Most people bring their inner child on an epic adventure. Joe �Metal Cowboy� Kurmaskie actually took his two kids along. For a 4,000-mile bicycle ride across America, Joe�s seven-year-old son, Quinn, rides a tagalong bike attached to his dad�s; and behind that is five-year-old Enzo in a bike trailer.
Our hero the Metal Cowboy answers the question �What are you, crazy?� with a resounding and cheerful �Yes.� Unassisted�with no support crew except his boys� comic relief and the periodic kindness of strangers�he pedals hundreds of pounds of gear and offspring over mountain passes, across the wide plains, through thunderstorms, and into the heart of what it means to be a dad.
Along the way they encounter everything that makes up America�small-town kindness and inner-city heart, wild horses and highway roadkill, a?bitter Vietnam vet and a hopeful young inventor, grizzly bears and bison roaming free, cyclists and monstrous RVs, a very peppy cheerleader and a visitation from the ghost of the author�s father, horrible traffic and serene dirt roads, a monastery and a distillery, baseball, and yes, lots of pie.
By the time they reach Washington, DC, two months after leaving Portland, Oregon, they�ve bonded in a rare way. Kurmaskie writes, �We share a secret, the three of us; one permanent summer in our hearts now, where we�re never apart.�
