534 Miles: Our Longest Day

Anyone can pull off an 800 mile car trip now and then, especially when they're 20-something. No one wants to do too many long-mile days when they have 97 back-2-back car trip days. Conveniently our 2nd day on the road would be our longest day of our 97 homeless days: 534 miles.

Camella, my Bacchetta Ti Aero rides expectantly in the back bay our our mini van hoping that most days she can get out to stretch her wheels. She (and I) hope we can find 200 miles a week to ride together on this 97-Day Trek.

And so, we christened the hop out-ride-hop-in model on Day 2. While Camella and I rode from Auburn, IN to Bryan, OH (34 miles), Kirk did his daily reading at the Auburn Starbucks. Reuniting in Bryan was a snap, but a long day it was all the way to Syracuse, where we spent our first married night August 2, 1969.

Last Sunday, Last Sermon, Last Supper

Sunday, June 26th we both left for church at the same time: Kirk by car, I by bike; but I took a long route via Glenview, Northbrook, Riverwoods, Highland Park, Glencoe, Winnetka, and finally Wilmette turning the 15 mile route into 30. It's a ritual I've had for 20+ years--saying goodbye to my biking routes, or in the old days, my running routes, when it's time to leave-take a place.

I paused at Sanders Court (Sanders/Dundee) to drink my morning Starbucks TeaMisto. By outward appearances Sanders Court is just another strip mall, but for 12 years (1978-1990) it was a central part of our family's life: McDonalds, Cat's Meow, Dominicks. This was the intersection where each of the kids learned to cross busy streets with the lights, a coming of age event at age 10, and weekly grocery shopping with Kirk.



I actually found myself overflowing with feeling remembering those long-ago events on this corner that just sits there and doesn't know or care how much life happened for our little family right there.

Jen joined us at church on this Last Sunday for Kirk's Last Sermon and our last time to hear our Choir. Thank you Jen, thank you Julia, Andy, and choir. By the time Andy concluded the Handel's Largo there was not a dry eye, no not one.

Leaving Wilmette came hard. It's not easy to just leave after 40 years of a rich and full life in this vibrant Chicago. There was a run to Millen's Hardware, the post office, our Last Supper (even though it was mid-day) at Siam Splendor (our all-time Thai fave, a tart yogurt cone for Kirk at Evanston's Yogurt 38, Rose's Bakery for one last Red Velvet Vegan cupcake for Jen and me, and a gas station fill-up, the first of nearly daily fill-ups these next 97 days. Finally our car pointed east to Auburn, IN where we'd spend our first night on the road with Mike and Cindy, Katie's in-laws with whom we've shared Thanksgivings for the past 10 years.

Couldn't Be Late For Dinner

Our last night in Illinois will be, again, at The Fairfield Inn in Glenview. I rode my bike into the lobby of the hotel, parked the "B" in my room, and headed out promptly for the corner Mobil for a Red Bull, my one vice. Still garbed in full riding gear my 2011 PAC Tour jersey was enough incentive for a gentleman walking across the parking lot, also heading to the Mobil for a Red Bull, to strike up a conversation about biking.

Paul was his name, a transplant from Alabama. He'd bought himself a bike trying to get in shape, a decent bike, too. But he didn't know how to pump up his tires. Could I help him? Dinner, this our last night in Illinois, would be shared with Julia and Marty Davids, gifted musicians, at Kabul in Skokie--awesome Afghani food. If Paul would meet me in the parking lot Sunday morning at 7:00 we'd have tire pumping lessons.

We met; tires got pumped up; he was a a happy camper.

D Minus 2 and counting

Three college-age Mayflower gals knocked on our Wilmette front door at 9:00 a.m. Thursday, June 24th. Over the next 9 hours they packed 103 boxes most at our house, plus however many boxes it took to pack 1,000 of Kirk's books from his church office, and that was after he purged 1,000 books!

It easily would have taken us a week-plus to do what they did in 9 hours. Must be skilled technique--theirs not ours.

Thursday dinner would be at Allgauer's in Northbrook a convention center restaurant of memories from the mid-80's to present. Never will forget the time in the mid-90's when Kirk treated me to their amazing seafood buffet. Only time in my life I over ate to the point all I could do was go to my hotel room and crash from 9:00 till morn.

We would motel it at The Fairfield Inn in Glenview our last two nights in Wilmette since we would have no furniture. Never occurred to us till Allgauer's mid-dinner we would have no bedding this last night at 1010 Lake Ave. Let's just say it was a creative night.

June 25th four Mayflower guys knocked on our Wilmette front door at 9:00 a.m. to put the 103 boxes + the furniture into vaults in their Mayflower truck. The Four Guys (not to be confused with the Five Guys) finished their job in 3 hours!!!!!!

The vaults will be stored in Mayflower's warehouse till we finish our 99-Day Trek To Tucson and paint our walls with real southwestern colors instead of the Parsonage Off-White we've been looking at for 39 years.

Kirk completed his last workout at his Wilmette Fitness Center while I rode my last ride up to Great Lake's Naval finishing up at the Glenview Motel. Two baby fox were romping on the McGlory Path. Hard to believe the next time I ride this route I'll be a visitor.


Lake Forest Arbor Art

Dinner this night after packing with the Piggotts at Glenview's Wildfire reminiscing 33 years of friendship beginning with the birth of Katie in 1978; potty parties and gum balls to inspire the little ones to give up their diapers; and culminating in 2011 with a passel of grandchildren and retirement for all.

Planning In Panama

January found us on a Princess Ship cutting a path between the seas by day and planning our Tucson Trek by night. We returned home to Wilmette in time for the February 2nd blizzard, third largest in Chicago history, and all the incentive we needed to shout an affirmative to the call of Tucson.

What we knew by the time the snow was plowed from our front and back door and the garage door could once again rise and fall was:

• We would leave Chicago June 26th to begin our 99-day journey of transition after 40 Chicago-years child-bearing, child-rearing, child-marrying, and answering each of our calls to full-time service, Kirk as ordained Methodist clergy in 5 congregations, me as an addiction counselor and executive leader in several national addiction treatment programs.

• We would car-trip for 99 days to Tucson by way of New England, South GA for a family reunion, Charleston, SC, Williamsburg, my 1,300 mile, 17-day Circle Tour of Lake Michigan with some bike buddies and Kirk SAGGING for us, a shopping spree in Tucson to buy much-needed furniture, 2-3 weeks of exploration of Southern CA, and finally a welcome arrival in Tucson after the 100+ degree temps have dropped into the 80's (but it's a dry heat, you know).

Who Knew

Who knew that we'd buy a townhouse in Tucson in February, 2010? We just went to visit our son, Daniel, before I rode for a week with PAC Tour in south east Arizona to escape the interminable winter in Chicago.

But buy a townhouse we did and the decision-making process took about 10 minutes. The place was still under construction so we could joyfully have input into the floor plan layout, flooring, colors, and more.

Daniel could expect to see us in the summer of 2012 after Kirk's retirement from 40 years of ministry with the United Methodist Church in northern Illinois.

Who knew that in October 2010 Kirk would decide 39 years of ministry was quite sufficient? We would plan to move to Tucson in the summer of 2011 instead.

Who knew that if we had waited to buy a townhouse AFTER Kirk retired, no bank would finance our purchase since we would not have guaranteed income and no equity since we'd lived in parsonages for 39 years?

Who knew that we would be successful in renting our townhouse and that our tenant's lease would extend through September 30, 2011?

In the United Methodist Church "change over", i.e. musical pulpit exchanges happen the first of July each year. Any comings and goings, including retirement occur on that date. And since in the United Methodist Church parsonages are part of the package those going must be out of the parsonage so that those coming have a place to come to.

Who knew that the above "who knews" would mean we would be homeless from June 25th to October 1, 2011.

No worries, we would just car trip with my bike in back of the mini-van and visit all the people and places that have given meaning to our first 42 years of marriage as well as state-side people and places yet to be known and visited.

And so began the planning for our Trek To Tucson.