day 54: the things we can't teach

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today began like the last few days: a groggy wake-up in a new location (perryville, missouri), stepping over each other to get changed, our daily rotation of covid tests (we’re all negative), dearly missing katherine, and finding creative ways to prepare cereal and almond milk (which, i maintain, counts as milk, despite the objections of my teammates) for breakfast.

then we all hopped in the car and drove fifty minutes to farmington to host a learning festival with the 4-h club at the farmington public library. timothy had the aux during the drive and after katherine didn’t pick up the phone (hopefully getting some much-deserved sleep), we listened to his music.

i love timothy’s music taste—and i’ve never heard him play the same song twice. this morning’s set list had some upbeat electronic pop that made me feel like the main character in a video game, driving our ragtag band of heroes to their destination. despite his refusal to play “songs about teachers” like i asked, we did listen to freaky deaky as we pulled up to the library (which i haven’t been able to get out of my head).

we’ve taught in a bunch of locations at this point: summer camps, libraries, space centers. and we’ve taught a variety of learners: young and old, neurodiverse and neurotypical, at rural and urban sites.

so, when we got to farmington, there were a couple of things i noticed that i don’t think i would have paid as much attention to at the beginning of the trip. a big one was the physical space—the library looks like something my younger self would have dreamed about…

i’ve reflected on the effect of physical space on learning before. for example, one of the high schools we stayed at had a massive cafeteria with an upstairs balcony for the administrators to watch students eat below. i think that’s a form of policing the behavior of students—they can’t be trusted; they need to be watched.

one of the high schools we visited had a classroom where the chairs were bolted to the floor. another classroom in a different school was an open space with different activities around the room (with signs that indicated students could explore and direct their own learning, like a montessori school). very different messages about the type of learning that is encouraged.

for its austere exterior, the library’s interior seemed to lean into creative chaos. kids ran around and raised their voices (inviting stern hushes from the librarians). its rooms, with brightly colored walls and murals, seemed more welcoming to children than the more austere rooms we’ve taught in.

two students investigated some of the nature outside the library

many principles of good education are challenging to implement in a one-day workshop. for example, pedagogy should be “culturally sustaining” by inviting students to bring the culture of their home and community into the learning environment. how can we do that when we only have an hour with our students? that’s barely enough time to learn everyone’s names; much less build trust and learn about their culture and lives.

i think we do our best by allowing students to have lots of voice and choice in our workshops (through project-based learning and performance-based assessment, if you’re familiar with the terms). aja invites students to design their dream city from scratch. sophia’s students make their own stories. joel’s students design their own bottle rockets. timothy’s students write their own messages in binary. and my students design their own data collection process.

hopefully, students’ engagement with these activities can be laden with their own values and culture — if they’re feeling comfortable. in an earlier workshop, i found it a little funny when one of my students did her data activity by texting all of her contacts and timing them to see how long it took them to respond (we also discussed what that metric — time to respond — really reflects, and why that’s not always a great proxy for the strength of the friendship). it’s a small example, but it’s cool to see how some students use what we teach in ways that matter to them.

today’s students were a great group that was super engaged with the material. they had fun with some of the data artwork i showed them, and went all-out with their data collection activities.

and then we left.

all packed up, ready to go

i often wonder what students will remember about our learning festivals. will they hypothesize about and test mechanical systems? will they feel empowered, later, to become scientists in their own world with numbers and data? maybe some will, but most probably won’t, i’m guessing —

instead, perhaps there’s something special about the fact that a bunch of crazy stanford students biked thousands of miles to come see them. that those folks spent a day with them, listening to their stories, excited to see them learning. hopefully there’s something in the way that we connect with and love our students that we can leave behind.

i know it certainly works in the other direction.

in the way that my students engage in my activity, i’ve seen how covid has affected the way they form communities and connect with each other; they’ve told me about their families and what friendship means to them; i’ve learned about the food they love and what they define as “success.”

that learning — those things — they’re things we can’t teach.

and — i know this sounds cheesy — i’m really encouraged by what i’ve learned! so many young kids are more centered and responsive to the needs of each other than i think i was at their age.

after we left, we got frozen custard at culver’s. the flavor of the day was oreo overload, but as timothy pointed out, it was simply “loaded” not “overloaded” with oreos.

joel and i also got some food and aja opted for the ever-consistent vanilla custard with a few toppings.

continuing our team’s midwestern culture exploration, we visited… menard’s.

for those of you who don’t know, menard’s is a home improvement store. but actually, it’s so much more: menard’s is an experience (♪ save big money at menaaaards! ♪). we went to menard’s so joel could get some tubing to more safely attach his saddle bag to his bike, but we emerged with deoderant and cereal as well.

and, the requisite shenanigans:

art helps joel find some tubing; thanks art!

timothy helps joel tube himself; thanks timothy!

on the drive back to the house, we chatted with vincent in the car. he’s settling well into philly (if uncomfortably, due to his current lack of a mattress and wi-fi). vincent reflected on post-spokes life, how the trip had changed him, and his (potential) plans to visit us later.

back with our hosts, we reheated last night’s delicious pasta leftovers and, for the first time on this trip, we made s’mores! apparently this is more of a tradition east of the great divide, so i’m looking forward to keeping this going…

—parth

ps: a while back my dad mentioned that he’d like to submit questions like “does joel only have one biking jersey?” that we can answer in the blog posts. so, we made a form! ask us anything: https://forms.gle/jghhrA8JigVGqCGh7.

Day 53: Mental Time Travel

I’ve often wondered what it will be like when this trip comes to an end. What it’ll feel like when Spokes '22 finally parts ways in Washington, D.C., after 76 days of being together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And while I know that we still have a few weeks left until we reach that point, these past few days in quarantine—separated from my team, and a bit stuck in my own head—have made those thoughts so much more real.

Stationary, confined to an Indianapolis bedroom 250 miles from the rest of my team, all I can think is that I miss spoking, and that I miss the Spokes. It’s weird going from hearing the ungodly sound of six alarms going off simultaneously each morning to the utter stillness of the air when I wake up alone. I think my stomach is rebelling a little, too. It’s too used to being fed oatmeal, chili, spaghetti, and a rotating selection of “durable” fruits (apples, oranges, and the occasional watermelon, if we’ve earned it), and so anything else—no matter how delicious—seems to mildly affront it. I miss the tedious, yet comforting pattern of moving, resting, moving, resting that has so reliably brought us closer to our end destination. These days, I think instead of how each pedal the Spokes make brings us closer to a time and place where we can be reunited. 

I’ve not-so-missed waiting for five other people to shower before I can, inescapable heat and humidity, and pesky mosquitoes (and Sophias) that never seem to leave me alone; but even then, there’s a sort of nostalgia associated with those experiences that I can’t help but feel a phantom pain for. Being indoors for three days now, it's true that I’ve gotten used to certain comforts again. And while I know I don’t need them, it’s good to be reminded that these comforts exist. And to be reminded that I know how to be alone, too.

A practice that I do sometimes, one that’s become a sort of strategy for getting myself out of the dumps when I’m having a hard time, is something psychologists call mental time travel. It’s remarkably simple, but effective: it’s where I remind myself that even if I’m experiencing awful emotions right now, that sometime down the road, I’ll be okay again. By engaging myself in this form of imagination, it becomes clear that whatever I’m dealing with will eventually pass: I just need the patience. 

I’m finding myself doing a different kind of mental time travel these days. Quarantine has given me a taste of what post-Spokes life might look like. I’m far away from Joel, Aja, Parth, Timothy, Sophia, and Vincent, but I feel as connected to them as ever. I’m imagining, again, what life will be like when this trip closes out. I’m unsure of what’ll happen when and after we say goodbye, but I know it’ll be okay, as clichéd as that is. As of now, I’m patiently waiting to rejoin my team, grateful for every text and update I get from them during this time. It’s a powerful antidote for unrest. 

Katherine

—

Anyway, because writing still stresses me out, but lists somehow make it okay, here’s a log of the things I did in isolation today. Despite having the sniffles and being quite tired, I wanted to navigate today with intentionality, almost like I was mimicking a spoking day. I even changed my phone time from EST back to CDT! I was able to get some work done, recalibrate a bit, and have some fun too. 

• 7 am: woke up at the same time as the Spokes, in a show of solidarity. made my bed, put in my contacts and changed into a nicer outfit for no one else but myself. ate breakfast.

• 8 am: got a text from Timothy that everyone was COVID negative! got to work organizing my belongings, deciding what to throw out and what to send back home (I was supposed to do this a long time ago, but didn’t get around to it. Never too late to lighten Ody’s load, I guess)

• 9:30 am: sunscreened and went on a walk around the neighborhood while listening to new music and looking at the plants and birds 

• 10:45 am: started a K-drama while eating an early lunch. it’s called Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

• 11:30 am: remembered that I was sick and took a much needed nap.

• 2 pm: woke up and continued organizing. emails.

• 3 pm: snack time - guava cookies! remembered I don’t like guava. 

• 3:30 pm: ????

• 5 pm: learned a dance. feels good to break a sweat. checked the team's locations for probably the hundredth time today (it’s not as creepy as it sounds. or is it?)

• 6:30 pm: shower. used the one face mask I've been harboring this whole trip. decided to cut my bangs (quarantine does weird things to yah) while calling friends.

• 7:30 pm: dinner. 

• 8:30 pm: combination of doing laundry and rolling around on the bed. 

• 10 pm: wrote and published the blog :)

Day 52: Covid, Coffee shops, and Crazy aCronyms

We all woke up this morning at varying times, which is a luxury of rest days: no synchronized awakenings. Aja, true to form, is the first awake. By the time I roll out of bed (though admittedly, I am the last one up), I see a text on my phone from Aja to the group: “Negative for covid, heading to a coffee shop.”

This text pretty accurately summarizes our last couple of days. Rapid test boxes can be found in random spots around the house.  We test every morning. We all (figuratively) hold our breaths for 15-minute intervals, waiting to see if someone’s test draws a second line. Thankfully, we are all negative, but we are still being quite careful and will be testing for a little bit still.

Coffee shops have become an integral part of our time here in St. Louis. Our host doesn’t have wifi, and happens to be in a part of the city that a lot of us don’t have cell signal in. So, if we need wifi, we head to a coffee shop. And since we’re rerouting the rest of our trip, we need wifi a lot.

Once I finish my newest favorite breakfast, Cheerios with walnuts and protein milk (milk with protein powder mixed in), we join Aja at the coffee shop. Today’s coffee shop was on a lovely corner near Wash U. We ordered, and then sat down and got to work. I’ve previously described the feeling of all-hands-on-deck with this team, but the last couple of days have been a completely different level.

Parth and Timothy sat outside, making calls to find teaching opportunities. Aja sat at a booth, finding new hosts, confirming with said hosts, and then informing our previous hosts that we are rerouting. Sophia and I sat next to Aja, working on route planning, making sure each day of our new route is plausible to do, and planning the specific route for the next few days of biking. This felt like a flow-state of five people together; the organism of the team was collectively in a flow state.

I’m personally still a bit in shock that we’re changing the route. Don’t get me wrong; I’m completely on board with the reroute. However, before we switched the route, everything felt settled, and very by-the-books. We were following the route 2019 Spokes used, stopping with hosts who have hosted Spokes for many years in a row. Now, we’re changing it.

Of course, this shock is a bit illogical. With this new route, we’re (approximately) following routes laid out by Adventure Cycling, and have been used by many cycle tourers (or is it tourists? we’re not quite sure which one it is). We now have hosts for a vast majority of our nights, thanks to Aja’s tireless work. However, amidst the chaos of our transitory lifestyle, our route spreadsheet felt like a constant. Now, we also changed that—how awesome and terrifying! Okay, maybe terrifying is a strong word…

All of this said, it is quite sad to have to cancel on hosts and teaching sites who were expecting us. One of our hosts even had a hand-made sign ready to welcome us. No matter how logical and sensible our decision to reroute is, having to tell a host or teaching site that has known generations of Spokes that we won’t be coming is really hard.

Perhaps this is a good example of the duality of this trip that I mentioned in my last post. I’m excited about the possibilities of this new route, but simultaneously am sad to not be doing the previous route.

After we wrapped up our work in the coffee shop, we headed to a local sandwich shop, while Sophia went to explore the art museum for a bit of Sophia Solo Exploration Time (SSET). We all met up again at the St. Louis City Museum, which was highly recommended by multiple hosts.

The City Museum is a bit difficult to explain. Imagine being about 8 years old, maybe 3-4 feet tall. Imagine what your ideal playground/museum/maze would look like. That’s the City Museum. Now, unleash five 20-ish year-olds on this playground. We had a lot of fun exploring, climbing the huge structures, finding small nooks and crannies tucked in the corners. Though, we had to contort our bodies in odd ways to fit in spaces that were not quite designed for us.

The City Museum!

We returned to the car, and decided to go to a coffee shop since there was more work to do regarding our re-route, and we all wanted to spend some more time in the city before returning back to the house. I ended up catching up on some work for a club that I had been forgetting to do for a few weeks now.

Now, I’m writing this blog at the kitchen table of our hosts, listening to Parth and Timothy prepare nachos and curry for dinner as they talk with our host. Sophia has a Latin poetry book open as she takes a personality test I’m making her take. (Sophia wants it to be known that she is not pretentious and only just bought this book. I’m still amazed that Latin poetry is something she can understand… I struggle enough with English poetry). Aja is chilling downstairs for some Aja Sort of Nap Time (ASNT). Katherine Is Off In Indianapolis, Quarantining In The Upper Floor Of Her Brother’s Girlfriend’s Family’s House (aka KIOIIQITUFOHBGFH… not actually though, just like with the rest of the acronyms in this post). We’ll probably call Katherine later tonight as we eat dinner. Vincent is in Philly, med schooling away. We’ve heard that he likes his roommates, and that things are going well.

Onward,

Joel

P.S. A small addendum I wanted to add, before too much time passes: a few days ago, Parth and I were finishing up the last leg of a day on the Katy Trail. We were having a great time, until Parth’s front tire popped. We were just getting ready to repair the tire, when two people clad in bike helmets approached, saying they heard Parth’s tire pop. They asked if we needed help, which we began to politely decline. We explained that their front tire had a small gash that we needed to fix the next day, and so we’d just patch it up, and get to our hosts. These two strangers simply replied, “Oh, we have a tire you could use up at our house. We live just up the hill, let us drive you.”

So Parth and I piled into their pickup. We came to know that these two strangers are Doug and Theresa, and that they were about to start their evening bike ride. They filled our water bottles, generously gave Parth a new tire, and drove us back down to the trail. I was blown away by this act of kindness. I love to emphasize to the team just how nice people in the Midwest are, but Doug and Theresa truly went above and beyond any measure. So thank you to Doug and Theresa, and to all of the strangers who continue to help us along the way.

Day 51: Not So Missing Links

From the very beginning our team has been shaped by tangible incompleteness. We were six people carrying the burdens (literally. Vincent’s bike was so heavy) and spirits of seven for the first week (covid part I), so even when Vincent returned, we were always fallaciously and forlornly seeking the phantom Spoke quarantining in a trampoline (one of many long stories). We have mentioned many times when the seven of us were huddled in a space together that we felt like there was a missing member (even when said space is a motel room meant for two).

Now we are down to five in person. Vincent is off beginning the first of eight amazing years of med school in Philly, and Katherine is remotely Spoking from Indianapolis (covid part II, I miss you dearly, Katherine). There is true emptiness around us. I fell asleep not to Vincent’s frantic searches for an empty room and woke up not to Katherine’s deflating sleeping pad. Instead of waiting for Vincent off the side of the road because he forgot to put on his helmet, or laughing with Katherine too hard and too long and way past bedtime, I found myself sitting blankly at various points today, feeling a little absent, a little lost.

The now too familiar sales pitch: “We are seven Stanford students biking across the U.S. and teaching STEAM along the way…” must now be modified to the odd and grating “six.” Two blogposts ago I mentioned that it is scary to miss these six strangers preemptively while we were still together, but now that we are truly separated, I feel so honored and so happy that I miss Vincent and Katherine. It is because they have made such an impact on my life here that I feel a little empty without them, it is because they have deeply and very chaotically bulldozed a spot in my heart that I am a little lost without them.

Perhaps because Vincent and Katherine weren’t here to keep us in line, perhaps because we were all tired and jostled by the unfamiliar pace of a city, somehow in a tea shop in downtown St. Louis, we decided to reroute the rest of the trip, entirely.

The news of Kentucky flooding has been laying heavy on our minds for a week or so now. We are wary of the uncertain road conditions but more so worried that our purpose to empower and educate would be more so an imposition and inconvenience to those we must inevitably encumber along the way. Asking for food and shelter from a community lacking exactly those things seems wrong.

So Aja and I within thirty minutes scraped together a mock route that would take us North instead of South, passing through a few more big cities that might offer more housing and more medical support. Over lunch the entire team discussed and agreed on the plan, and sitting (actually trapped by a thunderstorm, which Joel, ever meticulous, had warned us of ahead of time) in a coffee shop for four hours, we set out to realize it. It truly was all hands on deck, ten hands on laptops and phones, typing up multiple versions of each route and calling new schools and libraries we could teach at along the way. Like a well oiled machine, or more precisely a well-greased-not-squeaky-no-derailleur-issued chain, the five of us with much sprawling on tables and much laughter and caffeine, confirmed over 80 percent of housing and route planning. Again, like that ideal chain mentioned above, we worked as congruent and complementing links, seven links that is. I wondered both silently and aloud, “What would Vincent do?” as we edited version after version of routes to make sure they were (relatively) safe and (relatively) enjoyable. I repeatedly checked to see if the new route would bring us closer to Katherine when she ends her quarantine, and reminded myself to focus on potentials and positives like she would. So the seven of us, if not in person then in spirit, in one day will take on a whole new route.

goldfish katherine

dashing vincent

Yes, there is an emptiness, but there is also much fulfillment. The missing links are not so missing when the force and tension they used to exert have shaped us into the team we are today. I am not so scared as I am excited to ride into this unfamiliarity alongside my team.

new route

See you soon,

Sophia

Day 50: Disaster Strikes

Today started off strong. We woke up early; our Columbia, MO, hosts made us a wonderful, protein-packed breakfast and coffee; we were on top of our morning routine. Parth swapped out my old front tire for a new one (thanks!). Spirits were high; we had another day of biking on the famous and beautiful Katy Trail, followed by two days of teaching and rest in St. Louis. By 9:00am the car was packed and we were just about ready to go.

Like I said, today started strong. Too strong. This trip has made me superstitious. Something always goes wrong, whether it’s a tire deflating, car troubles or road closures. If a few hours have passed without something going awry then it’s only a matter of time. Big or small, the problem of the day always comes. In short, we should have seen this coming.

At around 9, Katherine decided to take a covid test, and ten minutes later she texted our group chat to let us know that she tested positive. The rest of us all tested, and thankfully came back negative, although we’ll keep testing for the next few days to make sure. We spent the next four hours deliberating: where would Katherine go? How would she catch up to us after she recovered? What are the most comfortable options? How can we make travel the simplest? After talking on the phone with some coordinators from the St. Louis Science Center, we decided it would be safest to cancel tomorrow's workshops.

Three plans and a lunch later we nailed down a solution. Katherine’s brother’s girlfriend’s family lives in Indianapolis, and they were willing to let her stay with them while she was sick. Aja and I were to drive Katherine to St. Louis (double masked, windows down) and from there she would be picked up and driven to Indianapolis. A lot of car time, but it worked. The remaining Spokes – Sophia, Joel, and Parth – would continue biking the Katy Trail for ~60 miles and ride the Amtrak to St. Louis once it got dark.

After taking a photo with our hosts, thanking them for handling the situation with grace and generosity, and profusely apologizing, we went on our way. The drive was mostly uneventful. We drove without music, and mostly without conversation, since it's hard to hear with the windows down on the freeway. Once we arrived in St. Louis, Aja and I unpacked the car and Katherine extracted her belongings and waited to be picked up.

After Katherine departed and we said our goodbyes, Aja and I went to Walmart to restock on food. On the way back, we stopped to get frozen custard at Andy's Frozen Custard. Frozen custard is our group's newest obsession since entering the midwest. It was a long and stressful day so we figured that we could use a treat.

The rest of the day was less eventful. We got back at 7:45 from our groceries-and-custard run. For a couple of hours we decompressed and caught up on emails. Then Aja left to pick up the others from the Amtrak station while I started working on the blog. The rest of the Spokes walked in about 10 minutes ago.

That's about it for today. Assuming that we all test negative tomorrow morning, we'll probably spend the day exploring St. Louis. It will be weird and sadder less fun without Katherine around.

Till next time,

Timothy

day 49: when life gives you gravel

it’s been a running joke throughout this trip that seeing each other on campus upon our eventual return is going to be awkward - or, at the very least, strange - after experiencing the absolute best and worst of one another, living and breathing cycling for ten weeks straight. spokes has become its own entity, a microcosm of human vulnerability, of selflessness and at times selfishness, of collaboration and at times an intense desire for solitude. it’s become, in some insane roundabout fashion, a stable, joyful presence that i almost can’t imagine leaving behind.

but soon we are going to be back to normal life, whatever that means. class registration, dorm packing (sleeping in one place for months at a time??), staying up too late for essay writing instead of culver’s custard runs and thera-gun fueled giggles. 

as much as i have enjoyed my time at stanford, that thought makes me sad. 

i played beach and indoor volleyball for six years throughout middle and high school, and it was my life. before that, theater performance was my life. after that, indoor cycling was my life. and then one day i quit those things and they just weren’t anymore. seasons of life fade away and before you know it you’ve let connections with people you once spent hours every day with become transient memories. and that’s okay - it can be really healthy. but i truly hope that the connections our team has made this summer can continue to provide comfort and joy when spokes is no longer our entire life.

several of our recent warmshowers hosts have encouraged us to write messages in their guestbooks dating back years and years, a few of which have hosted multiple past spokes teams from both stanford and MIT. i think its a beautiful thing to hold onto connections like that. one thing i absolutely love about cycling (albeit in my limited experience) is the community it fosters. the fact that the generosity of warmshowers even exists, the fellow tourers you meet who have stayed in the same cities as you and offer their wisdom about routes and restaurants, the stories of cycling reunions with old friends from old trips all over the country and all over the world. i don’t plan on quitting touring anytime soon, and i want that to be me one day.

in case you missed parth’s blog post yesterday, i’m a little bit clumsy and managed to bruise my tailbone *after* getting off of the roller skating rink on saturday (don’t tell my mom), so i’ve spent two days in the car entertaining/ bugging/ soaking up the lovely presence of katherine. today we plotted the perfect way to get back at your mortal enemy (i will not disclose the entire plan, but it does involve fire ants and the AC vents of said enemy’s car). we also talked about hay. and other important things, timothy. 

while my day consisted of car time, iced coffee, airpods, and sitting in the brutal missouri humidity, the bikers seemingly had a much more eventful stretch from our starting point of warrensburg, MO to our current stop of columbia, MO. i’m sure you’ll get a much more detailed report in tomorrow’s blog, but here’s what i do know. today was our first day on the katy trail, an almost 240-mile gravel recreational trail spanning a portion of the missouri river. parth has reported a claim from google that an “experienced road cyclist” who averages 50-100 miles a day on paved roads should only be able to do 30-50 miles a day on the katy. gravel really packs a punch. (and some idiot planned not one, but two, hundred-something mile days in a row on it. oops.) 

beyond the gravel and a few consequent flats, the bikers encountered a pebble mountain of sorts, ankle-height plants that were hopefully not poisonous, a cave??? and enough humidity to nearly turn them into amphibians. did i mention it’s humid here? 

in all seriousness, i’m bummed to have missed it. i’m hoping to get back on the road tomorrow - do love me some gravel action. 

till next time,

aja

we <3 furry friends

nameless dog joins us for a rest stop

missouri river!

spokes traverse the pebble mountain :o

i do love this team. we miss you vincent!!!

day 48: an egg-cellent day

kansas city, mo → warrensburg, mo

sometimes, on this trip, i worry about whether or not we’re able to have fun. after all, as joel wrote, we’re heroes getting ready to slay dragons—and heroes-in-training don’t get a ton of time off (from my, more limited, experience reading fantasy).

there are even some days on this trip where i’ve been so head-down focused on getting to the next rest stop that i couldn’t tell you about the scenery during the ride — but that style of riding… sucks! it just doesn’t seem worth it.

lots of people ride bikes at stanford, so my friends are usually a bit surprised when i tell them that i walk instead. i often explain that campus is so much prettier when you’re walking (even though walking to class can taking up to five times longer than biking). and, walking, i constantly discover new things: a fruit tree i didn’t know existed, a path to a park amidst faculty houses, a beautiful vantage point to see the sunset.

basically, i’m a fan of slow travel because i find that i learn more about a place when i’m moving through it slowly. so, it makes me sad when i miss the journey, for the destination. and, it makes me even sadder when our nightly stops are merely waypoints to the next stop — so transient that i feel like i could miss it if i blinked.

my guess is that this will continue to be a challenge for me (which is understandable, given the extreme conditions of this trip) but the last 24 hours have given me a lot of reassurance that, perhaps, we do know how to take a break, when it matters.

as katherine mentioned, timothy, aja, and i went roller skating last night, which was incredibly fun. i was most excited because the employees were our age, they seemed to have a lot of control over what they played, and they skated with us!! while they were working!! (potential future career??)

a carefully-coordinated pose, with our feet and hands crossed so that we look super cool

at the end, once were completely off the roller rink, aja slipped off the bench (the one we’re sitting on above) and, in a ridiculously underwhelming fashion, bruised their tailbone, landing them in the car today.

mark following behind joel

this morning, our host mark thanked us for visiting, saying that his home has “never been as full of life” as it had been over those days. that made me smile. i love the idea that—as a previous host put it—we get a place to sleep, and our hosts get to see the world through our eyes. it’s really special to share that connection with someone.

mark even decided to join us for our first leg!

he complimented our riding style (which was pretty fast, compared to most city rides he does) and shared stories from his own rest stops — including one where some employees confused chamois butter and real butter and put a bunch of it on sandwiches that several riders ate…

he also briefly commented how nice watermelon is at rest stops, which i think primed joel to notice a watermelon stand at the next rest stop and get one!

in the next leg, we passed by a sign next to a house that said “chicken and duck eggs, $3, call [phone number]” and joel and sophia simply had to call, in hopes of acquiring some duck eggs.

nobody picked up the phone, so i suggested that we just walk up to the house and knock on the door. they answered! and, though they didn’t have duck eggs, they sold us a dozen chicken eggs and refilled my water bottles. they even offered us gatorade! (which we politely declined)

waiting for eggs

eggs!

walking our bikes up a steep grade

the next leg was our last, and it was also the hardest for me. we were trying to avoid highway 50 by biking on side roads, which included some pretty steep grades on gravel. we had to walk our bike up a few hills.

towards the end, we passed a sign that said: “farm fresh butt nuggets sold here.”

yep, we were confused too.

so, take a guess: what do you think a butt nugget is?

if it helps, the sign had a chicken on it.

my incorrect guess was that it referred to chicken nuggets made from butt meat. joel looked on urban dictionary, which was entirely nsfw and ultimately not helpful. sophia found the correct answer: it’s an egg!

high on the excitement from the last egg stop, we doubled back for some butt nuggets. but, the folks didn’t answer the door, so we left nugget-less.

after dinner, we decided to go to culver’s for frozen custard, a midwestern tradition that many on the team had never experienced.

we loved it so much that we're establishing a new tradition: frozen custard every day. the mit spokes get ice cream after they teach. we resolve to get frozen custard after we bike. and probably when we don’t bike too.

we just like custard.

79.53mi, 6:20:25 moving time

—parth

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one more thing: we just left kansas, and biking through the state, i was inundated by the upcoming vote on august 2nd, which is the first post-Roe vote on abortion rights. voters will decide whether the kansas constitution protects abortion — a “yes” vote says it doesn’t (pro-life) and a “no” vote says it does (pro-choice).

the tactics of the pro-life camp have been duplicitous at best. they moved the vote to august 2nd — the date of a primary — in a state where democrats are unaccustomed to voting in primaries. the language of the proposed amendment itself has been criticized as confusing. in my opinion, it’s sneaky and disingenuous.

i have the privilege of living in california, where abortion is protected under state law. but, i worry about my friends and loved ones who may have to seek abortion care in a post-Roe kansas. or, even folks who might seek care for a miscarriage there.

as kansas teeters on the edge of dystopian, i’m keeping all of the lovely people we met there in my thoughts.

and, if you live in kansas: vote no on august 2nd. enter your address here to get more personalized information!

DAY 46 + 47: Katherine's update

<3 u Vincent :)

Yesterday and today were rest days in Kansas City. My time here can be summarized as: doctor’s visit, sleeping in and staying up, coffee dates and shopping, city exploration at an unhurried pace, and calling friends and family I haven’t connected with in too, too long. We said goodbye to Vincent this morning, and sent him off to med school with our love and a cowboy hat. 

The days have been slow, but I can barely remember what happened earlier today, or yesterday, or the day before that. Truth be told, this past week on the trip has been rough for me. I’m feeling somewhat burnt out, and more homesick than usual. 

I’ll use this blog post as a short, official update, one that’s been long overdue. I haven’t been biking since Day 18, all the way back when we were in Utah. At first it was because of the issues with my left knee. Now, it’s in part because of a minor hip injury I got when Ody was rear-ended two weeks ago in Denver. Biking is out of the question for me. So sometimes—a lot of the time—I don’t know what I’m still doing on the trip. 

rate our fits!

Still, I’m really grateful for my teammates who have never made me feel like I don’t belong here. For a brief while here in Kansas City, I considered flying myself home, but my teammates have shown such consistent determination to keep me here (and also prevent me from hurting myself further) that I’ve fully dismissed that crazy thought. 

Kansas City has been wonderful. We had the best time last night when we went out for authentic KC BBQ as Vincent’s sendoff meal. I went to the Nelson Atkins Art Museum, which I’ve been wanting to do ever since our arrival, with Joel and Sophia today. Later, Aja, Timothy, and Parth went roller skating in the city, which sounded like a whole lot of fun. I’m opting for a short blog post to try to get some more sleep—good night, talk later!

Katherine

BBQ party for Vincent, sorry everyone is blurry (Vincent is the only person who matters)