Today was certainly a wild day, a day that will never be forgotten throughout the process of my lifetime. I sit in a Perkins at 10:30 at night bike less in Duluth, MN. My bike sits 35 miles north in the middle of the woods somewhere out as far away as existance stands. But despite my misrebile situation, in the end I stand with a renewed beleif in the idea of people being natrually good.
It all started with a wrong turn onto a logging road that lead into the middle of nowhere (like really the middle of nowhere!) Thinking that it would take me to another road I rode all the way to the end (about 15 miles) not being from Minnesota, I had know idea what a logging road was and what its purpose was. The thing is that logging roads don't go anywhere! Except out into the middle of nowhere where they clearcut a large section of woods and leave! Eventually the road dead ended. Not wanting to turn around and go all the way back to the end of the road, my headstrong brain told me that I should keep going forward. I looked at my map and spotted a road that looked like it was only half a mile from my current location and if I could just get there, all would be fine. Only a half a mile, I would have to bushwack my way through the woods, but it really wasn't that far, I could make it....
So I started bushwacking my way through the woods to the road that I thought was only a half mile North. As I started walking through the woods, they became so dense that the my GPS did not work and having no direction of where I was headed, I was in deep crap. I wandered around the woods in circles not knowing where I was headed. Soon the bike became to laborious to carry though the woods and in a complete state of panic, your mind tells you really stupid crap to do. In a panic similar to the one probably felt by the kids in the Blair Witch Project, I ditched my bike and started walking, packing everything in my messenger bag that I felt I would need if I had to survive in the woods by myself for a couple of days. It was the real life little scenarieo that they always give us in those team team building exercises where if your plane crashed in the middle of the woods what would you bring with you? So I packed food waterbottles, a sleeping bag and thermals to sleep in. After walking through the woods for about
3 hours in circles, I eventually found a trail that lead me out to a road. It was a logging road, but it was more than I had going for me in miles. Luckily after walking down the logging road for an hour, a truck with a retired guy from Minnesota who spent his summers there and winters in Flordia, picked me up in my frantic wave. He took me to the nearest town which was about 15 miles from where I was at the time. I rejoiced, I hadn't seen another human being for 6 hours and he was my saviour.
When we arrived to town, I sat in Cotton, MN. Now I assume that you've probably never heard of Cotton. All that Cotton has is a gas station, a bar and diner. What was I to do now? I had no idea, with no bike and nothing but my messenger bag and sleeping bag I was kinda screwed. After soliticiting all the truck drivers in the diner for a ride back to Duluth, I had no luck. I went outside to where the highway passed through and sat, trying to hitchhike my way back. I figured that if I could get to Duluth, I could at least gain my senses and figure out what to do next. However, hitch-hiking was not working. There was one other option here in Cotton, and that was the bar.
I walked into the bar sat down, and had a beer praying that someone here could take me back to Duluth. At the bar I met Joe, Bob and Scott. Joe had a way of laughing that was like no other, he always seemed to laugh louder, longer and harder than the rest of the bar combined. Tall slender with the wrinkling tan that only spending to much time outside working will give you, I was greeted with hospitality. Bob was Vietnam veteran who is currently unemployed, but has spent most of his life working on the railroad building grades up the hills that allow the trains to go up and down without sliding. Bob was probably about 70 years old had probably weighed only 95 lbs but could drink the weight of someone twice his size and still hold himself up to convince a cop that he was sober if he ever got pulled over for a DUI. These folks didn't care who I was or where I came from they had been through it all, at that moment, I was in their territory and one of them I had a misreable story that gave me initiation. The bar was full of white, blue collar Minnesotianians. When the bar opened and they all came in, nobody knew each other, but after guzzing beers together for a couple of hours, they were the best of friends all with dreams of women who were willing to share some loving. Flirtation with the women across the bar was endless. The stories of hardship and misery came natural serving as complex pickup lines that any college frat boy could not even dream to imagine. Each one had a story, a bad relationship, a war that each had been through and all of these stories unfolded between the shots of vodka and pints of cheap beer. Suddenly the completely screwed position that I was in dosen't seem so bad. After telling my story, I was nervous, scared and not knowing what the hell I was gonna do however, my life has been a breeze compared to these hardships. Scott revived me by telling me that it was the train wreaks that people always wanted to hear. "Nobody cares if you made it all the way up to Canada and back without any problems, what do you have to write about then? What story is there to tell?" exclaimed Scott. My social location in relation to theirs is distant, these aren't the kind of people that were supposed to be talking to. These folks have no networks, no ladders to climb, no rich friends that are going to be able to help you out on the road to what our society calls success.
Scott, whose name I learned from the weathered stiched on name that clung to his collared shirt turned out to be my saviour that day, from the onset I calculated Scoot to be a drunk deadbeat failure who constantly drank to must and inquired about the closest titi bars and constantly thought about which girl in the bar that night would be most likely to give him a blowjob. I soon learned that all my original perceptions about Scott were completely flawed at best. I had thought and wrote off this guy the second that I walked in the bar and he turned out to be the man I could count on. He was the only one in the bar that was headed to Duluth that night. "Things just never happen the way that they are supposed to, and if they do life is boring." Was Scotts concensus, Scott had worked hard all of his life as an HVAC technican and had seen it all. From his long string of love lost, money trouble and alchohol problems Scott had learned this lesson early. The clashes, the miscalculations and crap that goes down in this world is where the human spirit must thrive, only when we are at our lowest can we make sense of what the good is. We need that scale to appreciate the good. As Scott bought Bob and I another drink, we discussed this, the clamor, the battle scars, failed marriages, kids that they wished still loved them. These folks in many ways were aleinated from me and my experience, but somehow I felt in community.
We sat in the bar for hours just talking aimlessly, it was beautiful. Could I really have not learned anything through these college years spent sucking up to every last social theory as if it was God. No! social theory was right here in the trenches and everyone in that bar knew more of it than I ever learned. I may have had a peice of paper that certified that I knew somthing but these people had experience in life, worth more than any stupid diploma could ever certify. They had found somthing that I could only hope to acheive. In many respects are current connected and fast moving globalized world would have thrown them away in the trash, they were racist, sexist and hard, but had more knowledge than I could touch. They had never lived in that American dream and knew that striving for it was as useless as walking in circles of woods.
As Scott and I drove down the road to Duluth, we talked about the state of nirvana and how to acheive it, women and men, theological basis in Christianity and Buddhism and everything in between. His words were so profound much of the time that I could hardly respond, his basis for everything he discussed was based on pure life experience, all I had done was read this stuff in a book. I didn't talk much, just listened and soaked up the wisdom of a man who had seen it all, somthing that I couldn't touch. We talked about this thing called a thin space. A thin space is a thing constructed by Christians that serves as a nirvana like state, but can be associated with Christianity as to not offend Jesus and all the higher folks in the Christian faith. A thin space is a place where everything around you is completely connected with the world around you. The state of christian nirvana. Scott told me that he experienced his first thin space 6 years ago out fishing with a few of his friends. He asked if I had and unfortunately I could not respond, I guess somtimes when riding you feel completely connected, but not to the extent that Scott had exclaimed. I wanted to feel that 'thin space' I wanted an escape like a thin space to find somthing truly meaningful that had so ellusively elluded me for the past 22 years.
Scott dropped me off at a Perkins in Duluth after the drive and sent me off with his address to write him, 20 dollars for good luck and a handshake. We would probably never see each other again, but I had learned so much in that car drive, I wanted that experience and I had learned so much. From Scott, I learned more in half a day than I would have on this whole trip if I had reached my planned destination to Vogeaurs. Just as Robert Frost said to follow the road less traveled, the opportunities of doing so puts you in places that you would have never known. Profound!
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
The Journey (the next day)
Today was a day to remember our veterans. I wished to have found a town where the Veterans Day Parade would be passing, but unfortunately I am so far into the middle of nowhere that such a town does not exist within 100's of miles. Instead of Veterans, I was greeted by a salute from all the big plastic bears that northern Wisconsin has. It seems that just about every place of tourist business has a big plastic bear right in front to greet you. What kind of greeting this may entail may not be what one may expect; I'm pretty sure that if they were alive they would be very happy to eat ya!
I traveled from the southernmost section of Chequamguion National Forest all the way up to Brule, WI, a journey that took 135 miles of earth to pass beneath. The ride today was absolutely goregous. The wind was out of the south which allowed me lots of miles to ride, the high at 71 and with a clear blue sky above, it made for the most perfect of riding conditions. The scenary differed greatly from what I had passed through in the past, instead of farm fields that went on for what seemed like forever, I spent the whole day riding through National and State Forests.
I had a had a couple of reflections to make that I sort of began to conceptalize of today. One was that I beleive that riding a bike over long distances is hands down the best way in the world to get around, if you can make it as far as I have on a bicycle, the wheels are only limited to the degree in which the imigination of the rider can decide. However, I kept thinking back to a project that I finished for my final in social psycology where one of my main conclusions in advertising of the bicycle was the great paradox that the bicycle lies at the center of post-modernity. In many of our lives we are looking for somthing that allows us to escape the modern economic driven society that we live in. We look for wide open spaces to escape to, ones in which modernity has not quite touched yet. The great paradox though lies in the fact that you need a modern machine, (in this case a cool bike with all sorts of gadgets)created by the industries and man made mechanisms in order to acheive this state. As we try to escape into a world that is void of society and really see the world as God made it, we bring all of our stuff created in the very society that we are trying to escape from with us. So where is truth to be found in all of that ambiguity? I don't really know what are we really trying to prove if were not really escaping from that which we go to such great lengths to do? Do we have to be complete and naked nativists catching and hunting our way through the wild to acheive this mission in the end? I don't think so. I think to a certain extent we have to live and thrive to a certain extent in this hypocricy, afterall we are human, imperfect in any number of ways. But I guess thats why we go on journeys to find something out about ourselves or the people that surround us that we didn't quite understand before. Not quite sure though....
The bicycle though does offer something special. The bicycle works on a mode of simplistic pulleys, and despite what modern technology does to it, it will always be a chain, sprockets, two triangles and wheels, which receive their ability to move solely on the individual initiative that guides this vehicle. Through its simplicity, it is highly revolutionary. It begs to question our car centered oil consuming society if used for that method. As I ride down the road and talk to people along the way I find that there is a different level of connectivity that happens between the bicycle and the earth that simply does not exist with the automobile. You can hear the automobile and its unnatural mechanized sound from miles away if your in the middle of nowhere. This disturbing sound finds itself in contention with the natural world, disturbing the tranquil sounds that the natural world has to offer. The bicycle has a quietness, that is not abrasive in the way that the automobile is. The bicycle moves in harmony with the world surrounding it.
Another observation that gave me great optimism today was the fact of seeing the limits of globalization and realizing that it hasn't quite yet conquered every facet of the human world. In the modern capitalistic state, capital is driven by one sole thing which is profit. Through this process, the cogs of globalization work as well. However, in these areas the profit motive is simply not there because nobody except a few locals live here! Today, because my ride took a route that didn't involve spending much time in the city. What I found was a world that has not been globalized. The towns that I passed were authentic. Each town was different from the one next to it, each had its own flavor and originality that could not be taken. Many of us live in this state of nostalgia about the good ole' days where each town is different. Clearly these are the same individuals who have been consumed by the very things that they complain about. They support the modes of globalization while at the same time wishing to get back to "the good ole' days. We remain in the places where creativity is a lie and thrive, consumed by this disingenuous atmosphere. I am just as guilty of this very thing and it took being this far out in the middle of nowhere for me to realize it. Once you break off the highways, and the routes more traveled, globalization falters and a more straightforward moment arrives.
The bicycle though does offer something special. The bicycle works on a mode of simplistic pulleys, and despite what modern technology does to it, it will always be a chain, sprockets, two triangles and wheels, which receive their ability to move solely on the individual initiative that guides this vehicle. Through its simplicity, it is highly revolutionary. It begs to question our car centered oil consuming society if used for that method. As I ride down the road and talk to people along the way I find that there is a different level of connectivity that happens between the bicycle and the earth that simply does not exist with the automobile. You can hear the automobile and its unnatural mechanized sound from miles away if your in the middle of nowhere. This disturbing sound finds itself in contention with the natural world, disturbing the tranquil sounds that the natural world has to offer. The bicycle has a quietness, that is not abrasive in the way that the automobile is. The bicycle moves in harmony with the world surrounding it.
Another observation that gave me great optimism today was the fact of seeing the limits of globalization and realizing that it hasn't quite yet conquered every facet of the human world. In the modern capitalistic state, capital is driven by one sole thing which is profit. Through this process, the cogs of globalization work as well. However, in these areas the profit motive is simply not there because nobody except a few locals live here! Today, because my ride took a route that didn't involve spending much time in the city. What I found was a world that has not been globalized. The towns that I passed were authentic. Each town was different from the one next to it, each had its own flavor and originality that could not be taken. Many of us live in this state of nostalgia about the good ole' days where each town is different. Clearly these are the same individuals who have been consumed by the very things that they complain about. They support the modes of globalization while at the same time wishing to get back to "the good ole' days. We remain in the places where creativity is a lie and thrive, consumed by this disingenuous atmosphere. I am just as guilty of this very thing and it took being this far out in the middle of nowhere for me to realize it. Once you break off the highways, and the routes more traveled, globalization falters and a more straightforward moment arrives.
Labor in the Pulpits
You may have heard me talking about the Labor in the Pulpits program in many of my blogs, but I don't think that I ever quite had a chance to explain the program.
Labor in the Pulpits is a National Program that brings speakers to Congregations across all different faith backgrounds to discuss issues of economic justice (i.e not treating workers like crap and giving them jobs that allows for them to take care of their families) The Labor in the Pulpits program tries to discuss how important these issues are to our own different faith perspectives. God, at least to my knowledge said that the greatest of all commandents was to love your neighbor as yourself. Much of the time our religous brothers and sisters are quick to forget that. The goal of Labor in the Pulpits is to remind them that God is on the side of the poor and the oppressed.
There is tons of scripture from every faith tradition that discusses the importance of treating workers fairly, Labor in the Pulpits draws off of that. So every Labor Day Sunday, which somehow seems awfully fitting, speakers come to churches across the country to talk about the importance of worker justice in their congregations. Congregations from every faith perspective participate, from Buddhist Temples, to Mosques to Synagogues to Churches, we all stand in solidarity with the exploited on this day.
This is what I do, this is who I coordinate. It may be easy to say that these issues don't belong in the church, but if churches wish to strive for peace, they must be willing to work for justice.
So that is the program, if your intrested in getting your congregation involved, your welcome to give me a call 414 771 7541.
Peace Always,
Jon
Labor in the Pulpits is a National Program that brings speakers to Congregations across all different faith backgrounds to discuss issues of economic justice (i.e not treating workers like crap and giving them jobs that allows for them to take care of their families) The Labor in the Pulpits program tries to discuss how important these issues are to our own different faith perspectives. God, at least to my knowledge said that the greatest of all commandents was to love your neighbor as yourself. Much of the time our religous brothers and sisters are quick to forget that. The goal of Labor in the Pulpits is to remind them that God is on the side of the poor and the oppressed.
There is tons of scripture from every faith tradition that discusses the importance of treating workers fairly, Labor in the Pulpits draws off of that. So every Labor Day Sunday, which somehow seems awfully fitting, speakers come to churches across the country to talk about the importance of worker justice in their congregations. Congregations from every faith perspective participate, from Buddhist Temples, to Mosques to Synagogues to Churches, we all stand in solidarity with the exploited on this day.
This is what I do, this is who I coordinate. It may be easy to say that these issues don't belong in the church, but if churches wish to strive for peace, they must be willing to work for justice.
So that is the program, if your intrested in getting your congregation involved, your welcome to give me a call 414 771 7541.
Peace Always,
Jon
Millions of People
One of the most important aspects of doing organizing is the idea of communication. Communication is essential to every and all degrees of organizing. After all, organizing is about people power, not corporate power, so what activists continually draw off of is the power to bring many people together around a common good cause. In a globalized community, bringing people together is much more complex than it was 100 years ago, when people were brought together through direct interaction through calling a meeting.
Today, things are different yesterday, I probably made 100 phone calls to different people throughout the community wanting to know if they would be intrested in having a Labor in the Pulpits program at their congregation. Although I talked to so very many people, I came to the realization that organizing is about relationships, and the new avenues that we have for communication leave us with a sense of alienation from not only ourselves, but the people that we talk to. The internet, the phone and all other forms of communication can never be nearly as effective as the face to face, sit down one on one conversation. On the phone, through the internet, we mask our identities from one another, and although it is highly efficient, much of the time it leaves us wondering who or what the person that we were talking to is all about. These forms of communication are good if your not really looking to get to know somebody, but if we wish to find out who and what the people in our community are all about, they leave us wanting.
In human interaction so much of the time, we only focus on what we see as seemingly important so much of the time. We discuss at our places of work what tasks need to be accomplished with our co-workers, at home, we take this socailly constructed philosophy home to our friends and relationships and simply continue it. We drive ourselves to such a great degree of efficiency that we get lost in what is really important in the end. The feelings thoughts and emotions that each person feels, but never has the chance to completely vocalize because of the way that things have been structured. It sort of seems like a great loss to me, such a great chance to interact on a level that is not clich'e or efficient. In these interactions, we feel, we move and we change in mostly positive fashion.
The Journey Day 4
Well hello! I sit here in the Southern most section of Chequamegon National forest staring at the really neat looking campfire in front of me. What is it about fire that makes us people so mesmerized by its dance. It seems that you can stare at a fire for hours upon hours without getting bored. It always has a new dance, or maneuver to display to its viewer. Its kinda like bicycle touring I guess, you never get bored, the landscape has a way of keeping your attention and making you question what is just around the next turn.I'm sitting here 300 miles into the ride and my legs feel tired, but will still certainly be able to handle the roads ahead. Today, the winds came strongly out of the west which made this the first day of riding into a constant headwind. Yuck! Its amazing how on a loaded touring bike the speeds that you lose because of the winds! Instead of traveling down the road at 16-17 mph, I was struggling to hold 12 mph which I was thinking was the pace of a 5 minute miler! So yep I was going pretty slowwwww....
Got a little turned around today despite having my super fancy GPS system to aid me along the way. In the end it was only about 10 miles in the wrong direction, but never the less, it was irriating. I guess its really dumb to be irriated about it. Afterall, the journey was never about the destination at the end but the ride that got me there.
The Snake (my worthy bicycle) had alot of complaining to day today between breaking a spoke in the rear wheel and the hub starting to make a weird creeeeky noise. I think that she probably finds the riding around the city more to suit her style than these all day meanderings through the woods. Hopefully, I should be arriving to Duluth in a couple of days where I think that I can probably find a bicycle shop with some needed parts.
Ms. Reutsch made me pancakes this morning before I set off. People like Ms. Reutsch have a way of restoring a faith that people are natrually good. To think that a complete stranger would be let into someone's house, allowed to sleep and be fed says alot about our compassion to treat others with dignity and respect.
Unfortunatly, didn't get a chance to chat with many people along the way today. As I travel north, the population density seems to dwindle. For as beautiful as this land is up here, there is not very many people enjoying it. I assume that this is probably a good thing, because it seems like when some of the most prestine bits of nature are completely opened up for the world to see, society feels the need to bring all its extra crap with it to make the area domesticated. We bring our campers, then come the restraunts, comedy bars and minature golf stands. All of the sudden, capitalism has a new opening a place to make profit, and the very reasons that everyone came to that original place in the first place suddenly disappear.
I did stop in Marshfield for French Fries and a frosty for lunch at a Wendy's. Now that is a funny sight right there. An all lyricaed up superfit touring cyclist stepping into probably one of the most unhealthy places one could possiably eat. I mean, I was probably the only person less than 250 lbs in that joint! Oh well, the mosquetos are biting like crazy so I think that its about time to coucoun myself up in this sleeping bag and get some much needed rest.
Got a little turned around today despite having my super fancy GPS system to aid me along the way. In the end it was only about 10 miles in the wrong direction, but never the less, it was irriating. I guess its really dumb to be irriated about it. Afterall, the journey was never about the destination at the end but the ride that got me there.
The Snake (my worthy bicycle) had alot of complaining to day today between breaking a spoke in the rear wheel and the hub starting to make a weird creeeeky noise. I think that she probably finds the riding around the city more to suit her style than these all day meanderings through the woods. Hopefully, I should be arriving to Duluth in a couple of days where I think that I can probably find a bicycle shop with some needed parts.
Ms. Reutsch made me pancakes this morning before I set off. People like Ms. Reutsch have a way of restoring a faith that people are natrually good. To think that a complete stranger would be let into someone's house, allowed to sleep and be fed says alot about our compassion to treat others with dignity and respect.
Unfortunatly, didn't get a chance to chat with many people along the way today. As I travel north, the population density seems to dwindle. For as beautiful as this land is up here, there is not very many people enjoying it. I assume that this is probably a good thing, because it seems like when some of the most prestine bits of nature are completely opened up for the world to see, society feels the need to bring all its extra crap with it to make the area domesticated. We bring our campers, then come the restraunts, comedy bars and minature golf stands. All of the sudden, capitalism has a new opening a place to make profit, and the very reasons that everyone came to that original place in the first place suddenly disappear.
I did stop in Marshfield for French Fries and a frosty for lunch at a Wendy's. Now that is a funny sight right there. An all lyricaed up superfit touring cyclist stepping into probably one of the most unhealthy places one could possiably eat. I mean, I was probably the only person less than 250 lbs in that joint! Oh well, the mosquetos are biting like crazy so I think that its about time to coucoun myself up in this sleeping bag and get some much needed rest.
The Journey Day 3
Another day in the saddle. I think that I must have thought all day about what to write in this journal entry. Would I talk about the rains that pleted down on me for most of the day, or the feelings of stepping into a warm shower at a kind soul's house after stinking it up for a few days.However, probably the most fundamental realization that I made today was how small we are. This is somthing that were told over and over again by our society but it never really seems to sink in. We still tend to be driven by our egos and ourselves at every level of the journey that each and every one of us is taking. I came to this realization after traveling 100 miles on the bike today into an amazing tailwind, and as I was getting closer to the destination for the night. I looked at the map and could put my fingers in between where I had started now and where I will stand when I get to Voyageur National Park; your body seems to want to tell you that you've already ridden to the edge of the world and back.At the beginning of the ride today, I went through vast wide open farming fields, where you could see for miles almost seeing the curvature of the earth as you gazed into the landscape. You could see the dust being picked up by the wheels of a tractor spiral through the air. It seemed that the earth just floated through the air, only to be guilded to where it was headed by the winds. When you got closer you saw the drivers of the tractors, unlike the dust, both you and the farmer driving the tractors, despite the environment were being guided by somthing besides the environment. We were being guided by somthing other earth's desire. Ambition toward the goal, ambition toward getting the field plowed were what we labored toward; the dust just played in the wind, no direction, all play.The farmers however seemed to me to be the most friendly people in the entire world, for being guided by some ambition, they seemed to be the most laid back easy going guys that you could have ever seen. Every farmer decided that waving and smiling was the correct way of passing someone else on the way to their goal. Funny when compared to the cycling community that I encounted leaving Milwaukee, you would think that a brother in arms like myself riding my bike would at least get a wave or a smile back... I bet that less than 1/2 of the cyclists that I passed would never consider responding to a wave, while every farmer would. As I got north of Berlin, the scenary completey changed. You also realize the intracies of mother earth, how she changes and how she molds her viewable landscape. No longer were the vast fields of Southern Wisconsin embodying my every turn, but instead I was the emergence of somthing called "Pine Trees" the farms turned into lakes and hills, the roads became twistier. Beautiful to see the change.Went to a website called warmshowers.com before I left and found a list of people that I could possiably stay with if need be. As I entered Wisconsin Rapids, I gazed down at the list of names that I had accumulated and discovered two names of people in Wisconsin Rapids. Bank shot! I called the first on and Ms. Ann Reutsch was more than happy to take me in. Ms. Ann is a Nursing Professor at a small technical school in Wisconsin Rapids and spends her summers bicycle touring. Her goal is to ride her bicycle in all 48 contential states. She lives with and takes care of both of her parents. After i got all showered up we sat in the living room and talked for about an hour about our past experiences with cycling/ life and "Creating the Army of Peace," Somthing that have idealistically thought about for a long time.Good day on the bike I suppose.
So the great trip began today (this was all about 4 weeks ago), 1300 miles to the Canadian border of Minnesota and back. The destination has been chosen, the wheels are now rolling and the good times a quest toward self discovery begins today. After not being able to find out what the world wants of a person yet I set out in the quest to stand up, put my neck out and break out of the disillusionment of a college education that is in so many ways alienated from the actual world in its totality. Hopefully, I will find what the American spirit is all about. I think it will be found on these roads.The trip so far has been small town of about a thousand to small town of about a thousand. Many of these towns don't really have much to offer to globalized citizen, no wireless Internet, no instant gratification, but in them rests a certain ease and relaxation that does not exist in the city. If theres one things that these towns do offer its a shit-ton of American flags. These folks sure do love America, but what it is that they love? A college education has in many ways taught me the fuck ups and processes of exploitation that the American life has wreaked on the rest of the world. I had to know....So after riding for about 85 miles and it getting to be about dinner time, I found myself entering the town of Terisa, WI. I was famished, with all the calories that had been put into my body before had disappeared on the rolling pavement of Wisconsin's southern country roads. Terisa didn't offer much, the whole town consisted of a Shell station that advertised pizza. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but it would have to do, after all, my body was eating itself. So I rolled up to the gas station ready to eat every piece of pizza that Shell offered. As I dismounted my bicycle, I found that a little old lady named Maggie was standing just outside collecting donations for the American Legions. Now there is something about a loaded touring bike that breaks down all social barriers that divide us from one another. People know that your on a journey to do something quite special. The curiosity that this brings allows you to talk to people that, had you not had the bike, you would never think twice about talking to. This was the first time I ran into this concept and would only prove to be more reinforced throughout the rest of the ride. Maggie asked me about my trip and as I explained the journey, her body language suggested that “this kid is crazy” but at the same time, deep down inside, she knew exactly why I was doing it. She reminisced about the days when “she was my age,” so free and ready to tackle the world. She told me about her grandsons who were out figuring out their own journeys. We talked for about 20 minutes, while she collected donations. This encounter also became the first time I realized in full the power that local knowledge had on keeping you well fed and safe. I asked her about good food and the area and she suggested that just down the road in the next town there was a place called Sam's which had notoriously good food. So I decided to can the gas station and bite the bullet until I got to Lomira where Sam's was located. When I got to Sam's it seems that I had not been the only one informed of this amazing little place. I bet that the whole town of Lomira was there! Apparently Friday night was all you can eat fish night at Sam's and judging by the packed crowd and big bellies of the customers, this place had to stock all the fish in Lake Michigan to keep these patrons happy. When I sat down in my cycling clothes although the restaurant was packed, I drew immediate attention. I sat down, and the waitress came over and took my drink order. All my dehydrated body wanted at that time was tons and tons of water. After about 4 glasses that she couldn't seem to fill fast enough, she conceded to bringing a pitcher my way. After dinner was over, just about everyone in the whole restaurant knew what my plans were and wished me luck along the way. A couple even came outside to check out my bike and ask me various questions about what different things do and how I was “actually” going to ride 1300 miles in 2 weeks. The people were more friendly than ever and I think everyone had a different route that they suggested that I take to get up North. I left Sam's well fed and on my first day I was beginning to figure out what this country actually stood for, apart from the politicians, the policies and the structure. Soon afterward I found a place to camp and bushwacked my way back into the woods so I couldn't be seen and stealth camped my way through the night in Lamatrine, WI. A good day....
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