|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
Home | News | Sports | Business | Entertainment | Classifieds |
|||||
|
|
Columnists | Autos | Homes | Careers | Lifestyles | Ebert | Search |
|||||
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
Cross-country
bike adventure ends for dad, 9-year-old
BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter
It is with mixed emotions a Certainly, Dave Cushwa, 47,
and Will, a third-grader, have missed their family and friends over the last
10 weeks. But they'll also miss
their open-road life--a time spent discovering a little bit more about their
country, themselves and each other. "We've learned to
appreciate simple things: a little shade around noontime, a sale on cold
Gatorade, a curb to sit on just a little bit higher than average,'' they
write on their Web site, detailing a trip that began March 3 in Los Angeles
and finishes in Jacksonville, Fla. Dave Cushwa has some
experience at this long-distance bike riding stuff. When each of his three
children is around 10 years old, he takes them on a journey aboard a tandem
bike. He and another son went
on a 500-mile ride across For 18 months before the
trip, father and son read everything they could about cross-country riding.
The family arranged with Will's school to have his lessons e-mailed to him on
the road. Cushwa is in good shape:
He regularly bikes to his job as an air traffic controller in Still, "we probably
should have had more concern than we did,'' he said. He underestimated the
effort to cross the Pulling a bike trailer
full of food, water and camping gear up mountains, "I was constantly
telling Will, 'Give me everything you've got!'" said Cushwa. A storm forced them to take
refuge under a construction trailer in Will, manning the front
of the two-seater bike, kept a Super Soaker water gun at the ready. "We
had a lot of dog attacks,'' he said. "They
chase you and try to take a bite out of your leg.'' A couple squirts sent the
mongrels packing. Will loved Emory Pass in
southwest New Mexico, and appreciated Louisiana, where, he reports,
"it's mostly downhill.'' They biked six to eight
hours a day, six days a week, camping some nights and staying in hotels on
others. They stuck mostly to back roads, with plenty of time for fishing,
sightseeing and playing ball. Dave Cushwa figures the
3,500-mile trip cost about $100 a day. It was well worth it.
Along the way, father and son talked about "setting goals, achieving
goals and taking time to do fun things and enjoy life,'' Dave Cushwa said. The trip also served as a
fund-raiser for their church, St. Anne's in Cushwa's wife, Lynn, said she worried some
when her husband and son left but knew the value of the other trips Dave took
with their older two kids. "They came back more
confident,'' said Lynn Cushwa. She could already sense
the changes in Will. "Just talking to him on the phone, I could tell how
mature he was getting,'' she said. A daily update on the
trip can be found at www.cushwafamily
.com/la2jax/. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|||||
