The Stars On the Horizon

A Break in Louisville

Alright, now where was I? I left off in Carollton, KY, desperate to get back to Indiana, away from unleashed dogs and the hills. Oh God the hills!
I’d spent all this time, nearly two weeks now, struggling to keep up with my daily journal entries. I stopped at a coffee shop in Madison, Indiana to crank out a few entries before I continued on to Louisville. As I sat outside at the cafe, a biking enthusiast chatted with me a bit about my trip, admiring my setup. I was set on getting to Louisville that night. Here I was on the other side of the river and there were still these gosh darn hills! What was more, twice my GPS caused me to take a road that was closed. It added another six miles to my already long ride. I finally crossed the Lewis and Clark Bridge as the sun was beginning to set and followed the riverside road to my hotel. I was going to do the day off thing right this time. I booked two days at a hotel so I could leave my gear behind while I got to play tourist.

Exhausted, I was thrilled to see that a Mexican restaurant adjoined my hotel. I had fajita tacos and a mango margarita. I was so tired I kept on falling asleep at the table. Fortunately once I’d paid I was only a few steps away from my room.

First thing the next morning, I brought my bike to a bike shop. I’d like to clarify, as “bike problems” seem to be a recurring theme of my trip thus far. Every bike shop visit up to this point has been a snowball effect of my actions before I left for my trip. If I hadn’t timed moving out of my apartment so tight to my departure date, I would have had time to stretch my cables while I was still in Massachusetts, which means I wouldn’t have had to go to a bike shop until my tuneup at my friend’s wedding in Iowa City. Because I didn’t have a chance to ride more than 10 miles on my freshly tuned bike before I left, I had bike troubles my first day on the trail, as I was shifting constantly. Dicks Sporting Goods did a poor job on tightening my cables, so they loosened again by the time I got to Marietta, where the bike technician discovered one of the cables was broken and needed to be replaced. That meant I had to go to a bike shop again in Louisville to get my cable tightened again. These are the lessons we learn on the road.

After a quick cable tightening I headed to a coffee shop to work on a blog post. I had taken off my panniers and attached my journal, my Bluetooth keyboard and Sea, my travel mascot to the back of my bike when I left the hotel. It was at the coffee shop that I realized my journal had slipped out without my knowing. With it went every journal entry I’d written so far, the journal entries I’d spent the previous morning catching up with. I told myself I wasn’t going to panic and I wasn’t going to spend my day off searching for the journal. Maybe it was in the hotel. It had to be at the hotel.

I particularly enjoyed the association they made between women on bikes and gaining their independence.

So I went to the Frazier History Museum. They had a gorgeous exhibit on Women’s Suffrage, with historic garments (my soft spot when it comes to history and art museums), an exhibit on Kentucky Bourbon, and, the piece de resistance! An engaging and interactive exhibit on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I was in heaven! It told the story from beginning to end, included anecdotes I remembered reading in the Journals, and gave me the opportunity to take so many cute selfies with Sea.

Afterwards I stopped for lunch and a mint julep, and continued on to the site of Mulberry Hill, where William Clark grew up. It was now a picnic park filled with families enjoying a spring afternoon, but there was nothing more than a historical marker and a small family graveyard. I was hot, tired, and anxious about my journal, so I headed back to my hotel.

It wasn’t there, so I began retracing my steps. I rented a lime scooter so I could search without exerting too much energy. I didn’t find it. At my mom’s recommendation, I decided to stay in Louisville another day. The bike shop wasn’t open again until Monday morning, maybe it was there, bit if not, at least I could buy a new journal and try my best to recover what I’d lost. So I went back to my hotel and reserved a spot on the Belle of Louisville, because if I was going to stay I was going to take a steamboat tour. I had a jumbo consolation margarita, and went to bed.

I went to an art store to buy a replacement journal, rushed to the river to hop on the Belle of Louisville, and spent two hours relaxing onboard a steamboat, writing journal entries about my first days on the road. I brought Sea with me and everyone thought he was a real dog. Children slowly approached me to try and pet him, one woman was horrified when she saw me holding him between my knees while I reapplied sunscreen. I went out for lunch after, and got another mint julep before crossing the river to Clarksville and exploring The Falls of the Ohio. A large portion of the museum was dedicated to fossils, something I hadn’t really expected, but a good deal of it talked about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I took audio recordings of a few of the video clips I saw. They helped me visualize the humanity in some of the Corps members that had up to this point been a blur to me.

When I was back in Carollton, KY, while my campground friends were giving me a golf cart tour of the town, Gerda got a news alert that was eerily appropriate timing. The George Rogers Clark House had been burn down by an arsonist. When I went to Mulberry Hill, what I expected was the house that William Clark lived in with his brother, George Rogers Clark. There was meant to be a reproduction of the house. I realized that the house that had burnt down was the house Clark lived in when Lewis came to Clarksville. I decided, since I was there, and there seemed to be a paved bike path over the levees, to bike all the way to the site to see what I could see, despite the damage that had been done. I stopped for ice cream and headed back to my hotel room for the night.

Livestream q&a tonight!

Hello friends, family and followers! Tonight, 6/19 at 6pm central I’ll be doing an hour long livestream q&a on YouTube. If you have any pressing questions about my life on the road, my experiences so far or the things I’ve learned, stop by my YouTube channel and drop a question in the chat. Question priority is given to my gofundme donors

Here’s the link! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrVnqSqlUbeviVMiDck9lnw

Hounds of the Hinterlands

I’ve flexed my writing muscles, so here’s hoping we can play catch up.

Sea is enjoying the view of the Ohio River

On Saturday I may have accidentally attended a Christian Revival. As I raced out of Point Pleasant to the next campground, all I paid attention to was that they accepted tent campers. When I arrived I saw a sign for a biblical play going on that night. It was RV paradise. I felt like I’d just found an oasis in the midst of the apocalypse. There was a snack stand, someone was selling snow cones and everywhere people were enjoying summer together. When I got there someone who worked there gave me a tour in a golf cart, she let me stick my bike in a gator and brought me to a primitive campsite. Every time I encountered the people in charge they reminded me about the play, so once my tent was set up and my laundry was clean I went to the snack stand to observe. The play was Samson and Delilah, and it came across like a pageant. A preacher narrated the whole thing, and when the play ended he began to preach. I’m not particularly religious, but when amongst worshipers I’ll bow my head in solidarity. I began to get uncomfortable though when he began preaching creationist jargon. Still, everyone was so nice here and it was nice to be someplace that felt normal after more than a year of Covid.

Sunday I got up early and set out. The weather was fine in the morning, but by the time I got to Huntington, WV it was raining. I hunkered down for a bit I side a restaurant at lunch, crossed back into Ohio and biked through miles of farmland to my next campground. I was thrilled that for the first time I could reserve my campground ahead of time. A few dogs chased me, but I outpaced them, and exhausted, set up my campground. Once again, rain meant the fire I attempted to start did not end well.

I had a few options on how to get into Cincinnati, but when I saw one would take me across the river by ferry, the decision was made for me. I crossed into Augusta, KY and was smitten with this little town. Evidently Rosemary Clooney was from here, she had her own museum in town. I stopped for a cup of coffee and befriended two of the many cats that hung around downtown. It felt like a small artists colony, and I even met a group of women who had traveled in from Cincinnati to paint the picturesque place. I spent most of the day in Kentucky, and was lulled into a false sense of security. There are a lot of bridges that cross the Ohio near Cincinnati, and the first one I met, I thought I was meant to cross. Nope. I battled uphill for miles, got off my bike to roll it, flopped in the grass when a park presented itself, desperate for shade and for a rest! But when I got to the top I coasted downhill from Fort Thomas all the way to the Purple People Bridge, only to find it closed. I found an easy detour with the assistance of strangers, and once again battled uphill until I got to my endpoint for the night. My mom’s work friend Matt was nice enough to host me for the night. He treated me to a burger and ice cream, insistant that I report back to my mom that I was well fed. No like mom. I was stuffed. He made me coffee in the morning and headed out.

It was a hot day, so I stopped at Black Coffee, a cute coffee shop I passed, thinking I’d get iced tea before I continued on. I wound up getting a lavender latte because OMG they had it and it’s my drink! Shortly after, I crossed over an overpass and hit a large chunk of glass. Despite my puncture resistant tires, I had my first flat of the trip. There was shade where I pulled over, thank goodness. The flat was on the back tire which meant I had to remove all by bags and take off the rack to remove the wheel, but I feel I changed the tire in record time. I just about done changing the tube when I decided I should stick a patch on the inside the tire.

I stopped for a slurpee and took another ferry back into Kentucky. The hills though! They nearly killed me. I kept on having to stop, cross the windy road and sit on the guardrail to catch my breath. I kept really close to the water for a long time, and at Matt’s recommendation biked through Rabbit Hash, KY. Evidently this tiny town has a dog for a mayor. It was a cute little town, but there were so many bikers I got intimidated and passed right through. This day was marked by repeatedly being chased by dogs. After the ordeal in my last post, I was skittish any time I saw a dog, so every time I was chased I bolted. On hills like these it was exhausting. I planned to stay at Big Bone Lick State Park and had even pre-paid for my campground.

I had to take a picture at the Rabbit Hash sign for Sea. He’s very proud a member of his species rose to such a high government position.

As I biked on, only a few miles away from my campground, a cyclist coming from the direction I was headed shouted a warning that there was a dog ahead that would chase me. With that warning I avoided the dog easily, but as I continued up the road I saw another pair of cyclists. I paid it forward and shouted the warning to them. They stopped, warned me there was a huge hill up to the campground at big bone lick, told me they were warm showers hosts and offered me a bed for the night. I’m not sure what drove me to stay with them. I only had two miles left, but they told me which house was theirs and that they’d be back in an hour. They fed me grilled cheese and leftover chicken and dumplings, gave me a cocktail and we chatted late into the night. Ralph and Joanne had a mass of touring experience to draw from and give me advice. Ralph suggested a route for me in the morning and offered to get me out past the worst of the hills. I told him I still wanted to visit Big Bone Lick, so he drove me there in the morning and watched my bike as I went through the museum and walked down to see the Buffalo viewing area. As promised he brought me past the hills and left me to get biking again.

The bison were chilling in the shade right up against the fence! I got a lot of pictures

In Sparta, KY I had the closest encounter with a dog I’d had so far. I saw his teeth snap so close to my heel as I sped up, veered out of the way and raced over the hill. This time it was different though. This time I pulled a muscle in my leg trying to get away. So, when I was far enough away that the dog wasn’t chasing me anymore, I stopped. I had to stop for a while, my leg was shaking so violently that I couldn’t put weight on it. I wound up stopping early in the afternoon in Carolton, KY. I needed to give my leg time to recover.

What does bullet holes in a town sign say to you? Get T F out?

Within minutes of entering the campground I was taken under the wing of a woman named Gerda and her husband. Their dog, Lucy was a sweetheart and was quickly making me feel comfortable with dogs. The three of them gave me a tour of the down on their golf cart and let me roast weenies and marshmallows over their campfire. My neighbors at the campground were also very friendly. I can’t for the life of me remember his name or his wife’s but he gave me iced tea, fed me and chatted with me for a long while. He and his friend warned me to avoid Louisville entirely. I asked why and was told “because of Breonna Taylor. Because of the protesters.” I enquired if anything had happened recently that I’d missed. Nope. I wasn’t sure how to react to that. I certainly didn’t avoid Louisville.

A Grave Week

I was at the Grave Creek Burial Mound shortly after it opened. This site was particularly important to me, not only because there was historical documentation that Meriwether Lewis had been in that exact spot in 1803. It was important because it got me asking questions and suddenly reminded me how strange it was that not a single Native American had appeared in the journals thus far and for long after this entry. It sparked the question “what happened to them? Where did they go?” I was aware relocation and the Trail of Tears, but that was nearly 30 years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The answer, as it often is, was that it was glossed over in U.S. History textbooks. We learned about the French and Indian War briefly, but when I learned that the colonies expanded into the Ohio River Valley, I never saw the implication that the Native Americans there were forced out. The Adena were not forced out. They pre-dated colonization by a few thousand years. The Adena were ancestors of the Shawnee, who inhabited most of the Ohio River Valley and even some of the Southeast. They were ancestors of the Shawnee, and there are mounds all over the Ohio River made by them and even older tribes.

All this drove me to read about the Shawnee to learn about their history. So rather than giving you an essay on Tecumseh and the entire history of Shawnee-European relations, I’ll say this. The Shawnee allied with the British, who, pardon my harsh language, repeatedly used them and screwed them. They used them as a vandegard on more than one occasion under the illusion of fighting alongside them and barred them from the promise of protection inside their forts to let them be slaughtered. The French and Indian War ended, tribes allied with the British against the United States and it happened again! The United States won and the frontier wars began over the territories in the Ohio River Valley Tecumseh, the leader of the Shawnee had united a number of tribes into an army to fight back, and they put up a hell of a fight before fragmenting and being pushed westward and into present day Oklahoma. What’s more, both Lewis and Clark fought in these wars. I find it fascinating knowing this history and knowing that George Drouillard, a hunter and translator for the expedition, was Shawnee through his mother. I’m excited to explore this in my novel.

I traveled down the scenic river road in West Virginia, the landscape cut up again by power plants, stopped on at the Texas Wagon Wheel for an unexpected break. I wound up chatting with the waitress there for a long while about my trip. She sent me off with a little solar powered charger when I mentioned my worry about how much power I had left. I crossed the river again into Ohio and chased the daylight, once again, convinced that I wasn’t going to find a campground before dark. I wound up at Leith Run in Wayne National Forest. It was beautiful, right up against the Ohio under a canopy of trees.

The next day I planned a stop in Marietta at lunchtime. After a struggle trying to find a bike-safe route I found there was a bike path hidden behind a strip mall and I had risked life and limb for nothing. Marietta is gorgeous, just City enough to find something to do, and with the familiar Historic brick facades that steal my heart! Despite my difficulty it seemed to bikeable. There was a paved bike path that took me directly to the Ohio River Museum where I explored the natural history and boat history of the river. I got a tour of an early 1900s steamboat and spoke with the guide about how one would navigate rapids or falls in a massive boat like that. He directed me to the Marietta Adventure Company for my bike repair and they tightened my cables and even wound up replacing one (I’ll never go to Dicks Sporting Goods again. They botched it), while I waited.

That night was the closest I’ve been to biking at night. I had trouble finding a campground and wound up at a completely deserted place where you drop your money in an envelope to pay. I most definitely was not allowed to camp there. It was self contained RV camping only, but I literally had nowhere else to go and chances it. I was convinced someone was going to wake me in the middle of the night and tell me to get the hell out, so I woke up first thing and bolted.

This was the end of my first week so I made plans to stop in Point Pleasant, WV and take a full day off. This did not go as planned. It wound up being a 66 mile ride to Point Pleasant, the furthest I’d gone in a day thus far. I was a few miles out from my campground. If you are squeamish please skip the next paragraph. It’s pretty traumatic.

I was biking uphill when I saw a dog notice me at the top. I’m carrying so much gear that I knew the dog was going to get to me whether I booked it or not. At first I thought it was chained as it started running…then maybe an invisible fence, but as I saw it bounding down three property lines along a culvert to beeline for me across a driveway, I realized I had to make a decision. I stopped, got off my bike and put it between me and the dog. I thought maybe traffic would notice me stop, and despite the fact that I was certain this pittbull was out for blood, I didn’t want it to get hit. Well, it leapt out into the street, a driver didn’t see it and ran over it right in front of me. I shrieked. I was frozen. The driver pulled over and another car drove over the dog. I was in shock, staring at this poor dog as it died, not sure how to feel as I’d have been seriously injured if it hadn’t been hit. The driver went in search of the owner, but no one was home. A neighbor came out and told us the dog was trouble, had been in and out of the pound four times and her owner didn’t take good care of her. Someone else stopped and pulled the dog out of the road. I saw a police officer and waved him down to tell him what had happened, and finally recovered enough from my shock to keep going to my campground.

I had learned at this point to search for tent campground or primitive campground so I would be sure I could actually stay where I planned, but when I got there and tried to get a Site the woman told me tent camping was closed due to mud and town ordinances wouldn’t allow me to stay there. I left her office, called my mom and the weight of the day hit me. I began sobbing. The closest campground was another 10 miles away and I couldn’t do it. I was shaking. I begrudgingly booked a hotel through a last minute hotel app, but I hit a point where it wanted me to bike on a highway across a bridge. The shock had me completely overwhelmed by the sound of cars, feeling them whiz by me like they didn’t see me. I felt terrified. Once again I called my mom. I’d already paid for a hotel that I couldn’t get to and it was nonrefundable. Not only that, there was only one hotel option on this side of the river and it was more than I felt comfortable paying. My mom talked me down. I reserved the hotel in Point Pleasant and headed back into town. The Historic Lowe Hotel is across the street from the Mothman statue and the Mothman Museum. The Mothman is a cryptid known for appearing in West Virginia with spooky connections with the supernatural. I got a vintage styled room, called a number of friends til I’d calmed my nerves a bit, and went out in search of food. I was pretty disappointed with my options so late in the day. I didn’t feel like Mexican food and I didn’t feel like getting back on my bike at all, so I wound up getting McDonald’s and sitting down with a beautiful view of a river sunset.

The next morning I decided I needed to get out of Point Pleasant, so it would be more half a day off than a full day. I couldn’t afford another night in that hotel, it just wasn’t in my budget, so I got a coffee and a Mothman cookie for breakfast, went to the Mothman Museum, and walked down the riverfront to explore the murals on the flood wall. I stumbled upon a house museum in a tiny state park and went inside, went back for a second cup of coffee and biked 18 miles to a campground outside of town.

Hospitality on the Road

My second day on the trail was spent battling hills and reassessing everything about my timeline for the next few weeks. While I planned on 50 miles a day, I had barely managed more than 30! I was worried that I was going to continue to fall behind schedule. I had to wait that morning until Dick’s called me to say my bike was ready and I didn’t get moving until after 11

I stopped for coffee at a donut shop in Rochester and headed for the Ohio River Scenic Byway. This was one of my better choices. Suddenly the hills were much less intense. I was biking under the shade of trees with a beautiful view of the river, only obstructed by the occasional power plant. I even found a patch of grass where I could take a nice lunch break. I continued down this route all day. I barely noticed when I passed over the Ohio Border. It wound up being a three state day. I ended in West Virginia.

Again, I couldn’t bike up the hills. They were so steep I could feel my panniers dragging me backward or holding me in place. My body was exhausted. I expected to work my legs hard, but dragging my bag uphill wore out every muscle I had.

At one point I wound up flopping on the ground to recuperate. A man saw me near the end of his driveway and came down to see if I was alright. He saw the scrape on my knee and offered to let me clean myself up in his house. I refused, though I was so tired I was tempted to ask if I could camp in his yard. I didn’t. I was so darn close to the campground!

After that hill I’d made it to the top of the ridge and it was remarkably easier. I coasted into the campground sometime after seven, biked around the whole thing looking for who was in charge. I wound up asking a couple who were standing by their RV and they directed me to the owner.

I set up my tent, made myself mac and cheese, and basically drank it, I was so hungry. It was an RV campground, meant for self contained campers. I was too tired to even notice the dilemma. I couldn’t even figure out how to use the water spigot. Fortunately the couple I had spoken to had. Lisa and Solon came by and offered me a hot shower. They let me fill up my water in their camper, fed me chicken and dumplings, chatted with me for a while. They were the first people I’d had an in person conversation with since I’d left my mom in Pittsburgh. They wound up leaving their RV unlocked in case I needed the restroom in the night. I was completely blown away by their generosity.

I woke up early, and worried I’d leave before they got up, I scribbled a thank you with some contact info onto one of the postcards I’d purchased and went to leave it at their RV before I left. I wound up saying goodbye to them and heading out.

I passed by a house with some found object art on my way out of town. I decided to look at my trip differently that day. I wanted to feel like I could stop and experience things. I made sure to pause for lunch at the Historic Fort Steuben. I visited the museum, thrilled that there was reference to the Lewis and Clark Expedition inside, despite no direct connection to the fort, and I found out about the murals in Steubenville, OH. I decided to make my day about public art and made a small detour to take pictures.

I chose to end my day in Moundsville, WV. I explicitly wanted to visit Grave Creek Burial Mound. It was the first destination I was set in seeing because Meriwether Lewis wrote about it extensively on his trip down the Ohio. By the time I got there the museum was closed, so I found a place to stay the night. The nearby campgrounds were RV campgrounds again. Both of them had sites lined with chunky gravel I couldn’t imagine sleeping on, so reluctantly I reserved a hotel room.

I hadn’t gotten to my hotel room yet when I smelled meat and stopped in front of Ruttenbuck’s Bar and Grill. Tuesday night was their rib special. I remembered reading that the men on the Lewis and Clark Expedition ate eight pounds of meat a day, and I was beginning to understand how. For the second night in a row, I inhaled my dinner. The meat was practically falling off the bone.

Those Aren’t Foothills…

A model of Fort Pitt in the first exhibit hall of the museum

I got to a late start on Sunday morning, after a long night of preparing for the road. I downloaded my maps into my GPS, since this would be my last time in front of my computer for four months, wrote a few e-mails to my contacts at the NPS, and didn’t go to bed until well after midnight.

Of course it was raining in the morning, drizzling and gloomy. Somehow every time I start a new chapter in my life it always winds up rainy. It rained when I moved my furniture out of my apartment, it rained when I moved to Atlanta and when I moved back.

My mom and I went out in search of the Fort Pitt Museum. It is hiding in the middle of Point State Park, so after a few wild loops back and forth across the river, we parked and walked through pedestrian tunnels and under an overpass to finally find the entrance of the museum.

It was beautiful. I highly recommend visiting if you‘re ever in Pittsburgh. Just go on a stroll through the park and you’ll find it through a much more scenic means than I did. My mom and I said goodbye. She told me she’d understand if I wanted to postpone my departure because of the weather. That seemed like postponing the inevitable. It would definitely rain again on my trip, and if I was going to give up because of rain, better to realize now than hundreds of miles down the road.

After the Fort Pitt Museum, I biked into Point State Park where the bike path on the north bank begins.

When I planned my route, I researched bike paths, I tried to keep my path as close to the river as possible and keep off scary state roads. I didn’t account for topography. I didn’t know how to account for it. So, after a leisurely ride along a bike path on the north bank and a mishap with my front fender (It was dragging against the tire, so I took it off and strapped it to my bike), I started uphill.

It was disheartening how quickly I needed to get off my bike and push. I was carrying 50 pounds of gear and these hills were steep! From the river they looked like cliff faces with a ridge of houses a the top. I continued up and up, horrified that after starting at 1pm I wasn’t even out of Pittsburgh yet. My plan had been to practically be in Ohio. At one point I had to carry my weighted bike down a flight of stairs and waited to cross a busy road so I could get across the river.

I saw baby geese on the bike path and took it as a good omen.

The hills continued and I did my best on them. When I got my bike tuned up they told me I needed to stretch the cables and comb back to get them tightened. In the week leading up to this trip I barely had time to ride. With the amount I was changing gears, I certainly stretched them now. They started getting irritable when I changed them, or not even changing at all. I’d have to try and switch gears two or three times before it would go. This did not make the hills any easier. Finally, around 6 o’clock I started looking for a place to stay. There didn’t seem to be any campgrounds within a reasonable distance of where I was, so I wound up staying at a hotel. I told myself I was celebrating getting through this first day.

There was a Dick’s Sporting Goods across the road from the hotel, so I dropped off my bike, and with some coaxing, convinced them to do the work before the next afternoon.

Hitting the Road to Harpers Ferry

On Friday, May 7, I left Boston with my mom to meet up with my brother in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia before setting off alone on my bike trip. My brother is moving abroad later this summer and will likely be gone before I return from my trip. We decided we wanted to meet somewhere for the day within a reasonable distance from both Washington, D.C. (where my brother lives) and Pittsburgh, PA where my bike trip was to begin. I pushed for Harper’s Ferry because Meriwether Lewis stopped there en route to Pittsburgh himself.

Here I am with my trusty mascot, Seaman, named after Meriwether’s dog, along side a reproduction of the iron boat frame

We spent Saturday exploring the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. We walked the narrow streets in the midst of sun showers. I had a chance to speak with a National Park ranger to get the skinny on all the Meriwether Lewis themed attractions. We saw the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and the foundation of an old inn where they think he may have stayed in 1803. Lewis went there to commission an iron-boat frame that he had conceptualized with Thomas Jefferson for the express purpose of the expedition. There is a reproduction of the frame near the river. There is also a small exhibit on the supplies that he purchased there for the journey.

Both Meriwether and I were headed to Pittsburgh

There are a number of buildings in Harpers Ferry including storefronts that replicate the nineteenth century town. For fans of American history, there is a major connection between Harper’s Ferry and the abolitionist, John Brown.

Final Preparations Before Day 1

First off, my apologies for the delay in my blog for last week. As some of you may know, I struck out on my Lewis and Clark Trail bike trip on Sunday, May 9, 2021. The week leading up to my departure was a hectic race to get everything done before “go time.”

I got my bike back from its extensive tune-up, went for a very short training ride to stretch out the cables and get used to a new seat.

After my story was featured in the Marblehead Reporter, someone from the National Park Service reached out to me. They are launching a website this summer called LewisandClark.travel. They asked if I was interested in partnering with them in order to bring tourism to the Lewis and Clark Trail. They were particularly excited that I have chosen to start my adventure in Pittsburgh rather than St. Louis because they are trying to shed more light on that part of the expedition and make people more interested in the longer trail. I will be contributing more tourism related pieces to their website in addition to the posts I upload here.

A Trial Run

A few weeks ago I went to Vermont to test out my camping equipment for the first time. I’ve watched the movie Wild and I have no desire to find out my stove won’t work when there’s nothing I can do about it. I have a bit more freedom to solve a problem like that than on the PCT, but when I’m biking from Pittsburgh to Saint Louis I’ll be on a time crunch and I don’t need any added complications.

So I went up to my friend’s mom’s farm and tested out my accoutrements. I’m all about research, so I scoured the internet for opinions on what I should get. I had to debate whether I should get a down sleeping bag or a synthetic (I went with down because it’s and light weight). I chose an insulated inflatable sleeping pad as opposed to self-inflating for similar reasoning. I got a double-walled tent as I read that would make condensation less of a problem. The down side to down sleeping bags is they don’t keep you warm if they’re wet, so I felt the need to cover my bases. There’s that and without the rain fly the tent is mostly mesh. The idea of basically sleeping under the stars is too attractive to resist.

I went for a quick grocery store run and got a variety of foods I anticipate I’ll eat on the road and headed out. The benefit of going to this farm with my friend (Becca for those who might remember her from previous posts) was we had a safety net if the equipment didn’t work. I suppose I could have done this in my yard at home, but I live in a populated area and I didn’t like the idea of strangers walking by me down the sidewalk. We wound up meeting Becca’s friends Jen and Rob up there with their baby Henry. We were all at least partially vaccinated and this was an outdoor retreat.

photo courtesy of Instagram: evelyn.saenz.52

Becca’s mom owns a B&B and when we got there, we helped set up a glamping tent. We tested out different food options on our gas stoves (most of which was surprisingly good), and that night we huddled around a small campfire. I don’t know what it is about camping, but my bedtime tends to be much earlier when I plan to sleep outdoors. Perhaps it’s simply that I’m sitting around in the dark? We put out the fire around 9 and went to bed.

When you enough time by a campfire and your skin is all flush from the heat, the minute you step away you feel frozen. It wasn’t quite freezing. It was firmly in the 40s, but when I went to bed that first night, I cursed whoever rated my sleeping bag comfortably suitable for temperatures as low as 30 degrees. I wasn’t frozen, but I was shivering, even with my jacket on. In addition, in the middle of the night, I got up to use the bathroom, tripped over the tent cord and fell right out of my shoes. I spent the rest of the night with chilly feet. I had planned to bring wool socks for the weekend and washed them especially, but they weren’t dry when I left and I left them behind. I’d fall asleep, wake up, check to see what time it was, and groan when I realized it was still the middle of the night. That doesn’t even touch on the position of my tent. it was flat in comparison to the hillside around it, but the entire night the sleeping mat drifted downhill and left me behind on the cold ground.

“The night was a completely different experience.”

The next night I went to bed with a cozy throw blanket, a pair of Becca’s wool socks on my feet, warmer sweatpants and a tent shifted 90 degrees. The night was a completely different experience. Save for a chilly face I was cozy all night and much happier in the morning. I bought a fleece sleeping bag liner immediately so I could be just as cozy on my trip.

The Chaos Before the Storm

This week’s blog will be brief (my regrets that it is also a few days late). This past week I’ve been deep in preparation mode. I finished moving out of my apartment in preparation for this trip. That paired with keeping up with training and suddenly switching from launching a Kickstarter project to a GoFundMe project, it seems like my every waking moment has been taken up by something that is not writing blogs here. I am attempting to make a graceful transition from posting twice a week, as I have been, to the once a week I anticipate maintaining on the road. I’m all about realistic expectations from myself.

So this weekend I’m in Vermont with vaccinated friends, celebrating my birthday a month early since I will be in Saint Louis on the actual day. My bedroom at my mom’s house is CHAOS (I rarely use all caps, so I hope that I properly emphasized how chaotic it is). I’ve spent this time trying to keep sane and avoid prolonged panic attacks when conceptualizing how much I have to do before I leave. I have gotten a lot of important things done. I’m more than comfortable with biking 50 miles in a day, I went on a camping trip last weekend to test out my gear (I will elaborate on that in my blog next week), and my bike is in for its pre-ride tune-up (I’m getting all of the important things replaced and puncture-resistant tires!).

This coming week I have to bring order to the previously mentioned CHAOS in my bedroom, get my taxes done, finish up some paid alterations I took on to give myself a bit of extra cash on the trail, train, get my second dose of the vaccine, and pick up my newly tuned-up bike. I can at least say that it feels like less than previous weeks. If I can stay on gear on Sunday and Monday, I think I’ll make it through and get back to a normal posting schedule.

I’ll end this brief blog post by asking you all a question. I had been posting on Tuesday and Thursday as an arbitrary way to keep myself accountable for posting every week. Now that I’m transitioning to one day, what day do you think I should post?