Biking Across America:
My Coast-to-Coast Adventure and the People I Met Along the Way
Paul Stutzman
[Revell, 224 pages]
After unsettling events happen we’re often inspired to do things we never would have considered. Though these activities are often used to distract us from our pain they can also re-instill confidence in ourselves, humanity and the world. That’s exactly what happened to Paul Stutzman, the author of Biking Across America. After losing his wife Mary to cancer in 2006, he decided to hike the Appalachian Trail (he has written about the hike in 2012’s Hiking Through, his first non-fiction book), and he followed that hike up with a sometimes gruelling bike ride from the northwestern corner of the United States (specifically Neah Bay, Washington) to the opposite corner (Key West, Florida).
While any sort of adventurous challenge may have healed Paul, the fact that he chose a bike ride forced him to confront another traumatic event that happened in his early teens when a friend he was cycling with died after getting into a road accident.
Already a devout Christian, Paul had many experiences on the road that reinforced his faith and strengthened his trust in humanity. He rode on interstates that cyclists aren’t supposed to be on and remained unscathed. In many places where he stopped for a rest, he left his bike unlocked, and surprisingly, no one stole it. He survived thunderstorms and regained consciousness without help after passing out against a rock due to exhaustion in Utah.
Stutzman believes his whole trip was guided by God and that God was looking out for him along the way. Even people who are not Christian can understand this—no matter what our specific faiths are, each of us can likely remember a time when we felt divinely propelled, but also protected. One turn of events in particular drove this feeling home for Paul. Partway through his trip, he gave a homeless man a $20 bill, and then some time later, in an unexpected synchronous twist, found a money clip full of more than a hundred dollars! (He tried to locate the owner, but could not). He took this as the universe teaching him a lesson: When you give, the world ends up giving something back to you.
This, along with a re-realization that there are some good and honourable people out there, and those who look like scoundrels aren’t always so bad (check out the book for elaboration on the last point!), is what Stutzman takes away from his journey (along with some sore muscles). For those who have become disillusioned with the world this is a great book to pick up. Ultimately, it demonstrates that in America and certainly elsewhere too, there’s still room for the pursuit of happiness among all the materialism and greed—we just need to keep our eyes open so we don’t miss the opportunities for healing, personal growth, joy and fulfillment.
image: Martin Cathrae (Creative Commons BY-SA—no changes)
