Good job everyone on a successful ride to Detroit from Madison! And a big warm thank you to the permibus for getting many of us back to Madtown with all of our gear and bikes.

Nine members of our mobile village of resilience got a ride back to Madison with the permibus two nights ago. We met up at the faux-op yesterday to unload the bus, share food one more time and to say "good bye."

Two members of the village, Steve and Kevin, are returning to Madison by bicycle going north through the Upper Peninsula. Two others are biking to the rainbow gathering in Pennsylvania with people they met in Detroit.

Still others traveled by car to the Earth First rendevous and others are returning to Madison by train, car and bus.

Thank you to everyone who supported our village as we traveled together to the US Social Forum.

See you on the streets!

Hey! We have been working up our variety show and will perform it this Friday, June 25th at the USSF Tent City at 7 PM. Live music by Crista, Ugg, Page and Thistle! Puppet show by the puppetistas! Skits and stories from the road performed and told by caravanistas! Come celebrate 350 miles safely ridden by our mobile village of resilience!

The journey is ending and the adventure at the social forum is beginning. It is a quiet day in the village at Tall Trees Community Farm. Some folks are on an herb walk with Jim, a local herbalist, others are working on puppets and still other villagers are just hanging out, resting after our 63 mile day yesterday.

Highlights of yesterday's long ride:

Arriving at our lunch spot to a wonderful beach front on a lake with perfect swimming weather

Low points:

dirt roads on the way to Tall Trees

Tomorrow, we leave for Detroit! Thank you Seth, Abby, Boi and Kelty for working so hard on the route and getting us there safely!

Greetings from the Blandford Nature Center in Grand Rapids, MICHIGAN! Mark, the grounds keeper and host for the village, is helping us tremendously as we offer our people power to projects on the land. One project Mark is coordinating is the cleaning and maintenance of a bobcat cage while the cat visits the vet for the first time. Village volunteers report that they dug out a pipe that was supposed to keep the pond from overflowing, but that wasn't working. Yea village volunteers!

Meanwhile, as the cat's cage was being tended to, other volunteers worked with Kelsey in the gardens at the nature center. We pulled out a whole patch of weeds in the center of the garden and Mark, one of our rider volunteers, forked the rows in the beds.

I have heard word from Mark, our host, that mutually beneficial relationships are indeed happening and that our community service is not merely good intentions.

Having said that, the local TV stations came out and captured shots of volunteers in the gardens and of our rigs, including Mary Jo's. Hers is the bike and trailer that is carrying her stuff and two of her children. The image we created of bikes, gardens and community building for the camera is staying true to the facts on the ground of smiling faces, good food and happy hosts. We are taking care of ourselves, our logistics, and being helpful and responsible to the people helping us as we go. Cooperation and mutual aid are more fun in practice than in theory and I am so glad to be here. I only got one hour of sleep the night before last, but feel well-rested and strong as we journey on.

Low points of yesterday's journey to Grand Rapids:

* 1/3 of the village is reporting knee problems and being physically challenged by all these miles!
Delyla, not just our lead cook, but also part of the permibus medic team, called a whole village meeting this afternoon to teach folks how to take better care of their knees while riding.

Highlights of yesterday's journey to Grand Rapids:

* We mobilized 21 adults and 3 children at 3:30 in the morning to ride our bikes, trailers and gear 7 miles to the ferry dock and get on the ferry to Michigan. Once landed upon the shores of Lake Michigan, we rode from the ferry dock to Kruse Park and jumped in! The sandy dunes were soft and gentle on tired, sore feet tingling with excitement from the cold water and good spirits. I found my personal peds jumping and leaping for joy while refreshing ourselves before the long stretch ahead into Grand Rapids. Anjel attached my fairy wings with safety pins and I have heard curious bystanders say "nice wings" twice now, as I fly by on my bike. They feel real and I am reeling from the fun and flow I feel in this tight community emerging on the ride to Motown.

Three locals met us at the ferry with their bikes and took the lead for our 35 mile ride into Grand Rapids. We arrived an hour later than the schedule published in the ride guide so we went directly to the potluck that the Bloom Collective arranged at the 4th street Oasis Gardens. It is a small garden thriving on a city lot where a house had burned down. We shared food and stories with locals and then rode over to the Blandford Nature Center where we currently are residing. I am writing this report from beneath a tarp at the indy media center, set up on one of the picnic tables outside. It is sprinkling, but no hard rains today.

Tonight, the permibus is performing their puppet show and the puppetistas from the Caravan will perform theirs. We are expecting 25-50 locals at our variety show this evening that will take place in an old barn.

All is well and everyone is accounted for in our mobile village of resilience! Stay tuned for reports from the Leaven Center in Lyons and two abandoned lots where the village will set up in Lansing.

If you want to see us on TV, you can search these Grand Rapids sites using "Madtown 2 Motown":
If you get there fast enough, it may just be on the front page of their sites.

WZZM 13 at wzzm13.com
Wood TV 8
WMMT TV3

"It takes a village to ride a bike"

When everyone arrived, we had our orientation at the faux-op, a big red house we have come to know well in all of these months of organizing. Daisy chain flowers adorned the hair of happy villagers as we parked our bikes out front next to the gardens. The village was gathering, assembling and buzzing like a hive of bees. We quickly set up camp in the living room and discussed our points of agreement and the "adventure extravaganza" before us.

Spirits have been high and low and everything in between so far. Yesterday was rough on many levels and the dark side seeped into my peripheral vision as we rode on. Still we ride and rise like a phoenix from the ashes of western civilization, patriarchy, racism and oppressive dynamics. We are coming together intentionally, creating bonds of friendship and solidarity that we know will stand the test of time. Members of the village of 2008 are with us and our collective creation moves forward, onward to Detroit.

Kelty's Mom made a sign that says: Two tired? (picture of a bicycle)
Yup. To Detroit and the social 4m or bust!

This year we have families with small children with us! The youngest member of our village is 18 months and the oldest is 71. This age diversity has taken the grassroutes caravan to a new level of mutual aid, cooperation and enjoyment of all phases of the life cycle. My Dad quickly shoved his bike under the road block with everyone else when it came up unexpectedly on our urban path. It was true anarchy at its finest! We are looking out for each other, challenging old patterns of behavior, thinking on our feet and pushing the normal boundaries of perception. A lot happened on the trail yesterday and over the course of the day that was not anticipated and not in the ride guide. It is a reminder that chaos is all around and can be challenging, but also provide us with great opportunities for leaps in the evolution of culture.

Delyla, Megan, Stan and Lorca of the permibus are ready at all moments, anticipating our health, safety and nutritional needs. At our first stop yesterday, when morale was at a low point, knowing we still had to go another 33 miles and the first 33.3 had been exhausting and hot, Delyla came off the bus with a water sprayer and cooled down our flushed faces. They understand the physical nature of what we are doing and the challenge of doing that as a village with families.

Hard points of yesterday's 66.6 mile day to Milwaukee from our camp site in Lake Mills:

* Members of our village got lost due to construction.

* The head-wind.

* Being at mile 30, arriving late to our lunch spot, hot, tired, sweaty and in need of shade, food and water, and then realizing that the last two miles I had just biked, overshot our destination. I was demoralized and in tears by the time I made it to the park where the permibus was parked and the village was gathering to share food and foot rubs. Mark and I backtracked those two miles, our bikes loaded, my trailer feeling heavy and my body aching and hot.

Highlights of our 66.6 mile trek:

* Spotting two skinny dipping village-mates in the stream as three of us passed over them on the bridged bike path above.

* Coming to a screeching halt and joining the dipsters in the cool waters below the bridge.

* Going around in circles near the Brewers stadium, fire works going off for home runs and then randomly meeting up with a bunch of Milwaukee locals on their bikes with a keg of beer in a bike trailer who invited us to share it with them. It was a magical, unplanned welcoming committee that guided us through the city at night to the CCC (Cream City Collectives). They took us through a back alley-way to drop off the keg before continuing on to the CCC, which is where someone put fireworks in the middle of the alley and chaos really started ensuing. It was right around that time that SarahTops' headlamp elastic snapped and the hard plastic of the lamp hit my nose, causing it to bleed. I was borrowing it because mine was buried in my gear, having not anticipated that we would arrive so late. An audience was assembled for our GrassRoutes Caravan Variety Show, as we continued to ride to them, only seven miles away, yet so far. They stenciled the sidewalks with Power Down Milwaukee imagery and slogans while they waited for us, entertaining themselves and supporting us by staying around as we arrived three hours late for our performance. The performance ended up being postponed and we all just congratulated each other on the long journey there, marveling that we had all made it and were still alive and happy enough to join in the fun at the CCC.

Today we are at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee. The Elements Collective had a quick meeting of the minds in the ecology center's secret room upstairs in the tower before breakfast. The room is behind a wood paneled wall with no door. You just push the wall and it opens up into a carpeted area, perfect for a last-minute logistics meeting. Villagers are working in the gardens at the ecology center and at Concordia Gardens nearby with a phone call just coming in letting me know I should spread the word about a roof-top gardens tour happening later on. All is well and everyone is accounted for. Stay tuned for updates on getting up at 3:30 am tomorrow morning so we can ride with our gear and families 7 miles to the ferry dock which will get us on the boat that will take us to Michigan!

Oh! And tonight, there is a tour of Sweet Water being led by our friend James Godsil!

Mad love, admiration and props to the families with children who are in our village!