Epilogue

June 01, 2020

I always pad my bike tours with too much extra time before the flight home, and I felt bad for Uncle Taco and Kim for having to put up with me. I spent four more nights in Portland and, because of the pandemic, they had me sleep out in their new garden shed. Uncle Taco and I drank a lot of beer, and he plied me with amazing food.

I spent a day riding around Portland, where I visited the park across the street from the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. The protests that had received national news coverage were essentially only a block in area. I witnessed a transvestite protestor trying to instigate a conflict with construction workers who were erecting a new barrier around the courthouse. The transvestite threw a garbage pail over the fence. The poor workers weren't the enemy. I was struck by the immense homeless population all over Portland. There were tents on the sidewalks downtown, and in the parks along the greenways in St Johns.

I procured a bike box from North Portland Bike Works, and Uncle Taco drove it back to his house where we spent a day cleaning out his gutters. Uncle Taco was a brilliant gas blower, and he blew me a beautiful glass. I borrowed a pedal wrench from Block Bikes in St. John's. The day before my flight I spent several hours methodically breaking down and packing up my bike.

I got an Uber to the airport, and things went smoothly. The $180 fee to ship my bike cost more than the $150 plane fare. I had selected American Airlines because they supposedly didn't charge for bicycles. All prior arrangements had been suspended because of COVID.

Instead of a direct flight, as I had done the past two years, I had to fly through Dallas Fort Worth. I wore a mask the entire flight. Because I was coming from Oregon, there were no COVID quarantine requirements in New York. My bike box was waiting for me in the oversized luggage area at LaGuardia.

I picked up Blanka straight from the airport. Mehiko and Fernando's kids were sad to see her go. Blanka ended up ignoring me for over a week, and I suppose that I deserved it. My apartment and plants out front were in great shape. My neighbors and friends were happy to see me.

New York was no longer shut down. Outdoor dining had opened out on the streets. Damage from the rioting had long been cleaned up. I planned, but never took part in a protest ride. Marianne Rudd's book arrived about a week after I returned, and I eagerly enjoyed it. My New York to Minnesota ACA paper maps that Sam had mailed from St. Cloud never arrived.

Jeff from team Spokane paid me a visit upon cycling from Chicago. He had told me about a group of teenagers from San Francisco who were pedaling cross country with their teacher.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/sports/cycling/coronavirus-protests-masks-biking.html
I contacted the group and offered them a place to stay, but they had made other arrangements. Blanka and I met them at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and bought them lunch at Grimaldi's Pizzeria.

I followed Emily and Charlotte's tour east, as well as Aimee's. Morten & Darthe's tour across the country went on for months until their completion in Florida. I eventually got all of my gear cleaned up, organized, and packed away for the next tour.

There were bad fires in Oregon after I left that effected Taco and Kim's garden. North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho were eventually hit hard with COVID. I wondered what happened to that "Stop the COVID-19 Bull Shit!!!" sign in the front window at the Krystal Cafe in Orofino, ID. The rural folks, on whose hospitality I depended, were friendly. That being said, I recognize my white privilege. As Sacha Baron Cohen recently said in an interview about such right-wing apologists, "They’re ordinary folks who are good people, who have just been fed this diet of lies. They’re completely different to the politicians [and power hungry media barons] who are motivated by their own [wealth and] power." I had seen hundreds of TURD flags, multiple confederate flags, and a militia camp. I overhead overtly racist commentary and witnessed open carry handguns. I observed a lot of poverty. Businesses were shuttered across the country, and I passed miles and miles of idle empty train cars. Homelessness and transient communities were a glaring problem in the west. Was the United States on the decline? I read recently that China was to overtake the US as world's biggest economy by 2028. That said, I passed hundreds of giant wind turbines and heard about oil and fracking bonanzas. Fantastic rail trails had recently been created, and I enjoyed fantastic craft breweries all across the nation. I experienced less aggressive arrogant motorists than I had feared and, because of COVID, I met few fellow cyclists.

Like last year, my sweet spot began in North Dakota. Comparing my three cross-country tours' final legs, from western Montana to the Pacific coast, this year's route along the Columbia River was my least favorite. Aside from the beautiful Historic Columbia River Highway through the Columbia River Gorge, the desert was brutal and the stretch west of Portland was less pristine than the Northern Tier Route into Anacortes. While I'll definitely do another cross country tour, I'll be looking to change things up to explore different parts of the country next year.

I returned to a lethargic fall semester on Zoom, and was eventually paid $200 for the New School training session that I'd completed in The Dalles. It took me months to finally edit this report. TURD lost the election, and I was amazed that Pennsylvania went blue. I wondered what would become of all those TURD flags. Biden would hopefully push to combat climate change and a new normal post-COVID world would eventually hopefully emerge.

I recommend a cross-country bike tour. It's a great, green, slow way to explore and interact with one's surroundings. We Americans need to come together and have a civil dialogue, and cycling is a great way of breaking down barriers. I waved to every person that I passed. Bike touring is a beautiful way to travel, and I look forward to getting back out there. In conclusion, it was a wisely calculated risk to have escaped the city to spend my long summer days out riding free, wandering across this beautiful continent.