“Yes, You Can.” Dandelion/Women’s Adventure Essay. November 2004.
“My mother has never eaten a PowerBar. Somehow she has managed to get through seven cross-country bike trips, 11 triathlons, and six marathons without developing a taste for anything other than Oreos. Eight years ago on our first cross-country bike ride together, I watched her eat more than 15 Oreos a day while I stuck to Banana PowerBars, granting me an equal dose of food superiority and jaw pain. That summer we celebrated her fiftieth birthday by cycling from Vancouver, Canada, to Tijuana, Mexico: 2,273 beautiful yet brutal miles along the Pacific Coast. It was my first cross-country ride and her last unexplored route—she’d already rode six routes across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. My longest bike ride before our trip had been the century we’d rode the week before. Never one to be humbled by inexperience, I eschewed her eating habits from day one, watching her suck down two cups of coffee while I fueled up with another PowerBar…”