Pattie Spicher: Beating Type-1 Diabetes for 53 Years!

Ray and Pattie Spicher - a few years back.

“Am I Blessed or What?” 

When I asked Pattie Spicher to sit for an interview, I knew she’d have a tale to tell about dealing successfully with type-1 diabetes. I first met Pattie in 1972, when she married Ray Spicher, my high school friend. By that time, she had learned, at age 20, that she had “adult diabetes,” as doctors then labeled her condition. 

Pattie was petite – and still is – but neither she nor Ray could have imagined how complex the journey ahead would prove. 

I had been discharged from the Marines by that time, so I wasn’t exactly a wimp. But Pattie, like every “veteran” diabetic I have ever known, has proven herself way tougher than me. 

If someone you love is new to this life-altering diagnosis – that they are type-1 – I believe Pattie is an inspiration. She has persevered and with “God’s help,” as she says, has led a full life, filled with joy. That’s the first lesson from her tale. Pattie will tell you being type-1 is “a pain in the butt.” There’s still no cure, so you’ll always have to watch what you eat. And you can’t wish the disease away. Like Pattie, you have to set your mind to the challenge and do the best you can. 

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When she was first diagnosed, care was primitive by today’s standards, and she was informed she could never have children. One doctor told her she might die before she turned thirty. At first, her medical condition was misdiagnosed. For over a year, no one thought to start her on insulin. They believed she had what today we would call type-2 diabetes, an increasingly common health problem in this country, as the average American’s eating habits grow worse and worse. 

In those days, all Pattie could do to test her blood sugar levels was pee on strips, like those pregnancy tests. If the strip turned bright green, that meant sugar levels were high. All she could do to lower her levels, or so doctors believed, was “take a walk” or skip a meal. “They would starve you,” is how she explained it, and compared treatment in the early 70s to that of Thomas Jefferson’s wife. Experts now suspect Martha Jefferson died in 1782, from the complications of type-1 diabetes. So Pattie tested and did her best. She stands five-and-a-half feet tall, but her weight plunged from 110 to 90. 

If you know the history of type-1 diabetes, until a hundred years ago it was an early death sentence if your immune system had been compromised. Insulin was not discovered until 1922, and Pattie was learning about the disease forty-nine years later. Now she’s been dealing for fifty-three years. 

And here’s the second lesson to ponder. She has seen miraculous improvements in how doctors help patients approach their new lives, and that’s why she says she’s “so thankful for JDRF.” As all who have loved ones afflicted with this disease learn, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has been leading the search for a cure, and funding research into better treatment, for many years. 

In her case, once it was understood she had what was then called “juvenile diabetes,” she was finally put on insulin, and instructed on how to give herself shots. She had a chart to hang in the bathroom to help her keep track. Shot in the left arm one day, right arm the next. Left butt cheek, right butt cheek, left thigh, right, and a shot in the stomach for “fun.” Then start all over again. 

As I said, I had been in the Marines, and knew how to curse; I’d have got about as far as the first tender cheek, and I’d have started f-bombing the world. Pattie will only admit she was “mad,” but also said she was determined diabetes wouldn’t beat her – and, as we know now, it could not.

 

In Ray and Pattie’s life, one of the great hurdles that had to be cleared was that they badly wanted children. But in that era, they were admonished that it would be dangerous for Pattie to try. They talked to Catholic Charities about adoption; but when the charity followed up with Pattie’s doctors, on why she couldn’t have children, they told the charity folks that she might die early, and it wouldn’t be fair to place a baby with the Spicher family. So it seemed parenthood was out. 

In those days, Pattie worked at a women’s clothing store called “5-7-9,” for the sizes they sold. It was in a mall. 

When people still loved malls! 

One afternoon, God took a hand. A customer came “almost floating in,” Pattie remembers, and told her he was shopping for his wife. She helped him pick out something nice and asked about the occasion. “My wife just found out she’s pregnant, and she’s a type-1 diabetic,” the man replied. “So we’re both thrilled.” 

When Pattie said she was type-1, too, he told her about a study being conducted at the University of Cincinnati, gave her the name of  Dr. Harvey Knowles Jr., and left with a gift for his wife. 

Pattie told her boss she was leaving work immediately, drove home, used the land line (this is back in the day), and called UC to get the information she needed. 

Knowing that pregnancy was possible, and having been enrolled in the study, herself, she and Ray decided, “We would put it in God’s hands.” In 1976, she got pregnant for the first time. As she told me, in those days, the only ways to test your blood were to use the urine strips or draw blood, which was most accurate. So, during her pregnancy, she had a pic line put in one arm. She was told she’d have to spend a week in the hospital during the first semester, a week during the second, and the entire third trimester in a hospital bed. 

“I wasn’t sure I could do that,” she said in deadpan fashion, “because I really don’t like hospitals.” 

I had to laugh.

 

So she “solved” that problem by having her first son, Scott, at 28 weeks. He tipped the scales at three pounds, three ounces. 

“Three pounds, three ounces!” I said. “Whoa.” I had been premature myself, and my mother had eight miscarriages in eleven tries. So I knew that for Ray and Pattie, this must have been a terrible shock. 

“Wow,” I added. “I weighed four, five.” 

Pattie is lively, and loves to talk, but had difficulty continuing. Doctor Knowles, she gulped, “was the best endocrinologist ever.” She switched a moment to talk about when her second son, Nick, was on the way in 1982. One day, Knowles told her during an office visit that he was “so excited.” There was a new machine, he said, adding, “There will never be another invention like this, ever!” You had to draw blood, and you placed it on strips, and calibrated the machine high, and draw blood and calibrate it low, and because she was in a study, they gave her a machine to take home. At first, it was about 8 x 10 inches. You had to fumble with the strips, and wipe them off after you touched them with blood, then use a stopwatch, also provided, to know when to check results. “Pattie,” Dr. Knowles had assured her, “there will be nothing to top this in the next twenty years.” In fact, it was only then, after several years of battling diabetes, that she could finally get real blood sugar numbers, an “actual number, 112, or whatever it might be.” The first machine she was given was “like six days old,” because she was in the UC program, and you couldn’t lug it around, of course. So she and Ray had a table set up at home. By the time she had Nick, the machine had been reduced to 5 x 7, and you didn’t have to calibrate it yourself. 

“It was amazing how fast things moved,” she said.

 

This writer’s family has seen great improvements in care, as well, watching our youngest daughter handle diabetes, starting in 2005. So far, Pattie’s story tracked positive, as Emily’s has. So I asked to go back to Scott for a moment. “So, he’s so small, you have to be worried about his overall health…” 

“Don’t even talk about it,” she replied, choking up a moment.”  

And Dr. Knowles,” she finally continued, “was so awesome.” He told Ray, with that first pregnancy, “If they come running out of the delivery room…” and she laughs at her emotion, and wipes away tears. “If they came running out of the delivery room, then he would know there had been trouble.” 

At that, she starts crying. “I still cry,” she admits, “and in fact every time I call Scott on his birthday I start crying again, and he just says, ‘Mom are you ever gonna get over this,’ and I say, ‘No,  Scott, I’m never gonna get over it.’” 

In those days, Ray was coaching baseball and teaching at Hughes High, and many of his students were poor. He often had to pick players up at home at 6:00 a.m., so they could practice before classes. One day, her water broke, and she called her sister for a ride to the hospital. Scott couldn’t go home until he weighed at least five pounds. So Ray would come up to the room after work, and see her, and being “dog-tired,” fall asleep in the bed. 

But they didn’t come running out on April 8, 1977, when Scott the Giant crashed the party of Life. “I thank God every day,” Pattie says, and her faith is strong. “Am I blessed, or what?” she adds.

 

Here then: another lesson. I think most families of type-1 diabetics learn that it makes everyone involved stronger in all kinds of ways. It steels people with resolve – as it did Pattie and Ray. Her husband went on to become a highly-respected principal in the Cincinnati Public Schools – retired – got rehired as principal at Princeton High School within days –  worked a few more years – retired again – and got hired again within a week, to be principal at Madeira High. Scott didn’t stay tiny for long, went on to earn a degree from the University of Cincinnati, and got into education, himself. Today, he’s principal at Dry Ridge Elementary School in Kentucky. Their second son, Nick, also thrived, also did well in school and sports, and graduated from Miami University, in part aided by a scholarship for left-handers. Both young men married well, and there are two daughters-in-law that Ray and Pattie love, and seven grandkids, one adopted from Haiti – now eleven, and a killer on a set of drums. 

And Pattie is still here. 

Take that Death! You lose. 

Today, Pattie is still petite, still plays pickleball and golf, and knows how to have fun. So how does one deal with type-1 diabetes for more than fifty years? As she puts it, she set her mind from the start. “Nobody was going to beat me,” she said. She decided she would do whatever she must in order to meet the challenges posed by this insidious disease. During her first pregnancy, she added, “I would have run down the street naked, if that’s what it took” to have a healthy child. She also acknowledged, it’s never fun. She remembers thinking how nice a cure would be. “I just wanted one day where I could eat this, and not worry about what it was.”  She still remembers learning to give herself shots. You had to practice on an orange.

 

My daughter Emily had to learn the same way; and when I try to tell Pattie about it, I can’t, until I compose myself. In Emily’s case, she’s been dealing for almost two decades. As a teen, she hated having to check everything she ate, and at one point rebelled and said she didn’t care. So I asked Pattie about health insurance, because Emily is a nurse now, but even with good insurance, paying for the supplies to fight diabetes is a drain. Pattie remembers a time, when she maxed out her medical coverage and fell into what was then called the “donut hole,” and had to pay for insulin herself at the end of the year. One day, she went to pick up a three-months’ supply and was told it would cost $1,900. She just left the insulin there and went home. 

But you can’t just leave insulin behind. Type-1 diabetics must have it to live. For older Americans, recent changes in how the federal government negotiates drug prices, have capped out-of-pocket costs at $35 per month. Young diabetics, often lacking the best healthcare, face much steeper costs. Some try to “cut back” on how much they use; but that can backfire badly, too. 

So Pattie knows it’s not an easy road to travel. I’ve bicycled across the USA twice, and plan to do it again, to raise money for JDRF. Having type-1 diabetes is like pedaling uphill every mile of every day. But what else can you do? Pattie has been pedaling hard for fifty-three years, and the key lesson I’ve gleaned from Pattie and every type-1 diabetic I know, is that they learn to pedal hard because if they stop it can’t work. If your loved one has been diagnosed recently, you can be sure that with your love and support, they’ll grind up every hill, every day, and you’ll be able to help them in myriad ways. 

JDRF has done all that an organization can to build better “bicycles” for type-1s to ride, and someday, with “God looking out,” as Pattie would say, we’ll get to the end of the ride, where there’s a cure.

 

Destination Unknown: Pedaling for JDRF

Emily and the twins.

Well, I have a plan. I’m going to start off from Acadia National Park, on or about May 1, 2024. I’m going to pedal up to the top of Cadillac Mountain, and snap a few photos. I’m going to be sure to suck my gut in, because I need to shed 25 pounds. Then I’m going to coast down again and head west.

 

No telling how far I may get. I’ll just start pedaling. That’s the plan. I’m 75; I could end up going “over the rainbow” on the first steep climb. (I don’t think there’s a map I can use to find the route from Acadia to heaven.) But I’m stubborn; and I was in the Marines. I know how to handle a physical challenge.

 

So I hope to cover a few miles. 

Me: December 1968.

Meanwhile, I will be raising money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which works to find a cure for type-1 diabetes. My daughter Emily has been type-1 since she was 14, nineteen years, now.

 

Emily is tougher than me – and it’s not even close. She’s a dedicated research nurse, a mother of twin boys, Prosper and Story, age 3, and good with her partner’s kids, Zea and Cooper, too. 

 

I’m proud to be her dad.

Story, left, Prosper, waving the hat.

If you know any type-1 diabetics, they NEVER get to coast downhill. You can’t cure type-1. So you have to deal with the challenge every day. It’s like pedaling against a stiff wind – day after day – year after year. Yet they do it, and JDRF funding has helped fund research for a cure, and to advance care. 

I will be trying to raise money as I go. 

Cadillac Mountain - start of a ride across the USA in 2011.

Sidney, in pink, has type-1 diabetes, with brother Sam.
I rode for her and others in 2011.

Lunch break in Grand Teton National Park - 2011.

I pedaled up Tioga Pass, into Yosemite National Park.
(White dot on the road, above handle bars, is a big mobile camping home.

A scene from Wyoming, during my first ride across the USA.
The state has six people per square mile - 2007.

Maybe I'll get far enough this time to see buffalo again?

Or mountain goats in Glacier National Park.

Or even ride the Going-to-the-Sun highway in Glacier.
That would be cool.

 

What would really be cool, though, would be finding a cure for type-1 diabetes. So, I guess I’ll have to pedal a few miles.

 

 

I am hoping people will donate $7.50 for the cause.

(Get it, I'm 75.)

How to Use This Blog - Bicycling across the USA

 

Going to the Sun Highway - Glacier National Park.

How to Use This Blog

If you are considering a ride across the United States, or have an interest in raising money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund, I may have a few insights of value. I’ve made two trips across the USA, both times to raise donations for JDRF. I assure you, the kindness of people who donate is a reward in itself. 

As for pedaling across the country, I tell everyone that it’s easier than you think. On both trips, after the first week or ten days, I fell into a rhythm and it was no longer particularly hard. 

Okay, that one 18% grade, at the Middlebury Gap, yeah, that was hard. 

Alright, and that barren 92-mile stretch from Delta, Utah to the Border Inn Motel and Casino, which greets a cyclist or motorist right at the Nevada border – that day’s ride was a grind, and I nearly ran out of water.

Rush hour traffic: Sevier Desert, Utah.

 

(I was carrying eight bottles!) 

In any case, here is how I think you can best use this blog. And I will say, I have plans to pedal across the United States again this spring and summer, when I turn 75. 

Youth must be served. 

First, you might like to look at a set of pictures from my 2007 cross-country trip (New Jersey shore to Portland, Oregon), “Photos from a Bicycle Ride across the USA.” I was 58 years old when I started off on that jaunt.

Top of Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park.

 

I have a second set of pictures, from my ride in 2011, “Pictures from a Bicycle Ride across America in 2011.” I did cheat a little, and include photos from other, shorter rides, and of places I’ve visited by car since.  I will add a few in coming days, from a automobile trip I took in 2023.

Yosemite National Park.

Scene from the Pacific Coast Highway. 
A redwood tree can grow to 360 feet - exactly equal
to a football field, including both end zones, stood on end.

 

Puebloan ruins - Chaco Canyon - c. 1200 A.D.
I drove there; I'd pedal there if I had never been before.

* 

Next, if you’re interested in raising money for JDRF, before I did my first ride I interviewed a number of people with type-1 diabetes, and wrote up their stories. Most were former students, or students then attending Loveland Middle School. (I retired from teaching in 2008.) If you like you can read Sidney’s story, “Petrified Wood and Purple Pumps,” and keep hitting the tab, “Newer Post,” at the bottom left corner. That will take you to posts on Adam Kavka, “Physicist, Jazz Piano Player, Type-1 Diabetic,” “Bow Hunting with Joel McElfrish,” about one of my funnier students, and Lauren Lemon, in “A Bluffsview Elementary School Star.” I also did a post on Audrey Lake, one of my great colleagues, who had handled being diabetic for more than fifty years, and never complained. 

I even included a warning about the goose that tried to assassinate me during a practice ride: “Beware of the Goose and the Squirrel.” 

 

*

In any case, I started this blog in 2007, when I first decided to pedal cross-country, to raise money for JDRF. (My youngest daughter, Emily, developed type-1 diabetes when she was fourteen, in 2005.) I had one year left to teach, before I retired, and my students got excited and helped me raise money: $13,500 in all.  

You can read a description of that entire trip in a post called “Russian Roulette with Pedals,” if you prefer. I wrote that story for a literary group to which my wife and I belong. (It sounds pretentious, I know.) 

Or you can follow along, in a string of posts I did during that ride. I had to stop and use library and motel computers in those days. That string starts with, “Emily – June 14, 2007,” and then you can follow posts from that trip, in order, by hitting the tab at the bottom, right, labeled “Older Post.” I transferred all of these posts from an older blog. By the way, I started that first cross-country ride 25 pounds overweight, and lost all 25.

It's hard being diabetic, but Emily had twins in 2021.
(Prosper, left, Story, right.)

 

Other posts include: “Slow Progress and Suffering – June 27, 2007,” “Back on the Road – July 9, 2007,” after I pedaled home to Cincinnati, for a three-day break, posts about pedaling west in Kansas, and high winds, the thrill of seeing the mountains of Colorado, and the joys of viewing Yellowstone from the seat of a bicycle. I can assure you, “Riding in a Tutu – July 31, 2007,” is not about me. 

By the way, if you don’t know, there are only six people per square mile in Wyoming, so you don’t have to fear too many cars. In a post titled, “More Updating – August 5, 2007,” I include a number of pictures I’ve taken in Yellowstone, including one from the top of the pass, where the road in the park goes past Mt. Washburn.  At that point you hit a 14-mile, downhill glide. I finally finished my first ride at Bay City, Oregon, as explained in “Safe, Sound, and Done – August 16, 2007.”

View from atop Mt. Washburn.

 

I then posted for the first time, with advice for other riders, in, “How to Bicycle across America.” That story comes from a book I wrote about teaching, Two Legs Suffice, which sums up my  theory of both teaching and pedaling across a continent. In this case, I explain how my students and the community where I taught for thirty three years, helped raise money for JDRF. I have also posted, offering advice about pedaling across the USA, in “Advice before Bicycling across the USA” and again in “Need Advice for a Bicycle Ride Across America?” 

Probably any one of those three posts would suffice.

 

* 

In 2016, I began to reorganize my blog. By that time, I had pedal across the U.S. a second time, at age 62. (I still thought it was fairly easy.) That post, titled, “Clyde Barrow on a Bike,” was fun to do. 

Due to some anomaly in how Blogspot.com works, I ended up posting updates on the 2011 ride in inverse order. So you can follow along, starting with “Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cluster Training Regimen,” which describe one of my “best” getting-ready-to-ride tricks. 

As in 2007, I was going to start my second ride across the U.S. twenty-five pounds heavier than would be ideal. 

And: I would lose all that weight again! 

The story of the trip itself begins with a post, called, “The Start of a Long and Winding Road,” with my journey beginning at Acadia National Park in Maine. (I was just looking information up last night, and I see – on January 24, 2024 – that where you will need timed-entry passes for several of the best national parks this summer, if you are on a bicycle, you can enter as you wish.) 

If you’ve never been to Acadia, do yourself a favor and go! 

In this case, keep hitting the “New Post” tab at the bottom left, and you can follow my trek across New Hampshire and Vermont, both fabulous for riding, and read about less enjoyable days in “Damp Somewhere in America.” Thrill, vicariously, to the story of all that pedaling – across New York, and the Pennsylvania panhandle, into Ohio – my state has some of the very worst roads for bicycling – and on west. (As in 2007, I made a stop in Cincinnati, to spend time with my wife.) You can follow my misadventures in posts like, “CSI: Wayne County, Indiana,” and “Hot, Hotter, Hottest.”

Some parts of Kansas have fewer people than in 1890. 
Abandoned high school near Ness City.

 

Then there were the many pleasures, as noted in “Kind Acts,” about generous people. The country now was growing more beautiful. So I enjoyed Iowa and South Dakota, and seeing the Badlands and the Black Hills from the seat of a bike. As I wrote in one post: 

If anything, the real dilemma in the Black Hills is deciding what to see and what you reluctantly have to skip.  If you go south you can enter Custer State Park and see the herd of 1,500 free-roaming buffalo (I skipped that). You can ride the 1880 train from Keystone to Hill City (I pedaled up over the mountains instead). You can swim in beautiful Horsetail Lake (which I did) and you can use the Mickelson Trail if you're on a bicycle.  So I did.

 

I highly recommend using the Mickelson Trail. You’ll be glad if you do. 

Keep hitting “New Post,” if you like, and I’ll take you across Wyoming, and into Yellowstone National Park. Then I’ll point you south to Utah, in “Give Blood! For Diabetes?” As a former history teacher, I had fun seeing the Mormon sites in Salt Lake City, and it was on to Nevada – where you can pedal the “Loneliest Highway in America.” I think there are twelve mountain passes to cross on that route, but traffic is light and it’s an adventure every day. See, for example, “Into Nevada,” and “Californian almost in View.” Eventually, I hit Reno, after an aborted shortcut by way of Gabbs, Nevada (pop. 347), and then rode up Tioga Pass, a challenge for any rider, and into Yosemite, where I spent several glorious days. I ended my trip in San Francisco, near where of my brothers live. See: “San Francisco: No More Pedaling Required.”

This lucky group went off the road in Yellowstone, but missed all the trees.

 

Some of my posts get repetitious, but I added a compilation of pictures from both cross-country rides, a ride that included Gettysburg, and more, “Pedaling for JDRF: The Big Payoff.” 

If any of this helps other riders, that’s my reward. If you need advice, feel free to send me an email at vilejjv@yahoo.com. 

Or call: 513-479-4988.

The blogger, right, with his son Seth, at the Super Bowl.
For 58 minutes, it looked like the Bengals would win.

Bitten by the Bug - My First Long Bicycle Ride - Yellowstone to Cincinnati

 

Yellowstone National Park to Cincinnati, Ohio:

My First Long Bicycle Ride.

 (Age 50.)

 

Every marriage could use an interpreter. 

I believe in any marriage, no matter how well-matched the partners, periods of discord are inevitable. Or, as Stanley Kunitz once put it, “In every house of marriage there is room for an interpreter.” 

For my wife and I the spring of 1999 was such a time, as plans for my bicycle journey across the West unfolded. 

 

Anne, my very cool wife, c. 1994.

I suppose I have had a personal love affair with the West ever since my mother took my two brothers and I to California in 1962. That summer we piled into the family station wagon, told dad we'd meet him in San Francisco, when he flew out, and with our mother at the wheel set off on a great adventure. We were not always perfect sons or travelers, though, and I recall her ire when we balked at leaving the car to even look at the Grand Canyon. “It’s just a big hole in the ground,” said Tim, my older brother, which touched a raw nerve. Mom was soon herding us in the direction of an overlook like lemmings on vacation.

 

A more recent view of the "big hole in the ground."

 

Nevertheless, my fascination with these great open spaces remained strong, and the appeal of a bicycle trip across the continent took on mythic proportions as I approached my fiftieth  birthday. It seemed to be a perfect challenge and with my right knee ruined for basketball, I was in need of some activity to keep in shape. In the summer of 1998, in casual fashion, or a moment of weakness, Anne agreed that it would be alright to try. I began then to consider the task. To raise money for what seemed like selfish purposes, I agreed to do lunchroom duty at my school to earn extra pay. On bad days when the French fries were flying and teenage hormones were bubbling, this seemed like stiff penance in the name of adventure. But by spring, 1999, I had a new 21-speed Cannondale touring machine. 

By that time I was also putting in long miles training, and it was increasingly easy to knock off 50 miles in a morning or afternoon. Yet, the more I set my mind on going the more restive my wife became. She knew all along that I planned to make a solo attempt. Now she conjured up a variety of fears, and ran them out at me again and again, like unleashed dogs. What would I do if I broke a leg? How would I avoid dehydration? What about psychos and murderers? Had I considered such dangers carefully? 

How could I respond? I already had my bike. I was in good shape and ready to go. So I listened politely, as veteran husbands know they must do, and then, like any veteran husband, I ignored my wife. Secretly, of course. For I did not want to suffer crippling injuries before I could begin.

“If an ass goes traveling, he will not come home a horse.” 

Finally, late one night, Anne tried a new tack. Had I considered bandits, who might lay in wait, simply to capture my shiny new bicycle? I admit I was perplexed. I had heard of rustlers. I had heard of carjackers. This was a new category of criminality, and I could not take it seriously. Levity only served to provoke my lovely wife. Angry words were soon flying, and at that point two interpreters would have been helpful. I considered appealing in the words of Juvenal: “Travel light and you can sing in the robber’s face.” I feared, however, that Anne would counter with the wisdom of Thomas Fuller. “If an ass goes traveling,” he explained in 1732, “he will not come home a horse.” 

In the end, it was deep into June before Anne relented. Now I rushed to complete my planning. It was a precondition that I carry a cellphone. But a pistol – offered by my friendly, right-wing barber – would not be part of my baggage. A quick trip to Dick’s Sporting Goods netted several bags and a lightweight tent, advertised (optimistically) as providing room for two. I would carry five sets of extra clothes, three spare tires, three water bottles, bug repellent, and a hatchet for chopping wood (also handy for fighting off bike-napping hoodlums). I would also carry a sleeping bag, repair kit, and flashlight, and a couple of good books, about 50 pounds of gear in all. Abby, my oldest daughter, and her boyfriend Alex agreed to drop me off in Yellowstone National Park. Then they planned to continue to California. 

My dream was now within reach.

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River (308 feet high).

 

Falls observation deck - picture taken during another trip.

View of the falls from a trail above.

Grand Prismatic hot springs.

Yellowstone River.

    

Once we headed West, I tried to get in a few practice rides, for no amount of training in Ohio prepares you for the mountains of Wyoming. The first time I rode with a full load I did better than expected, 28 miles in about two hours through Badlands National Park. The next day, I left our hotel early and headed up Powder River Pass through the Big Horn Mountains, to get a little practice climbing. For eleven miles it was straight up, until Abby caught me in the car, and we loaded my bike back on its rack. I now had a sense of relief. How much worse could it be? I was ready for anything. 

Or so I thought. 

(I’d be coming back the same way, but from the west, in a few days.)

 

On the night of June 22, I camped near the headwaters of the Wind River, 40 miles east of Grand Teton National Park. Abby and Alex deserted me for the comforts of a heated cabin. So I ate a dinner of raisins, nuts and Cheerios and enjoyed the wilderness tranquility. Save for the sounds of a waterfall not far away, and the birds, there was only silence. A squirrel came to dine on my scraps. A moose grazed in a nearby meadow. I spotted a beaver by the stream and tried to snap a photograph, but the creature traced a great arc in the air, splashed down in the water and disappeared with one powerful slap of its tail. 

Darkness came early amid the trees and mountains. I threw up my tent, placed my bag of toiletries high in a nearby pine, as camp bear warnings indicated, and fell asleep with my grizzly-fighting, robber-thumping hatchet close at hand. No animals nor criminals came near that night and there was only one problem. I discovered that the tent I had purchased so hurriedly was too small. And I mean much too small! It was advertised for two occupants. This could have been true if both were natives of Munchkin Land! 

The next morning I rose early, stretched out my legs, and headed up Togwotee Pass (el. 9659 feet). It was six hard miles to start the day, but the country was spectacular, and I felt rewarded for every ounce of energy expended. I met several other riders, headed East or West as the mood struck them, on the “American Trail.” One fellow, followed by a sag wagon, explained how he planned to average 130 miles per day. Another was headed for Minnesota on a recumbent bike. There was a group of four college girls, but I only waved at them as I sat at a gas station sipping a coke. By the time I rolled into Yellowstone that afternoon I had done 44 miles, worn down any feeling of exhilaration, and knew that I was woefully prepared for mountain travel. The altitude gave me a headache. My legs ached. My buns of steel pained me fearfully. In fact, I came perilously close to losing my nerve.

Ox Bow Bend - Snake River - Grand Teton National Park.
(These are the types of scenes I enjoyed on my ride; picture taken on a later trip.)

A flower in Grand Teton.

Grand Teton - Fall 2022.

A whoop of delight. 

 By morning, however, I had recovered my courage. Abby, Alex, had met up with me at a campground for the night, and we enjoyed a last breakfast together. Then they carried me up to the center of the park and at 2:00 PM on June 24, I cut loose and began my ride in earnest, heading East at last. Once again, I had to go straight up at the start, six miles through Dunraven Pass. Then I wound my way along the snow covered slopes of beautiful Mt. Washburn (el. 10,234). I could hardly believe I was finally on my way and let out a whoop of delight – only to swallow some sort of Western bug! Otherwise, it proved to be a wondrous day.

Alex, now Abby's husband, hiking Mt. Washburn in 2017.

 

Just before Tower Junction you pass Antelope Creek, prime grizzly habitat, and closed to human travel. I saw neither bears nor the recently reintroduced gray wolf. All the way – 39 miles that day – it was gorgeous scenery, the weather crisp and clear. I also enjoyed my first great downhill ride, ten miles without pedaling, and pulled into Pebbles Creek campground around dusk. There were no toilets nor showers, but a fine mountain stream ran through my campsite, and I grilled two metts over a fire before preparing for sleep once more. 

A ranger stopped by to remind me to lock my food and shaving gear in the bear proof storage box; and I did a quick inventory of the surroundings. Every other camper had a trailer – or at least a car. And I worried that any grizzlies in the area would head for me like a gourmand in pursuit of a softshell crab. But I was tired and slept well anyway, until it began to rain. Once more, I discovered that my tent lacked certain attributes a serious camper might deem essential. Not only was it too short, I found that with my head pressed against one wall and wet nylon flapping directly in front of my nose this particular piece of equipment had the qualities of a very fine sieve. I spent the night with damp nylon alternately shaking in the wind or pasted to my face. 

A rattled road sign and rattled nerves.

 The next morning I awoke early, with the sun peeking over a nearby mountain, “The Thunder.” I splashed cold water from the stream in my face, dressed warmly, and set off again. Almost as soon as I left camp, I ran into a roadcrew hard at work. The flagger warned me to be on the lookout for a grizzly sow and two cubs, which they had seen in the area, then noted that the adult could achieve bursts of speed of 40 mph. This made me wary and when a wind rattled a road sign as I passed, I reacted like Ichabod Crane. 

After breakfast of trout and eggs, in Silver Gate, Montana (year-round population: 10) I was ready for a hard ride. This was my first real test, and I would do a little more than 90 miles on the day. In the morning I rode down the valley of Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River. Beartooth Mountain rose behind. The rushing river serenaded me on the right. Drifts of snow melted in the forest shade. At one point I watched a moose clatter across the road and lumber into the trees. He appeared concerned about keeping some wilderness appointment.

Picture from that trip in 1999. Silver Gate, Montana.

Beartooth Mountain in the distance - Clark's Fork River.

 

By early afternoon I had changed course slightly to follow Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, and head up over Dead Indian Pass (el. 8061). Here, for the first time, I truly suffered. For eight miles and two long hours of peddling, I climbed out of the valley, hairpin turn piled on top of hairpin turn. If the deceased who gave the pass its name was not on a bicycle when he passed on to the next world, he (or she) could have been! By now I was almost out of water and facing trouble. But a wonderful, retired couple stopped at a scenic overlook and gave me ice water from their cooler, and I was able to continue, now refreshed. Just over the top I stopped for a quick meal. Then I rode on, coasting fourteen miles at one point at speeds as high as 44 mph. I was now in gorgeous country, all green pine and red sandstone cliffs and blue sky, headed down to high desert, sagebrush and bunch grass, into Cody, Wyoming.

Dead Indian Pass - there's a semi with trailer, lower center hairpin turn.
(My pictures from this trip predate digitization.)

Feeling good at the top of the pass.

Even now it was easy to see why Native Americans fought to keep this land. Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce band had passed this way in 1877, after they were driven from their ancestral homes in Idaho. For seventy years they had lived with their white neighbors in peace, yet they were forced out anyway – in part because of white inability to tell one Indian from another – in part because of naked greed. Forced to fight, the Nez Perce repeatedly bloodied the military forces sent to intercept them. At the Battle of White Bird, for example, they ambushed U.S. cavalry, killing 34 soldiers, and capturing 63 valuable weapons.

 

Chief Joseph.

  

Mooning the U.S. cavalry.

 To mark the victory with an exclamation point, a warrior balanced on his pony and mooned the enemy. 

Unfortunately, Joseph and his people were finally trapped and forced to surrender. Later the survivors were shipped to Oklahoma where they died in bunches far from the lands they had loved. When Chief Joseph succumbed in 1904, a reservation doctor fixed the cause as “a broken heart.” It made me realize ethnic cleansing is only a modern term for a practice with long, ugly roots.  

The town of Cody is home to two institutions I recommend to all world travelers. One is the Buffalo Bill Historic Center, with its magnificent sculptures, paintings, and exhibits, including an entire wing dedicated to the art of teepee covers, moccasins, and native shields. The other is the Bottoms Up Lounge. After a hard day of riding, I allowed myself the luxury of a motel room, and headed for the lounge to down a beer. I watched a little TV, and reveled in the Western ambiance. On one wall was a large painting of a group of cowboys branding cows. There were pictures of horses and ranches. Then I noticed a huge canvas, showing four curvaceous cowgirls perched upon a fence. A closer look showed they had on chaps – but were otherwise completely bare-assed. I thought about purchasing a Bottoms Up Lounge t-shirt, featuring the girls, as a souvenir, but decided Anne might not appreciate my discerning sense of humor.

Like us, the Sioux liked to step out in style.

  

The next several days were filled with thrills, large and small. Mornings were cold and invigorating, and I dallied over giant breakfasts, knowing calories were no longer an issue. One joy of any bike trip is that you become more a part of the world in which you ride. I could smell the prairie flowers, the fresh cut hay, and even the dead animals along the road, and my senses seemed alive. One morning, I watched three antelope at play in a field. Another time, I passed five horses in a corral. Suddenly, some horse-thought took possession of the group, and they ran through a chute, into a larger meadow, like the starting five of some farmyard basketball team. They galloped a half-circle, in single file, and halted to watch as I pedaled past. Perhaps they were jealous of my freedom. Or perhaps deep inside their horse noggins they were thinking, What an idiot! 

Birds were another constant of my day, including redwings, robins, and meadowlarks. Often my passage startled quail along the roadside, and they shot away like arrows, but no limit to the distance such shots might travel. Another day I flushed a pheasant from hiding and it went whirring away, like a poorly oiled lawn mower. I noticed that one or two intrepid flyers occasionally followed me close, clawing or warbling as the mood struck. It was some time before I realized that they were “drafting” off my bicycle, and then I felt honored to lead the way. 

Everywhere people were friendly and anxious to talk. I ate huckleberry ice cream one day at Dirty Sally’s Restaurant. Sal, herself, dished up the dessert and commented that men of Wyoming were backward and believed women should go barefoot and pregnant. She looked too formidable for me to joke, “So?” And I decided to plunk down a good tip and kept right on going. Another night, at a KOA campground, I met Cindy and Peter Wuerstein, both avid riders themselves. Cindy had been a teacher in Connecticut in 1976, and told me how her students did a Bicentennial Puppet Show, complete with scrolling background. Peter himself had ridden a bike in Europe for a year, then traveled around the world from 1980 to 1986. I explained I was new at this business, but he predicted. “You’ll be bitten by the bug.” Somehow, I did not think this was information I should relate to my wife when I made my daily phone call home. 

It may surprise those of you who don’t ride, but troubles were minimal. I suffered only one flat, after running over a thumbtack at a campground. The sun and wind were hard on my lips, and I found it necessary to use Chapstick. Then one day while riding along Interstate 90 (which is not only legal in Wyoming but almost the only option in places) I ran into a freshly tarred shoulder and began spraying myself with goo. Well, I said to myself, the Wyoming Department of Transportation can’t fool a good old Ohio boy. So I switched sides and continued on my merry way. After a few miles, I spied the tar truck coming back along the opposite shoulder, and was forced to pick one of two equally bad options, both involving thick black coverings of tar. That day I rode amid the flying globs,  and by the time I could get to a side road, I looked like a character out of Uncle Remus. 

Probably my worst experience came when I had to climb back over the Big Horn Mountains, from Ten Sleep, Wyoming – this time going all the way up and over Powder River Pass (el. 9666). No one seemed to agree just how far it was to the top, but each estimate was more daunting than the last. Indeed, the day’s ride was brutal: 30 miles up, seven long hours, and then another 40 miles, up and down, to the nearest town. By the time I hit the fifteen-mile mark coming up the pass, I was thinking it might be nice if a car winged me and I could ride to a hospital in an ambulance. At mile eighteen I began expending equal parts of energy cursing and pedaling. At Mile 26, I spotted a mule deer beside the road. He was a graceful creature. At my approach he took two prancing steps, leaped the high fence alongside the road easily, and disappeared. “You try riding a bike up this goddam hill!” I cried bitterly, and got off to walk for the first time.

 

Halfway up Powder River Pass, but going the other way, on a 2011 ride.
Beautiful country, either way.

 

“You mean we drove right past it?”

 The next day, with the Big Horns behind me, I angled for the corner of South Dakota and the Black Hills. At lunch I stopped at a little cafe and talked to the owner – a Mrs. Wuisenauer – related to the president, but spelling her name the old German way. She asked where I was going. “Custer,” I said, “tomorrow.” Then she related the story of the customer who insisted he was headed to the same town to see the Battlefield of the Little Bighorn. When she tried to explain that this particular fight actually occurred in Montana, he seemed miffed. When a second customer joined in and told him he was wrong, the first man’s wife smacked his arm angrily and cried, “You mean we drove right past it?”

 

Custer, left, his wife Libbie, right.

 

Again, it was easy to see why natives had struggled to hold the Black Hills. The entire region, called “Paha Sapa” by the Sioux, is a jumble of dark granite, cold mountain lakes, rushing streams, and thick pine forest. In 1868, the U.S. government and the Sioux signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie. “No persons except those designated herein shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described,” it stipulated, and white settlement seemed effectively blocked “forever.” 

“Forever” lasted all of six years, till miners discovered rich gold deposits in the region. The Chicago Inter-Ocean reported on August 27, 1874, that the soil was pay dirt “from the grassroots down.” 

Lawmakers in Washington tried to find a solution. Sitting Bull and other tribal leaders were encouraged to sell the land. The chief replied: “I don’t want to sell any land to the government.” Then, picking up a pinch of dust, he let it fall, saying, “Not even so much as this.” The second option was gunfire; and the Sioux were driven from the area, an effort which took three years and cost George Armstrong Custer and his men their lives. Today this once sacred ground is buried under a layer of grotesque tourist traps and every variation of fast food franchise. Where once Native Americans communed with guardian spirits we now had outlet shopping malls. The buffalo had been replaced by the gas guzzling SUV’s. Where brave warriors battled soldiers, overweight tourists now stopped to see Rock World or the Black Hills Reptile Farm. 

Custer State Park, not far from Mt. Rushmore, turned out to be as pretty as any national park. The terrain here was covered in Ponderosa Pine, Black Hills Spruce, Quaking Aspen, Paper Birch and Bur Oak, and home to thousands of free-ranging bison. I was a bit nervous about coming around a bend and startling some buffalo bull, for I was not confident I could outpace them  or withstand a direct impact or goring. In other places the grasslands were covered with prairie dog holes, and their denizens kept up a shrill piping as I wheeled past. Several dogs had burrowed right along the shoulder of the road, even knocking away pieces of asphalt, like rodent jackhammers. I wondered, if buffalo didn’t get me, whether a wheel in a hole might not finish my excursion once and for all and validate Anne’s concerns. The ironic possibilities were impressive. 

By this time in my trip I was obviously losing weight and felt like I was in my best shape in years. My sense of the matter was confirmed when I stopped at a light in Hot Springs, South Dakota and bent over, to adjust a loose saddle bag. A white pickup truck pulled up behind me and I heard a girl chorus of, “Oh my God!” I turned to see exactly what was the idea, and a pretty young lady waved, smiled and said, “Hi.” Another ooed loudly but all too briefly. I think they took a good look at my face and realized that I was closer in age to their grandfathers than their peer group. With that they speed off with all the carefree innocence of youth. I waved and smiled wistfully. Ah, to be young again! But I admit I peddled away with a renewed sense of purpose. 

“Did you see the tornado that passed by yesterday?”

 For most of my trip the weather was excellent, but outside of Chadron, Nebraska, late one afternoon, I ran into a fearsome prairie storm. At the first signs of trouble I took cover at a gas station, and waited an hour as a line of ominous clouds passed, with brief, heavy rains, and a spectacular display of lightning. Then it seemed the sky was clearing. I took off once more. For the next few miles it appeared as if I had made a good choice. A slot below the clouds to the west revealed the setting sun and blue on the eastern horizon gave me hope of a break in the weather. 

Just as I reached the Nebraska state line, however, what looked to be a black fog filled the prairies to the north. Then the storm closed over me as if someone had placed a lid on the sky. Rain poured – or rather was blown – in torrents. The wind picked up, easily to 50 mph, and I could plow ahead at no more than 8 mph. Then the gale increased to new levels. My pace was cut in half. My red rain poncho flapped wildly in the tempest, and a heard of cows near the roadway took a look and stampeded in fear. I now knew how Dorothy and Toto felt and suspected that if I let go of my handlebars I might sail away like a wet red kite. 

Still, in some strange way, I actually enjoyed the experience. Caught up in the awesome power of Nature, I turned down an offer of a ride from a farmer in a pickup truck. I had the sense, finally, that I could understand what travelers on the Oregon Trail must have gone through. At last, however, the weather became so extreme that I had to give up in the rain and lowering darkness. I found a grassy depression near the road and threw up my tent the best way I could, the wind catching it and inflating it like a giant balloon. I almost lost it completely – which would have been fun – but managed to keep hold with one hand. Then I waited for the pelting rain and the roaring wind to die away and about midnight fell into sound sleep till dawn. 

At breakfast, in Chadron, the next day, one of the locals asked me, “Did you see the tornado that passed by yesterday?” 

(I guess I kind of did.)

 

The days ahead were less eventful. Certainly in Nebraska the scenery was far from spectacular. I quickly discovered that the terrain came in two styles. There was sagebrush and flat. And there was farmland and flat. I was reminded at times of scenes in the old movies, where cars drove down some road, and a film landscape rolled by in the background. Of course, when you watched carefully, you could see the same spots repeat themselves. Now, in Nebraska, whenever I looked up from peddling it seemed the exact same. Occasionally, some large bug went thunk against my helmet to relieve the monotony, but there were long stretches where my only purpose seemed to be to peddle closer to home. 

Still, it was interesting to see the back roads of America, the little towns, and out of way tourist sites, to be out of sight of any McDonalds. The Museum of the Fur Trade, just outside Chadron, had many fine exhibits and artifacts. One was a log cabin bottle, used for shipping alcohol, starting in 1840. The maker was E. G. Booz, whose name lives on today. Mirrors were in great demand as a trade item among the Plains tribes, and the decorative wood and bone frames they made showed the highest level of artistic and narcissistic skill. There was even a Blackfoot Sioux cutting board made from a moose antler and decorated with rows of brass tacks. 

The cowboy and the sledgehammer.

 On July 4, I did a long ride in 98 degree heat, and stopped to rest in Merriman, Nebraska (pop. 131). At the gas station/convenience store I had an interesting talk with the owner and his friend, the latter a true Western character. This fellow was wiry and well-tanned, and wore a cowboy hat, colorful scarf and a pearl-handled revolver on his hip. This was in a Food Mart, mind you. I asked what he did for a living. He explained that he built wagons and stagecoaches using old-time methods. He was proud to say he learned the art from his father, and added that he used no power tools, and bent the wood by hand. 

When I mentioned that I taught school we got to talking about kids. The owner showed me a poem about Columbine, which he copied on the Internet. The cowboy launched into a soliloquy on gun control. Then he explained bitterly how kids in town used to vandalize his house. One night he hid under a young man’s car, grabbed him by the ankle, dragged him underneath, and administered a beating in confined quarters. This ended his tale of crime and retribution. 

Then the subject of marriage came up. I was not surprised when he revealed his wife had met another man over the Net and left him after 28 years. He said when he filed for divorce over at the county offices, the clerk told him, “It’s the fourth case this year.” The cowboy took a sledgehammer and smashed the computer to bits. He was a character alright. 

He was nuts. 

My progress was faster now. Some days I did a hundred miles without difficulty. Once I met a father and son from Holland who were making their eighth summer trip across North America, including one which carried them to Alaska. Another day, I spent a leisurely evening watching a Little League baseball game, for I had no pressing tasks and felt truly relaxed. At one point, Heath, the left fielder, made a diving, stumbling grab of a long fly ball, a play made more difficult by the fact he was wearing a pair of giant pants, held up by his father’s belt. I felt like too much of an outsider to inquire as to the nature of this mix up; but otherwise the game reminded me of ones we played in Bath, Ohio, in the early 1960s. There were still players at the bottom of both lineups, for example, who came to bat looking like they were going out to public execution. 

Another day I ate lunch in Bancroft, Nebraska and sat with an old farmer named Melvin Criss. He seemed genuinely happy to talk to someone new, and told me a good part of his life story. He married a 19-year-old when he was thirty. They had one daughter. Later he divorced his wife when she got hooked on Darvon. He had lived in the area all his life, save for a stint in the U.S. Navy, and added that land went for about $1,000 per acre. His friend drove a wagon and horse to Washington D.C. in 1986, to protest low farm prices and Melvin went part way, but got sick. I asked then: “How long have farm prices been low?” 

“All my life,” he replied with a laugh. 

Crossing into Iowa, I had my only real close call where cars were concerned. Just beyond the Missouri River, a teenage driver went sailing past, swerving at the last minute to avoid me. Honking loud and hard, he jerked the car back to the right and overcorrected badly. His tires squealed in protest, just missed leaving the pavement, and I could see two girls in the back seat, their heads bobbling like those souvenir dolls with spring necks you used to be able to buy. It made me think of a comment my brother once made, when he described biking as “Russian roulette with a lot of cylinders.” 

Iowa proved to be like Nebraska, with fewer cattle, but more trees. There were great stretches of unbroken farm country, as flat as a graduation mortarboard. The days went by quickly and I peddled hard, knowing my wife expected me home, sooner than later. I made a long stop one afternoon to watch the Women’ World Soccer Cup Final, and while I had a restaurant bar to myself, I cheered with the same enthusiasm as the crowd in Pasadena. The American women defeated the Chinese, 5-4, if you remember, and Brandi Chastain became famous for whipping off her jersey in celebration, revealing a black sports bra, and a well-toned young physique. 

I also enjoyed the sights in Pella, a town founded by Dutch immigrants, and visited antique stores and a riverboat casino at Fort Madison, before crossing the Mississippi River on July 12. 

A bloodthirsty mob.

 That night I camped outside Nauvoo, Illinois, a town steeped in Mormon lore. Today the area is a mecca for members of both the Church of Jesus Christ of the latter day Saints and the schismatic Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. In the 1830s followers of Joseph Smith gathered here in large numbers, prospered, and practiced polygamy, until their leader was murdered by a bloodthirsty mob. Today the town is booming again. Plans are afoot to rebuild the great LDS temple, which burned down in 1848, not long after the faithful departed for Utah. Both branches of Smith’s original church maintain visitors’ centers in town. I also noticed a building on the Main Street, with a sign that announced, “Nauvoo Christian Visitors’ Center.” Prominently displayed in the window was this caustic sign: “If God told the Mormons to go to Utah, why did they send scouts to Texas and California?” It was a theological question, and I had no desire to get involved.

 

The temple at Nauvoo was burned in 1848 by a mob.

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: My original plan was to drive out to Yellowstone, and pedal back to Cincinnati, Ohio, where I lived. But my car suffered a major mechanical failure after only a half day’s drive – and due to serious time constraints, and after much discussion, my wife agreed that it would make sense if I bought a much-needed new car at a dealer in Savoy, Indiana. So I would pedal back to the dealer, pick up my repaired vehicle, and then drive the rest of the way home.

 

The last two days, I rode hard for Savoy, intent only on picking up my car and getting home as fast as possible. Along the Mississippi, just South of Nauvoo, I fell in with another rider, Don Worcester. He kept up a fast pace and looked only slightly older than myself, but I soon discovered he was a retired teacher, 70 years of age. On July 14, I covered the last 107 miles, reaching the car dealership where my vehicle had been repaired, just before closing time. Then I zoomed home, comfortably seated on four wheels and a wide seat, covering the last 224 miles in three easy hours. 

When I pulled in our drive at 1:00 a.m. the ladies of the family, Anne, and my two younger daughters, Sarah and Emily, rushed out to greet me. 

I knew I was fortunate to be home.

 

The two girls, photo from c. 2005.