner-like establishment. After we sat down, they plunked on our table a little "Southern Hospitality" in the form of a $20 bill. Needing no more encouragement, we gorged on pecan waffles, bacon, sausage and biscuits, all of which arrived at our table suspiciously fast, slathered in margarine.
After we'd eaten our fill and then some, a rotund waitress, in the casual drawl we've come to adore, informed us that the bridge we were about to cross to Dauphin Island was "at least" 100 feet high, and that her car had a hard time making it over so she wasn't sure how we would fare on our bicycles. As politely as we could, we explained that our route had taken us over mountain passes nearly ten times that height.
Confidence can be a ruinous folly. A few miles down the road, before we even got to the bridge, I began feeling the effects of what had essentially been a fast-food breakfast. My stomach felt lined with a thick glue. I wasn't hungry, yet I didn't feel nourished or energized by what I had eaten. The opposite: My body seemed to be diverting resources to digest the insoluble mass I had swallowed, leaving my legs to fend for themselves.
Once we got out on the four-mile bridge that separates the mainland of Alabama from its only island, the sea air seemed to revive me a bit. We spent the rest of the morning exploring a bird sanctuary, strolling on the beach and learning of the glories of the methane gas industry thanks to some BP-funded signage along the water. We caught an early afternoon ferry to the mainland on the other end of the island and continued cycling toward Pensacola, Florida.
My hunger response still hadn't kicked back in and I figured Hannah felt the same. The air was warm and slightly breezy, traffic was reasonable (although the shoulder was lacking) and our farmer senses told us to make hay while the sun shines. We'd snacked on some bananas with almond butter and figured that would take us to wherever we would end up that evening.
About halfway to Pensacola, we stopped for a driver that had the right-of-way, then turned to follow him out to the main road. He stopped about ten feet short of the stop sign. I hit the brakes, but a moment later heard Hannah emit a distressed "Ohshitohshitohshit" as she fell, just like a tree in the woods, down to the pavement. She'd braked but forgotten to unclip her foot from the pedal. (Her first question when I reached her: Is the mandolin okay?)
We spent some time thoroughly denouncing the old man behind the wheel of the car, who was long gone, but it didn't take long to suss out the true cause of our problem: We'd skipped lunch. Despite the other hunger signals from by body - lack of focus, poor decision-making abilities, irritability - my stomach was still on strike. Hannah's all-encompassing drive to press forward until we reach our destination makes her inclined to avoid any stops at all, so it's always me who mildly suggests - and then outright demands - that we take a pause to eat. And I take my cues from the pangs in my belly. Basically, the questionable breakfast we'd consumed was literally our downfall.

It's not the first time we've realized how our daily bike rides have tuned us in to the direct relationship between the food we eat and the functioning of our bodies. The effects are always immediate - when I eat well, it's almost like I can feel the calories and nutrients hitting my stomach, being absorbed into my bloodstream, and being expended as energy. For us as much as the average person, the quality of the food we eat is as important as the quality of fuel you put into a car. If there's even a tiny amount of water in the gasoline, your engine will cough and sputter. When Hannah and I go a few days without eating fresh greens, we feel the lack of calcium and other minerals by the burning and cramping in our quadriceps. Without spending a lot of time worrying about specific vitamins or carbohydrate to protein ratios, we can tell when what we've eaten is what our body really needs.

Like a bicycle, we are one machine made up of many parts. If your chain breaks or your stomach is filled with glue, you're not going anywhere, and it doesn't matter if you have brand new Shimano shifters or bulging thighs. Hannah and I run best off of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, a variety of whole grains, eggs, nuts and lentils (and of course, lots of coffee and water). It's not that every bite of junk food sets us back. In fact, we're also surprised by how forgiving our bodies are. Maybe it's because we're young or because we're burning so many calories that we can sneak in a few "empty" ones and not get dinged for it. But every donut, cookie and pint of ice cream is a gamble. An hour later, we may feel fine, or we may be crawling along at seven miles an hour wondering why we can't seem to kick it into gear.

Trial-and-error experimentation has been our best teacher. On a hot, sweaty day, I may throw an electrolyte tablet in my water bottle (they fizz and add essential vitamins and minerals without sugar and food coloring). If someone hands off energy bars and chocolate, we won't say no, but we wouldn't say that this kind of trip is impossible without processed food. One thing that has saved us: The occasional patch of homegrown lettuce, or fruit tree along the roadside, or small town farmer's market where produce doesn't set you back the price of a new bicycle. On these occasions, we eat our fill, pack our panniers, and enjoy the easy, stomach-happy riding that follows.

It was a demoralizing fall but not the end of the world. Hannah picked herself up, climbed back on her saddle, and followed me to the grocery story, which was thankfully just a mile or so down the road. After two or three oranges, nuts, crackers and half a tub of cream cheese, she was back in business. The rest of the day, we braved college students on spring break at Perdido Beach west of Penscacola. The narrow sand dune was jammed with hotels, souvenir shops, condos, Waffle Houses, distracting women in bikinis and car after car after car. We dodged, got honked at, hollered back, sped up, hit the brakes, sweated and stressed. In the end, we made it to our destination okay, feasted on homemade chili and salad greens, and started all over the next morning.

Here's the lesson of the day: There's a difference between feeling full and feeling nourished. Every calorie is not equal. Most of all, when a yellow sign calls, do not answer - even if breakfast is free.

Time to Bury the Monsanto Protection Act

I sink my shovel into the hard-packed but luxuriously rich alluvial soil and turn it over, stooping over to pick out the weeds and shards of broken glass. The day is humid - as most are here in Baton Rouge - and after a few shovelings, I am in a sweat. Still, it feels incredibly good to be doing this work after nine straight days of cycling.
The goings-on in our nation's congress seem remote as we participate in this community's effort to build an urban garden site, but they hang a shadow over the day. In the most recent budget bill, a line item was snuck in that would exclude agribusiness giant Monsanto from any judicial review at all for six months. It's being called, sardonically, the "Monsanto Protection Act." The implications for our food supply are great.

While the last decade or so has seen a resurgence in farmers' markets and community gardens, along with a renewed focus on fresh, unprocessed food, a revolution of a different sort has been happening in commercial agriculture. Companies like Monsanto have been given a bouquet of legal freebees - to put copyrights on seeds, persecute farmers who inadvertently grow those copyrighted crops, and buy up smaller seed companies so that they're one of the only players on the field.

The "good" revolution is the one that's most visible, which is pretty nice for us. The morning of the Baton Rouge urban garden work party, we breakfasted on local bacon, toast and eggs, attended a bustling farmers' market, and walked by several small front-yard food gardens. After riding our bikes through food deserts, oil fields and endless cattle ranches in east Texas, finding local flavor and people who were passionate about food - most of all, our host, Mark - felt great. Even better, now we could actually do something to help make this tiny corner of the country a tiny bit more food secure. The three of us turned that patch of soil with vigor.
The garden will be a site for local at-risk youth to grow food and learn that there is more to life than Skittles and pizza. One partner on the project is Slow Food Baton Rouge, and we met two ladies who are Americorps members with the organization. Their envelope full of seeds caught my eye. Hannah and I dashed back to Mark's apartment, grabbed the Official Food Cycles Bike Tour Seed Bank, and hurried back to score some okra and pumpkin seeds in exchange for our cilantro packets from Green Journey Seeds. Bam - mission accomplished, new garden bed constructed, seeds saved, feeling good.



But the dark cloud of the Monsanto Protection Act was still out there, hovering while we sucked on boiled crawfish at the get-together that followed the work party. After I'd received the email about this piece of legislation, which was inserted into the latest version of the federal budget, I signed the online petition and contacted my legislator. I'd shared the information via email and the social networks. Wasn't there anything else I could do - some shovel I could lift in protest, perhaps bringing it down again atop a greedy agribusiness executive or slow-witted congressperson?

Buying local food, growing it yourself, and taking other steps to reduce your footprint on the planet (like riding a bike!) are only part of what it takes to live responsibly on this planet. If we care about our food supply, not just for ourselves but for the next several generations, we need to do what we can to keep big business out of it. The shovel we have to lift is our voice - so let it be heard!

The bill passed through the legislature so now it's up to the President to veto the Monsanto Protection Act in the budget bill when he looks at it later this week. With Michelle Obama's focus on school gardens and nutrition education, we know that the Obamas are aware of food issues and don't envision a future where we're all eating pellets of Soylent Green.

I used the online form, but you can also call the president's office and give a quick message about why you are opposed to legal amnesty for Monsanto. Here's what I wrote him (feel free to borrow, adapt and elaborate):

My partner Hannah and I are on a cross-country bicycle tour to teach people about where their food comes from and why it is important to eat fresh food that comes from local farmers. We can't continue to build the local food movement if farmers are under threat of violating a genetic copyright when they grow their crops. Please don't put Monsanto's profits over our right to a safe, non-GMO food supply.

We don't have much time so let's get the word out fast. Thanks for taking action!

Texas Head-Reset

Austin, TX

In front of Half Price Books in Austin, Texas is not the place for a breakdown to occur, but the day had slowly worn away at my sense of security and there was simply no holding it in any longer.
First off, Cynthia was in the shop - again. The mysterious "tink-tink" noise coming from her front end had turned out to be bad bearings in the headset, a small part of the bike between the front fork and the handlebars about the size of my wrist and serving a similar function. It translates movement from my arm, through the handlebars, to Cynthia's front wheel. Just a handful of bearings in a ring, but when they're out, they're out. And a good headset costs about $60, plus labor.
The nice hipster bike shop guys sent me off on a loaner bike until the part comes in, which should be tomorrow. It's a Trek like Cynthia but lacking her ergonomic handlebars, her finely tuned gearing, her seat that has formed to fit my sit bones. Sitting awkwardly upright on it as we ride around Austin, I feel like a homeless person. It's a homeless person bike.
Rotation by rotation, I begin to unravel. It's not just shelling out the cash to make the repair. It's the sense that my baby, my trusty steed, is unwell, and now we are separated. My independence is sharply curbed on this springy bike with its front shocks, which bears Cynthia's brand but is not her, no not at all. For one thing, it has no rack. Without a rack, I can't attach my panniers, my panniers that carry food and a change of clothes. Worse, I can't go fast.
But it was a bike, and I took it when offered. Hannah patiently cruised behind me, sitting back, one finger on her handlebars, as I pedaled laboriously from the bike shop down North Loop, stopping on a whim at a book store that turned out to be a comic book store, which only made us crave a real book store. So we detoured north on Lamar to get to Half Price Books, which is where I am now having my own breakdown. Lacking ball bearings, I find my own reasons.
First I bought a book and came out of the store to find Hannah talking on the phone to Rachael, our farmer friend back in Oregon. They were discussing the best site for our next mail pickup. Thinking of the road ahead while also thinking of home and the goats and the sweet, blessed rain gave rise to a lump in my throat. That lump called in reinforcements and suddenly I felt very, very sorry for myself.
Hannah got off the phone and I imagined for a moment that I could just let it all wash over me and that this really wasn't a big deal. Then I realized I was immobilized behind my sunglasses, standing with my arms crossed in front of the inadequate bike rack, my feet unwilling to move until all my thoughts came tumbling out for the casual bargain-book browsers to hear.
Looking for the source of my immobilization, Hannah peeked under my sunglasses and saw the tears starting to flow. When she asked, I didn't know where to begin. For one, there had been no section dedicated to essay anthologies in the bookstore. Is the art of the essay dead? I have no desire to be in Austin for another day (with the South by Southwest festival happening there are just way too many people to do anything) but we are stuck here until Cynthia is repaired. Also, I haven't received any emails back from the various foodie organizations I'd contacted on the route ahead. Trying to plan opportunities to both learn and teach about local food when you don't know anyone in the community you're going to and you can't even reliably predict when you'll be there (case in point: delays like this one) can be very frustrating. Oh, and I need to update the blog but have no idea how to start explaining Texas: the leasing of land for exotic animal hunts, the "bunker mentality", the almost complete lack of public lands, baby goats, unexpected German settlements with delicious beer, the man who lives in a bee hive, lavender farms and barbeque-obsessed motorcyclists. Somehow it all must fit together but I am missing the blueprints.

At this point, I am gushing enough snot to create a perimeter of slime around myself and my concerned girlfriend. From cycling, I've picked up an unappetizing habit of simply blowing that stuff that comes out of my nose over my shoulder, then wiping my nose with the back of my glove. But it's too hot here for gloves. Damn it, I am hot, and I will cry about that, too. People are politely looking away. I wonder briefly if they think we're homeless. Because they would be right.
Focus, I need to focus. Hannah is attempting to calm me down with great patience, maneuvering to look into my eyes as I try to avoid her gaze, which is full of logic. I am not in the mood for logic. Attempting to include her in my freaking out, I bring up our money problem. We're trying to do all of this on $30 a day. We manage just fine until bike repairs come up. Then we tell ourselves that we'll save money down the road by being more frugal, but we need to make a choice: Keep buying organic and local whenever possible, or give up luxuries like coffee shops, campgrounds, the occasional bottle of wine and meals out?
I think about life without coffee and a hot shower, except when provided for free by a kind host. The thought is bad enough to make me wonder why we are doing all of this.
It's not the first time I've asked myself that Big Question. It's not the cycling part that brings up second thoughts. I love that part. Forget the sore butt, the getting cold and then unbearably hot and riding on bumpy, cracked pavement with cars whizzing by my left elbow - there are enough beautiful, perfect rides to justify all of that. The life of the transient cyclist suits me. I feel better and stronger than I ever have.
No, the Big Question refers to the constant running around to find the one natural foods store in town or the farm that's "just a few miles" down the highway and turns out to be closed for the season anyway. Why have we hung this "Food Cycles" sign over our bicycle tour, instead of just going quietly? I wonder if it's worth making people feel uneasy around us because they're afraid of being frowned at for eating a cookie or throwing away compostable matter. Worse, I'm constantly berating myself for not doing enough - not knowing where the community gardens are in every town, not emailing every school, not going out and foraging for edible cactus just for the great story it would make.
Why are we doing this? More important, what are we accomplishing? What does cooking lentils at our campsite prove, when we could just go out for a hamburger and not have to wash dishes? At this moment, melting into a pool of ennui in front of Half-Price books, I just want something to show for having pedaled halfway across the Belly of America, something more than a very reasonably priced collection of travel articles.
I look into Hannah's soft brown eyes, which are still staring calmly at me, for an answer.
She says something wise and right and beautiful. I tell her to write it down because like a dog with poor short-term memory, I will soon forget and return to a state of frustrated panic.
This is what she wrote:
We are living by example in the most vulnerable state of travel. We are finding sources of local foods. We are talking and listening to - really listening to - farmers. We are doing all of this as well as the normal things we have to do to live, and we are doing it on very little money. If we are doing it, why can't people who live in all of the comforts of home? That's what everyone who meets us has to ask themselves.

A wise, if slightly jaded, Texan told us not too long ago, "You can't drain the swamp if you're up to your ass in alligators." The easiest thing is to fall into this state of "I'm not doing enough" guilt, which quickly dissolves into "Why do anything at all?" The next thing you know, you've bought a gun and are pursuing all the pleasure you can in life before the big alligator dung hits the fan. Hopelessness is our society's biggest addiction and the only thing that can really stop us from thriving on this planet.

I turn to face the Trek-that-is-not-Cynthia with a new sense of freedom. My bicycle does not define who I am. I could take this ugly thing across America and still create tiny ripples that would in their own way change the world. Heck, I could give up the coffee, the occasional cold beer. The important things are the ones we take for granted - our eyes and ears for learning, our voices for speaking. Giving a few packets of seeds to a family of need makes infinitely more difference than buying a local, organic loaf of bread and feeling self-righteous about it. Hunched over the iPad in a coffee shop, I may be learning all about the vendors at the farmers' market in the next town but be missing an opportunity to strike up a conversation with the person at the next table who just so happens to be an anti-pesticide advocate (luckily, I have Hannah to do that).

The next evening, I pick up Cynthia from the hipster bike mechanics. I may or may not have had a cold pint of smoked mesquite porter before arriving at the bike shop (wow - talk about a rich local flavor!) On the way back to the house, I developed a theory: That on a warm evening in spring, by mounting one's bicycle and riding on wide streets with sun peeking out from behind charming suburban homes with charming vegetable gardens in some of the front yards, it is possible to extend the buzz of a single beer indefinitely. Feeling forever warm, slightly fuzzy, especially with the breeze in your hair, happy but not ecstatic, just pleasantly energized, you could ride forever. And maybe I will.