Home to Roanoke, VA
May 9, 2023


Welcome to my Polarsteps journal for the adventure I'm calling "From Slavery to Freedom". Am I a slave? No, but I'm on my way to what I'm hoping will be the experience of a lifetime. I'm currently driving down to Memphis, TN with my new friend, Chanda, who will be joining me and about 25-30 other women on the 2023 WomanTours Underground Railroad bike tour that will begin in Fulton, MS on May 11th and end on June 12th at Niagara-on-the Lake, Ontario, Canada. We picked up a rental car at Logan Airport yesterday morning, loaded our bikes and luggage, kissed farewell to our husbands, and set out for our adventure to get to the adventure. The conversation never lagged as we drove through seven states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia) arriving around 10 pm in Roanoke, VA. We found a very nice Quality Inn, that did indeed have room at the inn, so to speak, for us to stay overnight.

So here we are on the road again, with a slight nod to Willie Nelson, and heading towards Memphis, where we will stay overnight before joining our "tour sisters" tomorrow.

I just introduced you to Chanda…now let me introduce you to Nan, our rental Ford Expedition. Chanda named her after the island of Nantucket, whose nickname is the Gray Lady. Nan is a beautiful deep gray, the size of a small ocean liner, is amazingly comfortable, but moreover has all the room we need to keep our bicycles and luggage safe. Nan is roomy enough, so it was super easy to load everything in…first, the luggage lined up down the middle of the rear storage area…and then our bicycles, one on either side of the luggage with more than enough extra space, so nothing is being squished or scraped or scratched. We can thank Barb and Betsy, fellow "tour sisters", for this brilliant packing technique. They are already in Fulton, MS waiting for us to join the group tomorrow.

Back to why I'm calling this Polarsteps journal "From Slavery to Freedom". The bike ride is going to follow Adventure Cycling's Underground Railroad Route, a cross-country tour that will go by monuments and museums dedicated to the memory of those who sought freedom from enslavement before the Civil War and those who helped them.

Last month Jews around the world celebrated the holiday of Pesach (Passover), where we are reminded that we were once slaves in Egypt and with God's help achieved our freedom. As part of the Seder, the special home service and meal that we eat at the beginning of Pesach, we recite the words, "Once we were slaves. Now, we are free!" As I trained for this bike tour over the past weeks and months, I felt a connection building between my Jewish heritage and the struggle of those who were unjustly held in bondage in the early history of the United States.

I'm hoping to learn a lot more about the Underground Railroad in the coming days and weeks in order to deepen my knowledge of the struggles that were endured to attain freedom from oppression…and being fully aware that many of those struggles are not over.

While I'll be challenging my body and mind with each day's bike ride, I'll be rewarded each evening with a nice bed and a hot meal and shower, something that those who sought their freedom didn't have. Nevertheless, these individuals took a leap of faith that they could achieve their goal. Their bravery inspires me to keep on pedaling.

Thank you for joining me in my adventure.

Roanoke, VA to Memphis, TN
May 10, 2023


The day's drive from Roanoke, VA was as easy as the first day. Our faithful Nan, the name we gave our rented Ford Expedition, zoomed down the highway. As crazy as it may sound, my traveling companion Chanda and I talked to "her" as a member of our traveling team. Chanda's phone was used as our primary navigator using its Maps app and the voice that announced all the instructions sounded like a guy from Australia, so we dubbed him "Hogan" after Paul Hogan from the Crocodile Dundee movies. So here we were in Nan thanking her, out loud no less, whenever we achieved a milestone, such as crossing into a new state, and praising her for being strong and capable and for taking such good care of us. And we acknowledged Hogan whenever he gave us navigation directions as he "helped" us get off and on the highway for pit stops, gas fill-ups, lunch, whatever.

In fact we really are grateful for the technology, both SUV and phone, that helped us to get to Memphis, TN.

I have a friend, Cindy Fuhs, who is pedaling on her own amazing adventure right now and documenting it on Polarsteps, who talks about "trail magic", things that happen unexpectedly to brighten one's day. Yesterday's trail magic for Chanda and me came as we got off the highway in Memphis thinking that we had programmed Hogan (remember?…he's the voice of our Maps app) to get us to our hotel. In fact, the Maps app took us into downtown Memphis. No worries, we figured it out quickly, got our hotel's address dialed in and made our way out of downtown Memphis to where we really wanted to be. The trail magic happened as we were driving into downtown. We got to see the Memphis Pyramid, a huge mirrored pyramid standing right next to the highway and the Fernando de Soto bridge, a beautifully designed bridge with two rolling steel arches. Had we programmed Hogan directly to our hotel as was our intention, we would have missed seeing these two gorgeous structures.

The next bit of trail magic came when we arrived at the hotel. The power was out…it turns out the entire street for quite a ways was experiencing a temporary blackout, no doubt from the thunderstorm that had rolled through about an hour or so before we arrived. Checking in without power for the front desk's computer was no problem for the resourceful individuals behind the check-in counter. Rather than making us wait for the power to return, they took all our information and got us settled in. Friendly, helpful, courteous and as composed as could be. A five-star kudos hello to the Quality Inn by the Memphis airport!

Dinner was at Hernando's Hide-a-Way, grilled veggies skewers, a grilled cheese sandwich that was unlike any I'd ever had in a hugely good way, and cheesy fries and more fries with the skewers and sandwich. Perfectly delicious and decadent at the end if a long day's drive.

Connected with the WomanTours leaders. They thought it would be easier to collect us tomorrow morning from our hotel, instead of the airport, which made our lives much simpler. We unloaded our bikes and luggage into our hotel room. Bundling the towels and sheets we had stuffed between and over our luggage and bikes in Nan (remember?…she's our rental SUV), we drove to a local animal shelter to drop them off at the front door for the folks to find in the morning (with a note explaining how they got there). Then it was off to the Avis counter at the Memphis airport to say goodbye and one last huge thank you to Nan, who never complained once the whole way down from Logan Airport onward and got a Lyft driver to take us back to our hotel. Logistics for tomorrow that had not previously been fully worked out were now done today! More trail magic.

Thank you for joining me in my adventure.