Bikemum

Covid-19 has begun to feel like a heavy, wet blanket weighing down my soul, and I am one of the fortunate. One of the privileged. I get to run around outside, visit with friends in a respectfully distanced way, and I remain healthy, as do my loved ones. I am not struggling financially and I am not isolated. My children are with me and I am employed.

HOWEVER, I feel that I am experiencing something akin to blunt trauma. The news that comes across my newsfeed every day is sickening. Disasters and atrocities seem to roll in with relentless, wave-like crashing. From ugly politics to social injustice and from environmental horror to the piling losses that we are experiencing due to this pandemic. It feels as though we may be drowning.

I continue to conduct my mental health counseling practice out of my upstairs bathroom. I Zoom with full caseload of clients every week while Oakley, my 17 year old son, bandies around the neighborhood cooking up mischief. Nothing terrible, just a lot of reckless wandering, looking for excitement and coming up with less than great ideas.

Recently, his school district has decided that four days a week, school classes will be held virtually. That means that he will be staring at a computer screen for hours upon hours every day. I can see the wan look on his face now, the slumped shoulders, the rummy computer eyes and apathetic gait that will begin to inhabit his body. We are all trying our best, but this is not a pretty scene.

So, despite. Despite all this doom and gloom, I, in my most annoying way, will push forward. Much to Oakley’s dismay, I am kicking off what will now be known as Adventure Wednesdays. Wednesdays are the one day that Oakley will not have school and I will have a free schedule and we will simply adventure. We will break out of our routines and off our island to sally forth into the wilds. We will road bike, mountain bike, hike, cross country ski, boat, and everything and anything else we can think of. We will try to find beauty, wake up our spirits, and remember that there is always good and hope and fun in this world. We will go every week regardless of the weather. We have to.

Wednesday Number One-Mountain Biking at Bradbury Mountain

Our bikes skitter and jump and squeak as we maneuver them over rocks and roots and mud holes. Oakley is in front of me, of course he is. He effortlessly hops atop tall rounded boulders and down what I would call precipices. I grunt behind him, biting my lips and amazing myself every time I feel the muscles in my legs allowing me to crest a hill. Oakley is very strong, and although I will never be near his equal, I feel more capable physically than I ever have before and I am 51! Chasing him around over the last few years has really paid off.

I am a sissy though and when we get to sections of the trail involving boardwalks that arc up and over streams or wind, with banking edges around stands of Birch trees, I often stop dead and feel unable to even try. If he falls he bounces, if I fall, I fear I may break a hip. “Come on, mom!” he yells.

“I need to walk this Oaks!” I call back. He is unimpressed. On we go.

The forest here is full of Oaks and Maples, Birch and Pine. There are streams running through it as well as swampy areas, ravines and rocky outcroppings. It is a veritable playground and beautiful to boot. We hear chirping chipmunks, chattering squirrels, and the breaking branches from deer taking flight as we barrel through. It cool and damp today and the air itself looks green.

Oakley waits up for me every 10 minutes. Usually, he has whipped out his phone and is straddling his bike checking on important things. But, this time as I pull up beside him after seven miles of sweaty riding, he is simply resting his arms on the handlebars and taking it all in.

“Mom, it is so pretty here.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“It would be perfect if you had brought snacks.”

“Yeah sorry, next time.” I say feeling my own hollow belly rumbling.

“I am exhausted.”

“Me too.” And we are smiling as ride together to the parking lot.

If that was my report card for our first Adventure Wednesday I would say it was a solid “B”. He noticed it was pretty, we had a lot of fun, and I tired him out. Point off for forgetting the snacks.

If anybody would like to offer ideas for future, inexpensive or free Adventure Wednesday Trips, please let me know in the comment section!

When a baby bee is hatched, actually eats it’s way out of its cell, it crawls around getting to know it’s family. Who is who, where the food is, the the nursery, that kind of thing. When it is comfortable with the hive, it is time to fly off onto the big, exciting dangerous world. To do this, the young take what are known as “orientation flights”.

I have watched them outside the hives in my yard. The fuzzy young poking their heads out of the hive entrance and wiggling their antennas about. If all seems well, they launch themselves into the air. Their first flight is strictly vertical, about a foot up and then quickly back to the safety of the entrance. Then they do it again, two feet this time, then three, then six, then twenty.

It is not because they are being cautious about the world and taking baby steps. They are measuring. They are seeing just where their homes are in relation to everything else so that they can always find it again, no matter how far they eventually adventure seeking sweet nectar and pollen, they will know. They will never get lost. They are mapping it out. (In fact it is said that moving a hive more than two feet from it’s original base can prove too disorienting to a hive and can be its undoing).

I think Oakley and I are out here orientating ourselves, like the bees. We are measuring the world around us, gleefully filling up on new sights and experiences, but always checking and rechecking how to get home. I may not be a baby, but in this huge world, I feel like I am. There is just so much.

We finished our trip today. It was a long, difficult, hilly 60 miles with a fierce headwind chasing yesterday’s storm on up and out of the Champlain valley. My thigh muscles feel twitchy and Oaks looks exhausted, but after 9 days and 450 miles, we are full and ready to go home. (I think this lake is all uphill.)

We have learned on our orientation flight that the world is still a beautiful place despite the fact that it can be ruthless. We have remembered what a good team we are and that we are truly lucky to have each other. We have learned that we both become stronger in many ways when we simply have to be. We have learned how much we have both grown up since last year.

Thank you for reading our stories. Writing helps me make sense of it all. Thank you for your comments, they make us feel supported in the most difficult of times. They make us want to be better. Oakley and I are incredibly lucky and privileged and once again I feel like Frederick the Mouse, full of beauty to last the winter through, until next year’s ride..across Utah?

My husband will pick is up tonight and escort us back to our hive. I miss my hive mates and long to preen everybody’s antennas to get the news. One more night by the side of this beautiful lake back on the Vermont side. One more swim. One more disgusting meal.

I wish everybody well. Time to go feed Oakley.

The rain has finally caught us and rather than fight it we have succumbed. After a soggy breakfast of scrambled eggs and English Muffins on a borrowed porch, (lent by a generous, but unsuspecting trailer resident at our campground, who seemed to be away and will be receiving unexplained good karma wherever they are) we suited up in our full rain gear and headed out.

As we cycled, the rain came from every direction and seemed intent on finding the cracks in our suits. It showered us from the clouds above. It sprayed us from the the side as cars and trucks whizzed by. It splashed us from below as we jostled through gritty puddles, going up our pant legs.

We made it 25 miles and pulled into the Shamrock Inn. We peeled ourselves out of our wet layers and both took delicious warm showers. We snuggled into the bed and watched “The Secret Life of Pets 2” I cried a little at the end. We looked out at the rain. We finished our candy. We looked out at the rain.

“Oakley, there is a cool walk near here. A canyon. Ausable Canyon. We could go.”

“No.”

“I can’t stay in this hotel room anymore. We have our rain suits.”

“No.”

I knew I had no bargaining power. Oakley has done enough and been a good sport throughout this trip. It was horrid outside. Nobody in their right mind would go back out.

“I will pay you 20 dollars.”

Up Oakley bounced, took a 20 from my wallet, climbed back into his slimy rain gear and headed for the door. I could barely keep up.

The canyon was majestic, probably made more so because the river that formed it was roaring through and the rain was roaring down. It was like you could see the rocks being carved before our eyes. Our noses dripped, our feet squelched, our fingers pruned. There was nobody there. We walked and walked, for 12 miles. Our private showing of the power of water.

Now we are back at the Shamrock Inn ready to watch movies late into the night and celebrate our dryness.

Oakley has set up our tent in a lean-to. “It’s going to rain.” he says. I am not so sure. It isn’t raining now, the air is thick, heavy and still. Stagnant. A lean-to does not seem to be the place to be.

As I lie on my mat next to him, I can’t seem to tell where my hot body stops and the humid swampy air starts. The lean-to is stopping any semblance of a breeze from making it’s way in. I stare up into the darkness. Miserable.

I am sickeningly tired, but my body is hijacking me. Perhaps getting me back for working it too hard. It does this sometimes and refuses to rest like a petulant child.

“Mom! You are staring at me!” Oakley complains from his side of the tent.

“No, I’m not. You are having scary mother visions again. I am looking straight up.”

“I can see your eyes!”

“No, you can’t.”

“Mom, you touched me!”

“No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t come near your furnace-like skin if you paid me.”

Finally, I hear Oaks breathing deeply and I know he is asleep. Lucky him. In a bit of a panic I decide I can’t take it any more.

I unzipper my side of the tent and begin flinging out my bedding and my sleeping mat, like an excavating gopher, determined to find a place to sleep with more air flow. I haul it over to the picnic table, clear it of assorted stoves and water bottles and convert it into a bunk.

I climb on board. It is still hot and now I can hear loud music blaring and drunken cavorting our neighboring campers filling the forest around me. Insult to injury. Again, I stare up into the darkness.

Being in my sleeping bag is untenable. I unzip it and throw it off my legs. Mosquitos find me. But so does the puff of a breeze. I will stay here, one ring higher in the Dante’s Descent and let thighs serve as mosquito loaf. I drift off.

For a minute. Soon, I am awakened by little kisses from above, and thunder rolling from far away up the Champlain Lake Valley. It is coming. glorious relief.

I hustle back into the lean-to and into the tent just as the sky opens up. Lightening flashes and illuminates the forest again and again. Thunder roars and cascades of rain dump from the sky. Strong, gusty winds push the thick air out of the way and replace it with sweet clear air. Oakley is awake now too. “ Aren’t you glad that I said we should get a lean-to?”

“Yes,” I said “very.”

And that wind followed us this morning, pushing us farther north up the islands of Lake Champlain. There were white caps that seemed to urge us on. There were little towns with shops that still sell penny candy, of which Oakley enjoyed 12 dollars worth. There were farms and marinas and puff ball clouds.

We made it to Canada and stood outside the border, embarrassed to be uninvited, then turned and started south down through New York.

Somehow still, the wind is at our backs.

Fields of wildflowers opened up on the sides of the road as we cycled by. Cornflowers, Queen Anne’s Lace, Indian Paint Brushes, Buttercups and Pink Clover all swayed in the breeze. Zippy, pert yellow birds darted ahead of us allowing us to give them chase.
We spent the day slipping between raindrops and sneaking under heavily laden clouds, that created a striking contrast to the colorful flowers and birds. When the heck did I get so corny? I must be getting old, but if this is what happens it is not so bad.

Or, it maybe because I am exhausted. We cycled 67 miles today, over rolling hills, around Burlington, Vermont and all the way to the Grand Isle State Park located on one of the islands in the middle of Lake Champlain. It was quite a ride.

Our appetites have kicked in and both of us are eating like bull dozers. We started The morning with an apple-pancake scrambled mash that never quite cooked, ( I think you can’t add hot water to pancake mix) Finding that wholely unsatisfying, we then stopped for custard-filled cinnamon buns and huge breakfast sandwiches on farmer buns. Then came ice cream. Oakley added 2 granola bars and a snickers bar and a coke, as well as, some chocolate covered pretzels. Now we are preparing beans and rice for dinner. The hunger we feel is vast. What a treat to eat with such reckless abandon.

Last week a client of mine and I were discussing her feelings of anxiety. She said she had come to terms with it recently, and almost felt grateful. “If it were not for my anxiety, I would not get to feel brave everyday.” It made her anxiety seem more like her superpower than her liability.

I think Oakley is my super power. Without all his crazy antics and restless energy, and even his misbehavior, I might not have an excuse to be out here. I am so grateful that I do. He is the best excuse ever. Now time to eat…again.

Vermont seems to have taken this adage to heart. Everything here seems to be a celebration of smallness. The towns pivot around independent general stores with hand-crafted signs and creaky floors. Many of the homes have tidy, family sized gardens. The farms are not industrial in size and the fields of corn, hay and wheat, fit easily between wooded streams, not forcing the land to do their bidding, but rather working with it. Many of the dairys have 10 cows or less. There are no billboards, few chain stores and the towns can easily be thought of as villages or hamlets without irony. Even the hills are small. The Green Mountains don’t pretend to be jagged and fierce, they just gently ripple.

(Okay, maybe Middlebury Gap missed the memo on the beauty of smallness with it’s shocking 12 to 15 % grade! That was a doozy!)

Yes, Vermont is lovely. The people are kind and all seem to somehow smile through their face masks. It is rubbing off on Oakley, who has been a shining star of a traveling partner. He is down right joyful and tonight made us dinner AND set up the tent. When I grumbled today about the heat and the hills it was Oakley that said, “Stop complaining. This is beautiful.”

Now, we sit by the side of Lake Champlain, planning our ride up through the chain of islands known as the Grand Isle, to the Canadian border. He is an incredible traveling partner; he will eat anything, is as strong as an ox, deals with druggery, and is a goof ball.

Short and simple tonight, maybe Vermont is rubbing off on me too.

Last night, Oakley and I hunkered inside our tent as lightening and thunder rolled over our heads. We tried to read, but the lightening was too distracting. We tried to play Uno, but it couldn’t hold our attention. So, we just lay on our sleeping mats, side by side trying not to clutch each other, because when you are 17, that would be embarrassing. Okay, I did clutch him ice or twice…

When we woke this morning, a soupy fog greeted us. Everything was wet; the grass, our shoes, the tent. We quickly ate banana pancakes and slurped down some coffee with hot chocolate. It was too wet to even sit down. Oakley wrangled the sloppy tent into it’s stuff sack without complaint, I sponged our the dishes under a nearby hose and we were off. It was as if we had done this 100 times before.

There was no time to waste anyway, because we had a 62-mile day to do to get us to Emma’s Vintage Trailers and tenting. It was the closest camping area and sounded pretty cool to boot.

Vermonters may not want to admit it, but their state actually has quiet a bit in common with Western Virginia and Kentucky; the hills, the hollows, the farms, the little country stores, the kind people. Both Oakley and I were struck by this as we sweated and grunted along and the fog was replaced by thick heat, also reminiscent.

Midway through the day, I called Emma’s Vintage trailers to make a reservation.
“I am sorry, but we are closed this summer.” said a sweet sounding woman on the other end of the phone.

“Even just for a tent?” I begged, as there was nowhere else to go.

“Sorry ma’am, we just can’t and there is nothing else I know of that is open either. Wish I could help more.”

I turned to Oakley expecting to see upset on his face, but there was nothing. “We will find something.”, he said. And that was that. No stress, no worry, no plan.

On we biked chattering about this and that when a car pulled into a driveway ahead of us. A woman from Sweden hopped out. Mask to mask we shouted a conversation. She too had biked across the country with her husband and we swapped tales enthusiastically.

I asked her if she knew of anywhere to stay in the coming miles and she said no, but to ask in the bike store in the town of Rochester, 13 miles farther along.

By the time Oakley and I arrived at the bike store, we were beat and had been eyeing farm fields and river banks where we might crash for the night. We masked up and entered the store. Standing behind the counter was a man wearing black shorts and short-sleeved T-shirt, wrap around sunglasses, a black face mask and was covered with tattoos from head to foot.

We told him of our plight and he immediately sprung into action.
“You could stay in the city park next door. It would be good if that thing got used. Or down the road a bit under the bridge. Or maybe even behind the store.”

“That sounds great,” I said, knowing Oakley would be psyched to call it a day, “but are we allowed?”

With that he reached into his wallet and flashed me a metal badge. It was a ring with a gold star in the middle. “Sure, I am the town constable, I don’t see why not.”

And this is why Oakley didn’t become anxious when our plans were changed. He knew that something would work out. We have learned again and again how kindness will save us.

Yes, I am naive. Yes, I am privileged. Yes, I might not always be so lucky. But the kindness we have experienced so often, gives me hope that humans can be pretty okay.

The dust from the dirt road that we trudge up, clouds around our ankles rising nearly to our knees. It is hot and dry. We had left the bike route to walk what we thought was a short jaunt, down to the Connecticut River to wiggle our toes in its waters, but the hike was far longer than I anticipated and now, I was having the pleasure of hearing all about it.

“Mom, you are crazy. You are always looking for perfect. There is no perfect. We should have stopped here on the route. I don’t want to dilly-dally! Now we are even hotter and we wasted our time.”

I had thought it was a beautiful walk, a stroll down a dirt country lane, lined with 8-foot-high corn stalks that stretched as far as the eye could see, ending at a boat ramp where I did indeed dabble my toes in the cool water, but Oaks was having none of it and was voicing it quite clearly.

His voice and the hill crescendoed at the same moment and just as we reached the top where we had stashed our bikes, I heard a mild voice weave it’s way through Oakley’s. I turned to find it’s source and standing on the front steps of a lovely farm house, replete with a long, wide front porch, swing, and hanging flower baskets, stood an older woman with white hair in a droopy bun and a welcoming smile.
“Would you to like some ice water?”, she called.
“Sure,” we called back, “that would be great!” We hustled on over to her shaded yard with the greenest of grasses and a huge Oak tree that offered us much needed shade and she handed us two frosty waters.

As we spoke of the heat and biking, flowers and corn I couldn’t help but notice her feet. She was wearing fresh, white ankle socks and no shoes. Here surrounded by all this dirt and dust, she had pristine feet. They glowed with freshness and purIty. I looked at ours by comparison and wondered if either of us would ever have a life that had room for socks that could stay white. I somehow doubted we had what it took.

Today started with climbing up and over Franconia notch, the last beautiful and punishing look we will have of the White Mountains. As we slipped down onto it’s western flanks, thick forest and jagged rocks gave way to rolling farm land.

We cycled along ridges and looked down across valleys of corn and hay, to hazy mountains in the distance. Tiger Lily’s, Golden Rod, Queen Anne’s Lace and Asters clung to the side of the roads and fields. We passed old farmhouses, barns and stables as the road gentled.

Now, after 55 miles, we have crossed the Connecticut River into Vermont. We are exhausted, but have just sucked down a can each of peaches packed in heavy syrup, pulling out the wedges with sticky fingers and drinking the juice. Normally, I would think of this as diabetes in a can, but today, I think it is just the thing to revive us, like Stanley Yelnats in the book “Holes”.

We passed another cyclist going cross-country about an hour ago. He has just started his journey. He was walking his bike up the hills. We really should have given him one of our cans.

To our reader-please note that reception is scarce in these parts. I am writing on my phone with my thumbs, while Oakley paces around me, waiting for me to finish. My editing is non-existent and my photos won’t download. Thank you for reading none-the-less!

An Anaconda and the Kancamagus Highway are more alike than you think. I thought about this a lot today, as we sweated up a 2,500 foot pass on untried legs.

Both wind to and fro in the most discomforting manner. Both are beasts that are at once majestic and horrifying. They seem to go on and on, longer than anything ought. Both seem set on one’s demise, not caring that their victim struggles and gasps. Both are beautiful. Both have a hard C in the middle of their name. And luckily, both have a beginning and an end.

For Oakley and I, the beginning started with instant oatmeal, seasoned with fresh, Maine, low-bush blueberries that surrounded our campsite. We awoke early because we had no fly on our tent and the early morning sky does not stand for slug-a-beds.

The middle of the day was filled with mountains and forests in thick carpets that spread from horizon to horizon. Above them spread a startlingly blue sky with towering Cumulous clouds that fought to give us a break from intense sun. Yes, it was hard, but Oakley reports that we are stronger than last year and I think he is right. We pedaled for 54 miles and were cheered on by various passerbyers, from motorcycles, cars, RVs, hawking tourists and fellow bikers. Nothing boosts you up a hill like that.

And then it was over. Here we sit by another beautiful river, the East Pemigewasset. We have swam and now feel loose and relaxed. This river is not sandy like the Saco, but rather coated with stones ranging from egg size to elephant size. They are graphite,pink, lavender, burnt-orange and blue. The big ones and great for plunging from, the littles for rolling in your palm.

This morning, bright and early, Oakley and I boarded the ferry, leaving our Peaks Island home and headed west. We will bicycle through the mountains of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York and then circle Lake Champlain, right up to the Canadian border.The total should be around 450 miles.

As we headed out, I felt both excitement and pre-expedition jitters. Our last trip went so well that I feel a bit like we are tempting fate. I expressed my concerns to Oakley, but he would hear none of it.

“Oakley, there are going to be some huge hills. Did you see the elevation graph that shows the Kancamagus Highway? We are going right up and over the White Mountains.”

“Mom, you know nothing is ever as bad as you think it is going to be.”

“Oakley, I’m nervous, are you?”

“Mom, we will be back in 10 days. That is nothing. “

“Oakley, it is supposed to be in the 90’s all week!”

“Mom, we will be fine.”

This time, Oakley is excited to go on our trip. He would never tell you that, because he a 17-year-old boy, complete with a diamond stud earring, silver chain around his neck and floppy Covid-hair that shields his eyes like a permanent visor, designed to hide all emotion, but it is true. This is his idea. He is excited for the adventure, a break from the confines of Covid and something else. Hopefully, we will figure out what.

As we peddle away from Portland, Oakley settles in behind me. The shoulders of the roads slowly transform from narrow margins of trash and car parts to clear and wide banners that beckon us to follow them away from schedules, bickering and stress that have been chafing us both.

“If you want to go in front of me you can Oaks.”

“No, I am feeling really peaceful back here.”

These words are like nectar , a sweet delicious balm. We ride in silence.

After some time we begin to smell lake water wafting through the trees and see glimmers of blue water peeking through. The air is humid and thick and we are covered in sweat and grime. Both of us focus on our legs pushing up and down and our breath, rythmic and hard like primed bellows. We stop at a farm stand for lunch. We beg at a garden store for water. Memories from our last trip burble up and we laugh when we have air to speak again.

And now we are here. I am sitting on the side of the Saco river, drying after our dip in its cool tannin-colored waters that has made the sweat and grime nearly worth it.

Oaks has decided that he is not finished biking yet, and has rented a six-dollar-an-hour peddle car to explore our surrounding environs. Before he ran off to further exhaust himself, I called “Tomorrow will be big. Don’t over do it. We go over the Whites.”

“Don’t fret mom. You always fret. Live in the moment!” And he was grinning.

So I will. It is beautiful here and we are incredibly lucky. Tonight we will eat way too much macaroni, because we can. We will read out loud and listen to the waters sliding by. Oakley has left his phone at home. We will sleep under the stars. What could be better?

For those of you needing to stay at home during this difficult time, I invite you to come with us and read our story over the next 10 days. It will be true.

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