366 Days

Glasson – Ryefield, Ireland

It was exactly one year ago today that we set out from our driveway in Minneapolis. 

I’ll admit I was a little nervous that day. 

“What are we doing?” I thought. “Where are we going? We’re leaving our family and friends behind. Is this a good idea?”

But, with so many things in life, it all turned out fine. Just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Or, I guess, in more relevant parlance, just keep pedaling, one spin at a time . . .

Before we knew it, we were in Iowa. And then Illinois. Missouri. Arkansas. Louisiana. Texas. 

Of course, crossing the border into Mexico was a bit traumatic. We were both nervous. Our families were nervous. Our friends were nervous. 

It all turned out fine. 

Mexico seems like ages ago. Which maybe goes against the grain of the normal idea – that the older we get the faster time goes. 

I’m thinking that adage is especially applicable for people doing routine type stuff. Working the same job. Going to the same places. Eating the same food. Waking up in the same bed. 

And that probably makes sense. When you’re young, nothing is routine. You’re busy discovering a million new things. How to talk. How to throw a ball. Ride a bike. Read. Write. Comb your hair. Talk to girls. Kiss girls. It’s all new. All memorable. And that’s probably why it seems like time moves more slowly in that phase of life. 

The point (assuming there is a point) is that maybe doing a trip like this is a good way of slowing down the speeding clock of our lives. Because every day is new. New roads. New people. New customs. New food. Maybe even a new side of the road to bike on. 

In that way, everything doesn’t just blend together into the grey routine of our regular everyday lives. 

The day we stayed in Tampico and met Victor, who literally netted us some fish for dinner.

Or the day we climbed way too much – over 10,000 feet in one day – in Colombia.

Or when we went on the volcano tour in Guatemala.

The windy day in Patagonia,

or the heat in Serbia. The mushrooms and blueberries in Poland.

The sauna with the naked tattooed men in Finland.

Acquiring bike boxes in Ushuaia. 

All these days – and so many more – will be, I think, etched in our memories for years to come.

In short, it has not been a normal year. Far from it. But it has been a good year . . . Full of exploration. Full of learning. Full of new people. And, really, modern marriages don’t see years like this too often. Back in the old days maybe. Like when pioneers set out across the prairies, settled down and were isolated together for years. But in today’s world people have different jobs in different places, different hobbies, bigger houses, and cars – all of which lend themselves to leading pretty separate lives. 

Not so this past year for us. We’re basically within ten feet of each other for about 99% of every day. We’ve had our moments, but it’s been pretty darn great. Definitely more of a sense of partnership than we’ve ever had before . . .

Once we really finish up, we’ll probably do a more comprehensive retrospective, but here are a few quick numbers for you . . .

• Seven states.
• Thirty-eight countries – if you count Wales as a separate country. Which I’m guessing the Welsh would . . .
• Not real sure on mileage because the odometer on my bike stopped working sometime before Santiago, Chile. Maybe later we’ll go back and reconstruct things from Diana’s Strava, but my best guess is that so far we’ve gone around 17,500 miles. 
• Languages. We were stuck on basically two – English and Spanish – for quite a while there. But then we added Arabic, French, Italian, Croatian, Serbian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, German, Slovakian, Czech, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Finnish, Welsh, and Irish – for a grand total of 23. 

Well, okay, let’s come back to where we are today. 

Ireland.

And let’s continue on a theme. 

I think Ireland’s point in existing is to make places like Duluth feel good about their weather. Another grey, implacable day – with multiple rain gear changes as the day went on. And, by the way, it’s early-September – why is Ireland struggling to reach 60 degrees? Even Duluth rourinely hits the upper-60s in early-September. 

Another possible benefit to this weather – besides making Duluth feel good . . . Ireland could, I think, host a good marathon pretty much any day all year. Cool. Overcast. Occasional rain squalls. Perfect running weather.

Alright. Enough of that. No one wants to listen to a complainer. That’s what my Mom taught me. Of course, she also talks about how cloudy and cold it is in Northern Minnesota . . .

One little story . . .

We’re staying at an odd campground tonight. No one here to collect our money. But there are a number of other people around. They’re not exactly camping. They seem to be staying in mobile homes, and then there are a few camper things – but they appear to be pretty permanent since they’re up on blocks. 

There is a shower building, and it looks like it gets some kind of fairly regular attention – but there is something off about the whole experience. We couldn’t find any outlets where we could plug in our phones right away – but Diana scoured the premises and eventually found a side door on the shower building that led into a utility closet of sorts – complete with electric breakers and such. There she found exactly one outlet. But in order to get to it you have to carefully step over a big hole in the floor. It’s kind of disturbing, really. 

Anyway, that closet reminded me of something similar at the family motel in Duluth. This is back 31 -32 years ago now. It’s springtime, and for some reason, I’m out in the back of the motel by the closet door (Don’t ask me why there’s a closet on the back of the motel). I see that the door is swinging open – so I close it. 

Don’t think any more of it – until the next morning. 

There’s guest in one of the rooms and he complains that raccoons have kept him up all night. He says there was noise coming from the front of his room – where there’s an overhead eave. Upon inspection of the eave, we see that where there had been a light fixture, there is now a hole in the eave. Around the hole, you can see little raccoon paw prints – as if the raccoon was trying to find a way out. And then you can see where she eventually jumped down onto a car in the vicinity.

Again, don’t think much more of it. 

Until later that day. There’s a raccoon running all around the motel – trying to find a way in. She’s looking for open doors. She’s scouring the roof. Finally, she crawls down a chimney – if only we had regular guests who liked the place so much . . .

We set a live trap and capture her. Not that hard – because she’s not going anywhere. We’re planning to drive into Superior, Wisconsin – basically across the St. Louis River – to let her go. Crazy thing.

But now we’re wondering why she wanted to get in the place so badly. I have a hunch and I go back to the closet door. When I open it I hear a bunch of raccoons crying. Several sets of beady eyes stare down at me from the attic space above the closet (the ceiling on the creepy attic space is long since gone . . .). 

And now it all makes sense. 

Mama Raccoon entered through the door and crawled up into the attic to have her litter of babies. No problem. She just runs out when she needs to get food – probably to the nearby McDonald’s . . . Except that after I shut the closet door, she couldn’t get out. Which caused her to raise a ruckus getting out from under the eave. And then, when she didn’t come back right away, the little ones started crying. And then, when she couldn’t find her way back in to her little ones, she freaked out. 

In the end the only solution we could figure was to let her out of the live trap, open the closet door, and let her finish nursing her young. Because otherwise we would end up having the little ones die in the attic . . . 

A few weeks later they were gone. 

The lesson? I don’t know – be careful around strange closet doors. And definitely don’t randomly close a door like that in the spring . . .

I guess that was something new – like entering a new country. Because I still remember it now . . .

Tomorrow we head toward the Mountains of Mourne. Then we hit Belfast. Like every day for the past year, it’ll all be new to us . . .