Students Bike Across USA
Travel Ocean to Ocean in 54 Days

It took 54 days. They pedalled up, down, and over mountains, across deserts, and along highways. The gentle hills of Maryland turned into the winding inclines of West Virginia, and then leveled into the flats of Ohio. They visited friends and saw the school for the deaf in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Everyday, they spent six to eight hours on the road, longer if time if the terrain were hilly and shorter if it were flat. They camped in the yards of strangers and churches.

In Chicago, Illinois they took a break to walk the streets and clown with a statue of Bulls basketball star Michael Jordan. Then they voyaged on to Iowa and through Iowa to North Dakota. They stood at the base of Mt. Rushmore and looked up at the carved images of past American presidents.

They wound through the Black Hills of the Indian country to Wyoming continued on to Nevada, where they crossed the desert and took a moment to explore the waters of Lake Tahoe.

Finally in thick fog, they entered California, coming in through Sacramento and heading up to San Francisco. Spring had become summer; May had become July. At last, the Pacific Ocean was before them. They had made it across the United States.

Looking Back

Glenn has gone to school on the Gallaudet University campus, in Washington, D.C., since he was a little boy. He entered Kendall Demonstration Elementary School on the Gallaudet campus when he was two years old. After graduation, he went to the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, just up the hill. When he entered Gallaudet, the campus was already a familiar place.

He admits that at first he found the idea of a cross country bike trip a bit daunting.

"It was my friend's idea," he said. "I wasn't sure I could do it." He thought about the idea a long time before committing himself. But once on the road, his commitment was complete. He never considered giving up and turning back, he said. Not even in West Virginia, where steep mountains made the pedalling slow and difficult.

"The Sierra Nevada mountains are higher, but the eastern mountains seemed steeper," he said. "I don't know if they were really steeper or I were in better condition and used to biking by the time I reached the west. I didn't mind the Sierra Nevada range, but felt frustrated with those mountains in West Virginia!"

Still they continued.

They visited the school for the deaf in Indiana and friends in Kentucky. A photographer took their picture and they saw a note of their trip in the local newspaper. They had friends in San Francisco, too, and stayed there for a week before flying back east.

Glenn noticed how quickly he got used to having a single companion. "We met very few deaf people travelling," he said. "When we did, it would feel funny to be in a group of people talking--to incorporate lots of people into a conversation. I would be used to having one person to talk with... suddenly I would have to adapt to lots of people. It was an interesting reaction."

The most boring state was Iowa--it seemed to take forever to get through it. Glenn smiled. "That's a state I never want to go back to again," he said.

Biking across the country is not unique, he said. Several Gallaudet students have done it. They travel mostly in groups of two or three. Some go from east to west, others from west to east. Now back on the familiar campus, Glenn is finishing up his junior year at Gallaudet. An English major, he hopes to become a writer and took a journal with him to record his journey. The trip is only a memory. But what a memory!

"It satisfied something inside of me," he said. "It proved my self reliance. It proved I could do it. "It was worth it."