Most of my grand adventures are really just a misadventure with a more successful-sounding name. Like that time we were canoeing down the rushing river on a warm sunny day and my darling clever husband dumped us all out. Lost in a Tarzan moment, he leaped up on to a low-hanging tree branch, leaving sister and me with the paddles. Being the kind souls that we are, dear sister and I craftily maneuvered the canoe just below him so that he could calmly drift back to his seat. But of course that's not how it happened. Next thing we knew, we're swimming for our lives in dark, snake-infested water, clinging to the sinking canoe because the thought of what might be lurking below us was far more horrifying than drifting to the bottom with the canoe.
So about that tandem bicycle. When Bouie and I first met, we had all sorts of life-changing "adventures". We never intended to get married or settle down. We spent days going over details of the world-traveling, seafaring adventures we each had planned. One day I received a phone call from Bouie, asking me to meet him in San Diego for a "surprise". I had just finished working on a sailboat in the Bahamas and Bouie had just completed hiking a long trail in California. On somewhat of a whim and because I rarely said no to an opportunity for adventure, I hopped on a train and headed to San Diego.
Bouie met me with the frame (only the frame) of a tandem bicycle and a huge grin on his bearded face. He hugged me and said in the most excited voice I had ever heard "Guess what?! We're going to Canada!" It took a few moments for me to link this rusty piece of metal with his big announcement. And then I realized that this was his worst idea yet. But I didn't want to let him down. So I tried to see the potential for adventure as I imagined adding brakes, a couple of seats, wheels, you know, all those other things necessary for a bike to actually travel somewhere.
We spent 2 weeks getting our vessel travel-ready. This was quite a task considering my luggage. Bouie had given no indication that his "surprise" required one to travel light. And I do not naturally travel light. Since we had very little money and we were planning to spend the next weeks on the road, our bicycle construction required us to be very frugal and very creative. Fortunately, one of the friends we were staying with had just recovered from knee surgery and happened to have an extra wheelchair. This came in handy as a bike trailer when we lifted up the leg rests and added a few ropes for holding suitcases and things in there. As you might imagine, it was very classy-looking. People even stopped to take pictures of us riding it down the street.
I snapped on my hand-painted bike helmet (bike maintenance is not my thing so I had a lot of extra time on my hands during those 2 weeks), made sure my suitcases were extra-secure in the wheelchair, and said goodbye to San Diego. The handlebar streamers were flying in the breeze (also handmade, it was important to look very snazzy) and we hadn't a care in the world. Except that the bicycle never had brakes. Just not in our budget. Which was usually no big deal. One of us just yelled "FEET" as an announcement that we needed to stop immediately. You simply removed your feet from the bike pedals and stomped them as quickly and efficiently as possible on to the ground. This usually worked. But when you're in downtown San Diego and there are a lot of other forms of traffic, an extra-long tandem bicycle WITH a wheelchair attached to it does not necessarily always receive the right-of-way. In that moment, "FEET" did not get yelled in the timely fashion that was apparently necessary for that particular situation. And our tandem bicycle adventure came to a not-so-screeching halt. Apparently brakes really should be a priority in the budget when planning a cross-country tandem bicycle ride.
But the story doesn't end there. We did make it to Canada. By train. Which meant that we could see the gorgeous West Coast scenery without pedaling against-the-wind into it (we later learned that we had chosen the worst possible time of year for this northbound trek across America). And I see now that life is really like this. One misadventure after the next. Or one opportunity after the next to find adventure right where you are. The art of finding beauty in those little moments.
When my husband and I got married, my grandparents had their 1920s tandem bicycle restored for us. They liked our California bicycle story. Beautiful, red and shiny, it looks nothing like our other tandem bicycle that is probably still sitting in an alley in San Diego.
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