Hi folks –

I’m heading out on another bike tour. This time to Scotland!

For this trip, I started a new project that’s been in the back of my mind since my last tour, along with a new website! Below is the first post of the Fork Files (@forkfiles). I hope you join me for the ride. It’s always such a pleasure hearing from everyone.

Cheers,

Danielle

Fork Files:

The rain was a familiar sound.

A pittering giving way to a full drumroll of droplets unleashed on the fly of my tent. For the previous two weeks, I experienced the crescendo night after night.

However, during this October thunderstorm the droplets we’re different — metallic and rhythmic — from the shelter of a double-wide trailer. After spending many nights in the rain on the coast of Oregon, my riding partner, Jackson, and I found ourselves, two thousand miles and two months into our trip in the kitchen of a giving stranger.

In the living room, we found eleven other cyclists all enjoying a break from the weather, sharing drinks and food — a meal cobbled together from the bottom of dirty panniers and wet stuff sacks. We ate stale corn chips, apple pie, burgers. We discussed the fastest ways to pack a tent, we shared what we’d seen in the North and those headed that direction shared stories of the south west coast.

Hiding from the rain underground.

The gear room at our biker gathering, only some of our bikes pictured here.

Some were traveling for a week, others two years; we were from Maine, Belgium, Los Angeles, Spain. Conversation subsided to sleep as we cuddled into our sleeping bags like we did every night, but this time we weren’t two bikers in the middle of the woods. We were packed like sardines on the living room floor, surrounded by so many different origins, different experiences, different worldviews, different languages — our commonality: food. Our mode: bicycles.

Except for the occasional Facebook or blog post I’d never see most of these people again once I left the California coast. Yet as the raindrops resonated through the roof, I fell asleep next to strangers as we shared an intimate reprise, moment of comfort, of home.

I’d been here before — sharing meals in strangers’ kitchens, I mean.

Along our cycling trip we were taken in for meals with the most storied people, we sipped the strong fermented hard cider, we helped assemble irrigation heads before building a fire for dinner, we cooked curry for a biplane pilot, ate plums from a host’s tree, drank the raw milk of the cow who kept watch while we camped at night. In these experiences I found the community I left at home, in Maine — the cast iron care, the kale from the backyard, the laughter and indeterminacy of making sustenance out of mix-matched ingredients.

You bet it is!

The adventurer likes to think of herself as an island, a warrior against the road. A machine moving through space and time to accomplish a goal: of self-sufficiency, of the body’s power to overcome, to travel through and over obstacles both physical and mental.

In this mindset, I too easily forget the gravity of sitting at a table and sharing in food — in the intimate and personal lives of others. An unintended benefit of my first bike tour was being able to cook and share food with so many strangers. The experience reminded me over and over again how important communion — community are to a satisfying human-existence. Yet how does a solo-adventurer reckon those two realities? If the adventure is about the individual, our stories often reflect that focus. How do I reach the solitude, clarity, and freedom of solo travel but also share with others? Share in a way that is both meaningful to me as a visitor in another’s space and to those I interact with? From this idea my proposed trip was born.

The dinner table — whether it be a picnic table, a rock, or a barstool — is the common place we all share. Sharing food can be a gesture of equality. Furthermore, telling stories allows us to connect and empathize with others who we believe to be different. My trip is intended to meld the slow pace and individualism of cycling with the communion and commonality we all share in food, through storytelling.

Follow the rest of my journey at www.forkfiles.org and on Instagram @forkfiles. Thanks always for your support!

“I know one thing for certain; it’s much harder to tell whether you are lost than whether you were lost, for on many occasions, where you’re going is exactly where you are.” -Norton Juster [The Phantom Tollbooth]

No one “finds themselves” on the road. Sure, we often set out in search of something: peace, distraction, adventure etc. but more often than not the road is a catalyst for revealing what we value. When we return home friends and family ask: What did you learn? What did you gain? The answer: a lot.

I learned how to trust my body, how to set up a hidden campsite, fix my derailleur, the value of campgrounds with coin-op showers, how to make camp stove shepherd’s pie, how to not get eaten by a bear. I learned to trust. I learned that staying dry is actually all in your head, that sometimes you should just pull over and sit under a tree and read while the rain passes.  I discovered how to communicate with cows, joy, that you can spend 24-hours a day with someone and still love them and find them magnificent. I figured out raccoons are vicious creatures, and that going up is just as valuable as going down. I found that most people are incredibly kind but not to mess with RV drivers. I learned to be quiet, to listen better, to dance (especially with cows), to get off the main roads, and that being a little scared is a good thing. I learned, maybe for the first time in my life, what being totally happy feels like.

We love to gain: friends, followers, possessions, experiences. There is great value in accumulating wisdom. Bringing others into your soul.

But what did I lose?

Four months have passed since we returned, twice as long as the trip itself.  We got a new president, new worries, a lot of snow. Jackson and I decided to part ways, knowing full-well the strength of our commitment to this trip and each other. I’ve hardened, built certain bridges I’ll need to cross later, and now the snow is starting to melt. Having those months between me and the Golden Gate Bridge it’s easy to tell you what I’ve lost since ending the bike tour.

Before I returned, I never understood people obsessing over bikes, gear, or other people’s bike videos online. “Go on your own adventure,” I thought. Now, I get it. I’m always in search of anything that can bring me closer to the depth of feeling I experienced on the road.  In return, I miss things more than I used to. I miss the warmth of the sun in early fall, I even miss the rain, the quiet moments filled with camp stove-sizzling. I miss my sleeping bag and misty mornings. I miss eating two avocados and an entire bag of chips and salsa in one sitting. I miss watching birds, having a sore butt, and being undoubtedly weird all the time. I miss me. The unabashed version. The dirty, un-insta-filtered version. I miss the Danielle I went on a bike trip for, the Danielle I promised would transcend the bike tour, flying above the mundane schedules inevitable in my non-touring life.

As I’ve passed in and out of the stages of loss, two months begin to feel like a trivial amount of time in terms of school, work, seasons, but I think about those two months more than anything else. They creep into quiet moments and late-night drives home. They are a good reminder to be bike-trip Danielle as much as I can and sometimes they are a crutch. They make me feel so in touch with the important parts of my life but simultaneously make accessing those parts feel so distant, and difficult.

The past four months I’ve thought about loss more than I want to. But I’ve come to learn, the answer to “what did I lose during the trip?” can have a more positive connotation.

On the trip: I lost my desire to rush, I lost my need for belongings, the need for a schedule, for control. I lost air in my tires, a pannier (damn coons), and arm muscles. I lost fear: of strangers, of people who have hurt me, coaches, myself, my body.  I lost the desire to be anywhere but where I was. I lost cleanliness, seriousness, being paranoid (except maybe of RV drivers). I lost distractions, and in doing so, I also lost my own insecurities. I realized I was never in need of finding.

A bike tour is a great way to expose yourself to your own insecurities. Add in necessary distractions of driving, bills, making money, all the promises I said I’d keep when I returned, the ones I actually kept, a new home, new job, new season, and where does that leave me?

Watching and making videos, longing for a bicycle ride along a shady river. Pushing tent stakes into the soft grassy ground, warming a can of soup until the sun sets, crawling into a cocoon to fall asleep to cricket chirps, hoping to be reminded of what losing feels like.

The best moments of this adventure were never captured but I think these videos are about as close as it gets. Until next time, enjoy!

Jackson met Marvin outside a Town & Country grocery in the agricultural processing town of Warden, Washington, while I was inside finding food for dinner. The cool Fall night had settled in. Migrant workers and farmers filtered in and out of one of the only places to buy food in a 15-mile radius. Each rushing out of the dimly lit store into what turned out to be the first freeze of the season. The crops waiting to be harvested lingered in the back of their minds as they left. I was thinking of the cold too. We determined there was no place to camp in town, no hotels, no RV parks. The time was 9 p.m. but we knew in 15 more miles, past the corn, past the wheat and the potatoes, there was a somewhere to lay our heads.

When I walked out of the grocery I saw Jackson talking to a farmer. I didn’t think much, one of us often finds the other waiting outside grocery stores with our bikes talking to locals. The farmer was Marvin. Marvin grew onions.

“You totally don’t have to do this, we can definitely find some place to sleep,” Jackson said.

“No, no, no,” Marvin said. “It’s just, it smells like onions.”

“Onions?” I thought. I soon realized in the middle of million stalks of corn and wheat, this wasn’t a normal conversation we had outside a grocery store.

“This guy is going to let us sleep in his onion shed,” Jackson said to me, his eyes twinkling with the excitement of finding some road magic. “The shed locks and it’s safe, you cool with that?”

I was definitely good with it, an onion shed, no problem. I’ve been in onion storage before on farms, in small wooden structures, and barn basements.

We followed Marvin’s truck two blocks down the road to a warehouse the size of a football field — the onion shed.

Marvin unlocked the padlock on the chicken wire door and let us in. The warm smell of onions instantly flooded our senses in the dusty space. He found us a light, revealing wooden crates stacked to the ceiling in groups of six and eight — each filled with onions.

He gave us his phone number and a key. That night it did freeze, but we stayed warm layered in our sleeping bags behind a tower of onions.

The onion shed.

That night we received a massive load of road magic. Jackson and I were both familiar with what hikers like to call “Trail Magic”: an unexpected act of kindness. Loving the concept of trail magic we dubbed the kindness that came our way “road magic.”

Road magic comes in many forms. Road magic is getting helpful directions, or a campground suggestion while you’re waiting outside the grocery store. It’s finding an unopened beer on the side of the road, a rainbow you can make out the end of, seeing a magnificent 14-point elk cross the road in front of you, but not too close. Road magic is not knowing where you might sleep at night because you’re in the desert and then finding an unmarked campground on the Columbia River at the end of your day. Road magic feels warm, it reminds us that people aren’t bad, they’re, generally, good.

The unmarked campground after biking through commodity crops and desert on a two-lane road with 18-wheelers passing us.

Since we’ve been back in New England we’ve experienced a lot of sadness, anger, and hate, just as many people have this past week. During these times it’s easy to remember the pick-up truck driver who rolled coal on us on my birthday, or going into a restaurant and not being waited on because we were dirty(?). But I’m making a conscious effort to remember the layers of people — remember the generosity of others — and perpetuating that wherever I can. I acknowledge that the kindness shown to us could potentially be influenced by our race and genders, but I sincerely think the people who helped us would help anyone if they could.

Our next dose of road magic found us the day after my birthday. We contacted a Warm Showers host because it was pouring on-and-off all day and we really needed a dry place to sleep during the thunderstorms headed our way. When I contacted Alden he told me I was welcome but it may be a little crowded because four other bikers were staying that night. We said, “no problem,” and brought the total to six. When we got to Alden’s double-wide trailer there were 11 bikers already there and we made 13.

Pie ❤

The gear room at our biker gathering, only some of our bikes pictured here.

We met bikers from six different countries, Keith made everyone burgers and homemade pie. We shared stories, bickered over the best way to pack up a tent, talked about John Steinbeck and laughed. We even stayed up a past “biker midnight.” At 11 p.m. we all laid out our sleeping bags like we do every night, but this time we weren’t two bikers in the middle of the woods. We were packed like sardines on the living room floor, surrounded by so many different origins, different experiences, different world views, different languages — our commonality: our mode, bicycles. As thunder boomed and the rain fell on the trailer’s tin roof, we fell asleep, dry and together.

During the second half of our trip, Jackson and I were often reminded we aren’t alone. We met very few bike tourists in the first part of our trip. The Pacific Coast, we learned, was filled with other bikers. We finally felt we weren’t spectacular, what we did wasn’t crazy. Being in a community for the first time in a month or two felt so good.

Jackson, Keith and I. Keith clearly is your pot of gold. This photo was taken on the side of Highway 101 in Eureka, CA by a friend Keith met petty cabbing in L.A. Talk about random road magic.

We found some friends and had a biker convoy leaving camp.

In the days following the biker gathering, we weaved in and out of other people’s tours. We shared in the rain and terrain. We shared campsites and yurts, farm meals, high-fives, the excitement of sunshine, a familiar “hi!!” at rest stops. When Jackson and I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge I felt like all the friends we met along the way were right there behind us. Keith, Guillaume, Kristen, Ville, Morgan and the many other bikers who sang songs with us as we passed or shared a few miles.

The world is a confused, tortured, and sometimes dark place, but the only way we can get through it is together. Expand your community. Meet people who aren’t like you. There is positivity in every situation if you look for it. Road magic isn’t about what comes your way, but how open you are to accepting it.

In the words of one of one of my favorite poets, from one of my favorite poems:

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” -Mary Oliver, “Evidence”

I apologize for not posting sooner. To make the trek from Spokane, WA to San Francisco in time for our flight we biked 50-60 miles a day with sunlight hours disappearing as we went. My night time access to a computer was limited. Sorry to those of you looking for more consistent updates. And thank you to those who followed along with us on our journey.

More stories and pictures to come soon.

These are pictures from Spokane, WA to the California border:

Our campsite surroundings.

Making dinner and setting up camp just outside of the Hanford Reach National Wildlife Refuge after a long day of riding.

Somewhere outside of Warden, WA as the sun started setting.

The calm after the storm on Sprague Lake.

Molly and Burner at Bill and Shanti’s house in Spokane.

Headed up White Pass

The top of White Pass, our last pass of the bikeventure.

ROAD MAGIC!!! An awesome surprise running into Mo, our friend from Orono, in Packwood, Washington. What are the chances?

….not quite as funny as it was before.

On the Ferry from Cathlemet, WA to Westport, OR

We made it to the Pacific Ocean!

The top of an awesome climb in Siuslaw National Forest

Crazy dancing in the crazy sand dunes.

A much appreciated warm and dry bed by the ocean.

Exploring.

You bet it is!

Hiding from the rain underground.

Our one day of glorious sunshine on the Oregon coast!

The glorious day of sunshine on the Oregon Coast!

Oregon cliffs with seals.

Glorious sunshine day!

Sunshine!!!

We found this lobser mushroom on the side of the road, which made for a great birthday dinner.

The sunset on my birthday.

We made it!

Our first night in Bozeman, Montana was spent with eight Mainers sitting in a circle on a living room floor. We shared curry and beers in the warmly-lit room bubbling with stories of skiing Sugarloaf and the Maine coast. Despite being 2,500 miles away from the state where we all once lived, it felt like home.

Jackson and I both agree, that meeting new people is one of the best parts of our trip so far. We’ve heard great stories, learned a lot about new places, and received a great amount of hospitality. We’re thankful for the privilege of meeting so many welcoming people, but despite all the new faces we’ve met, there’s nothing like seeing friends so far from home.

Each day the familiarity of our lives stops at the wheels of our bicycles. From the roads we travel, to the places we sleep, everything we experience is entirely new. Always having a new horizon is exciting. Processing that changing horizon takes much more effort, constantly: observing, internalizing, processing, cataloging — it’s why we travel, but it’s also why we fall asleep before our heads hit our pillows.

This past week, we lucked out and got to keep those familiar Maine faces. We spent time off our bikes, hiking, eating, and exploring with some amazing tour guides and friends. We hiked almost every day we were here, giving our butts a break from the bike seat and using some new muscles. We connected with old friends and new. We even got to see our favorite object fall from the sky…snow! Our skiing senses were on overboard hearing about the skiing out here. Each morning we see the tops of the mountains here covered in snow and it’s safe to say we’re excited for ski season.

We will hold off our excitement and hopefully the snow a little bit longer though, so we can enjoy the rest of our trip in warmer temperatures.

We’re currently halfway through this crazy bikeventure. We’re headed westward towards the coast tomorrow with a little help from Will (thanks Will!), and thanks to Ryan, Blaise and Katrina for making our time here so fun.

Here are some pictures and here’s to a whole other month of pedaling.

Biking into the sunset, experiencing the “big sky” of Montana.

The sunset from our campsite along the Missouri River.

Leaving our campsite in the canyon along the Missouri River.

The sunrise from Mount Helena. Our Warm Showers host graciously showed me the way.

The sunrise casting a pink light over the Continental Divide from Mount Helena.

Hiking in the Gallatin National Forest.

Hiking in the Gallatin National Forest.

Hiking in the Gallatin National Forest.

Exploring in the Gallatin National Forest. Photo: Marit

Nothing but blue skies, made for awesome hiking.

Friends! In the Gallatin National Forest. Photo: Marit

Our attempt at summiting Ross Peak before the rain rolled in.

Watching the clouds roll in and eating snacks. Photo: Ryan

Bonus Rainbow after turning around on our Ross Peak hike.

Getting that elevation and getting stoked because it’s snowing. Definitely excited for winter, but happy to head to some lower elevation for biking soon.

Snow!

Stoke levels high in the Gallatin National Forest. Photo: Marit

A poorly extinguished fire and a 1999 National Forest map led us to Cathy.

We met on the steep and sandy Forest Road 200 in the Aeneas Valley, four miles off-route near the Okanogan National Forest on Jackson’s birthday. We were two miles past where we anticipated crossing the border to National Forest. Once in the NF land we could camp wherever we wanted.

Thirty miles earlier in Tonasket, we consulted the employees at the local information center and an old NF map, not realizing the national land would be chipped away at by private hands in the 17 years since the map was printed. Cathy was heading back from extinguishing a fire some RV campers left at a campsite (unknown to us) further up the road. When she passed us with her two dogs Slade and T.J., she offered encouragement and directions to the site just a half a mile up the road. The dust settled.

We continued on our way until we heard the rumble of a truck headed up the road behind us, it was Cathy again, “Hop in, I’ll give you a ride,” she offered.

We carefully hoisted our packed bikes into the bed of her tan pick-up — one end and then the other — and slowly headed up the winding road. Within minutes we were at the campsite. We carefully lowered one bike out of the truck, then the second bike slipped, the front cog puncturing Jackson’s leg. With blood streaming down his leg, it looked like he might need stitches.

Cathy willingly offered us a ride down to her house at the bottom of the hill, where we could clean the wound and address the situation. This is the moment where my “stranger danger” started to kick-in. I think we’re all taught to be wary of strangers, no matter their disposition. But being careful is more challenging when we just assume all strangers are bad, because we aren’t practiced at discerning safe and unsafe situations. I’ve been working hard at embracing uncertainty — and if you’re anything like me, that can be incredibly stressful. Part of the reason I left on this trip to begin with was to practice just that. Life is uncertain. So is this day, this hour. I can’t control any of it. The best I thing I can do, is embrace it all, especially on this trip.

Cathy brought us back to her house where we met her old-man, as she refers to him. Allen, like the Allen Wrench, was a Vietnam-era activist who used to work in the fish business. He’s seen his fair share of wounds via sharp objects. After some cleaning, Jackson decided he probably wouldn’t need stitches. Cathy and Allen suggested we camp out in their yard, so in the morning if the cut looked worse, they could drive us to the hospital in Tonasket.

Cathy and Allen are some of the most generous and kind people we met. That night they shared their pizza with us and Cathy made Jackson a birthday cake with her home-canned cherries. Cathy knew most all the answers to Jeopardy and Allen shared many stories with us.

In the morning, it was cool and dry in Aneas Valley and Jackson’s leg looked much better. We made french toast and packed our bikes to leave. We headed down the driveway to help Cathy pick her green tomatoes from her overflowing garden sprinkled with Amaranth. Later that day Allen was planning to drive to the Canadian boarder to buy bulk butter from a connection. The couple eats mostly food they’ve grown. Allen is still an activist and has since discovered Facebook as a way to share his ideas in the quiet area where they now live. Cathy knows the best she can do for the world is treat her land and those on it with respect and care. Before saying a big thank you and goodbye, we picked most, but not all of the green tomatoes.

“Leave the small ones for the ground squirrels,” Cathy said.

T.J. and Slade hanging out in the sun with our bike bags.

In the past week, we were lucky to meet many generous, storied and interesting people (too many to list here). A bicycle has a magical tendency to open you to these types of conversations in ways a car can’t. When I went on a road trip last summer, I barely met any new people. Perhaps it’s my introversion, but cars have doors that need to be opened. On a bike, I sometimes feel like a moving opportunity for conversation. People are getting out of their cars to tell us about their lives and hear about ours everyday.

Just the other day, we stopped to have lunch by a small stream. A Norwegian journalist named Gunner stopped by on his bike. He interviewed us about the elections as part of a project he’s working on — biking across the country to see what real voters think of the election. What he’s doing is important — hearing what real people have to say, in small towns you’ve probably never heard of. The act of getting to know people you wouldn’t otherwise take the chance to meet is more important than candidates or political platforms. Embracing the opportunity to hear other’s stories, teaches you a lot more about how to get along than making a vote (although you should vote too). How we act in our everyday lives dictates our reality and influences others. The more diversity of experience we have, the better we can be at making a place we all would like to inhabit.

A big thank you to Cathy and Allen, all the Warm Showers Folks (Larry, Lynette, and Aubrey) we’ve stayed with, Keene and Carina, Shelly Bacon and all the others we’ve meet along the way, this adventure is made so much better by your presence.

Morning view in Kettle Falls.

The view from the Biker Hostel in Colville.

A pit-stop for lunch.

This ride reminded us a lot of Maine.

French toast breakfast and bike maintenance on our first off-day.

A beautiful ride to Sandpoint, ID.

Hooray for bike paths on busy roads!

Another day, another pass!

Mmm dinner!

At Sherman Pass, the highest drive-able pass in Washington.