I recently wrote about the futility of my most recent attempt at bicycle riding, an inglorious 6 mile ride. Therein I mentioned that last millennium, I did a bit better. That was a more or less 2000 mile trip.
It was from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Minneapolis, Minnesota to Davenport, Iowa, to Cairo, Illinois, to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to Birmingham, Alabama, to Auburn, Alabama, to Jacksonville Beach, Florida, ending in Daytona Beach, Florida.
As a young bachelor I used to work 60 hour weeks on the farm for six months, with overtime during harvest, skimping and saving, then travel for 6 months. In the fall of 1970, I left for Europe and backpacked around.
I ended up spending a lot of time in Holland and was impressed by the way they encouraged and accommodated bicycle traffic. The next summer at home, I bought a bike and started playing around with it.
In the fall of 1971, after potato harvest finished in October (we grew 300 acres of them), I caught a ride in the bus of our local rock band to a gig they were playing in Grand Forks, North Dakota and the next morning set out for Daytona Beach, Florida.
When I went to Europe, I had stopped eating meat. This was an austerity I undertook to help end the Viet Nam War, inspired by Dick Gregory. When I was in Europe, I met devotees and took prasadam, so I had some exposure to the concept of vegetarianism as a spiritual practice.
When I returned home, I did in Rome as the Romans do and ate meat again as that is what my family did. We raised beef cattle.
When the fall of ‘71 rolled around, and the war continued to drag on, I once again took up vegetarianism as I set out on my bike trip. I stopped meat cold turkey the day I started pedaling south, and haven’t eaten it since.
My parents told me if I didn’t eat meat I would die. Looking back now, I realize it was a well intentioned concern for my health, though at the time I took it as a challenge.
I had heard that Hindus would nod their head when they saw a cow as a sign of respect. While that may not be universally true, at the time I took it as so, and nodded away on the entire long trip. There are a lot of cows between North Dakota and Florida.
By the time I got to Florida, it was clear that the vegetarian diet was not fatal. As a matter of fact, I was pumped. I covered the last 500 miles in 5 days, including a 125 mile shot into Jacksonville Beach, Florida on the 29th day.
As I arrived at the ocean after 125 miles, I could hear the waves breaking on the beach and the sound of a band warming up in a hall next to it. I went to the concert and ripped up the dance floor for several hours; I was in such good shape, it was practically effortless.
The following day I breezed the last 90 miles down the coastline, arriving in Daytona Beach early in the afternoon. Plant power ki jaya!
July 19, 2007 at 10:26 am
I’m curious what you ate on your trip, as good vegetarian fare probably wasn’t found along the road in 1971. Did you survive on fruit, white bread and cheese?
July 19, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I had some wire baskets on the back of the bike where I carried jars of peanut butter and jelly and whole wheat bread. Not at all conscious of weight.
I drank a lot of milk shakes. Several a day some days. Those two were the mainstays.
I wasn’t adverse to stopping at restaurants and ordering french fries.
Not too much fruit and vegetables that I can recollect.
I am going to write more about this trip. After I got back home, Dad (FYI, readers, Peter is my brother) asked if I was going to write a book about the trip.
In retrospect, that would have been a good idea, but I lacked the discipline at the time to do it, and was too at sea in my personal life to develop it.
I am going to jot down some more memories of the trip over the next few weeks, but so much of the rich, vibrant detail that would have made it a good book has been lost, and the whole tie in to the Viet Nam war would be inaccessible to the modern reader now.
I remember seeing fields of milo for the first time as I got into the South. I picked a head of it and carried it to the next country store and asked what it was. Someone said to ask the blind man who was sitting there. I described it to him and said I had a sample. He asked to touch it and then told me what it was.
A simple thing, a simple conversation, explaining what I was doing and learning a little about the local area up close and personal. Talking about local crops and weather and what crops we grew at home. Having the bike and my ongoing trip story got me admission to any place I liked along the way.
Those were such precious times, but when you are young, you take things like that for granted and don’t dwell on them as much as you might have at the time they transpired.
August 3, 2007 at 8:24 am
[...] ideas are more plausible than others. When I returned home after my solo bike trip from North Dakota to Florida, my father asked me if I was going to write a book about it. In retrospect, that would have been a [...]