Twenty Miles per Cookie: 9000 Miles of Kid-Powered Adventures

by Nancy Sathre-Vogel

  We camped in every place imaginable - including a farmer's barn.

  Dear Mom,

  I look back through the years and think about all I’ve learned from you. You taught me to live, to experience and to grow. You taught me to love, to cherish and to treasure. And now you’ve taught me to die with grace, dignity and peace.

  You taught me that I could follow my dreams – wherever they may lead – and you helped me understand the only limits I have are figments of my own imagination. I can reach for the moon – and if, for some reason, I fail to get there, I’ll simply land among the stars. And for that I’ll always thank you.

  I’ve often stated you are the reason I could live the life I’ve lived. You are the one who gave me strength and encouragement to continue exploring our world. I know it wasn’t always easy for you – when you thought I had been in that fatal plane accident in Guatemala, or feared we had been at the beach in Burma when the tsunami hit, I’m sure you fretted and stewed for days before learning I was safe. When I’ve taken off to the uttermost ends of the earth with little besides two wheels and a sleeping bag, I’m sure you worried with a smile on your face. I’ve said many times that you are to blame for my wanderlust – and I like to think you accepted that with pride.

  Mom, you’ve been my strength – my backbone – for so many years. I can’t imagine life without your quiet strength backing me up. And yet I realize the wheel must keep on turning. The circle of life must continue on, and some day my boys will be thinking about me – and I can only hope my legacy to them is as strong and wonderful as yours is to me.

  I can picture you now, as you climb that final stairway to heaven. You pause halfway up and turn around to look back at me with a twinkle in your eye and your cane in your hand. You smile at me, nod your head, and say, “I’m fine” before turning to continue your journey. I hope that when my turn comes to pedal away into the great sunset in the sky my boys will say, just as I now say about you, “She’s fine. Just fine.”

  I am honored that I have had the privilege of calling you Mom.

  I love you, Nancy

  The Fat Lady Sang

  “Mom!” Davy cried excitedly when he saw me at the hotel in Columbus a couple weeks later. “You won’t believe what we’ve done since you left! It’s been a blast!”

  “Yeah!” added Daryl. “We camped in an auction and Davy fell asleep at the Battle of the Bands and we rode dirt bikes and we went swimming and…”

  “It was so much fun camping at the auction, Mom,” Davy interjected. “There was tons of stuff all around and our tent was right in the middle of it! Daryl slept through a lot of the auction until Daddy had to wake him up to take the tent down.”

  “And last night we went to a Battle of the Bands – Daddy had to talk to the whole crowd! I got to watch him, but Davy fell asleep. I don’t know how he could sleep with the music that loud – the whole room was shaking! I couldn’t even go in that room ’cause it hurt my ears so bad.”

  “Today we rode up here with a whole bunch of people – Daddy said there were three thousand bicyclists! Can you imagine? Three thousand! We saw a quad bike! And they pulled a baby in a trailer behind them. We talked with them for a while. And there was so much food at the park! It was piled high – tons and tons of food!”

  It was good to be back with my boys and good to be back to some sort of “normal.” John and I had made the painful decision to carry on – there was no reason to abort the trip at that point. I had stayed home a couple days past the funeral to help sort things out, and then had flown east to rejoin my family.

  John and the boys had arrived into Columbus about the same time I had so we met at a small hotel to get organized once again. I quickly reclaimed my bike from the wonderful people who had volunteered to store it for me, and we were together once again. My heart had a hole in it, but continuing on would help that heal.

  It was already afternoon when we pedaled away the next day wondering what kind of adventures would come our way, and it didn’t take long to find out.

  “Hey! Come on over for some watermelon!” an old man called a couple hours later as we struggled up a hill in front of his house. “Take a break!”

  We leaned our bikes against a tree and relaxed in his lawn chairs while enjoying watermelon, banana cream pie and ice cold water.

  “Do you know anywhere around here where we can camp?” John asked Bob, our willing host. “It’ll be dark in a couple hours and we need to start thinking about a place to pitch our tent.”

  “Yeah,” Bob replied. “There’s a campground six or seven miles up the road. Or, if you want, you’re welcome to pitch your tent right here.I’ve got a big yard – it’s not a problem at all if you want to stay here.”

  The four of us relaxed and enjoyed the idea that we didn’t have to push on. We could ride ten-mile days and be just fine. We could afford the time to hang out if we felt like it and push on if we felt like it. What a luxury.

  The following morning we set out to tackle the hills of eastern Ohio. We quickly discovered eastern hills are nothing like those in the west. In the west, where I’m from, we have mountains. In the east they have hills; I was used to climbing mountains. At home we always climbed up and up and up until we reached the summit. Sure, maybe there was a bit of up and down, but it seemed like we were generally headed in an upwardly direction – like we were making progress. We would crest a summit and descend – but not all the way – before beginning the climb to the next summit. We climbed a lot, descended a little, then climbed a lot again – with each pass getting progressively higher until we had crossed the mountain range.

  In the east it was different. We climbed up and up and up, and then plunged back down to the same elevation we had started at. It was the Ozarks all over again, but this time we weren’t racing against the clock. We settled into a rhythm and took our time.

  By evening we were tuckered out and ready to camp. We pulled off the road and headed into a field.

  I was awakened in the middle of the night by my husband. “It’s raining, Nancy!” It was another one of those nights…

  As John and I piled out of the tent into the blackness of the night, I vaguely remembered my thoughts as I trudged along the dirt road a few hours earlier. We had come upon massive mud puddles in the middle of the road as we headed back to set up camp. I had simply traipsed through the grass to avoid the mud, and thought, I sure hope it doesn’t rain tonight – this area will be one big swampy mess if it rains. But John said he had heard the weatherman say it was supposed to rain tomorrow night, so I figured we’d be safe.

  The weatherman was wrong.

  We looked up at the nighttime sky through the few sprinkles of rain that were falling. It was illuminated by the near constant glow of lightning flashing off in the distance – so far away there was no accompanying roar of thunder.

  “Whaddyathink?” John asked. “We could pack up right now and get to a motel before it really starts.”

  “Nah.” I grumbled. “That’s too much trouble. I just wanna go back to sleep. Let’s just cover everything.”

  We put the fly on the tent and the tarp over the bikes and climbed back in. Fifteen minutes later the first gusts of wind passed through, followed shortly thereafter by the rain.

  The kids slept peacefully, and I tried to sleep peacefully, but John kept waking me up.

  “Are your corners dry, Nance?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time do you think we could check into a motel?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Where’d you put the camera?”

  “On my bike under the tarp.”

  “Are you trying to sleep?”

  “I would be asleep if you would shut up...”

  In the morning we awoke to pouring rain, knowing full well the field would soon be a swampy mess if the rain didn’t let up. We sat in the tent contemplating an escape plan. The reality was there was no easy answer. It was muddy – dang muddy – all around. Any attempts a
t getting out of the field would result in a mess.

  Heavy rains made for very muddy camping. It took us twenty minutes to clear the mud from our tires once we got on the road.

  At one point the rain let up for a few minutes and we made our escape. We hurriedly stuffed the sleeping bags, packed the panniers, and strapped on the tent. It was only a hundred yard trek to the road, but everything was covered with gooey mud by the time we arrived at the pavement. Our tires were caked with layers so thick they couldn’t even move.

  John and I spent the next twenty minutes poking and prodding our tires with sticks to get rid of the worst of the mud while Davy and Daryl discovered polliwogs in the mud puddles. Then we continued on to town and checked into a motel. Sometimes a roof over your head is worth the price.

  I remember reading stories about hobos when I was a kid. Hobos traveled around with their belongings wrapped in a bandana attached to the end of a stick which they flung over their shoulders. They were famous for hopping trains – waiting until the train slowly pulled out of the station before hopping aboard, then they’d hop off again as the train slowed to approach the next station.

  John and Daryl spent our days traveling through the Appalachians perfecting the fine art of “triple hopping” – a strategy that helped tremendously with the hills. John couldn’t carry both kids up the hills, so Daryl had to get off and walk. John wasted a lot of energy stopping halfway up the hill to let Daryl off. And then he had to stop again at the top so Daryl could climb back on.

  Finally they came up with a plan – and perfected the fine art of “hopping.” John figured out at precisely what point to give the signal to Daryl, and Daryl jumped off the moving bike to walk alongside. Then just as John was cresting the top, he gave Daryl another signal to jump back on. By the end of the day and after something like a trillion hills or so, Daryl could get off and on without John even feeling it. They had perfected their art.

  That morning we had hit the road at 6:30 and after a tough thirteen hours of climbing hills, I was plumb tuckered out. We set off climbing yet another hill – and I just couldn’t do it. We had hoped to make it another seven miles to a campground, but it didn’t happen.

  Halfway up a small hill, I stopped on the side of the road, panting, and collapsed over my handlebars. I was done.

  I looked around to find a place to camp but we were right smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood. On one side of the road was a church, on the other a house with a man outside mowing his yard. A short ways down was a vacant field. The vacant field would have to do.

  I approached the man on the mower. “Excuse me, sir!” I called. He came toward me and turned off the mower. “We’re riding our bikes through these hills, and I’m exhausted. We had hoped to make it to the campground, but I just can’t. Do you think anyone would mind if we pitched our tent in that field?”

  “In that field? Over there?” He pointed to the vacant lot. “You don’t want to sleep there – I’ll tell you that for sure!”

  My face fell. We would have to keep going. I had no idea how I’d do it.

  “But you are welcome to pitch your tent in our yard here!”

  John and I spent the evening chatting with Brian and Jackie, while the kids splashed in their pool with their daughter. It was the best end to a grueling day we could imagine.

  All we hear about, it seems, are the bad people: drug dealers, suicide bombers, bank robbers, and murderers. By watching the nightly news or reading the morning paper, one would get the impression that our world is filled with bad people – people who would happily mug or rape or kill us. But our experiences showed us another side of our vast world – a kinder, gentler side where people were kind and generous and more than happy to give us a helping hand.

  When we pedaled out of our driveway so many months before we knew we would find adventure. As we rode around our country we knew we would see a side of North America most people miss. And yet, all the random acts of kindness people offered astounded us. Each and every time someone reached out his hand and offered us help, we were humbled. It seemed like those experiences happened every single day.

  The weatherman was not our friend again. He had called for a three-day rainstorm, starting that evening. John and I had come up with the brilliant idea of riding like mad to try to reach the ferry to Manhattan before the storm arrived. But, like most of our brilliant ideas, this one ended up being none-too-brilliant after all.

  We pedaled away from some newfound friends’ house bright and early, heading into New Jersey. We had 75 miles ahead of us to the ferry that would take us to Manhattan and some other friends’ house. The hills weren’t too bad and we pedaled like bikers possessed as we attempted to reach the ferry before getting wet yet again. We had made good time by early afternoon and stopped at a grocery store to buy sandwich stuff. When we walked out of the store a few minutes later the rain had started.

  It was just a sprinkle at that point, so we bagged everything, put raincoats on the kids, and kept pedaling, determined to make the remaining forty miles to the dock. As the day progressed, it rained harder and harder until it was a pretty steady rain, and we were soaked through and through.

  And then it happened – KABOOM! I wish I could tell you the boom was caused by something as trivial and inconsequential as lightning striking a nearby tree, but alas, such was not the case. My tire blew. Boom! Just like that. My tire was flopping in the wind.

  We sat down in the puddles on the side of the road and attempted to fix it, but fixing it was easier said than done. The spare tube was way at the bottom of the trailer, and it was pouring rain. All of our essential gear – gear that absolutely could not get wet – was stored in there. Opening it up to get the tube would mean… well, it would mean wet sleeping bags and wet journals and wet other things that we would rather not face.

  John attempted to patch the inch-long slit in the tube, pulled out our brand new tire that we had been carrying since Mexico, and put the whole thing back together.

  I climbed on my bike and it wobbled like one of those Weebles things – you remember them? Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down. But my bike certainly would have fallen if I got it over five miles per hour. It was pouring buckets, we were racing to catch a ferry, and my bike was threatening to go wildly out of control. I rode anyway – stopping every few minutes to pump up the tire that “more or less” held air.

  A while later we pulled into the ferry parking lot only to discover that, on weekends, the ferry left from a different pier five miles away. And the last one of the day was leaving in thirty minutes. We took off like a herd of galloping turtles to see if we could make it. I pumped like a drowned mad woman on Mr. Weebles as I made a frantic dash to the ferry, with John and the boys trailing behind.

  While stopped at a stop light, a black car pulled up alongside me, its window rolled down, and a face emerged. “Where are you headed?” the woman asked.

  “We’re trying to make the ferry! And it leaves in thirty minutes!” I replied as I took off through the red light.

  Pedaling like mad through the torrential downpour, we crested the top of the second hill and readied myself for the final push to the ferry. The same black car pulled up beside me. “You aren’t going to make it,” she announced. “The ferry leaves in two minutes. There is no way.”

  My face fell and my shoulders sagged. I looked around at my dismal surroundings. Rain fell from the sky… puddles filled the road… we were soaked to the core, along with all our gear. This was about as bad as it gets. “Do you know where a hotel is?” I asked.

  “The nearest hotel is about ten miles away. And it costs around $250 per night.”

  Life just doesn’t get any lower than that. We were stuck in the pouring rain with our precious children in the middle of a massive urban sprawl. No place to pitch our tent… no hotels… nothing but rain and more rain. What kind of parent was I to subject my darling boys to conditions like this?

  “Would you like to stay wit
h us tonight?” she asked. “We live just a couple miles from here.”

  Once again, America’s Road Angels had reached out and added magic to our journey.

  The following morning we loaded our bikes onto the ferry in the (still) pouring rain for the journey to Manhattan.

  On the ferry - it was pouring rain, but we were headed to Manhattan!

  “Davy! Daryl!” John called out to the boys as they lay sprawled on the ferry floor. “Come here!”

  The boys ran over to the window and the four of us stood enchanted – the Statue of Liberty was just barely visible through the rain. For centuries, Lady Liberty had signified a new life and a new beginning for immigrants as they arrived in the USA. For us, she also signified a new life – the end of our journey and beginning of a “new normal.” Sure, we still had a hundred miles to pedal before reaching John’s mom’s house, but ever since we left Mazatlan, we had been telling people we were headed to Manhattan. And now, we were there. We had arrived.

  I sat down in one of the seats to take a few minutes to contemplate it all. We weren’t quite finished, but in my mind I was. New York City. Manhattan. We had arrived at long last.

  “Did you hear the news?” the woman sitting next to me asked.

  “The news?” I was startled out my reverie. “What news?”

  “I was just listening to the news in the car before I got on the ferry. They said a massive downpour was supposed to hit Manhattan between nine and ten o’clock.”

  The ferry was scheduled to arrive at 8:50.

  This time the weatherman was right. As we unloaded our rigs from the ferry, the onslaught hit. We toyed with the idea of hanging tight for an hour, but the call of our friends’ house fifteen blocks away was simply too strong to resist. We headed out to fight morning rush hour in the torrential downpour with smiles on our faces.