Thank you for taking the time to read this (and future) blog posts. I plan to use this space to explore the themes of Riding Through Dreamland, the working title of the manuscript I intend to publish. I am hopeful what I have to say resonates with you. I will try my best to share what I endured – physically, mentally, and emotionally – to complete the journey. I will also weave into the narrative the many social, political, and philosophical themes that bubbled to the surface of my consciousness during the trek, matters that have engaged my mind continuously ever since.

Some background:
In the summer of 2021 I rode my bicycle from the coast of the Olympic Peninsula across the United States, reaching the Delaware Shore 65 days later. My wife Joanie and I rented a Class B Motorhome and drove for four days straight from our home in Columbus, Ohio to a tidy RV park cozying up to the Olympic National Park, just a few miles east of Rialto Beach on the Pacific Ocean. For most of the next ten weeks, I would spend my days spinning the cranks and then meet up with Joanie in the late afternoon or evening at our next campsite, be that an RV Park, State Park, discreet boondocking site, or even (shudder!) a Walmart parking lot.

Disclosure (with one hand covering my heart and the other pointing upwards): I feel obligated to note that the Class-B Motorhome was not a support vehicle and Joanie was certainly no SAG driver, passing her days behind the wheel, just tagging along. If you know Joanie, she is not someone who is prone to following. Not even her husband, as he journeyed through what was, among many other things, a ten-week weight loss odyssey. She occupied her days delivering her virtual disability awareness education workshops and teaching private students remotely (even in rural WiFi-deserts).

Home for almost 10 weeks: Our Class B Motorhome rental named *Olympia.*

Remember 2021?
I also think it’s important to acknowledge the historical context of the summer of 2021. It was early in Joe Biden’s term, only a half-year after the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. The Covid pandemic had already peaked, but it was still to be feared and was a source of division: by that summer, the inconsistent state and local approaches to containing the virus had further divided an already polarized country. And the Pacific Northwest was reeling from a debilitating heat wave; forest fires burned uncontrollably near or on the route I intended to ride.

As for me, I had been feeling mentally stale during the years leading up to the trek. The day-to-day found me occupied with non-stop tasks at work, an endless succession of logistical, strategic, and administrative responsibilities that habitually lined up – like jets waiting for takeoff at a busy airport – demanding attention and care. One reason I embarked on the trek was to extricate myself from this cheerless mental state. I was thirsty for travel, adventure, and space for personal reflection, and relished the idea of shedding the quotidian and letting my mind breathe.

Dreamworld
One of the themes of the book is the tension between opposites, which I encountered almost daily. This tension was true for me, physically and emotionally. For example, I frequently struggled to maintain a balance between the goal-oriented nature of my undertaking and staying focused in the present moment. Another was the near-daily battle raging between my body and mind, with the mind continually urging the body to keep pedaling through the pain and the body responding, incredulously, “Are you out of your fucking mind?!?”.

I saw this tension manifested in the country I was riding through, as well. As the weeks passed, I had become ever more attuned to the shifting nature of life flowing between the extremes. I felt it in my body. I saw it in the land. I sensed it among the people I met. These dualities – dialectics if you will – became part and parcel of my journey to the point where the dots connect effortlessly and I anticipated seeing the tension between opposites everywhere, even in the very nature of my thoughts.

My observations of the people I met and places I visited led me to conclude that we are a nation of somnambulants, lulled to sleep by the marketing onslaught of commercial interests, the myths of our national self-identity, and the instinctive self-interest required to live comfortably (or as comfortably as we can afford, which for a large chunk of Americans, doesn’t amount to much).

My touring bike in repose under smoky skies in Idaho.

Red Pill - Blue Pill
Using the red pill-blue pill metaphor from the movie The Matrix, given a choice to wake up from this dreamworld, very few of us opt to take the red pill to learn unsettling truths and instead swallow the blue pill to remain blissfully ignorant. In the movie, Lawrence Fishburne’s Morpheus gives Keanu Reeves’ Neo a one-time only opportunity to make this choice between the red and the blue pills. By contrast, we are, mercifully, fortunate to have the opportunity to choose uncomfortable truths over ignorance at any time, any day.

Thanks for joining me on this blog-journey.

Welcome to the ‘Riding Through Dreamland’ Blog