Spoke 4: Revisiting the Past, Finding the Present, Looking Towards the Future (GG)
Featuring 10,000km Arriba's fourth guest writer, Glen Goodnough
The Past
When our 25 year-old selves rolled out of North Carolina in August 1982, ditching our post-college jobs in Boston, our panniers were chock full of state-specific bike maps. We had painstakingly obtained them over several months from nascent bicycle and pedestrian coordinators within various state Department’s of Transportation. Peering at the maps would become a nighty ritual.
Although familiar with Bikecentennial, and the relatively new TransAmerica Bicycle Trail, the route would be mostly self-created. As one state went by, we would, with ceremony, use the previous state’s map as kindling for our campfire. We traversed through North Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri (the Ozarks were a killer!), Kansas, and Colorado.
Crossing the Continental Divide in New Mexico, we rode on to Tuscon, Arizona where, finding ourselves without money, we obtained a job as weekend houseparents at a group home for developmentally disabled kids. We would ride our bikes to work on Friday, looking forward to the local bagel shop Monday mornings.
Since the employment required that the “parents” be married, we fast-forwarded our vague plans and tied the knot at the historic Tuscon City Hall, dressed in our bike gear before a kindly judge and a willing witness grabbed from a nearby bench. Our parents took the news with surprising aplomb. In hindsight, the bike trip had proved to be our engagement.
Once our bank account was somewhat replenished, we biked through the mountain deserts of Arizona and Southern California, arriving in San Diego with the satisfaction of having accomplished what we had set out to do. But we also had a vague, but sobering, understanding that “life” was now before us, and that our bike trip would become a touchstone event not soon to be repeated. Biking had forged our relationship and set the stage for an unfolding lifetime ahead.
Forty Years Later…The Present
Over the next 40 years, jobs, two amazing kids, and a few short bike trips (Idaho, Andalusia, Sicily) whizzed by. Soon, so it seemed, we were in our mid-sixties, recently retired, and thinking to ourselves: we can do it again, or more precisely, we better do it while still physically capable. The window of opportunity was still wide open, but it would not stay that way forever.
Our first post-retirement tour (starting exactly one day post-retirement, September 1, 2019), was the ACA’s Pacific Coast Route, biking from Vancouver to Tijuana along California’s famous Routes 1 and 101. Looking to go further afield, we crossed the Pacific and biked both islands of New Zealand, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia. Alas, COVID hit in March 2020 and we had to leave Malaysia in a hurry (another story).
Since 1982, we had been pining to each other (and probably annoying our children) about doing another cross-country trip, trying to revisit some of the same areas through which we had previously biked. We particularly wanted to check-out the Tuscon City Hall, but also adding new areas of exploration.
We carefully examined the “age question” and how such a trip might be shaped differently due to the passage of 40 years. Would this be a trip defined by our age, as something to be overcome? Would health issues intervene? Would we be looked upon as two misguided boomers with no business being on the road exploring the world? We even toyed with the idea of posting “Senior Survival” bike touring guides on You Tube (an admittedly lame idea).
As it turned out, major adjustments proved unnecessary. We were very fortunate to have our health, good bikes, a modern tent, and good navigation apps (with strong reading glasses to read the damn things).
In any event, the road awaited. Although our route would vary somewhat from our 1982 wedding year, parts would overlap. We traveled from Washington, DC to San Diego, CA, lingering a bit in Tuscon, trying to wrap our heads around the fact that the beautiful Tuscon City Hall, a bustling place where we had been married, was now on the National Historic Register, open for tours. In its place, a utilitarian concrete eyesore had been erected.
No matter, trying not to feel too “historic,” we followed our prior footsteps on to San Diego, but then extended the tour to include the length of Baja California, Mexico. Flying to Florida from Baja, we finished up by biking up the US East Coast to our home in Maine, concluding a 5000-mile adventure.
The Future
The window, still operable, remains open. Onward.
Go on, tell Glen what you thought of his story…
Glen is a retired judge who still does some legal writing on occasion. Most of his time these days is taken up by biking around Maine, planning future bike tours, and writing his Substack newsletter.
Pam, his biker chick spouse of 40 years, who turned him on to bike touring in 1981, is a retired wildlife biologist and landscape architect.
Fans of Irish and American acoustic music, Glen carries a travel mandolin with him on his bike wherever he goes; Pam has a ukelele.
They very recently finished a 3000-mile trip that took them to Mexico and the US Northwest. Both aspects of the trip are being chronicled in Glen’s Substack.
They are planning a return to Mexico in January/ February to do some bikepacking in Oaxaca. They hope (fingers crossed) to head to Europe in August 2024.
You can follow Glen’s adventures below.
Other guest writer posts
A call for writers
If you’d like to guest write on 10,000km Arriba, you’d be most welcome.
You can write about any bike based experience, whether a short or long trip, a chronic cycling addiction, or simply a moment on two wheels that you deeply cherish.
Let me know in the comments.
The 10,000km Arriba story so far
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Instagram | Komoot (entire route)
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A proper adventure! Thanks for sharing 💫