Mississippi River, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
After two years of global travel, we now know how beautiful the world is. As bicycle travelers, we knew the land we call the United States is as stunning as the rest. We forgot just how lovely the US Northland is in the fall. I do not remember a year when red and gold Massachusetts beech and sweet gum, Minnesota sugar maple and poplar, Washington State ginkgo biloba, reflected so brillantly on Sudbury River, Wellfleet Bay, Bde Maka Ska, Puget Sound, Minnehaha Creek, and the Mississippi River. What a treat to witness them holding their leaves beyond their season, resisting the march toward winter and fascism.
Red and gold on Sudbury River, MA
Every place has its beauties and beasts. I know my nervous system registers them with more ferocity where I have history, family, and friends. Without pretending objectivity, I can tell you: after living abroad in 30 countries, that the extremes in the United States of America, October 15 to November 15, 2025, were more extreme than anywhere I had been. The US government shut down. Federal workers clocked in without a paycheck. TSA agents and air traffic controllers checked our bags and steered our planes to safe harbor while worrying about eviction, foreclosure, and feeding the kids. SNAP —subminimal food assistance for underpaid workers and people unable to work—was cut off. Ordinary people dug deep to fill food banks. The billionaire President circulated photos of himself and his cabinet in ghoulish costumes at Mar-a-Lago with scantily-clad girls and champagne flowing. While the President partied, US drones murdered people in boats on the Caribbean Sea, and the Department of War announced plans to attack South American shores. A wrecking ball crushed the seemingly impermeable walls of the White House. Everything was a distraction from everything else.
While the Autocrat, his minions, and the (mostly) loyal opposition crashed and burned, the people resisted in unprecedented ways. In LA. Chicago and Portland neighbors used phone cameras, car horns, and whistles to protect neighbors from masked and increasingly brutal ICE agents. They attended training sessions to share tactics. A system already characterized by cruelty and arbitrariness had lost all legal guardrails. In a situation where rights were disregarded, allies exchanged creative covert tactics, like, ‘If a crew is working in your neighborhood, let them know your door is open, and if they do need to enter for any reason, would they please lock the door?’ thereby signaling that your house is a safe space if ICE shows up to target immigrant workers.
We arrived in the US a few days before the October 18 No Kings, the largest mobilization in US history. We attended a rally in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where protestors waved US flags and held homemade signs, many with clever messages of opposition to Trump’s dictatorial ways. I looked for ICE-related signs. David saw one related to Palestine.
No Kings Protest, October 18, 2025, Hyannis MA
Also on October 18th, New York City Democratic socialist and openly pro-Palestine mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani turned 34 years old. Two weeks later, we stayed up late to watch his historic win. I binged on reels featuring the young man pushing his progressive vision of universal transportion and childcare, affordable food and rent and dignified wages and while others in the Democratic Party fell to Trumpian depths, posting about the President’s neck, ankles, waist, and age when we needed them to post about ICE, SNAP, murder in the Caribbean Sea, the ceasefire that wasn’t in Gaza, the cover-up of Presidential crimes against girls.
Our time in the US was filled with the necessity of taking care of our bodies and checking on family. Flu and COVID vaccines meant, for me, four days of flu and COVID. A colonoscopy prep took up another week. We got eye and ear tests and visited other specialists. We slept in 11 different beds, leaning on the generosity of family and friends, hoping not to overstay our welcome. We were able to see our child, all of our siblings,
With Dave’s Siblings on Puget Sound
and a few of our dear niblings on the East and West coasts. We had time with some treasured friends who took care of body and soul. We missed so many more.
While I was convalescing, Dave attended a protest with our friend Betty at the University of Minnesota to protect public education and free speech on campus.
We are about to begin year three of Aging on the Run, in Medellin, Colombia. If you live in the United States, thank you for letting the President and your reps know you will not stand for a trumped-up war in Latin America.
This essay about a visit to the United States in October/November 2025, is part of a series. In October 2023, my spouse, David, and I sold our house in Minneapolis, MN. USA. Since then, we have been traveling the world. I write a blog about each place, with a historian’s eye and an internationalist lens, wondering how memory can liberate the present.
