I try not to ride with a backpack. When I must use one, I try not to carry more than, say, a few things from the market, a camera or smartphone and a notebook.
Of course, if I carry a backpack, I can blame it for slowing me down!
Some of my best memories from my bicycle tours are the conversations and other interactions I had with local people.
I'm thinking now of the old couple living by the point where the Garonne bends and begins its opening to the sea. They took great pride in knowing the exact moments, twice a day, when the tide rolled in. I'm also recalling my ride with You Sert, a PURE guide, that took us to Cambodian farms where one woman practiced traditional healing and her kids and their cat played with me, and another where a woman guided me through weaving grass for a roof.
These encounters might be different from the ones that await Nate Hegyi. I feel confident, however, that whomever he meets and whatever he shares with them will be interesting.
A Public Radio-affiliated reporter in Boise, Idaho, Hegyi is embarking on a 900-mile bicycle trip along the Continental Divide. He plans to visit eastern Idaho's ranching towns; Missoula, Montana; Wyoming's oil and gas areas and the mountainous country of northern Colorado before ending his trip in Greeley.
Along the way he plans to file radio stories, post to an online blog and, in late October, release a podcast he will produce.
"It's been a tumultuous year," Hegyi said. "A pandemic grips the region and the economy is in freefall. But the voices of folks in the Mountain West's small towns and rural communities are often unheard in regional and national media outlets." One purpose of the trip, he explained, is to "learn more about the area's residents and hear their stories."
I am sure that whatever stories he hears aren't the ones one can hear from a car, tour bus or resort hotel!
Yesterday, Connecticut. Today, Point Lookout. Sensing a pattern?
I'll bet they did
though it's not the same as mine. How else could they time their feeding to the receding tide?
These folks, on the other hand, know only that it's a summer day:
