After months of planning and anticipation, I was finally staring out over the Pacific Ocean, watching the white multi-tiered ferry ease its pace and squeeze between the decaying wood pilings before coming to a rest. Bicycle by my side, I was feeling a mix of excitement, uncertainty, and an urgency to start pedaling. With zero out of 4,000 miles logged between Anacortes, Washington and Portland, Maine, we needed to get started.
The August before my first year of college, I asked my dad to join me on a trip that I didn’t have the slightest idea how to begin. The idea had come into my head and wouldn’t leave. I texted him: “Let’s bike across the U.S. next summer,” quickly followed by “I’m serious.” But at the time it felt more like a sarcastic joke or lofty fantasy. The truth of the matter was that neither of us were cyclists or even leisurely bike riders. I didn’t own a bike, and my dad’s 37-year-old rig was coated in a thick layer of dust.
Since I was a kid, he had always tossed around the idea of biking across the United States but more in a “maybe in another lifetime” fashion than anything else. We weren’t a super outdoorsy family. With four rowdy kids to take care of, my dad had long given up a regular fitness routine. But finally, he and my mom were going to have an empty nest. It felt like a pivotal moment in my family, especially for my parents.
I’m still not entirely sure why I decided to try and make a cycling trip the answer. Perhaps it was the magnitude of the idea that seemed alluring, fantastical even—the sort of thing you read about in a magazine. I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of some big project: something that could only be completed if I logged the hours and willed it into existence. But in truth, I don’t think there was ever a single straight-cut reason. More than anything, it was an idea that captivated me, and I felt hellbent on making it happen.
Hours of research followed that first text. We were absolutely clueless. It started with Google searches: What bikes are good for touring? What route should we follow? How do I carry everything? How do I shift? Then there were YouTube videos explaining bike maintenance 101. How do you fix a flat tire? Lube a chain? Slowly, answers started to materialize. I got a bike. I fixed my first flat tire (only after Ubering home with my bike first). My dad revamped the drivetrain on his “vintage” 1980 Nishiki International that he had bought his freshman year of college. I made an account on Strava, a fitness tracking social media app that reigns over the cycling world. My dad ordered a helmet that wasn’t from the late ’90s. We set the start date for May 16th—a few days after the end of my freshman year. With each small piece of the puzzle coming together, the momentum of the trip began building, and it went from a whimsical dream to something material.
A day after finishing my last final of the year, I boarded a flight from LAX to Seattle, while my parents did the same in Boston. The hours spent discussing the logistics of miles, waypoints, dates, elevation profiles, camping, and bike maintenance were over. There was nothing more we could plan for. It was simply time to start. Standing by the ocean, the sun making me squint and the breeze carrying the smell of salt and seaweed, the reality of the trip suddenly dawned on me. We were choosing to abandon the controlled comfort of closed doors, headphones, and cars. We would be open and vulnerable to the outside world—its smells, summer heat, sudden downpours, harsh headwinds, and kind tailwinds. These would all become parts of our experience, and we were choosing to embrace them. For the next two months or so, we would constantly exist in public spaces: grocery store lunch tables, town parks, the shoulders of roads, driveways, and parking lots. Knowing full well I liked to micromanage my environments, I wondered how this lack of control would wear on me. But there was also something liberating in the concept. A forced opportunity to step back from this detail-oriented “exactly as planned” mindset, and accept that things were simply not going to go exactly as planned. With this realization on my mind, we said goodbye to my mom, turned our backs to the Pacific, and began biking up a steep hill that took us away from the shoreline. Fueled by excitement, I biked quickly to the top and then paused to wait for my dad. After a couple minutes, I grew impatient and decided to go back down and see what had happened—my dad is notorious for dawdling, but we had literally just started.
I found him only a quarter of the way up the hill, my mom standing beside him and his bike flipped upside down as he adjusted his rear wheel. Less than a half a mile in, his rear tire had separated from the frame (he had forgotten to properly tighten his axle). Unable to unclip from his pedals in time, he had fallen at zero miles per hour, hands on the bars in perfect cycling posture. While he and his bike were fine, it certainly was an early (and comical) demonstration of how inexperienced we were, and how easy it is to run into unexpected issues. My mom was there this time to make sure we were alright, but in a couple of hours, we would be completely on our own.
By day two of the trip, we had left the seaside towns and entered the thick, mossy rainforest on the western slope of the Cascades. To get across the brilliantly glaciated landscape of northern Washington there was only one option: Route 20, a two-lane highway with a 43-mile climb to the top of Rainy Pass, followed by a steep descent before another climb over Washington Pass, and then finally a descent into the small town of Manzama. The day before, we had biked the farthest distance I had ever cycled, and now we were gearing up for the biggest climb either of us had ever done. The anxious anticipation that precedes new beginnings was gone, and in its place was pure excitement over everything that still felt novel. We were breaking up the climb by sleeping partially up Washington Pass the first day and finishing the rest of the slog the next. Due to the lack of services in North Cascades National Park, this also meant carrying enough food for two days, and according to our maps, the grocery store in Newhalem was the last option before our campground.
Around 4:25 p.m., we arrived in Newhalem, a small, unincorporated town centered solely around the hydroelectric plant that runs on the white waters of the Skagit river. We parked our bikes and took in our surroundings. The town, nestled in a valley against a backdrop of the towering Cascades, consisted of a small general store, a few unnamed buildings, the Seattle City Lights turbine plant, and a tiny outdoor museum explaining the history of the plant. We took a short break to refill our water droms and walked across the road to read a bit about the place. My dad—an astrophysicist who comes off as more of a train-loving child (seriously, he got several to blow their horns for us over the course of this trip)—nerded out over the efficiency of the water turbines while I played the despondent teenager act and silently ate a Clif bar. He was just getting down to the numbers when I noticed the grocery store’s neon green “OPEN” sign blink off. It was 4:32 p.m. He was marveling over the fact that Skagit hydroelectric power provides 20% of Seattle’s electricity when I interrupted him, and we rushed to the store. It was already locked, but with some extra knocking, an employee came to the door. We explained our situation: foodless bike tourers with 75 miles between us and the next services. They apologized; they had already shut down the computers for the day. We offered to pay cash if it meant eating a meal other than energy bars and trail mix for the next 48 hours. Still, the answer was no. The employee explained that the store was owned by Seattle City Lights and that they weren’t at liberty to make after-hours sales, even if it meant selling more food.
So there we were, stunned that a grocery store would close at 4:30 p.m. and facing a daunting two-day climb with only snacks for sustenance. To retreat was out of the question. It wasn't an ideal situation, but technically we did have enough calories. The solution, like always, was simply to get back on and start pedaling.
We made it 11 miles farther up the road and began setting up camp at the relatively vacant Diablo campground right before dusk. While we were constructing the tent and laying out our sleeping gear, we noticed that the one other occupied campsite was set up lavishly. There were two massive tents making a circle with two long tables topped with a healthy variety of liquors, wine, a few coolers, neatly cut vegetables laying on baking sheets, and a full-size grill. A blurry heat mirage was visible above the grill, and an older man stood placing steaks on the grate talking to his friend as he drank from a wine glass. It was a comical scene of glamping that would have been humorous in any other situation, but at that moment, it felt more like a glimmer of hope. Our bodies were in a sort of shock with the sudden introduction of hours of physical exercise. We desperately craved calories, and with nothing to do but pedal each day, my mind would frequently wander off into a world akin to “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.”
After a bit of a conference, my dad headed over and explained our situation, asking if we could possibly buy any extra food they had. The man, who had just introduced himself as Johnny, laughed and said, “No, but I can do you one better! How about you join us for dinner instead?” They had just finished their cocktail hour with cheese and grapes, and dinner would be ready soon. The spread that looked big enough for a family of six was just for the two of them—there was more than enough to share. The starter was a kale salad with asiago cheese and sliced almonds, followed by roasted bell peppers, asparagus, corn on the cob, and the finale: perfectly prepared flank steaks.
Over dinner, we learned more about them. Johnny and his friend Brian were on their annual fly fishing trip and had worked together at a boat building company for a number of years. They talked like siblings, cracking jokes at each other’s expense and riffing off each other’s statements. Johnny had cooked the steaks and jeered mercilessly at Brian’s kale salad. Johnny claimed that he wouldn’t shop at grocery stores that sold kale because he would have to “turn in his man-card.” Brian responded with an equally sarcastic quip regarding Johnny's “man-card” credentials, and so the evening went.
They weren’t cyclists, but they had once done the “Seattle to Portland” (affectionately called the STP), a two-day, 200-mile charity ride from, you guessed it, Seattle to Portland. How cycling became the topic of discussion makes sense, but it still caught me off guard: I didn’t perceive myself as anything close to a “cyclist.” But when they talked about their experience cycling the STP, sharing the struggles of seat-bone suffering and vicious headwinds, it was clear that my dad and I shared a connection with them through biking, even in our limited experience. Moreover, they definitely understood the result of hours of exercise coupled with limited calories. As we talked, Brian made sure to keep our plates fully stocked.
But Brian and Johnny’s hospitality was much more than dinner and conversation. The warmth and generosity they displayed through their playful banter, immediate invitation, and genuine curiosity about our trip stunned me. In a classic teenage manner, I had forged a false sense of independence and had never wanted to feel reliant on anyone for my wellbeing. But the truth of the matter was that my dad and I were trying to do something we had no experience doing, and we weren’t going to be able to do it alone. Talking with Brian and Johnny, I realized that once people understood what we were trying to do, they wanted to help and be a part of the journey, a part of its success in some small way. Complete strangers were rooting for us. And that idea started to prove itself to me time and time again.
Our desire to stay off main roads brought us through many rural small towns across the northernmost states. The public water sources where we filled up were often few and far between. We regularly resorted to asking strangers for water from their garden hoses or kitchen sinks, knocking on front doors, asking people who were out on their morning walks, or pulling into industrial complexes. The locations ran the gamut, and so did the people: single moms, long-haul truckers, kids selling lemonade, cattle ranchers, nurses—all helping two strangers slowly make their way across the country.
On day 28, we were nearing Fargo, the largest city in North Dakota. We passed a beautiful park on the south side of the road with a lake, trees (a rarity in this plains state), expansive grounds, picnic tables, playsets, a pavilion, bathrooms, and best of all: a disc golf course. For reference, my dad has long loved ultimate frisbee and used to play pick-up games after work. I didn’t know how to throw one at the beginning of this trip, but my dad had insisted on carrying a disc, and pretty soon, driven by the lack of other activities, we would stop and play whenever we passed a disc golf course. Each one we stumbled across felt like a special occasion and a chance to break up the monotony of pedaling. So there we were, in Casselton, N.D. trying to figure out where to get started. As we surveyed the course, a couple with a dripping wet golden retriever loping about with a ball in its mouth approached us, curious about our bag-laden bicycles. My dad enjoyed a nice conversation with them, Jim and Gwen, while I played fetch with the dog. After getting some intel on the course they said goodbye, and we started to play with a single disc.
We were closing on the basket of the elevated 8th hole when we looked around to see Jim and Gwen approaching from the parking lot. They marched up the hill and unceremoniously presented us with Gatorades, energy snacks, a bag of almonds, and—here’s the kicker—two-disc golf frisbees. They had taken the dog home, prepared the care package, and returned to the park to deliver it in no more than 20 minutes. My dad and I were like kids getting the two coolest Beyblades at Target. Totally caught off guard, we thanked them profusely, which they nonchalantly brushed off and wished us a good rest of our travels.
As with Gwen and Jim, we soon realized that as much as we approached people for help, an old white guy and millennial Asian girl dressed in neon yellow with bikes loaded down with bags made a pretty curious and approachable sight. There were two primary ways a conversation would start: a suggestion that we were married (which we would then have to awkwardly correct) or, if we got to the father-daughter relationship first, the classic comment, “Oh, so your mother must be the Asian one.” While neither of us were particularly thrilled by this line of questioning, it didn’t make me angry or frustrated either. Neither comment was made with malintent, and I felt like the people we met genuinely wanted to understand who we were and what we were doing. It became almost expected that whenever we would enter a store or sit down for lunch, someone would come over and start talking to us, asking us what we were doing and then excitedly sharing their local knowledge of the next 40 miles of riding. As someone accustomed to the New England and New York City “ignore everyone” attitude, this took some time to get used to. But it also felt a whole lot more human than walking past people avoiding eye contact and acting as if they didn't exist. There was no car to climb into, door to shut, or urgent errand to rush to that meant we didn’t have time. There was just us, our bikes, and whoever wanted to come and ask what we were up to.
We got the chance to hear people’s stories about their own travels, their kids, grandkids, their school districts, careers, local issues, religious beliefs, hobbies. I learned what happens when a train hits a rancher’s cattle (and how to avoid it). I learned that the day you cut your hay, it will probably rain too (a sarcastic farmer’s comment). I learned the behind-the-scenes of boat racing off the Strait of Gibraltar, how the Blackfeet lived through harsh winters on the Great Plains, what goes into maintaining an oil rig, that the mosquitoes in Sleeping Buffalo, Montana are worse than in the Alaskan bush. I learned that ghost deer are real, what the process of becoming a monk at a Benedictine Abbey looks like, and that there are food deserts throughout Northern Montana that local botanists are trying to fix with greenhouses.
I might not have agreed with everyone’s viewpoints, but conversations with strangers certainly humanized stances that I often saw villainized in my own small bubble. I had spent the past year in college reading Huxley, Foucault, Freud, and Said, forming opinions in a contradictory microcosm of liberalism and privilege, naively believing I had some understanding of the world. This trip forced me to reconsider the black and white nature that would sometimes take hold of my perspective. Issues which seemed clear-cut on paper were transformed into people, into complicated human experiences. While we were beyond fortunate to pass through scenic landscapes at 13 mph, the riding and transient nature of bike touring was only secondary to the people we met. We were shown unbelievable kindness and found that people would share heartfelt conversations with a couple of funny looking people wearing all Lycra, eating lunch in a soybean field in North Dakota.