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A Few Clouds and Breezy She faced retirement on two wheels
Woman takes 4,144-mile bike trip across the U.S. Northern Tier
“This is it. Today I sit at Kitty O’Hara’s Irish Pub on Merrick Road having a beer and getting online to update my blog. Tomorrow I fly to Seattle. A mixture of emotions as I sit here across the street from the gift shop where 8-year-old Carol would walk around and buy Mother’s Day presents … It’s all rather dream-like, especially because I’m going off on this bike adventure tomorrow, mixed with the flashbacks to childhood and adolescence.”
- From Carol Myers’s blog on the eve of her 4,144-mile cross-country bicycle trip.
When Baldwin native Carol Myers realized Part 2 of her life was approaching, she was stumped about what to do next. But not for long.
After over 30 years as an educator, the 59-year-old, who was about to hit retirement, decided to climb aboard her 2014 Salsa Vaya 2 touring bike and pedal her way across the northern tier of the U.S.
For Myers, the lead-up to her journey came with some careful preparation — first, just reading about the logistics of such a trip, then getting into shape by taking short bike trips closer to home.
And then there was the mental preparation, including making the decision to take the trip. “Back in September, I flew up [from home in Athens, Ga.] to see my mother,” she wrote in her blog. “It had been a stressful period at work. Sitting in the plane, I made a decision to ride my bike across the country right after retiring. Rather than leaving my 30-plus years of work with the state of Georgia worn out and depleted, I wanted to leave moving forward to something and giving myself a time of transition.”
She decided to make the trip from Anacortes, Wash., to Orr’s Island, Maine, a journey that would ultimately take her 84 days and end with a family reunion. She completed her ride on Aug. 25.
Of course, this wasn’t Myers’s first ride on a two-wheeler. Growing up in Baldwin meant getting from here to there on her bike. Whether it was from her childhood home on Silver Lake Place — where her mother, Rosemary, still lives — to school at St. Christopher’s and later Baldwin Junior and Senior High, she grew to love bike riding.
