What a long, strange trip it’s been

April 4, 2021

I imagine that surviving the Plague Year was significantly less traumatic for us than for many of you. After all, we were already homeless itinerants when the lockdown began. With no ready way to shelter in place, it was pretty natural for us to move around to quiet communities where it was easy to keep our distance and get out on our bikes regularly. We can’t imagine what it must have been like for many of you. Still, it’s been a challenging and stressful time unlike any other in our lives.

It’s been just over a year since we scrapped our plans for a pair of spring tours in the southwest and abruptly left Portland for John Day, fleeing from our 23rd floor downtown condo unit and the slow, anxious elevator ride up and down hoping no one else would step in along the way and possibly expose us. We’ve been more or less on the move continuously since then, hopping from one base to another, figuring our lives as we went.

Ready to hit the road, on the real swan song for our faithful Jetta. We love our new car, but we’ll miss Old Paint.

We’ve been indulging in some retrospection lately, especially on those long drives from one base to the next. We can still remember all of the main points of our little odyssey, but thanks to the three journals we faithfully kept up through this time we have a pretty compete and detailed record of where this mad year went.

For about four months we marked time in the Northwest: a month in John Day, a month in the Palouse, a month in Corvallis, and finally a month in Bellingham. For us it was an unexpected excuse to explore in depth some of the incredible richness that our region has to offer. We had many exceptional experiences, including finally satisfying my long-held wish to see Steptoe Butte. The highlight for both of us was an unexpected two week stay at a cabin on Lake Coeur d’Alene, just yards from its famous bike path. The low point is easy to pull out of the memory book too - that dog bite in Dayville that I’m still showing scars from almost exactly a year later.

East of Prairie City, admiring the Strawberry Mountains.

On the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene, near Medimont.

Descending Steptoe Butte. This must be one of the most arresting views in the northwest.

From Bellingham we returned to Portland for three weeks while we agonized on a daily basis over what to do next. If we could, we hoped to fly to Croatia, the only EU country permitting Americans in their door, and then move on to Greece. If that failed we considered just starting biking south from our front door, destination TBD. We really didn’t know what would happen until almost the day for departure to Zagreb, but miraculously it worked out - almost. Our Balkan Dreams tour began just as we hoped, with two unforgettable months in Croatia. From there we caught the ferry to Ancona, Italy with the plan to bike to Puglia and then catch the ferry from there to Greece. We envisioned being gone for five months, and spending Christmas in Crete. Two weeks after hitting the Italian shore though the Covid situation exploded there, the country went into nationwide lockdown almost overnight, and we headed back to the States while we could still get out.

In Međimurje, near the Slovenian border.

Mošćenička Draga, our home for two nights in the Istrian coast.

In the Po Delta, crossing a distributary of the great river on a pontoon bridge.

And then this. For almost five months we’ve taken a long, slow loop through the southwest: 10 days in Chico, another 10 in Morrow Bay, and then east to Tucson for two months (!) when California went into its own lockdown. Then back to California (Borrego Springs, Joshua Tree) and a month in southern Utah.

On the River Mountains Trail, Boulder City.

Socializing at a safe distance on the Loop, Tucson.

Overlooking the Borrego Badlands, Fonts Point.

Sipapu Bridge, Natural Bridges National Monument.

The thumbnail sketch for Team Anderson for the past year looks like this: 3 countries, 7 states, about 10,000 miles on the bikes. One new car, one new President. One dog attack, one near-catastrophic encounter with a UPS truck; perfect health, otherwise. Not bad for such a terrible year, all things considered. But now what?

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