Day 32: Sparks of Joy After Failing Minimalism

My luggage is chronically overweight, moving in and out of the dorm is consistently a multi-car trip process, and I’m always unable to find what I need. I thought Spokes would finally be my chance to be a successful minimalist. I came into this trip with a lightly packed duffel and backpack — I had two sets of day clothes (which doubled as sleepwear and exercise clothing) and two sets of bike clothes. For one week, I was indeed a happy minimalist. Unfortunately, as I we started spending more and more rest days in towns with thrift stores, at this point in the trip all my bags are literally bursting at their seams.

 Like most aspiring minimalists, I’ve read my fair share of Marie Kondo. She teaches us to only keep the things in life that spark joy. Today, I decided to document 10 things, both the physical (to rationalize owning my current possessions) and the nonphysical (as an exercise for myself to find happiness beyond material goods), that spark joy for me on this trip. Here goes!

 1)    My fresh crop of morning alfalfa

Here is a photo of me at 6am right after waking up. Every night, my head generates a new shape for these alfalfas (a term introduced by Jordan to describe my hair) to become to pleasantly surprise me in the morning. It’s the same vibe as abstract art. They require zero maintenance, because I plop my helmet on them shortly after.

2) Suave Men’s 3 in 1, citrus flavored

Yes, the bottle is massive and takes up an atrocious amount of backpack space. Yes, there is a Ziplock bag covering it because I broke the cap upon the first use. But 8 bucks to clean your whole body (for up to 24 hours!) is an objectively great deal. My Suave is a must-have in between biking.

3) Long compression bike socks from PeopleForBikes

Thanks so much to PeopleForBikes for gifting these to us! They are a must-have if you want to bike to avoid blistering, ticks, and dirt and bug bites on the ankle. They are also just fun to look at.

4) PB & J and black coffee

These are my two favorite cuisines of all time. They are the perfect way to begin the morning, ensuring happiness and energy before the bike ride.

5) The feeling to making it to lunch break! Featuring new glasses frames and helmet hair!

There is nothing better than knowing a PB & J or mayo sandwich is awaiting you after a 27-mile ride, hence the smile. Also, this is the first day I’m using real glasses frames since Day 2 (I stepped on my old frames that night, so my glasses have been held together by duct tape and superglue until I bought new frames in Denver), and gosh, it’s so nice to be able to see again. Finally, as you can see, the alfalfas have been tamed. I promise, too, taking your sweaty helmet off after a couple hours is the best feeling ever.

6) Fruit at the perfect ripeness

Massive shout-out to Jordan and Victoria for making a grocery run in the morning to get us lunch supplies. Bananas are the best fruit, and they clearly picked the perfect hand of bananas (full transparency, I had to Google the proper term for a bunch of attached bananas, you’re welcome).

7) Car crew karaoke!

After lunch break, I hopped behind the wheel for my driving shift and said goodbye to biking for the day! Victoria and I enjoyed the AC, audio system, and how easy the hills suddenly become.

8) Excess energy for a jog!

After being in the car with AC, I was feeling restless when we arrived at our host’s home today afternoon. I decided to go on a run — look at these pretty flowers and trees I found!

9) Reading

Reading is the perfect activity for any down time. It helps me forget the hills for a little, is enjoyable without needing WIFI, and is good for helping my brain maintain some shape when I’m not in class. I finished reaching Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. It’s both heartbreaking and beautifully written. Everyone should read it!

10) Kombucha!!

Our host today kindly supplied us with Kombucha as well as many other delicious foods. Kombucha is objectively the best beverage humans have created. The Kombucha was also the perfect drink to motivate me to write this post all in one go.  

Day 31: Rejuvenated REM

In honor of reaching 10 hours of sleep today, I will demarcate this day in cycles of REM sleep, so 90-minute increments.

First 90 minutes: I yawned the way a cat does while dappled in summer heat, preparing for a nap in the crevice of a leather couch. I then decided to go on a 30-minute run, since these last two days have been rest days. With Strava and my timer activated, I milled around the neighborhood streets, wandering on bike paths and school property in spurts. I did some rounds of core and upper body in an attempt to best my 1-push up record, and by now, I was coated in gravel, dirt, and heat. 

Next 90 minutes: For lunch, I made a half-burnt quesadilla. Pooling the remnants of vegetables (a half-chopped cucumber, a mini-pack of baby carrots, and a saran-wrapped onion), I put a tortilla on the stove with a dollop of cheese. Of course, sauce is mission critical, so I added the almost last of our chipotle flavor dupe. Biting the hot corners of the slightly crumbly tortilla, I looked at major requirements and online blog posts. 

Another 90 minutes: Since I got up at 10am, it was now the early afternoon. At 3, we decided to go to the Trek store, so I braced myself for two hours of dilly-dallying. This part is a bit ~boring~. I read a policing and evangelism article that my spring quarter class assigned, and I did some more research on the courses I needed to take. I might be studying abroad in Hong Kong next fall (thanks to Helen’s masterful persuasion!), so there’s some stuff to figure out and think about.

TREK STORE 90 MINUTES: FUN. KIND. COOL. AWESOME. We were told to go to the Trek store during our Denver rest days. None of us knew what to expect, though that didn’t stop us from speculating. We walked into a gorgeous bar-turned-bike store. Its deep brown wooden planks complement the travel and terrain-style decor. Glossy bikes lined the edges with gadgets and gear in the center. The Trek team was a delight to talk to—they offered to wash our bikes (goodbye Mormon cricket remains!!!!), service them, bought us donuts (chocolate covered), and deliver the care package that some Stanford folks (thank you Stanford :)). Now, we’re properly sunglass-ed and socks-ed up, ready to embark on the level plains(???) of Kansas.

Next 90 minutes: Dinner time! We are in need of a grocery run, so all of us scavenged the fridge remains and made something. I re-made the same quesadilla, and I kept reading the same article. ~deja vu~ I added provolone and Ritz as a savory snack and shoved some cherry as dessert. We also had our team meeting, which is usually logistical and personal and a bunch of hashing out what it means to live so closely to others at this age and context.

Final 90 minutes: I’m writing this! We are going to awake at 6am, so my WPM is very fast (kudos to Rocket type or whatever the software is called). I’m not biking tomorrow because of a meeting, but the day will be filled nonetheless. This is my attempt to get 7.5 hours of sleep.

Goodnight world,

Victoria

Day 30: Birds of Different Feathers

Another rest day for Spokes, this time in Denver! Mine involved lots of books—I won’t bore you with the details.

The Colorado hill that is actually many, many more hills. (Where is Anna going with this?)

Something I’ve noticed: when we bike, we stick together, but when we rest (i.e., explore), we do so separately. When we bike, we act as one (like a dandelion or Colorado hill or beehive); when we rest, we split into many (like seeds in the wind or an infinite range of rolling hills or a swarm of furious bees unleashed on the world).

Where Anna Is Going With This

All of which is to say—rest day mornings can be a neat window into our team dynamic and individual personalities, especially if you have the luxury of hearing about them from a sharp-eyed, unbiased observer such as myself.

A Spokes Morning

8:30-ish am: I’m sitting in the kitchen, munching happily away on breakfast, when Leo emerges from behind the basement door like an apparition. We good-morning each other, he vanishes, I munch happily away, he reappears to fill his water bottle, and then he vanishes again, this time through the front door. For context, Leo had already planned a route of places in Denver he wanted to explore, and he needed an early start. Leo: always prepared, detail-oriented, curious. 1/2 of “the kings,” a nickname Victoria came up with—though I’ve never actually called him that myself.

9:00-ish am: Everyone else is up and in the kitchen. Alex, the other king (...), is reneging on his promise to accompany (and/or chauffeur?) Victoria to camp outside the Taylor Swift concert venue tonight because they won’t be able to see anything. Laughing her distinctive Victoria laugh (hahahaha hahaha haha hahahaha), Victoria calls him a flake and insists the sonic quality itself is worth the trek. Alex: music connoisseur, non-Swiftie, troll (according to Victoria). Does not fold under pressure.

9:20-ish am: Somehow, Victoria is in her sleeping bag again, arm thrown over her eyes. Victoria: ball of energy who needs her naps, simultaneously troll (according to herself) and introspective, fake deep but also real deep. Eminently quotable.

10:40-ish am: We are almost (i.e., not quite) ready to go. Helen and Jordan are applying sunscreen outside the van (Helen, sunscreening Jordan’s back: oops. Jordan, being sunscreened by Helen: ??).

The Saga

Clown 1 and Clown 2

Helen explains to me that she duct-taped and superglued one side of her glasses frame because she stepped on and broke it Day 2. Helen then explains to me that she duct-taped the other side of her glasses frame to counterbalance the weight of said duct tape. Helen: constantly finding herself in difficult situations of her own making. Whenever I meal prep, she proudly tells me she would eat only one mayo-smeared egg every day of her life. Also Helen: an optimistic, invincible teletubby.

Jordan, who has been giving me the side-eye all morning for no reasonable reason, alternates between cracking a joke and laughing at Helen’s shenanigans. Jordan: warm, resilient weirdo and resident bully. Together, Helen and Jordan are menaces to good society.

Where Anna Is Going With This, Pt. 2

Teamwork is something that hasn’t featured prominently in our blogs so far, but it’s been central to all our experiences of this trip. Of course, this description of a single moment is static, and team dynamics are very fluid—but these are all sides of us that exist, and it seemed a shame not to share them.

Anna

P.S. Where do I fit into all of this? I’m just the fly on the wall. Maybe one day someone else will tell all, but until then…a shroud of mystery I keep.

Day 29: Two Spokes, Two Ways

We awoke to the smell of scrambled eggs, and like moths to flames we were drawn from our beds and followed it into the kitchen. After the ridiculous climb the team faced in the Rockies yesterday, the prospect of a warm, filling breakfast was a welcome one, and an immaculate start to the morning. We loaded up on eggs, yogurt parfaits, and hot coffee, and saying goodbye to our generous hosts, we set off on our ride to Golden, CO, where we were to meet the one and only MIT Spokes team.

Golden was charming, its streets lined with numerous comely shops and restaurants, perfect options to meet our MIT counterparts. We settled on a hole-in-the-wall Colombian restaurant and soon the other Spokes team arrived. It was so much fun to meet up with other people who were doing the exact same thing we were and learning that no matter what Spokes team you were on, you were facing many of the same ups and downs, trials and tribulations. We bonded over the same exasperations pertaining to heat and bugs, the same wonder at seeing some of the most beautiful parts of the country, and everything in between. And although we were the same in mission and similar in despairs, we soon found out that our groups were very different in other ways.

A shortlist of our differences goes as follows:

When MIT Spokes bike, they tend to have much more space in between bikers and sometimes even take different routes from one another while our team usually sticks close together and we all follow the same route day to day.

They have multiple tents for camping while we share one big one!

On average, their team is older than us, with most of them nearing or having had graduation!

They have seven members while we have six.

After discovering our differences over lunch, we rounded off our meet-up with acai bowls, frozen yogurt, and a team picture. We said farewell and wished them luck as they began their ascent into the Rockies, then promptly continued our own journey out of them.

If you would like to get to know our new east coast friends, you can check out their website below! https://www.mitspokes.com/

~ Jordan

Day 28: Summit of the Trip

Today we finally made it to Loveland pass, marking the highest point we’d reach in the Rocky Mountains and the remainder of our journey. At a staggering 12,000 ft, the view was breathtaking – in both the literal and figurative senses.

View from Loveland Pass

Something I’ve noticed whilst biking on this trip and around the Stanford area: bikes can go faster than cars on many twisty, downhill roads. Many of the turns that would force a car to jam the breaks can be easily sliced through on a bike. To wit, the ride down from Loveland pass was exhilarating. For once we were the fastest thing on the road!

Speeding down an empty bike path

As our elevation precipitously dropped, we were welcomed by warm and humid weather – something we’ll likely need to get used to. This climate meant an uptick in mosquito populations, which was evidenced by numerous bug splats I discovered on my face post-ride. After a well-needed shower, we enjoyed a lovely dinner prepared by our hosts. Thanks Bill and Ann!

Now that we’ve crossed the continental divide, our locale has transitioned from west to east. In nearly all the museums I’ve visited so far, there has been significant emphasis on The West. And unsurprisingly so. Basically since its inception, American culture has canonized and subsequently mythologized the “wild west” to countless ends – a dreamland of minerals, cattle, and new frontiers – a process that all too often erased the violence and displacement produced by westward expansion.

Over the course of our travels, we’ve had the opportunity to observe both the west and The West; two distinct entities whose causal relationships wind around each other like a ball of yarn, rolling backwards through time. Words can not do justice to this temporal Gordian knot. I suppose that’s why one embarks on such a trip. To see the places and people and things that live between the lines of history and float somewhere amongst pins on a map. Perhaps the experiences that evade description are the ones most worth having.

Alex

Day 27: Mountains and Meadows

Today we started a two day journey over the Rocky Mountains. Thankfully, we had a long rest in Steamboat Springs so I was feeling pretty ready to go this morning. We had a really tough initial climb from 6700 feet to 9700 feet. I was very pleased that I was able to do it, but it was very tough and the higher elevation made me a bit more winded.

Alex at the top of the pass

We were rewarded at the top with miles and miles of beautiful meadows, wildflowers and lakes. The weather was also much cooler up there than anywhere we had been the last few weeks. Not cold, but a pleasant temperature.

Wildflowers

The bike ride today was one of my favorite days for all of the amazing scenery and the great weather.

Alex and Leo

Our hosts tonight were very nice. They are renovating their home but they still made sure we were comfortable and cooked us a great meal. I continue to be pleasantly surprised about our hosts generosity at all of our stays.

-Leo

Day 26: Charcoals, Coffee, Hot Springs

Today we had a very full yet restful day. We started the morning with grilled cheese sandwiches (although I broke and twisted both pieces of my bread in the pan, so after Jordan rescued me for 5 minutes in the kitchen, I managed to come out with a grilled cheese shaped like a hotdog). We then went to the Boys and Girls Club in Steamboat Springs, where we led workshops on rockets and art. I had a lot of fun helping with the charcoal workshop and seeing the awesome art the kids created. The staff were all incredibly friendly and, as we were working with a smaller group of teens, the entire experience was very easygoing and enjoyable.

Learning the basic elements of art :)

Thanks so much to the Boys and Girls Club of Steamboat Springs for hosting us!!

After, we went back to our host’s home to cook lunch. I ate three more grilled cheeses during lunch. Although I am lactose intolerant, I am trying to slowly ease lactose back into my diet — I must say lactose intolerance entirely about a growth mindset. Interpret that how you will. After we ate, we split up to spend the day in town. I camped out in Starbucks with Victoria and Jordan that afternoon to nurse my chronic caffeine addiction and spent a little too long looking at tattoo designs and not enough time doing the actual work I had planned out for myself. We then grocery shopped and went back to our host’s home, where we ate an amazing pasta dish that Anna and Jordan cooked.

Strongly recommend Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs to anyone who finds themself in this area!

After dinner, Alex, Leo, Victoria, Jordan, and I set out for hot springs. We drove deep into the mountains, up a road lined with trees and leaving streetlights and cell signal far behind. We had the most spectacular Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs evening at where we hopped around the pools and stargazed until near closing time. I got to end the night gazing at Orion’s Belt and Big Dipper playing oldies in the van as we drove back for the night — 10/10 would recommend.

Best,

Helen

Day 25: OSDFUNSPODNFU

My teammates will know that I scream “I’M BORED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (with gusto and giggles) at some point every day. I never know what spawns it—maybe it’s a lack of stimulation or maybe it’s my surefire way of entertaining myself. (Because afterward, I start laughing “HAHAHAHAHA” as I repeat “I’M BORED” a million times). So, let us embark on the arduous pursuit of happiness:

This morning: Leo and Alex found a Uranium hike trail. It was 3 miles, so I hauled myself out of the couch embedded with cute dog hairs. 3 miles turned out to be a deceptive description, and Helen and I found ourselves out of breath in a few moments. I had some realizations though! I don’t think I like nature that much. I know, what a realization to come to three weeks in a trip blossoming with nature. Anyways, Leo got some great photos. I spent most of the hike watching my feet land onto rocks, so I could avoid spraining my ankle. I also imagined the beads of sweat forming underneath my black jacket and the number of mosquitoes I staved away by wearing long sleeves and long pants. 

This afternoon: We went out to eat and we thrifted!!! (Materialism slayyy). This was good—I mean, it’s hard not to be entertained by food and clothes. I found this brown fuzzy(?) jacket that Alex tried on yesterday when going to the exchange shop. I spent a bit thinking about whether to buy it or not, and my good friend persuaded me yes. I ate a chicken, spinach, battered onion, and goat cheese wrap. Incredible stuff. Life is goooooooooooooood.

This evening: Alex and Anna cooked some great tofu / rice stir-fry, and I realized that I might have grown up with a saturated sense of sodium. Maybe this is a metaphor for my life? Grown up with excess entertainment so now my baseline is too high? I like the feelings that butter, cheese, and salt produce though, just like I enjoy the feelings that being chaotic does(?). We were going to go to the hot springs but then the hot spring was going to close before we could get there. Tomorrow, we shall try again!

The night: After dinner and after some sitting, I experienced a surge of OSPDIFUNPSODFUNSOU energy. It was around 9ish, and I was teeming with “oh what to do what to do what to do what to do.” So, Alex and I went on a 20-minute run at a 12-minute a mile pace (LOL). It was dark, and we were afraid of bears (which apparently know how to open doors of homes and cars in this part of Colorado). We also saw a building atop a hill. I wondered if it was a dungeon or a palace strewn with captives of another world. Once we returned, we did some core for some reason. It was actually only 15 sit-ups, but that took me, like, a long time. I then posted something random on Instagram from the hike today. And now, I am about to sleep. 

In short and with seriousness, I’ve thought about my gravitation towards boredom for a bit. I think it has something to do with the scenario of if a tree falls down in the forrest and no-one hears it, does it make a sound? I’ve been in the camp of not really—and I think it some ways it means that I value collective experiences, shared life. Sometimes, I worry that I’ll go through life with just myself, and while that does hold some truth, and I won’t deny that validity, I think it’d be nice to go through it with others as much as possible. There’s something more lively and lovely about that. And maybe these spouts are a way to make this true.

Frolicking,

Victoria