Bicycling Beyond the Divide : Two Journeys into the West

by Farmer, Daryl

• ISBN13: 9780803220348
• ISBN10: 0803220340
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

On a journey begun twenty years earlier, Daryl Farmer, a twenty-year-old two-time college dropout, did what lost men have so often done in this country: he headed west. Twenty years later and seventy pounds heavier, with the yellowing journals from that transformative five-thousand-mile bicycle trek in his pack, Farmer set out to retrace his path. This is his story of pursuing that distant summer and that distant dream of home, where home is endless space, a roof of big sky, and a bed of dry earth.Just as the years altered the man, so, too, have they altered the West, and Farmer's second journey affords a unique perspective on these changes-as well as on what lasts. Whether caught in a Colorado snowstorm or braving a Yellowstone herd of bison, kayaking with orcas in Puget Sound, trading Ninja moves with a homeless man in San Francisco, or getting the lowdown on aliens on Nevada's Extraterrestrial Highway, Farmer charts a moving landscape of people and places. This is the West where the natural world and personal character are inextricably linked, and where one man's ride into the past and present takes us to the heart of that ever-evolving connection.

Author Biography

Daryl Farmer has published essays, short stories, poems, and reviews in several journals including South Dakota Review and Prairie Schooner.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Prologue	p. xi
Colorado
Departure	p. 2
On How Not to Begin	p. 4
Florissant to Fairplay	p. 7
Hoosier Summit	p. 13
Below Freezing	p. 19
A Colorado Cow Patch South of Baggs	p. 25
Wyoming
Outlaws, Antelope, Prairie Dogs, and Sage	p. 34
Night at the Antelope Saloon	p. 49
To Jackson	p. 52
Elkfest	p. 59
Signal Mountain Lodge	p. 61
How to Bicycle through a Buffalo Herd	p. 68
Richard I	p. 75
Montana
Another Log on the Fire	p. 84
Paradise Valley to Ennis	p. 88
Virginia City to Opportunity	p. 99
Anaconda to Missoula	p. 105
Face-planting on Highway 2	p. 114
Glacier National Park	p. 122
Kalispell Again	p. 127
Libby to Troy	p. 135
Idaho
Karaoke Night in Bonners Ferry	p. 142
Washington
Fire Trucks and Rodeo Queens	p. 152
Okanagan to Friday Harbor	p. 158
The San Juan Islands	p. 168
Anacortes to Port Angeles	p. 179
A Side Trip to Victoria	p. 185
Port Angeles to Shoalwater Bay	p. 190
Winnefred	p. 200
Oregon
Astoria to Newport	p. 208
On a Sunday Morning	p. 213
A Coming to Peace	p. 220
At the North Bend Airport	p. 235
Intermission: San Francisco
Like a Haggard Ghost	p. 238
City of Hills	p. 246
Return to Oregon
North Bend to Gold Beach	p. 254
California
To Eureka	p. 262
From Modesto to Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes	p. 267
From Mammoth Lakes to Mono Lake	p. 280
Nevada
Tonopah	p. 284
The Extraterrestrial Highway	p. 293
Utah and Arizona
Modena to Kanab	p. 306
At Jacob Lake	p. 311
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