the road to bloomington

state number 8, indiana...met an old bike mechanic along a bike path, he is currently unemployed and living in a church. speanding his days doing free bike work and workshops along the side of the bike path. he'd worked in bike and record shops his whole life, always saved up for and bought what he wanted, never used credit. was rear-ended by a drunk driver who had not license, much less insurance. he lost everything he owned dues to the medical expenses. what the fuck is wrong with our country? the memory of Bill will stay with me as i hope to see bike workers earn the wages they deserve and get some decent health care...terre haute indiana, life-long home of eugene debs was a real trip we hung out with some crazy dudes in a tattoo parlor that turned out to be real nice gave us pizza & a place to stay, but not a free tattoo...then on to bloomington where the weather has finally cooled down and the people have been nice...back in the hippy/hipster/activist bubble...more on bloomington once i've gotten a chance to get my bearings...we plan to stay here for a bit.

-jon

awesome!!!!

last night we went out for a bike ride with the fore-mentioned rat patrol. it was so much fun!!! mobbing around on freak bikes jc rode a tall bike made from a couple of little kid frames...he looked ridiculous in his tech-fab outfit pedaling like mad...tyger and i rode a tandem with only one set of handlebars...after we altered the gear ratio, no shifting either, we were faster than a bat out of hell...added bonus with tyger's hands free he was able to keep opening more beers out of my bag...there was tall bike jousting...a cop that only wanted to watch and bum a cig...an amazing dumpster buffet out behind the trader joes...and lots and lots of cheap beer...all injuries were minor...fun like that oughta be illegal..come to think of it, it already is illegal...chicago is amazing, i'm sorry to be leaving in the morning, but it's south to bloomington.

-jon

This is for Saying Yes

“Play like Saturn is on his knees, proposing with all of his 10,000 rings that we give every singe breath...This is for saying yes" -A.G.

So it's official, I am leaving this afternoon. I bought a train ticket and I'm heading back to Olympia for an undetermined amount of time...
I want to make a last blog post to reflect and say THANK YOU...
to Cycle-A-Circus for making me part of the family despite my lack of circus skills. To Saturn, Ghost, Hannibal, Pearl, Spark, and Surly Shirley Tip Tows for making this journey with us and taking us places we never would have gone otherwise...
To Lilia for being one of my favorite people ever and talking with me about everything and knowing all the sweet pop songs...I can't tell you how grateful I am you were part of this journey. To Tyger for making me laugh more than anyone besides Cameron, always finding a beautiful light to look at everything under, and incessantly reminding me how awesome life is. To JC for being so excited and enthusiastic about everything and being the master dumpsterer. To Jon Jon for having such a genuinely good heart, reminding me over the past weeks why we used to hang out all the time, and being a good bike mechanic. To Micah for being so thoughtful and observant and having an amazing ability to sleep anywhere.
To all of the people who helped us out along the way, whose generosity got us through the days. For all of the smiles and hellos, the good lucks, the interest taken in what we're doing, the advice on places to go and sleep, the food, the yards and houses to sleep in, the showers, the directions, the encouragement, the conversations...
To the farmers and workers and land who produced the food that kept me fueled. To those who made the sections of bike path we rode on possible. To the exorbitant amounts of roadkill for always reminding me how scary cars are. To the poets whose words I kept with me for constantly giving me new inspiration. To the moon for making me fall in love with you over and over again every night. To the bugs and birds and trees and other creatures, the caterpillar that shot orange things out of its head, the mountains of western MT, the rolling hills of WI and everything between and beyond, to the epic lightning and hail storms for being breathtakingly astounding, giving me a constantly renewed sense of awe, and reminding me how small I am. To the mosquitoes for showing me the power of small things, especially in mass numbers. To the frustrating headwinds for trying to teach me to accept the things I cannot change, and to be patient.
I could literally go on for pages with this...thank you to Caylan, DJ, Gabe, the people who brought us strawberries and bananas in the morning, whoever corrected the stop sign to read "Stop Voldemort" for making me laugh, the Lutherans in Kremling for their kindness and cookies and brownies, the librarians in Cut Bank for all of their help, Wendy for so much hospitality and Aloe for my sunburn, the woman at the gas station who felt bad for me so gave me free fried chicken under the pretense that I was the 50th customer, to the organizers of the block party in Minneapolis, to the workers everywhere who keep things going...
These are only snapshots of the incredible amount of generosity and amazingness I experienced all along the way. There's no way I could begin to complete this, but thank you to everyone and everything I encountered for teaching me new things and giving me new things to think about. I was amazed everyday…It didn't matter where we were...everyday brought new adventures and new lessons. I'll always have the memories we created, from the Night at the Post Office in Etheridge to the beautiful day lost in Frerret, to the rounds of Asshole, to the days of riding and riding and riding…

Thank you to Saturn, my bike and the planet, for reminding me that I am alive, to put myself into everything. To give every single breath...

And again, an especially big thank you to the bike crew, Lilia, Jon Jon, Tyger, JC, and Micah...I love you all. Thanks for everything. I may or may not rejoin you down the road, but either way know that I am leaving this feeling more in love with life than I ever have. I am so grateful for you all and grateful for this experience. Sorry for the long rambling post...

Keep taking care of yourselves and each other. Hope to see you all soon…

Big love,

Kaite

the post without a name

consistently unexpectedly awesome, that's the best i can describe our trip. the last few days have found us along beautiful bike paths...a totally new environment, we aren't in the same midwest...a gorgeous, spacious apartment in chicago...hooked up by the rat patrol...we visited an impressive ba'hai temple...experienced an urban thunderstrom complete with shocking bursts of lightning over the city's skyline at sunset...and the most random occurrence of stumbling upon a presidential debate...we (kaite, lilia, & i) actually saw all 7 of the main democratic contenders at a AFL-CIO sponsored forum that was aired live on msnbc...alas, we didn't raise a ruckus, union folks tend to be gregarious, nice folks...sadly we will be parting ways soon...temporarily...Micah is catching a train to boston to visit family...kaite a train back west to get zir commitments resolved so ze can join us down the road...tyger & jc be headed east to cleveland...and lilia & i are travelling south to bloomington indiana to pitch in with the efforts to stop i-69...all , save kaite, will be back together first week of september...

thankfully,
-jon

milwaukee

leaving madison after an evening of kickball, beer drinking, and wondering where micah is we biked along a nice path that took us most of the way to milwaukee where we made for the wisconsin state fair. while the weather has given us a slight reprieve cooling down to highs below 90 the people have also gotten condsiderably colder. in an ironic twist the police have been the friedliest folks despite swarming tyger as he juggled knives out front of the fair, they just seemed bored, and were quite chummy and were even encouraging of our trip / busking. otherwise people tend to ignore you here, even if you're just saying hi or good morning, much less perfoming for them. and the library system has some pretty exclusive policies(no free internet!). however, tyger managed to bypass the security on the card catalog computers and bam free internet. we're gonna give the fair another shot today and see if we can't make a little funds before moving on to chicago.

JC reporting for fun!

Ah but another place to post about the extravagant and highly enjoyable bike trip around the World! Its been amazing week meeting up with Cycle-@-Circus now back up to 6 members and we've been working on polishing a street performance act. Its also nice to take a little break at an Organic farm here in Madison, Wisconsin to recharge my batteries and catch up on sewing projects and whatnot. Anyway, I've also got my own livejournal which I try to keep up to date as my own travel log that dates back to when I was in Europe at:
www.livejournal.com/users/yanomamo/
and I'm uploading pictures sometime while I'm here as well (I have about 360 to go through) and I've already got some pictures from this trip as well as the one to Europe at:
http://s144.photobucket.com/albums/r182/offthegridteam/

Minnesota trapped us

Well, as Jon indicated, Tyger and JC met us in Minneapolis on Sunday. This of course required that Jon's secret army of ninja spies be executed. This, combined with the copious amounts of wine consumed Sunday night, got us off to a late start on Monday. We stayed at a park close to the Wisonsin border, and biked to a town just across the state line, Prescott, and ate breakfast at a picnic table by the Mississippi River the following morning. And then, we were lured back to the other side of the river and spent the day in a place we'll call Frerret. I spent the entire amazing day sitting in the river with water to my neck, the current running toward me, reflecting on this trip and how amazing it has been and how amazing it was that I was sitting in the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin and how beautiful and awesome life is and how beatiful and amzing people are, and how beautiful it is every time our lungs breathe this life and our hearts pump blood through our veins and how soul-squishing capitalism is. Everyone else spent the day juggling and playing music. It was a glorious day. So we slept there, then went back across the river to Prescott in the morning, and found ourselves eating breakfast at the same picnic table. Then we had a brilliant plan to build a raft but Prescott failed us with it's lack of materials. So we went back to Minnesota and hung out in the park for a few hours. I crossed the river so many times, Minnesota Wisconsin Minnesota Wisconsin Minnesota Winconsin. Anyway, we finally got on our way, and our now in Pepin, WI. We stopped here for lunch and swam in the lake and now there is a severe thunderstorm warning, so we are still here! But we are well on our way to Madison, and excited to spend some time there.
The ride today was absolutely beautiful. We finally hit some hills again, after lots of flat. Up and down is fun.
It's super fun with the new additions to the group. They bring lots of positive energy and excitement and humor and insight and free-food scoring skills.
I can't believe it's already nearing the end of July...
Also, we saw a fox and the moon has been beautiful.

Kaite