This is a snippet of a Fulton County map I was working on last weekend. For my Black Hawk Slept Here website I want to build a collection of maps showing a) historical sites relating to the Black Hawk war and settlement era, and b) bicycleable routes to these places.
It’s fun working with maps like this, because they bring back memories. I’ll be looking at one little road segment I hadn’t thought about for years, and suddenly I’ll recall what when I had last been there, the view, the temperature, the smells, the part of a book I was listening to at the time, etc. Sometimes I later find out that my recollections were wrong, of course. I tell people I have a very good memory about past events. It’s often a mistaken memory, but it’s a good one.
The yellow-orange lines on the map are bike routes I used in several days of riding in or through Fulton County this year. What it does not show is routes I used back in 2000 and 2001 when I did a couple of solo tours to the area. I can remember some of it, but there were places I saw then that I wasn’t able to find again this year.
This is where I camped on my last trip to Fulton County in August 2001, which was also my last bicycle tour for a couple of years. It’s on Barr Lake in Newcastle Township. I remember listening to the green frogs around the lake, and the very hot weather on the ride to this place, and the very hot weather on my ride to Aubbenaubbee township the next day. Both times I ran out of water out in the country and resorted to begging for some at peoples’ houses.
It was also memorable for being my last tour for a couple of years. Soon after came 9/11 and the news that I had prostate cancer. Last night I looked in on newsgroup alt.support.prostate.cancer and saw that some newly diagnosed and newly treated men are asking about bicycling. Maybe it’s time for me to make an appearance on that group again. I don’t have much to say about treatment options, because the people there are much more knowledgeable than I am and so much has changed since 2001 anyway. But I can talk about bicycling without a prostate.
It wasn’t just recovering from surgery that knocked me out of touring for a couple of years, but it started with that. But the main point is that there can still be bicycle touring after RRP! I’ve been riding 2000 to 5000 miles a year since then. I’m thankful for that, and for undetectable PSAs since then, and for a wife who not only lets me do a lot of bicycle touring, but aids and abets it, too!
