Coast to Coast: Walking on His Hands Across America

October 27th, 2007 at 04:14pm Frosty Wooldridge 493

"Courage is one thing. A sense of purpose another. When you put them together in one human being, the world can be changed." John Brown, long distance touring rider

 That first summer bicycle tour, I pedaled through heavy traffic for the beginning of my coast to coast bicycle adventure. The Los Angeles smog choked me for 100 miles into the Mojave Desert. After crossing the Colorado River, I breathed easier when the ‘Brown Cloud’ flowed south toward Phoenix.

I pedaled into cleaner air in the mountains. Climbing steep grades took half the day while coasting down the backside took only 45 minutes. In New Mexico, I crossed the continental divide and descended into the desert on Route 380.

With a blazing sun overhead, I struggled along the two-lane pavement. Sweat dripped from my face and arms. Every breath crowded my mouth with air as dry and hot as cotton balls. Heat waves rippled over the pavement as I descended further into the barren landscape. The thermometer hit 103 degrees by the time I was ten miles out of Roswell, New Mexico.

Ahead, I noticed a lone figure walking along the left side of the road. It was difficult imagining anyone walking down the highway in that torrid temperature.

"I wonder what that guy's doing walking in this heat?" I muttered to myself. "Looks like he's got a dog with him, too."

"That isn't a dog," I gasped seconds later, doubting my eyes, and straining harder to make out what I saw.

It was another man walking on his hands. Within a few seconds, I found out why. His legs were missing! Less than forty yards away, the lone figure was a man reading a book, walking beside another man walking on his hands.

A camper van was parked on the shoulder a half mile ahead. I rode up even with them. Something inside just made me stop and drop my bike in the gravel. I couldn't help crossing the road, knowing that whomever this man was, he possessed inconceivable courage. What was he doing out here walking on his hands in the desert?

He saw me and stopped. He lowered his body down to the ground, resting it on a leather pad that covered his two severed legs just below the groin. His Paul Bunyan upper arms led down to his hands, which grasped two rubber pads. Sweat soaked his T-shirt. His dark hair framed a tanned, round face punctuated by a pair of clear brown eyes.

He flashed a beautiful smile. "Hi, how ya' doin'?" I said approaching with my hand extended. "My name is Frosty."

"Glad to meet you," he said shaking my hand. "I'm Bob Wieland."

"Pleasure to meet you," I said. "I gotta' tell you Bob, I'm more than a bit curious seeing you out here in the desert."

"The same could be said about you," he said.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I'm riding my bicycle across America."

"That makes two of us," Bob added. "I'm walking across. I'd bike but my legs are too short for the pedals."

I laughed. His humor was natural. We bantered a few minutes about the weather. Bob gave me a short history of his journey. He started in San Francisco and climbed up to Yosemite National Park. He crossed over several 6,000 foot passes. His friend fixed meals, but often, people asked them into their homes for the night. If no one offered a night’s lodging, both men slept in the back of the camper pickup.

His friend drove the vehicle ahead and came back to walk with him. His companion read a book while guiding Bob down the left side of the highway. Bob lost his legs in combat in Nam. I asked him when he had started.

"I've been out 19 months and have completed 980 miles," he said. "At my speed, I can finish this adventure in three more years, maybe less."

"Why are you doing it?" I asked. "There's a lot of adventure out here on the road. I suppose I could sit back and get fat watching TV for the next fifty years, but I want to do something with my life. I want to make a difference. I have to make do with what I have left. You know the saying, you only go around once."

"You have my greatest admiration," I said, shaking his hand again.

It was one of those moments where you don’t quite know what to do or say. I just met the most incredibly courageous man in my whole life who was looking up at me from the pavement. His legs were gone. He was a man, but he stood only three feet high. His hands had become his feet. That gray leather pad was belted to his bottom like a baby diaper. Those rubber pads on his hands were his wheel tread on his arduous journey. I gasped inside myself at the enormity of his quest.

"Guess I better get moving,” I said, reluctantly.

"Take care," Bob said. "Have a good ride. I'll get there one of these days."

“There’s no doubt that you will reach the Atlantic Ocean,” I said.

While turning away from that amazing human being, tears filled my eyes. I started crying half way across the road. What he was attempting staggered my imagination.

My friends thought I was nuts taking a transcontinental bicycle trip, but they had no understanding of how easy I had it compared to Bob Wieland. Miles and years down the road--that moment colors my mind as vividly as the day it happened. Most human beings have handicaps in one way or the other--physical or psychological.

What is important is how they handle their limitations. He concentrated on what he could do, not on what he couldn't do. Instead of giving up, Bob pushed forward into the unknown not only determined to succeed, but expecting to succeed.

George Bernard Shaw celebrated people like Wieland when he wrote, "This is the true joy of living, spending your years for a purpose recognized by yourself as a right one...to be used up when they throw you on the scrap heap of life. To have been a force of nature instead of a selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

Bob Wieland pushed himself through 3,300 miles of hardship that few people could comprehend. He gutted his way up mountains, sweated his way across deserts, and fought through raging storms. Every labored breath drew him closer to his goal. Two years later, I listened to NPR radio while eating breakfast one morning.

Bob Wieland reached the Atlantic Ocean thus succeeding in his quest to walk on his hands coast to coast across America. I sat at the breakfast table crying like a baby because that man had given me courage to face my own struggles from that one meeting in the New Mexico desert. I’m sure he touched thousands more on his remarkable journey across America. Here’s to you, Bob Wieland, to your courage, your humor, your passion and your life.

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These uncommon stories may be read in "Bicycling Around the World: Tire tracks for your imagination"  amazon.com ; barnesandnoble.com and you can see them under the book tab www.frostywooldridge.com

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border.  In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.  He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges.  He works to bring about sensible world population balance at his website www.frostywooldridge.com

Entry Filed under: Colorado, Travel, Outdoors, The West, United Post