Bicycle Camping #10--A Love Story

September 10, 2010

You might have gathered from my previous nine posts on bicycle camping that a tent is at the top of my "essentials list" for bicycle travel. I know that I am far from alone in this thought. But I bet there are few bicycle travelers out there who have had a song about a tent sung at their wedding.

I proposed to my girlfriend, Kat Marriner, on our first bicycle trip together. It was a four-month journey through the Balkans. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination. It was often far from romantic. But that journey was the rock-solid foundation of our relationship.

I wrote letters home to my brother (as I often have) from my travels. My brother happens to be a song writer. What I didn't know is that he took the words from my letters and fashioned a song from them. A song that I didn't know he had written until the moment he sang it to Kat and me at our wedding.

We cried then (1997) ... and we cry every year on our anniversary when I sing it to Kat. It doesn't sound as good as when my brother sings it ... but the words always ring true.
 

Little Yellow Tent

And to think my brother could have purchased us a set of silverware instead.

Dream. Pedal. Travel. Repeat.
 

Photos by Willie Weir

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SIGHTS AND SOUNDS is posted every other Friday. Willie Weir is a columnist for Adventure Cyclist magazine. His latest book Travels with Willie: Adventure Cyclist will inspire you to hit the road and just might change the way you approach bicycle travel. He lives in Seattle with his wife Kat. You can read about their adventures at http://yellowtentadventures.com.