By bike and by foot, Americans discover their country – and themselves
Crossings please the soul. Large or small, they mark an accomplishment: the “t” crossed, the to-do item marked off, the dots connected. The dots may be two huge blue oceans.
“You look at a U.S. map, and you see water on one side, and water on the other side,” says Jarad Schofer, a high school math teacher who walked from Santa Monica, California, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, this year. “You think, to cross it would be incredible.”
As the pandemic has eased and cooped-up quarantine dreams have been unleashed, a small troop of wanderers is walking or bicycling from one side of this country to another. It is a grueling effort – enduring historic heat, grinding inclines, gas station food, and phone-distracted drivers.
Most love it.
They say it fulfills something: a personal challenge, an escape from routine, a connection with others, an insight into themselves. They say they are finding what they sought on the road.
“It’s not about what you see, it’s all the people you meet,” says bicyclist Zach Wierzenski, stopped at a hostel in Virginia. “When you’re in trouble, somebody shows up. It’s literally magic. I have never experienced this kind of kindness before.”
No permit is required to wander about the country, so there are no firm numbers, but some estimate about a dozen walkers and several hundred cyclists cross the country in most years. The pandemic throttled those numbers, though the quarantines did boost bike sales and spurred the impatient to begin training. When COVID-19 eased, they leaped onto the roads.
“It was because of the pandemic. After all of that isolation, we wanted to connect with people,” says
