"Half-Century Summer"

To download a PDF file of an original Internet article "Half-Century Summer" complete with color photos, click here (patience! 800KB).
   Here's a 38-KB PDF text-only PDF version (no photos) .

At age 50, it's time to start keeping promises to yourself.
   So in June, 2000, 9-year-old Roxana and I packed 100 pounds of camping gear, clothes, and supplies into the panniers and cargo trailer of our Bike Friday Family Tandem, rolled them into the back of a bright yellow rental 10-foot Ryder panel truck, and literally drove off into the sunset.
   Our aim: to pedal 1000 miles back to Cleveland from St. Paul, Minnesota, where we'd been invited to give a talk based on our 1999 book Bicycling With Children. 
   Our venture was a two-month solo bike tour--highly unusual for a lone woman and a child. ("Aren't you afraid?" I was asked repeatedly. "You know, being a woman traveling alone with a child on a bicycle?")
    We dubbed it the Half-Century Summer--a double entendre, as a half-century is bicycling parlance for 50 miles in a day, and I hit the Big 5-Oh! that May 24.
    After bike-camping in Wisconsin, we bucked headwinds to Minnesota, pedaled south along the Mississippi into Iowa--then, since we had fallen way behind schedule--motored to the Ohio border and resumed pedaling back to Lakewood in August.

A multiton semi missed us by six inches...Roxana was scared, exhausted from the heat, and crying...

Dead fishflies by the cupful--Roxana's face tells the whole story of her reaction to the millions of 2-inch-long black carcasses drifted as thick as mulch on the road from Lansing, Iowa to Prairie du Chien, Wis.

Red indicates the 655 miles pedaled with Roxana by tandem bicycle; yellow indicates the portions of the 7-week route driven in a rental truck. For a higher-resolution view, click on map (134-KB JPEG file).

After our rescue by Littleport's gracious Kevin and Jess, Kevin caught his gentle horse "Ug" to give Roxana her first experience in riding bareback.

Our homecoming surprise was a ribbon-crossing ceremony and warm party-like welcome of friends, neighbors, and press!

Our trip was dedicated to my cousin Kenny Rogers (1950-2000), who died of Hodgkin's disease just short of 50. A percentage of any writing proceeds will be donated to a charity of his family's choice.

With the cargo trailer hauling our camping equipment, shown here at Afton State Park, we topped 350 pounds on the hoof. We found the "used car" flags outside of Stillwater, Minn., and they rode with us the whole trip reading "B-I-G 5-0!"

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