The Three B's & Reclaiming my life

This summer I hope to write my own story. Maybe a better word than 'writing' would be 'riding'. After school lets out and I'm a college grad I plan on pursuing a bike tour around the western U.S. I've planned the trip around a concept that I call "the three B's"-- bike, books and brews. Some of you undoubtedly will think that this is a little too "hippie" for your tastes... well, maybe it is. Perhaps it is too cheesy for you. The open road, wind in your face, camping under the stars, all the cliches that Bozemanites claim to love. However, I hope to rediscover the West. Why is it that we only camp in the mountains and cannot feel as if we are in nature unless we are in designated nature areas? I have seen Whitman stopped and waiting for me and I will follow the American piper after graduation as I reclaim my faith/hope/love for the real, forgotten America. Along the way I will become increasingly sensitive to the epiphanies that intimate travel will afford me.

Although this class is a capstone and representative of the culmination of my college English Lit. major experience I want to end/begin with my own capstone... a heroes journey if you will. I plan on stepping off the porch of my Wyoming home (preferably at daybreak to give it some symbolic significance) onto my bike and riding off towards my own trials and victories as I pedal across the western states on the back-roads and highways.

I'm going to try and work in a lot of reading throughout the whole journey. Although you might think that I should be scouting all the "road-novels" I can I think I'm going to take a special interest in magical realism. To me it seems like magical realism is the perfect literature for the trip. Hopefully I can model my new found perspectives on one of the strongest characterizations of magical realism-- injecting the common existence with a splash of divine magic. Authors I want to read include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges and Juan Rulfo. Reading these magical stories in my tent along side of some road will hopefully allow my perspectives to swing towards the fantastic.

Also, To fit in with my theme of B's, I'd like to try and map out some local microbreweries along the way and stop in and give them a taste. Even now the tastes of Pale Ale's, Wheat Beers, Hefe's, and Belgian White's pique my desire to get out on the road. I can only imagine hundreds of miles of biking will enhance the taste experience. All those flavors prancing on my taste buds will be a taste of divinity revealed.

Some people I tell this to definitely think it sounds silly. I'm sure they puzzle over my objective to "live my life like it's a book" but I think I'll find that it is one of the most satisfying experiences that I will have undertaken. Part of the reason I'm going is to slow down time. I'm so used from going to A-B in such a hurry (can I ever get to Z? even to Q?!) that it's going to be nice to slow the pace down of travel. By going slower I hope to expand my understanding of the vastness of America and in turn expand my knowledge of what inhabits that space. My goal is to never travel through a place and to say there is "nothing there". After a long time of being conditioned to the pathetic "real world" I ant to resaturate my life with divine magic and reclaim my feeling of humanity.

I'll probably look a lot like some of these bikes traveling down the road.