If a bike could speak...

On this trip, I've learned to read other cyclists by their bikes.  I can tell a lot about them by the model, the accessories, as well as by what and how much they are carrying.  A Surly says money and quality-consciousness.  Clip-on pedals say old-school cycling attitude.  Tofu bucket panniers say they probably started in Portland, OR.  I look for what stands out as unusual, which tells something of their values, or a story of their trip.  There is a tendency to add mementos of the journey onto our bikes: everything from stickers, to pirate flags, to antelope skulls.

The stack of gear behind me is getting higher and higher.
I sent home my deer skull when I got the fiddle.

Before my trip I planned to bring my fiddle, but after an hour of strategizing how to affix it to my bike I decided it was ludicrous, both too long and too fragile to be feasible.  To make a long story short, I finally obtained a fiddle in Missoula, MT, on day 94, and it has been one of the best choices of the trip.  It is ungainly, heavy, and too long, but so far it hasn't fallen off my bike or rattled to pieces.  So far I've played it in fields, along rivers, in towns, in haylofts above horses, and I love every moment of it.  I am a novice, but playing brings me such joy, and practicing and learning on trail is one more way I am learning to integrate my settled life with my nomadic one.  After all, if I can bring a fiddle on a bike trip, I can bring it just about anywhere.

Playing for rivers and fields.

On a bike every pound counts, and the form of what you carry is somewhat preordained by pannier shape and attachment areas.  I am taking a harder road.  I am declaring my willingness of suffer more work for what I love.  I couldn't be more delighted.

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I am writing this in Baker City, OR, at 4799 miles and in the last state of my trip.

Highlights:

• Watching an anime movie at a WarmShower host with their middle-school aged son.
• Staying in a bedroom in a barn above the horses, and playing music for them.
• Leaving out a saucer of milk for the Tomten of the barn.  It was dry in the morning.