For the last two years I’ve been writing posts for the Adventure Cycling Association‘s blog. My column is called “Sights and Sounds” and I’ve been given the freedom to dig through photos (slides and digital) and recordings (cassette, mini-disc, and and digital) from my (our) travels by bicycle throughout the globe. Some I’ve re-posted on this site, many others I have not.
The photos below link to those posts. If you see a photo that intrigues you … click on it. It will take you on a little mini-adventure. You could find yourself on the dramatic coast of Portugal or up in the highlands of Lesotho. You could end up listening to a impromptu violin concert or the final seconds of a rugby match. And you just might find yourself dreaming of your own travels.
When you do travel, I’d suggest you do it by bike. But that’s not necessary. Even if it’s been decades since you’ve pedaled a bike, I’d bet you could still find beauty and inspiration buried in these links. Browse, click and travel. Enjoy!
If you are an avid touring cyclist and want an unending supply of beautiful roads with little to no traffic … negotiate the month of September as your vacation time for the rest of your working days. Then, when you retire, simply continue this travel pattern until your legs no longer spin.
September is my favorite month to travel. There isn’t a single place in the United States (or the entire Northern Hemisphere, for that matter) I’d avoid in this glorious month.
Summer vacation is over and the summer crowds and traffic that go with it have faded. The sun is angling lower in the sky, which your eyes and camera will love. The days are getting shorter, but the lack of blistering hot afternoons surely makes up for the loss of daylight hours.
Add to that the availability of camping sites and lower prices for airfare, hotels, restaurants, and just about everything else.
May might be Bike Month, but I’d like to nominate September as Bike Travel Month.
As we crested the hill, it appeared as if it were snowing. In southeastern Oregon? In September? It was 75 degrees!
A blizzard of white flakes floated down from the ponderosa pines above. A glance over to the side of the road revealed tens of thousands of butterflies feasting on the nectar of wildflowers. The ditches were white with butterfly carcasses.
It was quite a sight. But it is rather weird to have all of that movement, the flapping of thousands of wings, and no sound.
At least not that we could hear.
Information posted at the Malheur National Forest campground answered many of our questions. We were witnessing a pine butterfly outbreak, an uncommon occurrence. The last documented outbreak in Oregon was in the 1980s.
Pine butterflies (Neophasia menapia) range from British Columbia to Mexico. Their favorite food in Oregon (while in the caterpillar stage) is the ponderosa pine. During a normal year, the caterpillars eat only the older needles of the tree.
But during a large outbreak, they munch on the newer needles as well, weakening the trees and making them more susceptible to pine beetle infestation.
So, this wonderland of butterflies for us was a bummer for the stands of ponderosa pine all around us. Many of the trees in our campground were obviously stressed.
Nature’s control is already at work. The numbers of parasitic wasps that feed on the pine butterfly are up.
As much as we enjoyed the wonder of the butterflies, it’s time to root for the wasps!
Last week I confessed my obsession of photographing house numbers during our bike journey in Portugal.
I realize the short “video” might have had a certain entertainment value, but probably fell far short of convincing the viewer that they should hop on a bike and tour there.
I now present “Countdown Redux”. Twenty-one images that should whet your traveler’s appetite and have you dreaming of your own bike trip through Portugal or somewhere, anywhere on this incredible planet.
When traveling through a country there is so much to take in — sights, sounds, culture, language. It can be overwhelming.
Sometimes I choose certain specific things to focus on as I’m pedaling. Trees or birds, or the hats people are wearing. The signs on the side of the road. Or I’ll pick a color. It is amazing how your perspective changes if you focus on the color red, and later on the color blue. What your eye takes in doesn’t change, but how your brain processes it does.
While we were pedaling in Portugal, I started noticing house numbers. In the small villages, most weren’t generic, but often obviously fashioned by the home owner. I began taking photos of them. Then I got obsessed. I started collecting house numbers like you would try to fill out a bingo card. Could I find and photograph all the numbers from 1 to 100?
This was rather entertaining for me, and rather annoying for my partner, Kat, who constantly had to stop and wait as I dismounted my bike to search for the perfect angle to photograph a house number I hadn’t captured yet.
I didn’t make it to my goal of 100. Somewhere along the way my obsession began to annoy even me. My vision was so zeroed in on house numbers that I was literally missing the big picture.
The video is a shortened version of my countdown to Portugal … as entertaining or annoying as it may be.
Kat and I took a break from the heat and humidity under a tree in northern Thailand. We laid our bikes down by the side of the road and dug through our panniers looking for snacks.
The tree was enormous and the base of its trunk was decorated with colorful ribbons of silk. A local art project perhaps?
Trees are often decorated in public places. Just recently an artist “yarn bombed” trees in Occidental Square in Seattle. It was whimsical fun.
In Thailand, we didn’t meet many foreign cyclists on the road (at least on the routes we pedaled), so we got wonderful reactions from motorists. But never honks. The people of Thailand are some of the most polite drivers on the planet.
So when we heard someone honk as they passed it startled us. Then the next car honked as well. And the next. And the next. Were our bikes too close to the road? But each car only honked once or twice. And the occupants were smiling. We smiled and waved back. For the next thirty minutes it was like being on a parade route. We waved at every car and every car celebrated our journey in Thailand with polite honking.
What was truly strange was that the honking never happened again. It took us at least a week to figure out that the motorists weren’t honking at us.
It was the tree. Or the spirits in the tree. We found someone who explained to us that it is common belief that spirits inhabit certain trees. These trees are often decorated with flowers, garlands, and ribbons.
It is considered good luck to honk once (or twice) as you slowly pass by a spirit tree.
Note: If a couple of touring cyclists are sitting under the shade of that tree, it is still good luck to honk. And it will make the cyclists feel special … at least until they learn a little bit more about Thai culture.
There is something about those roadside mirrors … it’s hard not to stop and take your photo. You know the ones I mean. The big circular mirrors placed on the road so that motorists can get a view of traffic before they pull out or go around a blind corner? They are not that common in the U.S., but I’ve run into them (though not literally) around the world.
Why can’t I pass one without stopping and snapping a few shots? Maybe it’s the realization that after all the dreaming and scheming and planning, we are finally there. In some magical foreign place, filled with new sights and sounds and smells.
I always feel a bit silly trying to focus my camera on the mirror and getting it just right to include the background, our bikes, and us in the photo. But I always laugh and smile as I realize that I’m fortunate enough to have the time and health and good fortune to be able to travel this way.
So I’ll continue to snap these silly little portraits for as long as I am able.
I always smile when I look at this photo. It was taken many years ago, but it feels like I snapped it yesterday.
It was early morning in India in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Lots of climbing, steep grades, and snow on the ground. I pedaled up to this tiny roadside store to buy a cup of hot chai to warm my hands and get my daily sugar rush.
The four girls in the photo were walking to school and stopped at the store as well. They all bought candy and quickly unwrapped the sweets and popped them in their mouths. I already had my camera out. As I was about to take their photo, some of the men outside began to joke with the girls that they shouldn’t be spending all their money on candy. Three of the girls are reacting to the teasing. But one of the girls looks right into my camera. Her gaze has intrigued me over the years.
Looking at this photo, I can feel the rock I was sitting on. I can smell the wood from the fire built to boil chai. And I can still hear the girls’ laughter.
Many a journey’s details are lost over time. But some travel memories never fade.
One of my favorite moments of any bike trip comes when I’m not on my bike. It is that time after a long day’s ride. The tent is set up. The sun is getting low in the sky. There is nothing to do but observe the beauty around me and listen to the world as it winds down.
I’ve heard it said, “If you listen closely … you just might hear your priorities.”
