2 MILLION BLOSSOMS


Already they had ditched me.


C


ome baaaack, I pleaded as the whispered song  See you down the road. My reply was to pull out my map. Monarchs didn’t have to follow roads, but in


the spring they did follow the mountainous spine of Mexi- co north to Texas where they would lay their eggs and die.  them, and then the subsequent generations born in the summer months, north to Canada. If all went according to plan I would return, after months of cycling, with their great-grandkids or great-great-grandkids, to the same forest from which we now departed. For millennia that forest, clinging to the steep mountains, had been ab- sorbing nearly all the monarchs born between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean each winter. As the monarchs streamed away, recently-un- encumbered needles stretched weight- lessly. Each branch seemed to bow, as if promising to welcome the next batch of monarchs when the time came. We will be here waiting, the steady swinging pines nodded. Route decided, I folded up my map, and coasted downhill on my beater bike, weighted down with all the equipment I would need for nine months on the road.


58


At least I am not lost, I thought as I picked up speed and dodged potholes. Twenty miles later I was lost. Canada felt very, very far


away. “Day one,” I sighed as I scanned the sky hoping for a glimpse of a monarch or at least a road sign. Seeing neither, I carried on. Each day brought something, and by carrying on, an ad-


Her stained-glass wings had caught the sun and my attention as I raced downhill at 45 mph


“ ”


venture unfolded. By the time I crossed the Rio Grande and entered Texas I had been stabbed by a yucca plant, detoured by a dead-end road, and gifted roadside ice cream. I had also spotted a handful of monarchs.      


four, had been a blur. Her stained-glass wings had caught the sun and my at- tention as I raced downhill at 45 mph. I clutched my brakes and stopped as fast as momentum would allow, all while tracking her with my eyes as she sailed through the evening sky. “Helloooooo,” I cheered, and to-


gether we celebrated. Her trip was not impossible. My trip was not impossible.     we headed north, lured by the milk- weed which was awakening to the gentle nudge of a young spring.


Milkweed – the group of plants in the genus Asclepias – is the sole food source of the monarch caterpillar. The


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