DAY 64: Codenames and Spokesnames

(I don’t have Wi-Fi right now, so I’m uploading this blog using my hotspot’s limited bandwidth. Tomorrow when I have Wi-Fi I’ll retroactively add some photos to this blog post.)

Today we passed through a town called Centerburg, so named because it’s the geographic center of Ohio. We stopped at a coffee shop there called Centerbean.

With fewer than two weeks remaining in the trip, the Spokes are a well-oiled machine. At the very least, a functional, moderately-oiled one. Our mornings used to be hectic, slow, and disorganized; in the first week of the trip, there were some mornings when we took four hours to get out the door. Ody’s trunk used to be a mess of empty cardboard boxes, with important items scattered across unlabeled bins and personal bags. But as the weeks stacked up, we streamlined our car packing system and developed an effective morning routine. Now when we wake up we spring into action immediately. Each person has fallen into an unofficial role. Today we came up with titles for each of these roles, which I’ve decided to share here:

Sophia: Freezer Caesar (Sophia usually unpacks the contents of our cooler into our hosts’ fridges and re-packs the cooler in the morning. Also, Sophia is a classics major.)

Joel: Gallon Golem (We carry seven plastic one-gallon jugs of water in the car. Joel fills them in the morning and packs them into the car.)

Parth: Tire Squire (Parth checks and inflates all of the bike tires in the morning.)

Katherine: SAG Hag (Cyclists call cars that carry gear SAGwagons. SAG is an acronym for Support And Gear. We don’t think that Katherine is a hag, but it was hard to come up with a funny rhyme / alliteration.)

Timothy: Car Czar (I pack the car in the morning. The Czar title may refer to some authoritarian tendencies. I tend to be *slightly* militant about packing the car and insist that all bags are packed and left next to the car before breakfast begins.)

Aja: Budget Baron (Aja manages the Spokes budget, keeping careful track of our funds and submitting reimbursements whenever one of us pays for gas / groceries / etc.)

We came up with the nicknames tonight over dinner with our Mt. Vernon hosts, Bill and Marsha. They’re cool people. Marsha runs an art gallery in the town, Bill is a photographer, and their son is a painter, so the house is full of paintings on huge canvasses, framed photographs, and sculptures by local artists. We’ve spent a good deal of time here strolling around and appreciating all the art. And Marsha is a vegetarian! For the first time in a while, Sophia, Aja, and I got to eat a dinner replete with protein, a lovely quinoa and bean dish. At dinner, we chatted with them about their travels, including a funny Amsterdam story. 

After dinner, I convinced a critical mass of Spokes to play Codenames (a word-guessing table game). Marsha joined in for the first round, too. My team – Aja, Katherine, and I – ended up on a winning streak. Below you can see some pictures of Sophia becoming increasingly demoralized as Parth and Joel fail to correctly guess her clues. [said photos will appear here when i upload them tomorrow] ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

It’s weird that we’re in the final stretch of this trip. Sometimes it feels like we just started. Other times it feels like we’ve been doing this forever and that we’ll continue forever.

Anyway, I received some questions from blog readers, which I’m answering below.

If Timothy had to move to one city you've been in on this trip, what city would he pick?

I liked Kansas City! But that may have been because it had the highest concentration of roller skating rinks… Not to mention the free buses and the smattering of cool used book stores and record shops. 

Timothy’s questions to Timothy (from Day 12): What have you been listening to on your ride? What have you been thinking about on the road? 

Hmmmm. I’ve been listening to a rotation of audiobooks. The one I’ve spent the most time with recently is Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. I’ve also been taking out my headphone (singular, since I only keep it in my right ear) and listening to the wind more, which is a nice change of pace.

I think about a lot of things, but rarely while biking do I have the bandwidth to think deeply about any one thing. Usually my thoughts jump from one thing to another every couple minutes. Sometimes I replay scenes of my favorite movies and anime series in my head. Sometimes I just stress about the emails I’ve been forgetting to send. And ever since the new course catalog was released I’ve been thinking about the courses I want to take.

Timothy: When is a frozen custard overloaded with Oreos, and not just loaded :) ?

Someone’s asking the important questions. The metaphysical distinction between “overloaded” and “loaded” is tenuous, to say the least. There’s no hard metric, no weight percentage of Oreo at which point loaded Oreo custard becomes overloaded. But, as an intuitive rule-of-thumb, I’d say that to be “overloaded,” the custard should have at least one Oreo chunk per bite. 

Till next time,
-Timothy

day 63: the case of the missing kringle

the night before our first set of teaching workshops this summer, i was sitting on the cold hard floor of a high school gym in nevada internally (and externally) panicking about the happenings of the following day. what if my lesson bored my students to tears? what if it ran too long or too short? what if six glue sticks wasn’t enough for impatiently creative minds and what if they learned nothing or, even worse, vocalized such frustrations to their friends and their parents?

the last time i taught prior to spokes was also prior to the pandemic, in a preschool classroom of about twenty 4-year-olds at an elementary school in culver city, CA (the same school that my mom happened to attend when she was little!). i was in the same classroom with the same set of students for about two years before widespread safer-at-home orders shut our afterschool program down, a grievously abrupt end to what had been one of the most gratifying and eye-opening parts of my high school experience. 

creations by future urban planners!

jumping back into teaching during this trip has reminded me how much i adore it.

i won’t ever forget the familiar faces of room 3, the wildly open minds of young children navigating the space between toddlerhood and childhood, absorbing countless bits of new information every day and imagining, exploring, leaning on each other and on me for support. early educational settings can be the most beautiful example of human collaboration, compromise, creativity - and it’s such a privilege to have a room full of students open up their hearts to your influence. 

parth does the pre-workshop boogie

glue stick run.

becoming accustomed to the transitory lifestyle of spokes has been an adjustment in many ways, perhaps even moreso on the front of education than in the context of housing, sleeping arrangements, etc. it’s difficult to feel like we are actually having much of an impact in one day-long set of workshops, its difficult to feel like our temporary presence in a given city can provide any degree of long-term comfort to students that desire support beyond our limited capability. it’s incredibly difficult to say bye so soon. 

that said, i won’t ever forget the faces of the students at today’s workshop in columbus, or the faces of the students at our workshops in ely, pleasant grove, steamboat springs, newton, kansas city, st. louis, and farmington. the stories they told, the cities they designed, the stories they told about the cities they designed, the questions they asked and the hugs that they asked for. i’ve loved every second, even the crazy ones, and i can only hope that some of them will remember the spokes. 

happy to report that last night’s teaching preparation was much less panicky than the first, there were no academia-induced tears from my students today, and i managed to buy more glue sticks. AND we discovered an almond kringle that was gifted to us at our last workshop and had somehow gotten smashed into the teaching supply box???

our day post-teaching consisted of some errands, a culver’s run, a delicious pizza dinner with our wonderful hosts and their neighbors, cat cuddles (with skittles, who has recently assumed the coveted title of aja’s favorite furry friend), calls with loved ones, and echoes of laughs that are the evening timestamp of a day well spent.

penultimate blog post done! thanks for tuning in :’) 

aja 

(re: a reader’s question, my name is pronounced just like the continent! or the steely dan album if you know what’s up)

skittles!

day 62: a ~classic~ spokes blog post

an early shot from spirited away

dayton, oh → columbus, oh

today started slow, in the best way possible. we tried to give ourselves some more rest and woke up at 8am, after watching spirited away in our host’s basement theater until midnight.

i’d never seen spirited away before — it was phenomenal. i think i’m often turned away from movies and tv if i can’t understand the dialogue, but some of my teammates are rapidly changing that perspective; earlier, we watched kiki’s delivery service, which was also rich, entertaining, and funny.

moments before the rain

our departure from jamie’s house was also delayed because it started raining really hard. joel and sophia have become the resident weather-people because, when we encounter inclement weather, they immediately begin consulting radar footage and projections to create alternate plans. in this case they were unanimous — we just needed to wait ten minutes, and then we could leave.

the wet trail, during the first leg of biking (featuring no-hands biking and my excessively padded handlebars)

once the rain stopped, we set off for the first leg: riding just after the rain can be a very wet experience because the back wheel kicks water upwards and, without bike fenders, the water lands on your back, making for some very unhappy, soaked, spokes.

about halfway into the first leg, we encountered a “road closed” sign along with directions for a detour.

it seems that riding on a bike has changed my relationship with these signs: i’ve come to see them more as a suggestion than an edict. so, when i saw the sign, i thought nothing of it, rode around it in the grass, and kept biking on the trail. sophia, aja, and timothy, on the other hand, decided to obey the detour instruction, and took the long way around.

about 100 yards after the road closure, i got to the other side of the detour. it was a bit tricky to get onto the path; i almost had to jump over a concrete barrier in the middle of a road (i found an easier way around it, though).

at the first stop — a coffee shop — katherine and sophia found a candle cabinet that included candles with such descriptive titles as “summer night” (what does that even smell like?) and “lick me all over” (dear god, if that has a smell, i never want to experience it).

it also got me thinking about what i would title a candle if i made one; or what scents from this trip i would want to capture if i could — definitely not the smell of manure (i’ve smelt enough of that for a lifetime).

as the trail continued, i started to notice lots of chalk art:

ok, it’s a bit cheugy.

but! i have a special affinity for chalk messages: at stanford, i like to go on long walks, and i often find that children leave adorable notes on the pavement.

one time, i found a puzzle hunt: i saw a multiple-choice question on the ground (e.g. “which country has the largest soccer stadium?”) and depending on your answer you were supposed to go in a different direction (e.g. go left if you think it’s the us, right if you think it’s north korea, etc.). i never solved the final puzzle, but it led me to this fantastically cool place near campus.

we pulled up to the rest stop after that leg, which was at a kroger’s. ok, well, first it was at a diner (which was closed); then, timothy and katherine moved it to a pizza place (which was a small shop that they didn’t want to impose on); so, then, it was a mcdonalds (which had a password for their restrooms — boo!); and, finally, it was a strip mall with a kroger’s.

inexplicably, i found this store in the strip mall:

i have quite a few qualms with this establishment’s marketing strategy:

1. the title — beds ‘n’ stuff — is tremendously vague

2. the subtitle — waterbeds ‘n’ stuff — is a strange clarification of the title (why not just call the store waterbeds ‘n’ stuff?)

3. their interpretation of “stuff” seems quite broad

4. what is a cardboard cutout of kamela harris and joe biden doing in the window? i don’t know

the store seems lovely, though — or as timothy said — “that’s kinda based”.

we got to our host’s house around dinner time, and they prepared us some delicious watermelon, spaghetti, and garlic bread (a classic spokes dinner) along with chips and homemade salsa.

we’ve gotten good at settling into places quickly, and moving out quickly the next day (which was hard for me at first). these folks have a swing for their niece below their deck and a bonfire — both of which we enjoyed thoroughly:

after dinner, a few of us settled by the bonfire, and talked about summer camp, how to design spaces for intimacy, the dance teams on campus, what percentage of the internet is porn (and how you measure “percent of the internet” — traffic, storage, websites?), and whether we’re “used to” this lifestyle yet (a threshold that everyone interpreted differently).

it’s nice to be able to talk so easily with my teammates — and to have a cornucopia of inside jokes that we can effortlessly weave into conversation (try mentioning a “meat eraser” to anyone and they’re guaranteed to cringe or burst out laughing).

with 11 days left, i’m finally getting used to this.

87.05mi, 6:04:27 moving time

—parth

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If Parth could invent a Culver's flavor, what would be in it?

earl grey tea, raspberries, and honey

Can one get a DWI when riding a bike?

yes

(not speaking from personal experience, i promise)

Thank you for answering the questions. Have a blessed day!

you’re welcome! you too!

Who among the Spokes holds the record for the fastest tire (or tube change)? How much time did it take?

we don’t usually time it, but one time that i did, it took me 8.5 minutes (which is pretty fast). on a later occasion, it took me an hour — take from that what you will.

What is one thing you are looking forward to after Spokes end their journey?

biking

ok, sorry — i’m looking forward to sleeping in the same bed for multiple nights

How easy is it to pick where to eat — have y’all had issues w/ dietary restrictions or things like that?

we joke that if someone had a peanut allergy, they wouldn’t survive this trip (we eat a lot of peanuts)…

when we buy groceries, we try to keep dietary restrictions in mind — for example, we don’t have dairy milk, just almond milk. we have quite a few vegetarians, which can be important when we pick a restaurant for dinner (though that hasn’t ever been a huge issue to my knowledge).

we often eat with hosts — and those meals can be a bit trickier. usually, though, hosts ask about our dietary restrictions before we get there

How often do you get to do laundry?

usually every day or every other day; the longest stretch without laundry was 3 days

Day 61: Sweet Treats and Sweet Moments

A recap of today starts with 7:30 am wakeup in our Florence, KY Airbnb. For some reason, I’ve been waking up a little before the alarm goes off—it’s like a weird sixth sense, that forces me into unwanted consciousness—and even though I’d appreciate my body letting me get the extra sleep, I’ve found that I enjoy the peace and quiet before everyone stirs, too.  

Parth’s chain broke yesterday, so they had already planned to be in the car with me so they could head to a bike shop to get it fixed. But we unexpectedly gained an additional two car-riders, Aja and Sophia, for the first leg: when they heard that I was planning to go to Sam’s Club and/or Costco and/or Walmart to get groceries, they abandoned their bikes without a second thought and joined us, weak to promises of bananas, sandwich Belvitas, almond milk, and non-stale tortillas. This left Timothy and Joel as the sole bikers, who self-supported the first and second legs.  

We drove to meet them, Parth’s fixed bike and plenty of snacks in tow, at the second stop: Bella Sweets, a gelato shop. I got a scoop of berry gelato as a chaser to a ham sandwich. Afterward, I laid on the grass under the shade of a tree, relishing in the cooler weather we’ve been having recently. Parth also got gelato: orange dreamsicle, I believe. And Timothy got pistachio. 

For our next rest stop, other members of the team, some of whom hadn’t indulged in gelato at the former stop, got their fix. That’s because we chose to pause at Mr. Frosty’s, an ice cream shop serving a variety of soft serve flavors in towering swirls. Aja, Joel, and Parth all got sweet treats. Aja chose cheesecake flavored ice cream, topped with mysterious crunchy stuff (apparently as delicious as it was mysterious) and rainbow sprinkles, while Joel and Parth got vanilla with cherry dip. We chatted and laughed while sharing baby pictures, as the bikers got ready to ride the last leg into Dayton, OH. 

We ended the day of biking at our Warmshowers’ host’s place. She made us a delicious dinner, I spent some healing moments with the cutest cat named Elliot, and the team watched Spirited Away before bed. It was the perfect way to cap off a pleasant day. 

I’ll copy Joel and also answer a few questions submitted in our Q&A form to wrap up my blog post:

How are you guys doing today mentally physically and emotionally? Best wishes to all. 

Thanks for the well wishes :) That’s a big question: but the short answer is that personally, I’m doing well! Many aspects of the trip have been and will continue to be difficult. I learned the hard way that I should take better care of my physical health; and even though I’ve always considered myself a mentally resilient person, I’ve come to realize that if I similarly don’t maintain my mental state, I become a lot less able to weather difficult emotional times when they come by. In some ways I’m excited for the trip to be over soon, and get back to what I might call “normal” life.  But I’m also becoming more aware of how special this time is, and how I’ll never experience something quite like this ever again. 

What are the Spokes’ MBTI types?

Hm, I forgot and would have to ask everyone again. Soorryy. But I’m ENTJ (apparently).

What has been Katherine's quarantine discovery (a new movie, book, TV show, or self discovery, interpret this however you want!)?

I started watching a Korean drama called Extraordinary Attorney Woo over quarantine that 1000% got me through the whole thing. I mentioned it in my last blog post, and since then, I’ve blown through twelve episodes. And another discovery I made is that each day passes really quickly when you’re looking forward to something, and also when you sleep for half of said day. 

Regarding Katherine’s Day 34 Sketches: Did you use paper/pencil or are these digital? What are your favorite brands for paper/pencil, or if digital, what software/app and platform (iPad?)? Finally, how long does a sketch typically take?

I use my iPad! It’s just what’s most convenient on a trip like this. I used the app Procreate for my blog sketches, and each sketch took me between 15-45 minutes, depending on the level of detail. But I also really miss the feeling of graphite on paper and having more time to spend on a work of art. 

why are y'all so cute?

I don’t know! we just are!

Katherine

Day 60: Surprise Stops and Sunsets

We reluctantly left our Louisville host’s house, but not before getting one last game of fetch in with the dog, and one last swing on the giant tree swing. I was excited to bike this morning, because the weather forecast was quite favorable–it wasn’t going to break 80 degrees all day!

Tatum!

Sophia and I spotted a farm produce stand. On a whim, we decided to stop. We both bought a peach, and Timothy bought a tomato. The peach was the best I’d had in a long time–perhaps the flavor was enhanced by having just biked for an hour. 

The farm stand dog

Then, Lucinda, who was working the stand, offered us a quarter of a watermelon. She took us back into the kitchen, offered us a bathroom, and sat us down at a picnic table outside to feast on the watermelon. 

Lucinda and an amazing watermelon

As we were finishing up the watermelon, Lucinda brought out some cantaloupe that she’d salted, saying, “it was going bad soon anyways.”

Full of melon, we thought we were done. Regardless, Lucinda brought out three small cups with spoons, “we’re finishing with banana pepper spread.” The spread was amazing.

Lucinda then approached with three more small cups, this time with local blackberry jelly. I thought this was the end, so I utilized the bathroom before we headed out. When I came back outside, I was offered salsa! This multi-course farm stand meal was then concluded with a tour of their greenhouse.

We biked away, laden down by two cucumbers, four jalapeno peppers, one tomato, four small things of fudge, one jar of salsa and one jar of banana pepper spread (only three of those items we actually had to pay for). We rode together smiling and shaking our heads in disbelief at what just happened. What started as a quick stop to maybe eat some fresh fruit turned into meeting the locals of Owensboro, sampling seemingly everything at the stand, and experiencing the generosity that seems to be much more common the further we get from the interstate.

If you ever find yourself in Owensboro, Kentucky, visit MK Farms, and say hi to Lucinda for us!

We powered through the remaining legs, motivated to arrive at our destination before sunset. We kept our breaks short, and made good time; we routinely shave off time from the Google Maps estimated time, which didn’t happen at the start of this trip. 

When we began our last leg, we knew that we would arrive in time. This is one of my favorite feelings of the trip: a relaxed final leg, as the sun sets, and the temperature cools down. We biked up and down the countryside hills, and approached more and more urban landscapes. The sun set off to the left. 

View fullsize

Another moment of contentment

I struggle to describe this feeling. It feels like the world is simultaneously pausing, and revolving around me for a split second. I feel completely in the moment, that there’s no place I’d rather be. This feeling doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it makes any hardship on this trip feel completely worth it.

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To answer a few questions from the q&a form Parth shared a few days ago:

Where did Joel get his biking outfit(s)?

My favorite (and most frequently worn) jersey is from a family friend in Green Bay, who is an avid cyclist, and happens to be my size. There’s a lot of meaning to this jersey design which I don’t fully understand–I believe it’s a custom design for his cycling group. The right sleeve has “Thursday” on it (no clue why), the collar says “Rule #5” (which I’ve gathered is a rule about not complaining), and the back says “The Red-Eyed Wheelmen” (which I think is a reference to how early they bike). Things of note besides my protective sun gear are my Stanford Tree-athlon socks given to me by a friend, and my headbands, which I’m a big fan of.

I’ve heard whispers that some blog readers think I only have one cycling outfit. I simply have one cycling outfit I wear much more frequently, enabled by daily laundry. My backup jersey is one I bought off of Facebook Marketplace.

How wildly bad are Joel's tan lines with those leg and arm things, really?

Actually not bad at all! I probably have some of the most tame tan lines of anyone on the team. The sun sleeves let a bit of sun through, but I don’t (usually) get sharp lines. A notable exception includes a time in Tahoe where, unbeknownst to me, my jersey sleeve rolled up past my sun sleeve. I still have a line on my arm from that sun burn, almost two month later. I also sometimes get awkward tan lines between my sleeves and my gloves, but I’ve learned to sunscreen that area.

Onward,

Joel

Days 58, 59: Finger Lickin' Good(ish)

Kentucky is strange, but that’s pretty much what I’ve said about every state so far. It has been one of the prettiest states to bike through – the shock of enveloping green after weeks of sand and corn, the most stunning sunsets and sunrises that spread so far along the horizon only a gliding bird reminds of reality, the many many animals, big and small, we’ve greeted along the way… It has also been one of much darkness – the highways smell of death from the road kill, there are people and places that I find myself building a shell around, my knee still acts up towards the afternoons and I am frustrated that my body cannot keep up with what my mind endeavors…

There are a lot of happy times, like when Katherine came back today (!), or when Katherine and I swung on a huge swing in our host’s yard watching his spectacular dog interact with the Spokes, or when the team drove over to Indiana for a (moderately) late night Culver’s run. There are many less than ideal moments, like when we biked down a highway with zero shoulder and roaring semis in the rain, or when I sat muggy and bug-bitten (all sorts of bugs), and damp from the aforementioned rain, outside of a gas station watching the sun set (not even a pretty one) at the most rapid speed.

Good times, bad times, it seems as if I should be used to it by now. Yet most often I still find my emotions and state of mind pulled involuntarily this way and that by external things out of my control. I find myself easily spiraling when my knee starts to hurt. I find my legs slow down when I see yet another hill in the last few miles of a two hour leg. I am much affected by the bad, but equally I am influenced by good times to perhaps a disproportionate extent. Aja and I have had too many belly hurting, tear brimming laughs from the simplest pun or childhood story. Whenever I see a cow or horse or frog or chicken along our ride I will feel the inexplicable need to shout out my find to Joel. Joking around with Timothy about literally anything in the most literary yet also highschool-boy way can turn any mediocre moment into a treasured memory. And when I am flying down a beautiful descent or cruising on the lush green backroads I find myself smiling very wide, and knowing that I am happy in the purest sense makes me happier.

horse plays with my bike. moments before it was knocked over

We are less than two weeks away from D.C. I have felt a bit burnt out the past few days. Riding eight hours a day with less than six hours of sleep for two months takes a toll on the body. I have fought the urge (more than once) to shut my eyes on the bike for a short nap on the straightaways. Physically, I am exhausted, and the rest days sometimes seem more attractive than biking. Mentally, I am also depleted. I have missed my family more on this trip than I’ve ever been in my six years away from home. Yet whenever I begin to pedal, when I hear the certain whistle of the wind, and feel each little dip under my wheel, I remember the singularity of this experience and the absolute joy. When I pack myself into Ody next to my teammates and all our laughters mix together, I know that this is very much home for me.

joel’s canned chicken dinner that came close to dethroning Colonel Sanders

See you soon,

Sophia

DAY 56-57: The Spokes take on Kentucky

ask us anything with our new q&a form! (click here)

(Sorry I didn’t post this yesterday. It was late and I figured it would be better to write a late, two-day blog than stay up blogging and sleep for five hours.)

Yesterday was a great day. We woke up in Goreville, Illinois in the Airbnb that Joel’s parents booked. The Kiernans made a delightful, cinnamon-heavy French toast and shared with us some of the fresh berries and peaches they brought with them from Michigan. (Fresh fruit is a rare treat on this trip. On hot days with the AC off Ody turns into a convection oven, and most fruit can’t last.) We ate, chatted, and then started getting ready with our usual routine, checking tires, packing the car, filling our water jugs, applying sunscreen. We ran out of my favorite sunscreen yesterday, so I’m learning to like the greasy spray one. 

spokes and the kiernans!

Southern Illinois, like Missouri and Eastern Kansas, is humid, buggy, and, at least in the summertime, hot. When we departed for the day it was north of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Rose (Joel’s mom) and Peter (Joel’s younger brother) biked with us for the start of the first leg, but decided after about seven miles to call Joel’s dad (Dan) to pick them up because of the heat. It was fun biking with some new people who I wasn’t sick of yet (kidding!). It was a beautiful, long leg (27 miles) full of rolling hills. About thirteen miles into the leg we entered a gravel trail and I got a flat tire. Thankfully, Aja was there and she is a kind, patient person. She helped me fix the flat. It was a new tire, and not fully broken in, so we had to use our combined strength to force it back onto the wheel. 

joel stops on one of the legs to touch a horse

Aja and I rode in the car for the next leg. We got to call with Katherine in the car, which was nice, since we hadn’t had a chance to call the night before. (She tested negative today, so we should be seeing her tomorrow in Louisville!) We met up with the Kiernans at a gazebo in Shawneetown, IL (right next to a town called Old Shawneetown). They treated us to a late lunch feast: gouda, cheddar, chunky applesauce, guacamole, homemade cilantro-lime-hummus, and more peaches and blueberries. We always have enough to eat on this trip, but rarely do we eat so well. 

crossing into kentucky!

Aja took the car for the third leg. Sophia, Joel, Parth, and I took off and crossed over the Ohio River into Kentucky. But Parth pulled over to the side of the road just 100 yards past the end of the bridge with a flat tire. I was the only person behind them, so I stopped and we began to fix it. What was supposed to be a 10 minute tire change ended up lasting an hour, and by the time we got back on the road Sophia and Joel were only 10 minutes away from our rest stop, a Long John Silvers in Morganfield. When we arrived, Aja, Joel, and Sophia were getting ready to depart, so I ran inside, wolfed down two protein bars, and got back on my bike. It was golden hour and the cornfields were tinted yellow in the light, and for the first time all day the air was cool and crisp.

bourbon tasting with brad!

We arrived in Henderson at around 8:00 pm. Brad, one of our hosts, made us a spaghetti and garlic bread dinner. After dinner, he offered to teach me and Parth about bourbon and to lead us in an informal bourbon tasting. From 9:30 to 11:30 we sat together at the kitchen counter as Brad pulled bottle after bottle off the shelf. He explained the “ABCs” of bourbon to us, talked about each brand, and explained the intricacies of the distillation process. By the end of the night we had tried seven different bourbons, a Kentucky whiskey, a homemade moonshine (Parth and I coughed when we tasted it – very strong), and a mysterious drink called “Applejack” (these last two came from Brad’s connections in Eastern Kentucky). I went to bed *slightly* tipsy. 

This morning we biked two hours to Owensboro, KY, which is a small city / large town. Parth went to a famous barbecue spot in town called Moonlite Bar-b-q. They ended up chatting up the owner, who invited them into the kitchen and gave them a tour. It sounded to me like something out of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Meanwhile, Sophia, Aja, and I sat around in a Kroger parking lot, eating chips. Once Joel arrived in the car, he picked me and Parth up and took us to the Green River Distillery, where we met up with Brad for a tour of the facilities. (Aja and Sophia are under 21 so they couldn’t go.) We got to see every step of the distillation process: the tanks where the grains are cooked, the fermentation tanks, the barrel storage, and everything in between. Aja and Sophia did something else during this time, but I’m not sure what. When we met up with them two hours later, Sophia had a coconut in her hand, so that might have had something to do with it.

the fermentation tanks at the distillery

Because of the thunderstorms, we drove the remaining 10 miles to Utica. When we arrived, our hosts, Jo and Angelica, greeted us and showed us around. After a quick hose shower outside, I hung out with them and their son while they watched the Regular Show. Jo generously made hot ham and cheese sandwiches for us, and sat together, ate, chatted, and half-watched the TV. 

one of jo and angelica’s cats climbed onto ody and aja reached up for a sistine chapel pet

That’s pretty much it for today. Tomorrow Katherine is coming back, so you may see a photo of her in the next blog post. 

Till next time,

Timothy

day 55: the many flavors of riding a bike

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as you may have read, our team has developed a bit of an addiction to culver’s frozen custard, a development that has left menard’s-loving joel relishing in the success of converting the remaining five of us to the ways of the midwest. more than 50 unique flavors of the day! how could we not love? although, according to this official culver’s personality quiz, almost all of us embody andes mint. not sure what that says about our team dynamic.

anyway, because i think that i can invent a fun little parallel between flavors of custard and metaphorical flavors of riding a bike, and also because i’m tired and otherwise uninspired to “dig deep” on this sunday night, i present to you exactly that: aja’s many (not quite 50, sorry) flavors of riding a bike.

flavor #1: “oops, all hills!” biking

case in point, today’s ride. the type of biking where google maps says 500 feet of climbing and next thing you know you’re scaling an illinois mountain at such an aggressive grade you feel like a desperate barnacle clinging onto a whale. no hill quite like a surprise hill, especially a surprise hill that just keeps going, no matter how many times you turn to escape it. “oops, all hills!” biking is cousin to the much less surprising version, “all hills” biking, which is exactly what it sounds like. think, sly park, CA…austin, NV…loveland pass. jokes aside, climbing is fun. i quite enjoy a rolling hill from time to time. today, however, my legs and my ego were begging for a different flavor.

flavor #2: existential biking

not necessarily as worrying as it sounds, existential biking can take several forms. today’s version was more of a self-embodied “i’m literally biking across the country right now” existentialism than a palms sweating, rocking back and forth, “what is the meaning of it all” existentialism. different spokes for different folks, i suppose.

flavor #3: peloton/ ducks in a row biking

the quintessential spokes formation of follow (or, sometimes, hopelessly chase) the leader, ducks in a row biking is one of the best. not to mention, we just look unbelievably cool when we successfully do it. the tour de france ain’t ready.

flavor #4: angry/ sad/ otherwise middle finger-worthy biking

aka emo biking, a unique source of inspiration but a necessary one nonetheless. the world can be a bitter place and sometimes we are bitter back. nothing quite as cathartic as shedding a few tears while pedaling, cursing into the roaring wind, or just keeping your head down and letting the sensation of burning calf muscles dull the sensation of a burning heart.

flavor #5: gravel biking

not to be confused with biking on gravel. gravel biking requires your body to fly horizontally across the gravel at such a velocity that you knock your bike chain off and deeply worry aja and sophia. road rash optional (just ask timothy).

flavor #6: “just get through this mile” biking/ headwind biking/ “i think i have a flat” biking

like biking through mud, or tar, or molasses, or some other awfully viscous liquid. sometimes biking is a drag, sometimes you feel inexplicably weak, sometimes the wind is just unbearably strong in the wrong direction. and sometimes your name is aja and you bike on a flat in said wind without noticing for forty minutes. shhh.

flavor #7: amphibious biking

especially prevalent in the latter half of kansas and the entire state of missouri, amphibious biking occurs when you sweat so much that your hands are pruny by the end of the leg and your eyes are stinging with salt-laden sunscreen. curse you, humidity.

flavor #8: tailwind biking

error: does not exist.

or, at least, we are convinced it’s a myth made up by someone who has never biked west to east across the US. see: flavor #6.

flavor #9: caffeinated biking/ psyched on a bike

arguably the best type of biking. sometimes it comes naturally and sometimes it requires about 400mg of caffeine and a little bit of patience…or, bravery? i am highly susceptible to the caffeine jitters, but scoring the combination of iced vanilla latte, adrenaline, and spotify rave just right makes biking feel like the most magical thing to ever exist. hyperbole, perhaps, but try flying down the side of a mountain into a whole new state for yourself and then get back to me. 

today was a day of many flavors, (literal) ups and downs, and surprise baked treats. we scored a brownie-peanut butter cookie fusion from a local bake sale, free cookies from the wonderful employees at a coffee shop in murphysboro, IL (the state’s barbeque capital!), and freshly baked chocolate mud pie from joel’s incredible parents at the airbnb we are staying at in marion, IL tonight. massive shoutout to the kiernan family. without their generosity, delicious grilled corn, and willingness to let seven crazy 20-somethings use their beloved family car for a summer (love you ody), this trip would truly be impossible.

thanks for bearing with :-) that’s all for now!

aja

joel, our midwestern king, in menard’s, his midwestern kingdom

COFFEE

ody and friends at the mississippi

hello illinois!