Part I: Reflections.
Editor’s Note: An update on Frosty’s adventures and a nice snapshot of those special moments that make travel worthwhile. He sure does keep busy! It reminds me that I have to stop writing books about adventures and get out and have a new adventure!
Location: North America
Adventure creates unique “moments” for your heart, mind and body. You never forget the time when you slogged through a downpour along Oregon’s coast. You never forget that tornado funnel as you pedaled across Oklahoma. You will always remember that special campfire under 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado stands out with shooting stars placing an exclamation point at the end of your day. You remember that trip across Death Valley where you drank four gallons of water in one day but never peed once. And, seared into your soul is that night of slumber beneath the 2,500-year-old Redwood giants touched your spirit beyond your imagination.
That night in the Sierras where Canadian geese dropped out of the sky for a final landing pad on the glass-still lake before you. Other ducks created V-wakes trailing behind them while diving ducks created circles. With that magical scene, your campfire’s embers enchanted you.
How about that moment at Niagara Falls with the eclipse of the sun? Or, what about riding through Montana’s 260,000-acre wildfire with the landscape scorched black for 360 degrees around you? Ever stopped on an overlooking cliff on the Big Sur in California to see a gray whale and her baby calf surface right beneath you? As you make your last pedal stroke before ending it on the Atlantic, you think back on 4,100 miles of unique memories. You suffered crotch rot, hot days, sweat dripping down your back and off your nose that splashed on the top tube, sweaty body, voracious appetite and other challenges. You ‘soared’ across a continent with blue skies, cycling buddies and incredible characters who enriched your life. Each day on a bike becomes a ‘moment’.
While those moments abound on a bicycle adventure, the new day beckons you onward, not to tarry with yesterday—and, for you, another possibility for a unique ‘moment’ that will live in your body, mind and heart for the rest of your life.
I have been sleeping in a tent for the past 5 months, so it’s different to get back to comfortable living. It has been a summer of adventures: to Alaska at 11,000 miles on motorcycles, 11 national parks, Yukon Territory, Jack London’s cabin in Dawson City, Mt. Denali on a clear blue sky day at 20,035 feet, whales, eagles, hawks, moose, three grizzly bears, salmon, and the Arctic Circle; to our bicycle adventure across the USA at 4,100 miles coast to coast, and backpacking a portion of the Colorado Trail, total of 13 states, campfires, tons of laughter and a sense of joy at having pedaled across a continent from one ocean to another.
Read part 2: Bicycle Coast to Coast Across America. Oregon Trail through tall forests
