Day 49: It Takes A Village

Whenever I tell someone—the stranger in the grocery store, the student in a workshop, the hotel receptionist or an old high school friend—that I’m part of a team biking and teaching across the country this summer, I’m met with some variation of the same reaction: Wow! Followed by: That sounds so difficult.

There’s usually some admiration, often tinged with incredulity—because this trip is, admittedly, a randomly weird thing to do. And biking through Kansas heat or Colorado hills or Missouri rain is, admittedly, difficult.

But I always have the urge, whenever I find myself in one of these conversations, to say the opposite. It’s not that hard. Followed by: I’m part of a team.

That team includes the five other people who decided to do this strange thing called Spokes with me this summer, the people who have lived what I’ve lived for the past 49 days and shared their thoughts with you on this blog.

But the team I mean includes many, many more people—everyone who has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to help us plan and execute the logistical behemoth that is Spokes.

People like the team at Stanford Digital Education (SDE), which sponsored Spokes for the first time this year. A special shout-out to Debby Angus-Weberski, who has been invaluable to our fundraising efforts—she set up the Spokes gift account, handles the vast majority of correspondence with our donors, and processes reimbursement upon reimbursement for vital food, equipment, and housing purchases we make on the trip. Another special shout-out to Cynthia Berhtram, who (along with Debby) took time out of a very busy schedule to meet with me on a weekly/biweekly basis beginning in March. Without Cindy’s guidance, from fundraising and teaching advice to safe biking tips, the SDE-Spokes collaboration would not look the way it does today; we appreciate you!

People like the Haas Center for Public Service, especially the Cardinal Commitment team. Pete Cerneka and Destiny Mahone not only supported our team throughout the Cardinal Commitment grant application process (we now have a Stanford Spokes Cardinal Commitment!), but also approved and placed several crucial teaching and biking equipment purchases in the week leading up to the trip, continuing to process reimbursements throughout June and July. Thank you for your dedication to ensuring students like us are empowered to engage in public service work!

People like Adrienne Kemp-Rye from Stanford University Communications, who has brought Spokes’ story to Stanford platforms and given Stanford Spokes’ mission exponentially greater visibility—thank you, Adrienne!

People like Stanford Transportation’s Ariadne Scott—an avid cyclist and true magician behind the scenes, Ariadne’s genuine love for biking and excitement about Spokes’ mission is so uplifting and wonderful to be around. Thank you, Ariadne, for all that you do—from coordinating care packages for us to dreaming big for future Spokes!

And finally, last but certainly not least, people like Parth Sarin. For the most dedicated of Spokes blog readers, Parth is a familiar face: they were part of the Spokes 2022 team! The members of last year’s team have been incredibly supportive, well past the end of the recruitment period. The ways in which Parth has helped Spokes 2023 are too many to enumerate—communicating with Trek to spearhead the first Spokes bike sponsorship, leading weekly training rides in the spring before our departure, accompanying us on the first day of biking to San Francisco (and fixing Victoria’s bike the same day), and answering hundreds of questions I’ve had about Spokes, from what a pedal wrench is to how to revise my lesson plan. They’ve done it all with their trademark humor, grace, and warmth—as their friend, I can confidently say that if Parth were an animal, they would be a capybara. That cool. Thank you, Parth :)

Since as early as March, we’ve been lucky to meet individuals with deep expertise in education, public service, sustainable transportation, and planning projects of much larger scale than Spokes. They have been beyond generous with their time and energy, not to mention eternally patient with us as we navigate the nuances of securing broad-based institutional support for Stanford Spokes for the first time this year. 

Along with our wonderful donors, this team is the reason we have the resources to fulfill the mission of Spokes while staying safe and healthy this summer; they are the reason this difficult thing is doable. To everyone who supports us—past, present, and future—thank you, thank you, thank you!

With gratitude,

Anna

Day 48: Teaching and Exploring in St. Louis

Of the cities we’ve visited, our stay in St. Louis has by far been one of the most eventful. We started out by saying goodbye to Victoria in the morning, who will be flying out for about 10 days before rejoining us. Then, we hopped in the car and drove through the rain to the Thomas Dunn Learning Center where we led three workshops: Art as Meditation, Social Identities and Intersectionality, and Building Bottle Rockets. Huge shout out to Caitlyn and Lauren, the site coordinators, who helped us out throughout the day, connected us with the amazing students who came, and gave us wonderful recommendations for the exploring city later. I felt like all the workshops went well — I loved the art I saw when helping with Jordan’s workshop, was very grateful at students for sharing out about their personal experiences during our discussion on intersectionality during mine, and had a lot of fun watching the competition on which rocket went the highest with Leo’s. All in all, we had a wonderful time working with Thomas Dunn Learning Center, thank you so much again for having us!

Just finished launching bottle rockets!

Right after teaching, we headed straight for the iconic St. Louis arch. We got to ride up and down the arch in a small metal capsule, enjoyed the city view from the top, and then spent some time wandering the arch’s museums detailing the St. Louis’ history.

View from top of the arch :0

Then, we went to Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant for dinner. That was my first time trying Ethiopian food, but will certainly not be my last, as Ethiopian food is surely now one of my favorite cuisines. I strongly recommend their vegetarian platter to anyone who finds themself in St. Louis . As a note, Meskerem is on South Grand Boulevard, a street which is paradise for all foodies.

The life changing platter :)

The next day was our rest day, and Jordan, Alex, Leo, and I got up to head to the City Museum right at opening time. This museum was a massive, adult-sized obstacle course/playground/museum/aquarium/circus and I got to spend 3 magical hours reliving childhood while also realizing that most toddlers have far more stamina and are more fit than me. After, we headed over to Catalyst Coffee Bar —  a local coffee shop and art gallery combo — to caffeinate, recharge, and get some work (and blogging) done. I loved the ambiance and coffee and would absolutely be a regular if I ever live here for an extended period.

City Museum!

Thank you, St. Louis, for some wonderful memories and flavors!

Best,

Helen

Day 47: Performative Windbreakers

For the second time this trip, the team’s attempt at a century was foiled. Again, we were cut short by a menacing cumulonimbus and the thunderstorm it brought with it. This time, however, it decided to show up early and instead of stopping us mid trip, it endeavored to even keep us from starting. The previous night we had gone to bed early in hopes of getting an early start to the morning, hoping to give ourselves plenty of time to finish a century. But when we awoke to the sound of roaring thunder and pouring rain, we knew we were starting the day on the wrong foot.

As a team, we decided to try and wait the storm out, and to some degree, it worked… kind of? While we were waiting, the lightning eventually stopped. The rain, however, did not. If any of us on the team were to have a chance at completing the century, they would have to start by biking in the rain. Those who were biking today decided to go for it, and thus began a chaotic ten minutes of scurrying around, looking to gather any sort of rain gear. This included divvying up the few rain jackets we had, knowing that amongst the jackets to choose from was deemed a “performative windbreaker.” This jacket was performative in the sense that it was not waterproof, so the rider wearing it could do nothing but desperately perform mental gymnastics to convince themselves that it was doing something.

Can you spot the performative windbreaker?

After chuckling about the performative nature of a windbreaker, the bikers soon headed out, and Helen and I, being on car crew today, soon followed. It seemed like not two minutes had passed when we got a call from them saying they had a flat. So Helen and I pulled a U-ey and met them in a nearby parking lot to hand off the pump. They were soon off once again, and Helen and I embarked on our typical car crew grocery run.

Following our three hour delayed departure, the rest of the day seemed to go pretty smoothly. For the most part, the biking crew was gonna be staying on the Katy Trail, so Helen and I would just meet them at various trailheads to help them restock with water. We had our own mini adventures while they biked, including traipsing around Jefferson City and journaling outside the capitol building.

Apart from our less-than-graceful beginning to the ride, the day really went on without consequence, but soon the day faded into evening. We realized as the sun went down, the chances of completing a century went with it. The bikers tried their best and put up a great fight, but an orange dusk sky eventually turned black, and with more than 50 miles still between us and the host house, we had to call it quits on yet another century.

It was a long day, the bikers had left at 11 in the morning, and we didn’t get to the host house until 10pm. Famished, we decided to round off the rather disappointing day with a pick-me-up in the form of a Munchie Meal, Alex’s favorite snack from Jack In the Box. And you know what? It did the trick.

~Jordan

Day 46: Riding the Katy Trail

This morning we woke up to a light drizzle. Rather than taper off, as the weather app predicted, the rain kept up for basically the whole day – ranging from downpour to sprinkle. This didn’t stop our biking crew! While the rain made riding on the road difficult, it became somewhat of a positive once we made it to the Katy Trail. The cool weather and mist made for a pleasant experience.

Helen making serious time down the Katy Trail.

For those who don’t know, the Katy Trail is a famous rail trail, meaning that it’s built on a decommissioned railroad path. Rail trails are popular among bikers since they offer a nice alternative to busy highways and are usually flat (trains can only climb low grade hills, especially older models). The Katy Trail is particularly famous due to its length and natural beauty.

Blue depicts the Katy Trail path across Missouri.

We passed through a few historic towns as well. Although many stores and exhibits were closed, it was nevertheless cool to see the old architecture. We encountered a surprising number of cobblestone roads and wood cabins, still in-use to this day.

Alex

Day 45: Spokes, we're not in Kansas anymore

Today we left Kansas City and the state of Kansas behind. To my knowledge, Kansas is the widest state that we bike from one end to the other of on our trip — and it felt like the widest too. The terrain was very flat of course, but the scorching heat that is part of the current national and global heatwave made almost every day of biking there difficult and tiring.

The plains and the sky.

Scorching temps last week.

All that aside, I did enjoy travelling through Kansas and especially enjoyed visiting Kansas City. We stayed with many wonderful hosts including Mark who gave us a warm send-off this morning and biked with us to the outskirts of Kansas City.

The team and our KC host Mark.

Our team also taught in Newton and in Kansas City to many wonderful students. The questions and ideas that the students have and their unique perspectives are always surprising.

Kansas City was very meaningful to me. My grandmother is from Kansas City originally, and I have many relatives living there. However, I had not visited nor met them before! They welcomed me into their homes for meals and I was heartened by the way they treated me as if we had known each other all my life. My dad’s cousin Linda treated the whole team to a Kansas City BBQ dinner!

For all of these reasons and more it feels like a milestone to be entering Missouri. The change couldn’t have been clearer with dense forest and rolling hills for much of our ride today.

-Leo

Day 44: Miss Americana

Last night, aSTEAM Village took us out for a Kansas City Royals home baseball game against the Minnesota Twins. This was my first ever baseball game. I understand absolutely nothing about baseball, despite Jordan’s best efforts of “Helen! Eyes back on the game!” interspersed by explanations of what happened.

We had a wonderful view of the game!

As I munched on the most scrumptious baked pretzel dipped in spicy nacho cheese, I learned that cracker jacks, the kiss cam, and a herds of Hawaiian-shirt-clad beer drinkers are all real phenomena. All night, my eyes drifted between the tiny squishy baby two rows down clad in a blue Kansas City onesie, the fireworks exploding at each home run, and the digital banners promoting Papa John’s lighting up the bleachers, all the while muttering “Wow! I feel so American!”

This pretzel truly tasted as good as it looks.

Spokes has, without a doubt, been my most prolonged and immersive experience to American culture — in this blog, I’m using the term “American culture” to describe the aspects of the US that appear in media, popular perception, etc. Over these past few weeks, I’ve developed habits and have had experiences that I previously believed only existed in Reddit threads written by confused Europeans visiting the US, or my elementary school choir songs such as “Take me out to the Ball Game.”

We did in fact get taken out to the ball game — thanks again, aSTEAM Village!

Anyhow, here are a few examples for my cultural immersion:

1) Buying literally everything at Walmart

Without a doubt, I’ve made more Walmart visits this summer than I have cumulatively over the 20 years of my life leading up to this trip. I realize now how much I’ve my abundant supply of local Asian supermarkets for granted. Walmart supplies our groceries, teaching supplies, toiletries, storage bins… Walmart pretty much is our lifeline at this point. I’m now a Walmart expert — I have navigated different species of Walmarts (supercenters, neighborhood markets, vision centers, pharmacies) as well as memorized the quirks and intricacies of shopping there (no Apple Pay, self-check-out is always the way to go, the $1.50 Italian bread from the bakery will change your life).  

2) Developing a love for the deep fried

We tried out a local Kansas City treat called In a Tub, where nearly everything was deep fried and served in a tub or basket shaped dish. I decided to eat my day’s vegetables via onion ring and fried spicy zucchini, and the experience truly was delightful. Aside from In a Tub, I’ve also enjoyed dining in Popeyes and KFC recently and now unironically find American Cheese, when served in certain contexts, quite tasty. My taste palette has gradually yet undoubtedly altered as we’ve crossed to the Midwest, much to the horror of my cholesterol.

Our feast from In a Tub!

3) Sandwiches! Every day!

Like with Walmart, I’ve eaten more sandwiches this summer than I have cumulatively over the 20 years of my life leading up to this trip. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I’ve cooked on a stove. Even when I have access to a kitchen, this 30 second meal is tempting and wins me over every time. A few sandwich recipes I recommend include:

• The all-time favorite: PG & J

• Healthy fibers to promote daily digestion: tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce/spinach/any form of edible leaf, mayo, cheese

• Rebellion against lactose intolerance: mayo, cheese, cheez-its

• Inciting Jordan’s horror: mayo and celery sticks

• Lazy vibes: just bread

Sandwich lunch in a park :)

4) Queue that song again

I’ve been able to spend the hours on the bike and in the van exploring different music genres and collecting music recs. For the first time, the American oldies have really grown on me. Some of my current favorites are “American Pie,” “Piano Man,” “Somethin’ Stupid,” and “Movin’ Out.”

Thanks for reading,

Helen

Day 43: In my mind

Glossy fusion of an educational center and dog treat store (made and sold by the folks at Inclusion Connections!). Precise, white light and faux stone floor. Curly cursive and signs and generous smiles and laughs and compliments doled out. 

I help Alex out with our rocket workshop. I sit in the back and I nod—I don’t really provide reassurance. Alex knows how to teach, but it is his first time teaching this specific workshop. So, I try to show that I too am listening. One of the students has made a bottle rocket before in high school; others giggle when looking at their construction paper fins and cone (which we endearingly call a hat). It feels like a 3D Picasso work, with corners and shapes and brilliant colors sticking out. As we launch, the heat is sweltering, as if we have entered a human-sized oven, and we are the pizza rolls or Costco taquitos that some other-worldly giant is preparing. “Hot! Hot! Hot!” someone exclaims.

Vrrrrrm! The rocket ascends with great speed. Moments later, it ricochets on the concrete slab outside the building. We all cheer and high five and wait for the next. Bottle rockets are great—they are “canonical” and classic curriculum. When I was younger and teaching and trying to design a program, I insisted on novelty, something that would transcend traditional STEM instruction. (The first lesson plan I created was about Lindor Chocolates and food engineering: why are the centers more cold? And more broadly, what does engineering have to do with the way we bring people together? I think the kids ended up liking the chocolate more than the actual learning goal, but I guess I liked it, which is why I created it). And so, sometimes I wonder, in my pursuit of interestingness, how often I lose what’s real and what works, and how often my ideas succumb to implementation. 

I leave feeling energy and with a promise to myself that I will become like the staff someday.
—

Bold blues—not the peacocking kind. A rich, muted tone dying the sky. Streaks of feathery white breaking the (beautiful) monotony. Also precise white (street) lights. Like, the ones at a a high school football game you and your friends begrudgingly attended. This moment could be a vintage postcard, but you only have an iPhone. So, you take a dimmed photo.

I leave in the middle of the baseball game. I have retreated into my thoughts so much so that I don’t even see the game happening below me. We are high up, and my skin feels soggy. It’s not really, but it feels like I am in a jacuzzi without the water. My legs stick to the seat, and my thoughts intertwine with intensity. I call my mom, and the conversation escalates. My voice sharpens, with a hurrah of force that I don’t even particularly recognize. I speak in Chinese and then English, and I notice a couple of stolen glances. Our conversation is familiar—we lull into the same patterns, the same fractures and fissures. 

I don’t leave the call frustrated, though I feel it fleetingly during the actual call. I leave slightly indignant and determined. I have made up my mind, at least in this moment, about the person I will be, the work I hope to do, and the life I hope to build. There is no clear vision: who I do this with and how I do it are untouched. But I feel a pulse of familiarity and finality, just as I did in high school. Except this time, I know this is me—it is not a blip of circumstance or chance. Yet I still write with vagueness and abstractions. Maybe I still fear that my life will not unfold this way, and that I will be blown around in winds that have no regard for any of these sentiments.

But even winds have direction, and the least I can do is to continue moving orward in that way. — 

Victoria

Day 42: Teaching, In Conversation

Rambunctious.

That’s what we’re told on our way to the main entrance, a day of teaching with aSTEAM Village in Kansas City waiting for us in the Missouri heat. Rambunctious, the woman in the car tells us as we pass—followed by a knowing laugh.

A past that doesn’t matter until it does.

I’m a History major, I say. What do you think of when you see the word history? Answers I receive: boring (x3), being lectured at in a classroom, dinosaurs, everything after the first human came into existence, the nuclear bomb, museums, a past that doesn’t matter until it does.

I don’t hear truth (or Truth). I wonder now if I should have brought it up—asked students what they thought, explained how the idea of truth, or seeking truth, has shaped my own understanding of history. Or would that have been too heavy-handed, especially this early on in the lesson? Maybe.

What’s the name on the base of the statue? Was he racist?

I ask a question (what do you think is happening in this photo?)—and the students respond with questions of their own. Good questions.

Agassiz after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Source: Stanford Historical Photograph Collection

Louis Agassiz was a Swiss-born natural scientist and Harvard professor. He was also, according to the Harvard Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences website, “a prominent supporter of racial segregation and white supremacy.” Some students conclude that protests for racial justice uprooted Agassiz and planted him upside down in ostrich-esque ignominy. Others—especially after I show the second Agassiz photo—argue that this was not an intentional act. A flood, maybe, or a hurricane. Then again, if the statue fell from its perch, what are the chances it would end up so perfectly headfirst into the ground? Wouldn’t it shatter—or if the cement was wet, wouldn’t it slump? What if the photos were not taken at the same time? What if the photos are fake?

The students are invested. They search for evidence of what happened and debate the merits of the historical photos I show; they observe with precision and imagine with ease; they ask question after question. I keep experiencing moments of discovery about my own lesson—each a gentle surprise, like a tap on the shoulder.

I challenge the students to take photos of their own, bringing in different perspectives they have on an object they care about.

I can never predict what they’ll come up with, and that’s the joy of it.

My new friend (a gift from a student)

Safe biking :)

Are we really biking across the country? In this heat? Do we camp? Do we carry all our gear on us when we bike?

Cool.

Life isn’t fair.

A lesson transmitted from parent to child to me. 1 photo per instant camera, I tell the students—I’m trying to keep things fair. They’re unimpressed with my reasoning; I can’t help but be amused by theirs.

To be fair, there are weaknesses in my workshop design that create openings for chaos—I’m continuously revising. Goals: I want to scale the workshop down even further for elementary school students; improve my time management so we have more time for discussion; and facilitate student-student dialogue in place of teacher-student dialogue.

Energy…it’s innate!

I was born with energy!

After an entire day of Spokes workshops, we gather for a group photo. One student is messing around with his friends, buoyant as ever; I ask where he gets all his energy. (Naps, he informs me.)

I know teaching can drain people—that trying to navigate students’ attention spans and engagement levels while also gauging understanding for hours on end can quickly lead to burnout. But—at least after these 1-hour workshops—teaching leaves me buzzing with energy.

Anna

P.S. Shout-out to the aSTEAM Village staff—we immensely appreciated your support and the grace with which you handled the bumps we encountered! Thank you for having us. :)