Home Again, to prepare for the baby

Yesterday we arrived back in Denver after finishing biking across Kansas. It was beautiful, albeit hot and humid, biking into the Flint Hills of my childhood and visiting with dear high school friends in Manhattan. Our final biking day of 73 miles had the wind at our backs- a great reward for our joyful struggles into the wind almost the whole rest of the riding. From Manhattan (the little apple) we biked in to Perry where we were met by my cousin Troy who took us up to my Aunt Rosie's little get away with a beautiful view. We cooked a meal with veggies from Rosie’s garden and hung out with my cousins Troy and Trent. The following day the plan was to bike into Leavenworth, getting us all the way across the state of KS where we were to rent a car. But overnight gout set in to Jim's ankle and I decided that not being able to clip out of his left side was not safe. So we visited Lecompton (KS's first capitol and site of the writing to the pro-slavery KS constitution that was bloodily defeated) and then drove to the Missouri River, rented a car and drove to grandma's for our final stay with her this bicycling adventure. In the morning before returning to Denver, we ate at the Q-Inn and visited the old farmstead where my grandparents started their lives together; the farm my father and uncle Vaughn were raised on and we five grandchildren learned the ways of farming; the farm my granddad returned to a few days before dying so that he could get up in and drive in his combine one last time. I always love exploring the nooks and crannies of the old out buildings and always find something to bring home and lots to ask grandma about and in the big red barn love visiting the white owl that keeps watch over aging items that accompanied my father’s family over their many years of farming and living.
So our Heartland tour has come to close. It shrunk from three and a half weeks to ten days for a total of 600 miles due to the news of our adopted child’s arrival. As is always the case, we met many generous and warm people and learned of the lives they live and this time connected to the landscape of my childhood and father’s ancestry. We return home to a new, more challenging and rewarding ride- that of being parents in a few short days. We have much to learn and be humbled by and much beauty to experience. I think the tandem has helped prepared us for the largest journey we will take together. On the seat of a bicycle for two we work together in sync, negotiating our different approaches and styles and melding them into something new that supports and helps us grow in ways we did not even know were possible. On the seat of a bicycle for two we are faced with the elements and ups and downs of existence and join forces to lovingly make our way along the road and feel the joy and challenge of life.

(pictures forthcoming....)