The planning was quite easy because I’d known for at least four years that I would have to take the trip. Initially the details had not been ironed out and I didn’t even know who would accompany me. By Christmas, though, I knew when, with whom, how and the general route. The when wasn’t easy for we had to clear a number of obstacles from our path; work, school, family, etc. The with whom was taken care of after many a dinner table discussions and contemplative evenings. The how was quickly settled after visiting the International Human-Powered Vehicle Convention in Amsterdam. The route wasn’t fully certain before departure but ya always need a bit of adventure when undertaking such an event. And what the heck, Google Earth will get us anywhere.

It was a very cold May 1st. The winter had been extremely mild. Not a flake of snow in Tübingen and the mercury hardly dropped below minus 5° C. Spring, though, had turned bitter cold. It was as if the weather god had been holding back on the cold and wind from Winter and released it all in one nasty blast. Back in December when we were ironing out the last details, I was still out jogging in shorts and a T-shirt and the sun was warming my back as I remodeled the innards of our vehicle.

As departure approached in late April, we were having some of the worst weather I could remember. Freezing temperatures, snow, sleet and days without a glimpse of the sun. I was afraid that Julian was gonna rethink his decision and I, too, was wondering about camping out in such arctic conditions.

I do need to expound on my traveling partner. It’s Julian, my 19 year old son, oldest of three children. He’s about 6 foot 3 and just fits in the cockpit. He’s got the figure of a star athlete and the looks of a movie star (this is, of course, my objective opinion). His long blonde hair recalls the days of Jim Morrison and Jimmy Hendrix but his demeanor reminds me of myself some 20 years ago.

Our “vehicle” was polished and ready to go. It’s a peddle-powered tricycle, aka human-powered vehicle. It has two front wheels and one rear wheel where the drive train is located. The street machine is enclosed by a transparent, plexiglas encasing and a floor and sides made of a sturdy, synthetic compound. The braking power was electrically converted and charged a 12 volt battery about half the size of a car’s battery. This was a very helpful asset for it charged our laptop, mp3 players, speedometer and GPS unit. The laptop was built into the dashboard for easy access. The computer supplied us with our navigation system, internet access, movies, games and the like. I installed an adapter so we could tap into the cellular network and whenever wifi is available we’ll of course use that.
The seats, situated like those in a ferrari, are constructed out of carbon fiber and nicely cushioned. The crank set and peddles are directly in front of the seat and at about the height of my belly button. The handle bars are situated below the seats with grips to the left and right of each seat. The driver has complete control of steering and braking, shifting and acceleration (peddling) are independently controlled.

The seating is very comfortable and relaxed. By moving ones legs in such a rhythmic motion, the cramps and pains associated with automobile travel are absent. The reclined seats allow for complete horizontal head movement. The upper plexiglas shell could be opened up in the front like an mussel. Two sturdy hinges and a hydraulic rod in the back made opening the large door quite elegant.

So enough on the technical aspects for now. You’re probably more interested in the trip anyway. Like I said it was pretty darn cold that Saturday morning in May. We had packed the night before and after a small breakfast and a way too short goodbye we climbed into the cockpit and headed off on our journey. The twangs of longing surged through my belly as I waved to my wife and daughter. As always my strongest feelings of missing home and family came upon my departure.

We progressed through downtown and we smiled shyly at the onlookers. A vehicle of this sort had never before been seen in these parts and the city folk were quite amazed. We zoomed over the Neckar bridge and passed through the gate and along the walls of the ancient old town. The fortress walls and medieval cathedral of Tübingen, birthplace of my boys and my second home, were the take off point of this eastward trip.

Not before long we were out on the open country road, heading toward the Black Forest and the French border. The gentle rolling landscape granted us a chance to warm up our muscles and prepare for the climb over the mountains. Although never feeling quite at home here, the German countryside has always given me a sense of tranquility. The valleys, lined with hedges and filled with farmland, are surrounded by thick forested hills. Villages appear in a random fashion every 5 or 10 kilometers.

Within an hour we had reached the edge of the Black Forest. The rolling farmland turned into rolling woods, then steeper valleys and low mountains. We chose a route through the northern Black Forest so we would avoid the higher elevations. After struggling up and out of various deep valleys we made it to the top of the mountain range and rode along quaint mountain streams and passed by the typical farm homes of the area. Large two-story homes with dark wooden siding and a wide roof with generous eaves. Thick carved columns decorated the corners of the houses.

We’d made good time by then and glancing over at Jules I felt a sense of pride and I was happy that he’d decided to come along. He’d always been a kid who liked to do stuff with his friends and wasn’t much into the family thing. He was an adult now at 19, though, and definitely has changed a lot. He’s a few inches taller than me and his peddle power is probably 1.5 times that of mine.  As we reached the top of a mountain in the middle of the Black Forest, his face was concentrated and focused. I wondered what was going on in his mind. He was taking off on this adventuresome trip with his old man. What were his dreams, goals and expectations?

At that age I suppose I wasn’t as contemplative as I am now; wondering about life, worrying about the future, regretting the past. It was a time of little concern, life was ahead of me and I was ready to take it by the horns. In February of 1986, I’d completed a year and a half of college and was getting ready for a journey that would take me East to unimaginable places. It began in a very imaginable place in Sherman Oaks, California, known to some as “The Valley”. Around 2,500 of us gathered on an empty lot and began setting up the first of many “Tent Cities” to come. Mom and Dad drove me over there in Dad’s brown 1973 Jaguar XJ12. Mom helped me pick out shoes and clothes. She even sowed me a new sleeping bag bag big enough to fit my sleeping bag and mat. She had enough foresight to sew the bag with two contrasting colors so that I would have less trouble finding mine among the pile of 2000 other bags.

Mom didn’t let me know too much about her concerns, worries, fears. I was the last of six kids, so she’d been through quite a bit. I had also been off in Northern California at college so she was well into the process of adapting to a childless home. For me it’s actually totally unimaginable what it must have been like for her to be sending me off on this journey. A peace march almost 4000 miles across the country, was he mad? She totally supported the idea of doing something against the nuclear arms race and her eldest son worked for Pro Peace, the organization which originally initiated the march. My Dad, too, was very supported and joined the walk at various points along our route.
Many years later I learned that my mother employed two co-marchers to kind of be my guardians. Marion and Madonna had visited us at our house and my Mom and Dad struck up a nice repertoire with them. They were around about 50 year old retired teachers, ex-Navy and lifelong peace activists. During the 10-month march to D.C. they were great friends and I still feel close to them today.

I suppose it’s impossible to know what was going through my Mom’s mind as she waved me and my 2000 cohorts off at the LA City Hall on March 1st, 1986. Her last child off on a year-long trip across the vast United States.  She had seen me grow from just a small, snotty-nosed pup to a grown, though innocent, young man. She’d bailed me out of jail twice, spent sleepless nights waiting for me to get home from some punk rock concert in downtown LA, and she escorted me down the aisle to my high school graduation ceremony. She’d raised six kids and seem them grow into healthy adults. Once she admitted to me that it was hard to see her last son go, especially after I had later moved to Germany, but that she just has to let us go our own way.

Upon descending into the Rhine Valley in our futuristic pod, the scent of France and the sense of a new country opening up in front of me brought me back to my decent from the Rocky Mountains into the much more expansive mid Western plains of America. Back in 1986 I, too, was 19 years old and was on a journey peace walk from the Western coast of America to the Eastern. We marchers were about 102 in number. We were leaving the pine forests and heading toward Denver. During the previous two months I’d experienced things that were to stay with me the rest of my life. Would this be the case with Jules?.We had traveled by foot through the California and Nevada desert, climbed the North Slope of the Rockies and crossed over the Continental Divide. Upon descending out of the Rockies I caught my first glimpse of the Great Plains and just imagining the huge, flat country stretching all the way to Ohio was mind boggling. At the time I’d been reading James Mitchener’s book “Centennial” about the history of Colorado and the Great Plains. He described the geographic history of the mountains and how they had grown out of plate tectonic activity and sunken away again through erosion. The Rockies we know today began their upward descent after that. I had just walked over this gigantic range which was just undergoing it’s second lifetime. He went on to tell of the white explorers who traveled by canoe up the Missouri River and who then cut over into the South Fork of the Platte River.
With my comrades without arms I walked through the steppes of Nevada and along the extensive Platte River. The history of the white settlers and ancient Indian tribes accompanied me on my long days.

Back then on the Peace March I was migrating in the direction opposite to the white settlers a hundred years previous. Now, twenty years later, I was traveling from East to West. I had migrated by foot from the western coast of North America to the eastern coast and eventually continued on to the European continent where I ended up settling down and raising a family. While I did utilize the modern means of travel, namely by air, to get here, my preferred method remains on the earth.

In a way my migratory direction again is an anomaly. For hundreds of years Europeans migrated to America in search of their dreams, moving from East to West. I chose to move from West to East. Perhaps I felt a deeper connection to the first humans inhabiting America. They, too, moved from the West to the East. About 12,000 years ago they came from Asia and migrated over the Bering Straight (then a land bridge) and over time moved from Alaska down the Pacific Coast, some continuing into Central and South America and some moving east towards the Mississippi Delta. I, having been born and raised in Los Angeles. migrated one year long from the West to the Eastern Coast of North America and not long after that continued my eastern migration to southern Germany, where I still live today.

I’m not exactly sure what got me to undertake this crazy trip but it’s been fermenting in me for many years. After having walked some 3.500 miles across the US I had to get back home. My father, after having accompanying me on the last two weeks of the march, accompanied me to the airport and on the flight back to California. It wasn’t my first flight but it was my most painful. After having traveled no more that 20 miles a day for 280 days I was now traveling at 8 miles a minute. On the march I saw and smelled and heard and felt the country I was moving through. My conscious perceived the continuum between LA and CD. On the plane a gigantic void in that continuum was opening up.
The absurdity of flying smacked me in the face. The sonic speed of my body was purely unnatural. Humans were not built for this. Not only was it too fast, it totally removed me from the element of space. I lost my relation to the ground beneath me. My movement was no longer in sync with the earth under my feet.

This disconnection later accompanied me on my move to Germany and perhaps this bike trip was my attempt to regain that connection. It was a massive unknown space between Tübingen and Los Angeles. Much of it I did know. France was not an empty void. I’d travelled there numerous times and had even taken two long bike trips through Western France. I can’t speak but two sentences of the language (or in emergencies three), but this hasn’t stopped me from falling in love with the place.

As mentioned above, I am quite familiar with Northern America, at least the thin strip of land I had crossed through some twenty years ago. The main problem was that big lake between Europe and America. I wasn’t really very keen on the Atlantic in the first place. I’d always been a West Coast dude. The Atlantic was either too cold for me (i.e. Leondardo di Capri in the Titanic) or two warm (i.e. bath tub temperatures in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida). Even Portugal’s coast can’t turn me on like Southern California’s. It’s way too windy, the under tows are deadly and the waves have like a totally lame break, ya know.

Anyways, serious here. It did present a major stumbling block in my cosmic journey of creating a conscious connection between Europe and America. Now, after all these years, I was determined to build that bridge.
The ride down the west slope of the Black Forest was easy and fast. The valley was gentle, deep green and full of blossoming cherry trees, and fields with a potpourri of wild flowers. I’d always loved this region. It defined the border region between Germany, France and Switzerland and had a more mild, southerly climate that Tübingen. The variety of flowers and the peach trees hinted at a more Mediterranean climate. From here I could almost smell the lavender and sage growing just a few hundred kilometers beyond the Vosges mountains to the west.

We crossed the Rhine river into the Alsace region of France and headed up into the low lying Vosges mountains. The geography and houses looked quite German here and upon stopping for some bread and cheese, I was happy to see that the people understood German. I had my translator with me but it’s always nice to be able to communicate directly with the locals. The farmer selling the milk products was quite baffled by our trike. I let him take a look inside and he said it look like something out of the future. We asked if he knew of a place where we could set up our tent for the night and he immediately offered us his back yard.

Our journey across France went smooth and fast. One day we made record time and covered 250 kilometers. That was about as far as the drugged up bikers got on the Tour de France each day. We basically took the ride in stride, enjoying the countryside, doing some sightseeing and relaxing. We tried to avoid the bigger cities and roads.
France is fabulous for bicycling. It’s not as densely populated as Germany and the country roads are more rustic and less modernized than Germany’s. The larger highways or route national are pretty nasty and at 12:00 in the afternoon it’s best to take a break and get off the roads. That is the time that the French working population takes off for their lunch break. You can be strolling past a deserted village market place and wonder if anyone even lives there when, all of a sudden 6 Peugot and 10 Renault sub compact cars come shooting out of nowhere and race on by you. If you catch a glimpse of a driver’s face you will see a rigid determination unbeknownst to the go-lucky French personality.
Aside from the racing lunch goers some of those old villages in Central France have a very peaceful charm. We started our fourth day with a cafe au lait and a croissant and sun in our faces in a street cafe in Rodemak. Julian had finally taken up coffee after steadfast rejection for so many years.