P.S. I remember reading an article a long time ago, written by a woman who drove all over the southwest. There was a little mention of how she and her companion picked up a woman near Death Valley who was riding a bike laden with milk jugs full of water. She had left her abusive husband taking one of her kid's old bikes and using a highway map to work out a route from somewhere in the midwest to her friend's house on the west coast. She hadn't called the friend or asked any agencies or family for help. She just packed up the bike as best she could and left.

Anyway, the author and her companion drove the woman and her bike across Death Valley. (she wouldn't have made it otherwise) and wished her luck.

I think about that article every so often. The woman who would ride a bike across the country rather than ask for help, and the two women who would pick her up and drive her where she couldn't ride but then let her go to finish her journey her way (rather than turning her over to social services or insisting on driving her to her friend's house).

Women and bikes.