Once I rode my bike from Vancouver to Los Angeles. The first leg of the trip smelled cold, wet and salty. Like fish and chips. Like morning fog. The same way northern Spain smells and sometimes New York City. The next leg of the trip smelled like dry sun. Brown burnt grass. Mexican food. Deserts. […]
Category: Travel
Speaking of getting lost
In his book Deep Survival Laurence Gonzales writes about how to survive life-threatening situations in the wild. One of these life-threatening situations is getting lost. If you find yourself in this scenario, here is what you should do: When you realize you are good and lost, stop walking. Do not hurry to the ridge over […]
Swimming rules
After three hundred years of economic expansion, we are so impoverished that we lack the wealth and freedom of a squirrel. The indigenous people who lived here before the Europeans arrived had the run of the land. They had the simple freedom to say, “Let us climb that mountain. Let us swim in that lake. […]
Maine
Near Ogunquit Maine I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said: we don’t care how you do it in California. Well I don’t care that you don’t care I’m telling you anyway: when it comes to bike camping California does it better. In Maine, for the first time in all the years of […]
What I am learning on bike tour
What time the sun sets. How long it takes for it to get dark after the sun sets. What time it starts to get light in the morning. What time the sun rises. Squirrels are very busy collecting nuts. Squirrels are surprisingly noisy. What I am forgetting The day of the week. The day of […]
How to destroy a border
“Maybe infinity begins at the point we can’t see past, can’t love past. How small we are when this point is ourselves. The problem with borders, I was beginning to realize, isn’t that they are monstrous, offensive, and unnatural constructions. The problem with borders is the same as the problem with evil that Hannah Arendt […]
I believe in a world without borders
I used to think that wishing for a world without borders was pointless. I thought: there are too many. The economy based on them is too big. It is not a goal that is achievable in my lifetime. But in Emergent Strategy, a book about community organizing, Adrienne Maree Brown convinces me otherwise. She writes, “We are […]
Grilled cheese
On Saturday I was waiting tables at my favorite restaurant. It was late afternoon so it was slow. A woman came in the front door and I stopped counting the register to greet her. She had a accent and seemed maybe a little lost. I asked her if she wanted a table and she asked […]
Fear
I got to the campsite earlier than usual. I pulled my bike up to the check-in window. I didn’t see anyone inside the booth but the lights were on so I knocked on the window. Nothing happened, but I heard people talking. I walked around to the other side where I found two men wearing […]
