Nerd Em's Adventures
Back in 1993, you could often find me reading natural history books while sitting on the green and grassy banks of the White River in Muncie, Indiana. The books took me far away from the banks of those placid and polluted waters which ran through a burnt-out factory town.
My 16-year-old mind was creaking open and just beginning to embrace famous authors from the environmental movement and Western American literature. Read more
The people pushed. The people shoved. Shoulders bumped. Brows furrowed. Words were said. Eight curvy and sometimes discontinuous lines all shoved forward to try to form one. Airport authority figures were taking a hands-off approach to directing people. And that is just the PG version of events. Read more
The ride crew consists of Em, Verne and Kermit.
Em is the navigator and helmsman. This means she reads the map and steers the bike. Em has loved bikes since she first learned to ride at age 5. She rode BMX freestyle for a number of years and will always be a BMXer at heart. Read more
28 times. Or is it 30? I guess you sorta lose count after the 15th time. It’s the curse of the ex-pat – flying back and forth between your birth country and your adopted country. And so it goes that this is either my 28th or 30th trip over the Pacific Ocean. I’ve done this trip so many times now that I no longer get excited or nervous – it just feels like a really long commute between ‘home’ and ‘past home’. Read more
Bicycle touring in the Midwest and Plains states of America takes you through many small towns and cities that have struggled to survive the transition from an agriculture or manufacturing economy to a service-based economy with cheap petrol and people willing to travel to nearby towns for work and consumer goods. I call these dying towns ‘places people are from’. When you meet people on the road, they don’t say “I live in XXXX” or “I’m moving to XXXX”. Those dead little towns are places from which people escape. Read more
My parents were not raised to be outdoorsy people. Yet in their pursuit of free, healthy and educational activities to engage their kids, they began taking my brother and me to state parks on weekends when we were very young. Nearly every Sunday, nine months of every year, they would pack up us kids and a picnic and drive up to three hours to explore a new or favourite state park. When nearly all of our neighbours were sitting in church pews, our family would be traipsing up and down creeks Read more
There comes a time on every tour when every piece of gear and clothing has its place in a pannier, when each pannier finds its spot in your tent at night, and you can find things simply by feel. You can dress and pack in complete darkness. It is the rhythm of the road and your pack/unpack/sleep routines hum just like your tires on an empty, silent road.
But that time is not the first night. Read more
Today is the day I tear up my ass. The rip in my seat covering is now so huge there is a large ridge between the edge of the seat covering and the foam underneath. The long lump lines up perfectly with the padding edge on my bike shorts. Eventually, this creates a 3-inch long blister where my leg meets my butt. Read more
The morning air is thick with humidity. The fuzzy haze filters the sunlight as I pack up my gear. Thicker grey stratus clouds frame the western horizon. You can see the air this morning – the sunlight reflects off droplets of vapor floating in the sky. The moisture is everywhere, in the sky and the soil, in the wide, full-banked rivers and the lush green tree leaves. It is almost extravagant. It’s as if nature is showing off just what it can do with adequate rainfall and transpiration that doesn’t immediately evaporate. Read more