Bike to Alaska

  All kinds of weather from snow, to rain, to sweltering heat, and some spectacular scenery! April 24, Thursday: 47 miles (1099.9)  As Phillip French had predicted, it was cold last night and snowed again, 1/4 inch maybe, with flurries still this morning, so I debated whether to even ride, but it gradually warmed enough that I could at least put in a short day. In Garden River I chatted with three Ojibway kids; they were fascinated. They also told me about bears and various maulings... warmed my heart, as you can imagine. I rode just far enough past Sault St Marie that I could find some woods to camp in, or "bush" as they call it here... (where the bears live!)      *A pause here for a brief editorial note: I'm realizing that the subject of my broken heart and the woman behind it will be a thread that is woven throughout this account, and it would be awkward to continually refer to her as "the woman who... etc." But she didn't ask to be in this story, so I f...

 Chapter 3: The Wisdom of Phillip French April 19-22: Some warmer weather, and a remarkable character! Photo credit: Ruth Thomas. With all the rain, the road to her house was flooded.   April 19, Saturday: 51.1 miles (785.8) “Mrs. Thomas fed me breakfast and gave me some great raw honey for the road."  Since she was also an avid photographer, we took turns getting pictures of each other.  I stopped at Maynard’s Grocery again, and Ingrid gave me a little Huntsville Ontario patch. That made me so happy. I gave her one of my hand-printed maple leaf cards, thanking her and the other folks for their friendliness.” “I cashed some traveler’s checks, bought a tire because the one in back can’t last much longer, and left town at about 1:00. It was an incredible, gorgeous, warm day. I rode without a shirt part of the time! Yahoo!" “I also saw the first green leaves coming out, and got bitten by the first mosquito of the year! This afternoon I bought some Coppertone, and the s...

Chapter 2: "Little Old Ladies" April 10-18: A week of difficult weather, spent crossing the sparsely populated woods of southern Ontario, a week book-ended by the kindness of “Little Old Ladies.” Sorry, not many pictures because… difficult weather and sparsely populated woods!   This photo actually belongs at the end of this post, but I'm putting it here so it will be the link thumbnail. April 10, Thursday: 6 miles (402.6) I spent the day in Ogdensburg, writing letters, calling friends and family, and searching in vain for a dentist to fix a filling that broke 2 days ago. (Even Ed and Smitty at the post office couldn’t find a dentist who could help me.) I splurged on staying 2 nights at Mrs. Murphy’s house for $7 a night. Lest you get the wrong idea about Mrs. Murphy’s, in one of my letters home I wrote “It’s a very proper place: No Girls Upstairs is the rule. (Much to my chagrin, of course!)” “This evening I cut my hair, with some help in the back from wonderful old Mrs...

 On April 2nd 1980, I set out on a bicycle trip that would end up covering about 8500 miles, 2000 of it unpaved. Leaving from northwest Connecticut, my goal was Alaska, but on the way I added a 900-mile side trip on a gravel road that took me north of the Arctic Circle. The whole trip lasted almost 6 months.  I have long thought about putting together a book about the adventure, but that has always seemed too daunting. A blog feels somehow more manageable, so I thought I might post every week or so from now till September, tracking my progress back then "in real time," so to speak. The entire route I had considered staying in Alaska, but when I reached Anchorage, winter was already in the air. (It was the end of August!) Some friends were getting married back in Connecticut and I didn't want to miss that, so I decided to go home. With no bus service from Alaska, I rode back into Canada and took a bus to Ottawa. I re-assembled my bike and rode home from there. (not shown)...