Second Dispatch

Southern sojourn

Greetings loved ones—we hope everyone is taking care of themselves during this heavy and depressing election week. We’re sending you all a big hug, and we hope this newsletter is a bright spot in your inbox. <3

Route Report (10/1-10/31)

We spent all of October traversing the South (see the map), a place that’s of course very near and dear to me (Cam). Here’s some of what it was like…

Humid heat in the late afternoon soaking so deep in your bones you feel almost cold, is there a word for that? Clammy sweat bursting from your pores, slicking your skin like an embryonic slime. Cicadas droning and crickets chirping to herald dark’s arrival. Dew-drenched mornings leaving every surface spotted with shivering pearls of moisture. Kudzu suffocating entire landscapes beneath a verdant blanket. Expansive fields throwing forth shock-white cotton blooms. Dilapidated plantation homes sitting amid towering oak trees weeping with Spanish moss. Stagnant sludgy creeks running brown or else swamped over entirely in a viridescent algal film. 

Snatches of the Alabama Crimson Tide football game drifting from a car’s radio as it moseys past with windows rolled down. Friendly strangers saying ‘hi’ and ‘where y’all headed’ and ‘stay safe out there,’ taking time to stop and chat and rarely hurrying. Dogs whipping themselves into a fury to chase when you pedal past, baying and nipping at your heels. Mosquitoes eating up the skin on your shins and ankles at every chance, leaving you constantly scratching and covered in little pink welts.

• Odometer: 1,454 miles (3,160 total)

• Day count: 64 total days on the road

• Border count: North Carolina (Chapel Hill; Greensboro) → South Carolina (Columbia) → Georgia (Augusta; Atlanta) → Alabama (Birmingham; Tuscaloosa) → Mississippi (Jackson; Natchez) → Louisiana (Baton Rouge; New Orleans)

• Flat tire count: Maeve – 6 flats (9 total); Cam – 2 flats (4 total)

• Songs we listened to: Maeve’s October Playlist

• Books we read: “Everything That Rises Must Converge” – Flannery O’Connor (both); “Intermezzo” – Sally Rooney, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers” – J.R.R. Tolkien (Cam); “Son” – Lois Lowry, “The Copenhagen Trilogy” – Tove Ditlevsen (Maeve)

• Movies we watched: The Two Towers (2002), The Return of the King (2003), Dan in Real Life (2007), Date Night (2010), Babel (2006), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), The Dark Crystal (1982), Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998), The Fall (2006), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

• Things we lost: Both – 1 bag of salt (left in a motel room); Maeve – 1 spork (accidentally thrown away in a can of beans), 1 Clif bar (bounced out of a bag on a gravel descent), 1 dish sponge (unknown); Cam – 1 driver’s license (left in a motel in Baton Rouge, thankfully recovered by the staff), 1 chapstick cap (dropped on a busy road)

• Flavors of the month: Both – seasoned butter beans, canned okra, fresh beignets; Maeve – Mac and cheese, gumbo, french fry poboy sans gravy; Cam – my mom’s homemade buttermilk biscuits, green grapes, melted Reese’s cups

• Best road names: Hunky Cross Hwy, Tingle Tangle Rd, Zimple St

• Sounds we heard: 

  

  

  

What to Think About While Bike Touring

Written by Cameron

Turns out spending hour after hour and day after day riding your bike leaves you with lots of time to think. Scary!

In the mornings (after coffee) my mind feels buoyant and elastic. I wonder what my friends are doing and if any of them are also riding their bikes right now. Start a mental list of all the words I’d use to describe the surrounding environment. Soupy, languorous, overgrown, muggy, dilapidated, fecund, lush, bucolic, miry, festering. Remember all the ecosystems I’ve biked through, try to name them. What’s the difference between a swamp and a bayou? A bog and a marsh? Think about what I’ll write in the next newsletter. Does anyone actually read these things?

In the afternoons my mind grows looser and more lethargic. I imagine enjoying a coca cola over ice, not in the abstract but specifically the coca cola commercial they play in the theater before the movie starts. Embarrassing susceptibility to marketing. Try to guess how many miles I’ve gone or how hot it is or how humid. Fixate on the synthetic fabrics and sunscreen touching every inch of my skin. Remember what jeans and cotton shirts feel like? Get interrupted by a pickup truck buzzing too close, feel myself sucked into its wind current. Picture what it would be like to be hugged by five tons of metal hurtling into me at 50mph. Better think about something else. Recall someone once telling me that bus drivers in Brazil get trained to drive past cyclists by ‘riding’ stationary bikes on the side of a busy road. 

At some point every day the time comes to take a break from my brain. Switch between my favorite podcasts for a few hours or put on an audiobook. It’s comforting—whenever I’m tired of my thoughts to just borrow someone else’s for a stretch.

Special thanks to all the friends and family who hosted us, shared a meal, or joined us for a ride: Yoni & Jordana, Wes & Liz, Ben & Rose, Nick, Casey, Carson, Austin, Jane & Sherman, Linda, Mark, Carli, Julien, Maya.

Shout out to dear friend and Brooklyn-based artist Emma Singer for creating the cover image for our newsletter project.

Where we’re headed next: We’ll pass through Houston in early November then spend some time in Austin before flying to Oakland (!!) for a visit from 11/16-11/24. Once back in Austin, we’ll head through San Antonio and likely pass through Monterrey before getting to Mexico City in time for Cam’s birthday (12/18). We’ll stay there until mid-January, then spend a week or so in Oaxaca before continuing on to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

Please reach out if you want to scheme a meetup in Mexico or Central America between mid-December and early March-ish!