The Daring Ms. Kniskern

I’ll start my post on Lily Kniskern by saying that her mother was one of the best young teachers I ever knew. As when I worked with her mom, when I talked to Lily, I came away impressed.

She learned the bad news, that she had type-1 diabetes, at age 14. Bad news, medically, was nothing new for the family. Her younger sister, Becca, was diagnosed with cancer at age two, went into remission, then had a second diagnosis at age four. Her father, who had been a chef, had switched to nursing as a career, and good health insurance at least eased the family’s worries.

I know the sisters have been close. So I ask Lily if she ever gives her younger sibling advice. “She’s a teenager. She doesn’t listen to me,” she responds.

Lily, left, Becca, right.

We both have a laugh. I tell her “you are really aging out ,” all of 19 3/4 years old.

Like all siblings, they will argue. Lily says Becca will sometimes pull the “cancer card,” if she pulls the “diabetes card.” 

Once they were arguing, and Becca got annoyed at Lily’s responses, and said, “You act like you’ve never gone low before.”

But Becca and Lily are both toughened by adversity. Lily was a strong student in high school (“around a 4.0 grade point,” she tells me, when I inquire). Still, she knows life has its risks. So she has foregone college for now, and has traveled instead. Last fall, she did a three-month tour in Europe, hitting Germany, France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and also a stop in London. Her favorite place was the lush, green Basque Country, between France and Spain. She also explained that she and a German girl hit it off and hiked together. I asked if she ever worried about safety, and she said no; but one night the two young ladies missed their bus connection, and, rather than pay for an Uber, walked ten miles back to the hostel where they were staying. I thought that sounded tough, but Lily said they had just taken a pasta-making class, and the walk kept her from going high.

The “carefree” life of the diabetic!

Lily has also visited the Caribbean, paying her way largely through a program called Workaway. In the Caribbean, she worked as a receptionist and cleaned rooms to pave her path. In Florida she cleaned rental units and walked the owner’s dog.

You’re only young once and type-1, until there’s a cure, is forever. So Lily has decided it’s not going to stop her, or interfere with what she wants to do with her life. When I talked to her recently, she had just come back from a cabin in the North Carolina mountains, said she has plans to go white water rafting, and then spend time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. “I’m doing what I love,” she says. Lily also says she wants others, newly diagnosed, “not to be afraid,” that “diabetes is not as scary as people think.” 

She does admit, “The first 2-3 months are the hardest, and then it gets easier.” But as anyone who has ever been diagnosed, and all their family members know, it’s no fun whatsoever. 

Unless you’re a needlephile, I suppose.

(I made that word up.)

In fact, her new boyfriend has been surprised by all the steps she must take to keep her disease under control. “You’re like a little Tamaguchi pet you have to take care of,” he told her and they both had to laugh. 

Since I am pedaling my bicycle across the USA at age 75, I think I can say, I admire those of an adventurous spirit. That’s Lily. Her mom tells me she worries, as I would. But Lily is clearly a bright young lady and smart enough to take care of herself.

So, I wonder, what’s her long term plan? She’s hoping to keep traveling, and her German friend may come to Florida, for a visit. And, in due time: College. “I love school and I love learning,” she tells me. She’s also a big reader, “so I’m not losing any brain cells,” she adds. In fact, she started kindergarten at age four, and when she makes up her mind to go back to school, she’ll be ready. She thinks she might want to become a genetic counselor and help others with problems like hers. She even says some of her high school friends who are in college, but unsure about what they want to do, are a little jealous about the adventures she is having.

I asked her if she worried about the costs of care, in the long run and she admitted she did. Spending money, “just to stay alive,” as she put it. That’s no fun.

But type-1 individuals have no other choice.

Finally, Lily fills in a few more blanks when I ask her:

She took French in high school and has been working to improve her skills, which helped her in Europe and the Caribbean.

Lily also mentioned the pleasures of meeting all kinds of travelers, mostly young, at hostels where she stayed.

She also wants a family someday: “Two girls,” she hopes.

When I ask her about her boyfriend she says they “very much hit it off from the start.” Cody Collins is the young man’s name.

Like so many type-1 diabetics, Lily has decided there’s no gain to complaining or moping around. “It’s not going to change.”

So she has decided to follow a more daring path and enjoy finding out where it leads.

She’s also used to pushing herself physically, which helps her manage her disease. She was on a jump rope team as a kid, and traveled the country some. In high school she was on the bowling team and did hurdles in track. A little rec. basketball also helped her stay in shape.

For now, college can wait. No doubt, when the time comes, an older and wiser Ms. Kniskern will be ready to meet that challenge with ease.

It was a pleasure to speak with her, and we both agree a cure, someday, would be great!

 YOU CAN DONATE TO JDRF HERE.

Lily chilling in Venice.

Becca, left, Lily, right.

Becca, her sister. Now cancer free.

Lily sent several travel pictures, showing her infusion site. 

Changing an infusion site in Italy.

Lily in Milan.

Bicycling Across the USA to Raise Money for JDRF

I will update progress as I remember how to load pictures from my phone to my blog. I am old and easily befuddled by technology. I have pedaled 256 miles the first five days. Adequate start. In five days, an average of 1,095 children get diagnosed with type-1 diabetes.

Personally, I am about to find the answer to the following question: Can a gentleman of substantial age, training on Oreos, bicycle across the United States, in an effort to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes ResearchFoundation? 

First, I am riding in honor of Emily Viall. My daughter has been dealing with type-1 diabetes since she was 14. 

I am riding for Pattie Spicher, who has been battling the same auto-immune disease for 53 years, and Audrey Lake, who was diagnosed in 1962. I am riding for Lilly Banks, 16, recently diagnosed, and Adam Kavka, a former student, who gave me a boost when he heard my daughter had learned the same bad news he did, when he was young. I will be riding for others, as I get organized and collect names and their stories. 

So, what could go wrong. I’ve got Oreos on my side.

The plan: Start at Acadia National Park -
pedal west until you hit an ocean.

Not only do I have Oreos to fuel my ride, I have Jim’s Bicycle Shop in Deer Park in my corner. He rebuilt my bicycle for this trip – the same one I’ve used to ride across the USA before. Jim sold me my Cannondale in 1999, and he’s never led me wrong.

Third, I’m riding for Emily’s twins – who want to grow up with a healthy mother. Emily is now a nurse, and takes excellent care of herself, with the help of Ryan Bowling, her partner. She has good health insurance, too. 

Many type-1 diabetics do not. 

Emily's boys: Story with the yellow car, Prosper with black.
My wife, Anne, an excellent mother and grandmother, both.

Emily has been dealing with type-1 diabetes for 19 years.
She has great class, like her mom.

My rebuilt bicycle, ready to roll.

I expect to meet plenty of kind people on my ride – as I have on previous rides. I expect to lose 25 pounds again, too. And I’ll see some beautiful sights. I should also thank my wife for letting me try this again. 

I have said innumerable times, that Anne is the most balanced, best person, male or female, I have ever met. 

So: Here we GO!

If you would like to donate, to help find a cure 

for type-1 diabetes,

 go to this link.

Battling and Beating Type-1 for 53 Years: Pattie Spicher

Ray (nickname: Baby Beef, left), Pattie, right.
You know what joke is coming.

“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. 

To Donate to JDRF, please click here.

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. 

Pattie on her wedding day - 1972.

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.”

Children weren't supposed to be an option.
Scott, left, decided to arrive early, Nick, right followed five years later.

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.

Had care for diabetics not improved, Pattie wouldn't be here.
Nor would her seven grandchildren.

 

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.

Grandson A.J. is a killer on the drums.

 

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.

To Donate to JDRF, please click here.

 

Destination Unknown: Pedaling for JDRF

If you would like to donate, to help find a cure 

for type-1 diabetes,

 go to this link.

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.)

“Clyde Barrow on a Bike”

My ride started at Cadillac Mountain in Maine in the summer of 2011.
I was 62 years old at the time. I think many people could do what I did.

This is the story of my second bicycle trip across the United States in 2011. It was originally presented to a literary group I belong to back in 2013. If you’re thinking about a similar trip you might find it interesting.

Try not to get handcuffed in Indiana, though. Keep reading and I’ll explain.

*

To the basics then: September 7, 2011, I complete my second ride across the USA, 4,615 miles, 58 days, 79.5689 miles per day.

At a stop for lunch, in Cold Springs, Nevada I talk with a waitress about my journey. She is probably the only attractive female within a hundred mile. I don’t mean that Nevada women are hideous. Just pick up a state map and you’ll see that Cold Springs shows as a “town.” In reality, it’s a bar/motel, with fifty miles of barren landscape to the east and fifty to the west. At that point, figuring on a napkin, I tell her I’ve probably burned 250,000 calories during my trip.

(God knows how many I’ve consumed since I returned.)

*

...Now, when I tell people what I’ve accomplished, I get strange looks. Twice across the USA on a bike? At your age? Several people have told me I remind them of Forrest Gump.

I not sure they intend it as a compliment.

I’ve said it before, though. I don’t think what I do is difficult. I’ve got wheels and 27 gears. I’m not dragging a cross. And no, I don’t get lonely. People see me coming and want to talk. I don’t get scared either. Despite what you think, if you watch the nightly news, America is not overrun with psychopaths. In fact, I’m treated with almost universal respect.

The occasional car comes too close but a vast majority of drivers are considerate. In 58 days, only once did occupants of a vehicle shout profane encouragement as they flew past. I suggested loudly that they go home and engage in intercourse with family members.

If Man, the most dangerous beast, didn’t get me, neither did the woodland creatures. I did a lot of “stealth camping” this trip. So they had their chances. Stealth camping means pulling off the road when no one is looking and setting up your tent along the edge of a cornfield or in sagebrush or deep woods and sleeping under the stars at God’s premium price. The ride from Rapid City, South Dakota, up into the Black Hills involves a lot of sweating and low gears; so it was late evening when I approached Mt. Rushmore. Rather than make a hasty tour before dark, I pulled off the main road and put up my tent in the forest, a mile south of the site. Two deer watched me inflate my sleeping pad at bedtime; four watched me brush my teeth next morning, before I headed off to see Stone Abe and Stone George.

Stealth camping near Mt. Rushmore.

Stealth camping has its drawbacks, of course. In Maine, where my trip began, I put up my tent behind a pile of logs in one of those breaks utility companies create when they build towers and run lines. I passed a restful night but awoke to something unpleasant—ticks. Two were crawling up my leg. A third was smashed to my stomach. Luckily they weren’t carrying Lyme disease.

This does, however, bring to mind the growing moose threat to all Americans. Bear with me a moment as I set the background. I began my ride on June 17 at Acadia National Park in Maine. Unaware of impending danger, I pedaled 68 miles the first day, under beautiful, sunny skies, and felt great. The next day, with light rain falling, I fiddled over breakfast in a Belfast restaurant, where pancakes were the size of garbage can lids. I was reading the Bangor Daily News when I noticed an article about Trooper Thomas, of the Maine Highway Patrol.

Thomas had been involved in a collision, on duty, with a Maine moose and it was clear the moose (singular and plural) were out to get him. Thomas had been targeted for a “hit” before. In 2007, he was forced to take evasive action to miss three moose crossing the highway. He missed two, but plowed into the third, causing $10,000 worth of damage to his cruiser, and barely surviving an antlered assassination attempt.

I might add that New Hampshire is addressing this issue with the seriousness it deserves. A large sign as you pedal across the border warns: “BRAKE FOR MOOSE. It could save your life.”

So: I keep my eyes peeled. 

I am definitely watching out for moose!

*

If the moose don’t get me, the cops do—and I end up handcuffed in Indiana. I had broken off my trip for two weeks, after pedaling back to Cincinnati, so my wife and I could attend a Cape Cod wedding. Now, I was back on the road, one day out from home. I was dealing with 100º temperatures and high humidity, tough cycling at any age. After pedaling 70 miles, I got caught in a late afternoon thunderstorm. Normally, I hate getting drenched but since I had been broiling I was glad to cool down.

Still, this was a deluge.

I pulled behind one of those fenced electric transformer stations you see along highways and threw up my tent in tall weeds, thinking to do a little stealth camping. The rain poured through the opening in the top before I could attach the rain flap and poured through the tent door as I tossed in my gear. I scrambled inside, removed my shirt, and started mopping up water. Fifteen minutes and it was over. Emerging like some bedraggled Punxsutawney Phil, I called Anne [my wife] to let her know where I planned to be for the evening. Before I could tell her she was still the hottest-looking woman in North America, a cop car, lights flashing and siren wailing, came flying up the road and skidded to a stop.

“Well, it looks like I’m going to get kicked out of my camping spot,” I said. “I’ll call you back later.”

At almost the same moment, a Wayne County deputy jumped out of the cruiser, gun drawn, and shouted, “Hands up!”

“Seriously?” I responded.

“Hands up!” the officer repeated, and waved his pistol in menacing fashion, to clarify his point.

“Really?”

“Get them up where I can see them,” he yelled, pointing his pistol, this time more carefully.

Cell phone in hand, I reached for the sky.

The deputy called me out from behind the fence, told me to turn around so he could see if I had a gun in my waistband, and then cuffed me. It seemed like an over-reaction to trespassing.

I’m in shorts and bicycling shoes, with no shirt, mind you, and the officer can’t see my bike in the weeds, so I tell him I’m riding across America to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

[My daughter, Emily, is a type-1 diabetic.]

By now two more cruisers have arrived and four officers have me surrounded. The first deputy explains that there has been an armed robbery, ten minutes before, in nearby Richmond. I want to point out that the scene of the crime is six miles south and I don’t ride a rocket-propelled bike. I don't quibble, though, because police officers are not always known for a sense of humor. I start laughing, though, but quickly interject: “I’m not laughing at you. You’re just doing your job. But this will make a good story for my blog.”

The first officer is pretty sure by now I’m not the guy, but says he has to keep me cuffed while he calls in a description. He checks my ID and then I hear the dispatcher describe the suspect: “White male...

...in his 20s.”

Oh, so close.

They let me go, but one of the deputies tells me I can’t camp where I am and I need to move. I want to ask, “Can you put the cuffs back on and take my picture.” But they might not like my attitude.

So I take down my tent and pedal away. Five miles down the road, with night settling over the land, I see a likely spot along the edge of a cornfield and go to ground once more. I’m Clyde Barrow—without Bonnie—on a bike. 

The next day is broiling hot, over 100º again, and by late afternoon I’m wilting like eleven-day-old lettuce. I’m way out in farm country but hope to find a motel for the night. I log on to Google Maps and discover I’m 8.2 miles from the “Dog Patch Hotel.” I call to see if they have rooms. The owner is a gravel-voiced woman named Marcia Clark and says she usually closes at 6, which seems odd, but my battery is dying, so our conversation is abbreviated. She says she’ll wait a little longer and I pedal furiously to get there in time.

Unfortunately, when I arrive, I find that Ms. Clark owns a doggy day care. We broker a deal and I spend a night on the floor of her air-conditioned office. Some hotels—you worry about bedbugs.

Some you worry about fleas.

*

If you’re thinking about riding a bicycle across the United States—and who isn’t—roads in Maine are great. Traffic is light, which has something to do with the fact Maine is only slightly smaller than Ohio, but with 1/8th the population. 

(Traffic is even lighter in South Dakota—with 9 people per square mile and Wyoming, with 5.)

The roads in New Hampshire are good, too, the scenery gorgeous. That’s true most of the trip. Near Conway, you start up Kancamangus Pass and for ten miles you’re pedaling along the Swift River, past some of the prettiest swimming holes in America. You have to churn uphill for 20 miles to crest at 2,860 feet, but then you enjoy a free-wheeling ride down the other side of the mountain.  

Swift River scene--all one piece of granite grooved by years of water and grinding stones.

At North Woodstock, you take Lost River Road, which looks like a shortcut over the next mountain range and is only a mistake if you’re not trying to kill yourself. If you talk to most riders who cross the United States they agree old roads crossing eastern mountains are by far the worst. Lost River Road is no exception. A nondescript state highway, it must have been laid out in Colonial Days to trace a path blazed by Billy goats. There are almost no cars for fifteen miles, though, because locals aren’t stupid enough to use the road if they can avoid it. 

Heading for Middlebury, Vermont, a beautiful college town, I ride up and over Middlebury Gap, which crests at 2,144 feet. In places the grade is as much as 18%. If you’re not a rider, trust me, it’s a killer climb. It’s not too terrible going up a pass at 4 mph. When you drop as low as 2.2, which is “stand-on-the-pedal” speed, it gets hard to be philosophical.

Then you curse.

I had been to Middlebury before and remembered riding over a bridge with a beautiful green river forty feet below. There was a popular swimming hole nearby and I stopped to watch youngsters jump off the bridge into emerald waters. Before starting my ride, it was one of my goals to jump off that bridge. When I passed this time, however, the issue was no longer water below but water from above.

It started pouring right after I topped Middlebury Gap.

So let me be clear: I like bicycling and raising money for JDRF; but my bike is not amphibious.

Here’s what I learn while getting soaked in Vermont. If you wear glasses and rely on a mirror attached to those glasses to provide rear visibility this is what you cannot see once glasses and mirror fog:

1. Road signs

2. Potholes

3. Pedestrians

4. Large farm animals

5. Blimps

6. Ocean liners

7. Basically, anything... 

Bicyling in the rain: not my idea of fun.

Still, I meet nice people all along the way—the Middlebury couple that sees me come sloshing into the public library and offers dinner and a dry place to stay—bar patrons in Diamond Point, New York, who get me a free room at the Super 8 motel, when they hear I’m riding for JDRF.

But I get rained on almost all the way across New York. In a blog post on June 28, I report: 

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I’ll be riding out of New York State this afternoon and I’ve hardly seen the sun peek out from behind the clouds once. I’ve been on the road for eleven days and rained on seven. If you want to know what the weather has been like go put on a bicycle helmet, t-shirt, gym shorts and biking shoes. Put on a pair of glasses even if you don’t normally wear them.

Now go stand in the shower and turn it on full force. Be sure your glasses steam up so you can’t see. That’s what the riding has been like at times in this state.

It’s causing a lot of soggy underwear.

*

Like I say, bicycle trips may be long, but literary papers never. So I zoom across the Pennsylvania panhandle and when I hit the sign that says, “Welcome to Ohio,” the wide shoulders I’ve been enjoying disappear like Jimmy Hoffa. No joke: Ohio roads are the worst. I make it back home in one piece, go to the wedding, and I’m off again, cuffed in Indiana, broiled in Illinois. Or as I describe it in my blog: “Here’s the short version of the first four days out of Cincinnati (20th to 23rd): hot, cornfields, hot, sweat, cornfields, holy s#@%, it’s hot.”

Iowa? More cornfields.

I do have the pleasure, near Dubuque, of riding for a day with Joe Ossman, who made his own cross-country trip in 2010, at age 64. He is kind enough to take the lead, cutting wind resistance, which makes my pedaling easier. I let my attention wander, catch a pothole and crash to the pavement, landing on my camera. And what do I learn? I learn you cannot break your fall by landing on a camera but you can break your camera.

By now the moose population has thinned, but I’m still meeting nice people. There’s the man in the pastry shop who writes out a check to JDRF for $100. There’s Kathy Frizoel, a type-1 diabetic for half a century, now confined to a wheel chair, and husband Mike, who has a tiger tattoo on his back, in honor of her indomitable spirit.

Kathy and me.

On August 1, I cross the Big Sioux River into South Dakota. The heat index for the day is 118º.

No psychopaths yet; but my brains are just about cooked.

I zoom along over the Great Plains until one day I pick up a ferocious headwind, twenty miles per hour and constant. On days like this, you think about quitting. I pass an old 1970s Oldsmobile for sale. It’s primer gray but looks like it might run. Or that used tractor for sale? Either one might get me back to Ohio. I could commandeer a harvester. I could knock that old lady off her riding mower.

Luckily, the mood passes before the psychopath you hear about on the news turns out to be me.

Anyway, I need to pedal faster and finish this story. I spend several days crossing South Dakota, with grasshoppers ricocheting off my helmet. 

(That’s better than Iowa where two mosquitoes flew up my nose one late afternoon.)

More nice people, probably a story in itself.

I see the Badlands from the saddle of a bike and find the landscape inspiring. On to the Black Hills, passing through during the week of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which brings half a million motorcycle riders to the area. Twenty-five years ago the scene was “like Halloween on steroids,” as one veteran of several rallies tells me. It’s still not tame but today the average attendee is probably fifty +. At Mount Rushmore I notice one gray-haired Hells Angel in a leather jacket, with an oxygen tube stuck up his nose.

Can’t say I ever expected to see that.

Generally, the riders prove to be conservative but friendly. I see one RV with this slogan painted on the rear:

OBAMA KISS MY WHITE AMERICAN ASS. 

YOU STUPID F*CK.

I suppose the painter was trying to be discreet, putting that star there where the vowel was supposed to be.

You could get an entire story out of Wyoming, alone; but I’m keeping it simple. Up and over the Big Horn Mountains one day. Thirty-three miles uphill out of Buffalo and 5,020 feet in elevation gained.

Yellowstone. On a bicycle: amazing. Then a trip north to Bozeman, Montana, to see the S--- family, and daughter Sidney, a seven-year-old type-1 diabetic I met during a ride in Florida. Sidney’s a darling and her little brother, Sam, is a comic, with a pet pig he calls “Slugbutt.”

Then I pedal south again, down the beautiful Gallatin River Valley and it’s a joy to be alive. My plan is to do 80 miles and get close to West Yellowstone and reenter the park the next day. A check of Google Maps shows a campground along the way, right about where I want to stop. So I enjoy the sun and the scenery all day. At the 50-mile mark I pass the last town where I might find shelter for the night. Bah! I’m riding 80! At 60, I see cabins for rent: “$50 a night.” Pshaw! I’m riding 80.

At the 75-mile mark I start looking for the campground. Nothing. At 80? Nope. I pass 82, 83, 84, 86, 88. Now it’s getting on toward evening. I pick up the pace and rip along, with darkness settling over the land. Soon I’m trying to keep my tire close to the white edge line. 

Then I’m bent low trying to see the white line. 

When I crest a high hill, West Yellowstone lights shimmer faintly in the distance. By now I’m stopping to dismount when cars pass, or switching sides to ride in the dark, with lights behind me. Finally, traffic coming out of West Yellowstone picks up and headlights keep blinding me. Then, one more time, I aim for the side of the road to dismount, but turn my wheel too sharply and go crashing to the pavement, bloodying my elbow and whacking my helmet. (Better the helmet than the head.)

Finally, I spot a campground; but when I start down the road, I see a warning sign: “Keep all food, drink and toiletries out of sight and locked in your vehicle. You are in grizzly bear country.”

I am definitely not stealth camping tonight.

I walk the last two miles to town and find almost every hotel sign flashing, “NO VACANCY.” I settle for a room at the Brandin’ Iron Inn, where another sign warns: “Room price established at check-in time.” I figure the clerk sees my bloody elbow and jacks up the price $25, and figures it’s dark outside and sees I’m on a bicycle and jacks it another $25.

I get branded myself and pay $154 for the night.

My crash could have been worse; but it wasn't much fun.

Back I go through Yellowstone; more nice people; the Grand Tetons by bike; fantastic. South to Salt Lake City, where a couple of friendly Mormons try to convert me, then across the Sevier Desert in southwestern Utah, a ninety-two mile moonscape, with no services. [Here I carry eight bottles of water with me and drain them all before I’m done for the day.] I go up and down a dozen Nevada passes and follow what’s called “The Loneliest Highway in America” most of the way across the state. Then I decide to cut south and follow what I’ll call the Bleakest Damn Highway in America toward Yosemite National Park. For the next 36 miles I don’t see a single house or a tree. Unfortunately, I get a tire hernia in Gabbs (population 349) and have to do some dancing before I hitch a ride to Reno. Eventually, it’s up and over Tioga Pass, the highest point of the trip at 9,914 feet, and a week spent amid the marvels of Yosemite.

Truly spectacular.

I ride out of the valley, meet my older brother at the park boundary, and he pedals along with me for two days, and finish my trip at San Francisco, where my younger brother resides.

I fly home on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and when I get home, I tell everyone, “Never again.”

*

Now, I look at my pictures and check out my maps—and I don’t know. Maybe I can do the ride again in 2019.

I’ll only be 70.



If you read this far be sure to look at some of the photos below. If you want advice on how to do a similar trip you might find Advice before Bicycling across the USA beneficial.

I absolutely recommend this kind of trip.

This was a typical view in Grand Teton National Park.

Yellowstone National Park. The riding is fabulous.
(Also: they save spots for bicycle riders in the campgrounds.)

My ride: I ditched the front bags in Yellowstone when I realized I could combine my gear.

Yellowstone flowers.

Large hot spring; I recommend designing a route that takes you through Yellowstone.

View while pedaling along the Yellowstone River.

Every mile marked on this map of my ride was scenic and spectacular.

Wyoming, I-90 view: in many  western states you can ride along the interstate. 

Riding out of Buffalo, Wyoming, up Powder River Pass. Great views, great challenge.
It is mostly uphill for 33 miles.

Oops, the Powder River Pass pictures should come before the ones from Yellowstone.
Oh well, it was the largest elevation gain of my entire trip: 5,020 feet over 33 miles.

After leaving Yellowstone, I headed south to Salt Lake City.
Here: Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith, feels the call of God.

Woke to this view near Bear Lake, Utah.
(I was stealth camping again.)

Parts of Utah looked like a moonscape. Crossing the Sevier Desert.

Rick Arnett was riding 10,000 miles and planning to write a book about his trip.
He had just gone through a difficult divorce. I rode with him for a few hours; but when we got to a mountain pass he said he always walked up and I bid him adieu. 

The Loneliest Highway in America: Nevada.

Tioga Pass leads into Yosemite National Park. Highest point on my trip at more than 9900 feet.

Lake near the top of Tioga Pass. A view worth pedaling miles to see.

View from a hiking trail in Yosemite.

Lake beside the road in Yosemite.

Got off my bicycle and took a hike in the woods.

Yosemite waterfall.

Pondering my next ride? Overlooking a Yosemite waterfall.
(In this park they also have a special campground for bicycle riders.)

Pedaling through the Californian hills.

End of the ride, September 7, 2011. Twenty-five pounds lighter!