Miriam Klein, age 65, always wanted to go on a cross-country bicycling trip, a goal that was born during her childhood. When she was around 7 years old, her family moved from New York City to California and traveled by car on local roads. She says the car would often break down, which gave her the opportunity to see the country. “For me at my age, it was a huge adventure,” she says. “We were traveling slowly enough in this old car that I was really getting a sense of what each place was.”
As a teenager living in Los Angeles, she decided to ride a defunct 3-speed bike to Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills and stay on it to see where it would take her. She rode all day and ended up at the beach in the next county over. “I was so impressed that it was possible to do that on my own power,” she says. A couple years later, she got a 10-speed bike and completed a trip by herself over the mountains to the desert. She seemed destined to make a cross-country adventure happen.
But then, like so many of us, marriage, family, jobs, and weight gain made it impractical to attempt such a feat.
When Miriam was around 55 years old, she decided she needed to do it sooner rather than later, even if she had to divide the adventure into shorter sections. She resolved to get started on the eastern leg of the trip.
Her first month-long trip took her from Louisville to Albany, New York, and made her realize that her pace was slower than she anticipated. Plus, being away from her family that long was challenging. The next year, she flew to Albany and began a two-week trek that took her to Portland, Maine. There she dipped the front wheels of her bike in the Atlantic Ocean, a ritual among cyclists who undertake a cross-country journey. By the second trip, she says she ‘understood the assignment’ and began planning her western starting and ending locations.
The first segment of the western leg took her from Louisville to Davenport, Iowa, through Indiana and Illinois. The next trip began in Iowa and ended in Norfolk, Nebraska, a town she says was just lovely. After that, she biked the rest of the way through Nebraska and ended in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Her Wyoming trip took her through Yellowstone National Park to Bozeman, Montana.
When Miriam attempted to begin the next time in Bozeman, she only made it three days to Helena before wildfire smoke ended the trip prematurely. Although she decided to drive to Missouri to ride the Katy Trail across the state instead, she was disappointed. “I just couldn’t stop thinking that I was supposed to be in Montana. I was missing my mountains,” she says.
This year, Miriam began in Helena, Montana, and ended in Spokane, Washington. “Next year, God willing, I’ll go to Astoria, Oregon, which is on the Pacific Ocean,” she says.
While the bike trips have been epic, Miriam says there is a bit of sadness to each one in that she knows she will never see some of these beautiful places again. “I think what balances that is the thought, ‘What is around the next corner?’” she says. “I have to let go of this adventure, but I’m going to get a different one.”
Miriam has found her solo bicycling trips to be restorative on different levels. “In my daily life, I’m multitasking all the time. I always feel like I’m falling behind,” she says. “On my bike trip, my job is to get on the bike and ride. When I get off the bike, I find some food, write about [the journey], find shelter, and then do it again. What I experience is this one-pointedness, and it is very liberating.”
Restoration has been on her mind during these western trips because of the devastation of wildfires and drought she’s seen in her travels. “I’ve had this ongoing grief about the place I’m in, which is not my personal grief, but grief for the environment,” she says. At the same time, when she saw the regrowth surrounding dead trees from the 1910 fire in Silver Valley Idaho (considered the biggest in U.S. history) as well as moose, deer, and other wildlife, that made her feel optimistic. “There is such vitality and power in the natural world,” she says.
Finally, Miriam says that each adventure restores her belief in the goodness of people. Others have shown her kindness in words and deeds, whether it was offering her assistance when she got flat tires or sharing food and drink with her. “The greatest gift that I’ve gotten is conversations with people different from me,” she says.
By Carrie Vittitoe | Photo Submitted
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