Biking through the coronavirus, former Osceola man makes it to Pacific

At 73, Dale Coddington had ridden his bike from Florida well into Texas — with his gaze toward a finish on the California coast, his late daughter deep in his heart. Then the coronavirus gave the entire country a huge pause.

It was mid-March. He and his wife, Carole, who was driving their 40-foot motor home as their overnight shelter, took a couple of days off to think it over. This journey was a memorial to their daughter, Tania Coddington Deren, who’d died unexpectedly in 2014, and was a fundraiser for the Center for Hospice Care in Mishawaka.

“The Lord led us to do this,” he recalls, speaking on the phone from Arizona. “He’s going to take care of us.”

So the former Osceola couple plunged on, feeling that they were as quarantined as most folks, stopping only at grocery stores and gas stations. He’d bike alone for an average of 50 miles a day, finding that car traffic on the highways had dropped off in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions, except for semi trucks. He’d meet up with Carole at a campground. They’d duck into the motor home, fix dinner, play some games and go to bed.

On April 20, after 2,300 miles, he finally dipped the front tire of his carbon-fiber Canondale Synapse road bike into the Pacific Ocean. The beach was actually closed. So they didn’t linger more than 15 minutes and snapped a few photos with the only person who could make it, a cousin who lived nearby, and, he says, “got out of Dodge.”

Not the big hurrah that they’d dreamed. Family and friends stayed home, including his son who was going to ride with him at the end, and Tania’s daughter, Abby, a Purdue University student who was going to meet them in Texas and California.

Abby is the one who’d asked that the ride benefit the Center for Hospice Care’s bereavement program that had helped her after her mother’s sudden death. As her grandpa says of the program, “When your heart is empty, you’ve got to fill the empty spot with something.”

But, given the pandemic, Coddington says of their planned meet-ups, “We couldn’t take the chance.”

I asked: Would the Coddingtons recommend others hop on a cross-country ride in the age of COVID-19? Carole shakes her head no, and he agrees. They point out their uniqueness in that they’re self-contained in an RV — one that can go for a week without a hookup — because they no longer own a house.

They stayed overnight in parking lots of churches, Walmarts and Cracker Barrels. But some campgrounds canceled their reservations (so the Coddingtons would find another). Others restricted the stay to just one night. Before COVID-19, campgrounds would offer a free site when they heard of the charity mission. That seemed to dry up. A campground at the end, in Coronado, Calif., charged $83 per night.

Then there are states such as Indiana and Michigan that have shut down campgrounds across their states.

It would be hard, or impossible, for the retired couple to re-create the self-supported bike-packing trips they used to make to Ohio with their kids when Coddington was in his late 30s. (Tania would later joke that it was “child abuse.”) As former owner of the Out Spokin’ bike shop in Granger, which he ran for 10 years and sold in 1997, he knows his stuff, but his body’s not up for tent camping anymore.

If they’d left Florida as they’d originally planned, on Feb. 28, the anniversary of Tania’s death, he says, “We might have called it off,” because they wouldn’t have even made it halfway across the U.S. Instead, they left Feb. 8, Dale’s birthday, to beat the Arizona heat.

“I did it the stupid way,” he quips. “East to west. I was afraid of the mountains more than the wind. I was wrong. I hit 25 mph head winds. I could hardly move.”

On one such windy day in the Hill Country of Texas, on desolate roads with crummy pavement, he ran out of water and stopped into a post office at a small crossroads. The postal worker gave him four tiny bottles of water. A man outside offered cold beer. Coddington didn’t need that, so the man ran off and returned with bottles of cold water.

“It gave me a lot of time to think,” he says of his time on the bike. “I know she (Tania) was pushing me a lot when I was going through that wind.”

For three months, they had a purpose. Now, the Coddingtons are driving toward Tennessee, where they’ll take 10 days to figure out where they’ll go next. They haven’t a clue, now that they can’t visit the monuments and capitals on their bucket list. Coddington just knows that, physically: “I really feel good, I don’t want to quit.”

Coast to Coast fundraiser

The Coddingtons have raised $20,145 of their $25,000 goal to support bereavement programs at the Center for Hospice Care in Mishawaka. None of that goes to the couple’s trip expenses, which they paid for themselves. To donate and learn more, visit a link in this column online. Or find “Coast to Coast Hospice” on Facebook.

Walk with peace

• Trillium alert: Thousands of big white trilliums are blooming in the state-dedicated nature preserve at Bendix Woods County Park in New Carlisle. Other woodland spring wildflowers also are blooming. Just remember: It’s against the law to pick any plants in a preserve (and it’ll kill them). You can also harm flowers by walking through them; stick to hiking trails. Also, plan ahead because bathrooms are closed. And leave no trash in the park. The park is at 56960 Timothy Road, off of Indiana 2.

• Mindful Moments: Christine Bettcher, a licensed mental health counselor at Indiana University South Bend, is posting short, daily videos among spring wildflowers on local hiking trails at such parks as Bendix Woods and St. Patrick’s. The idea is to learn about simple strategies of mindfulness to ease our stress. You’ll see profuse blooms and hear birds. The videos are posted at IU South Bend’s Facebook page. They’ll run through final exams next week and, she hopes, through the COVID-19 pandemic in months ahead. “My hope is that these ‘Mindful Moments’ might help bring nature’s beauty, serenity, and comfort to all who are sheltered at home,” she says. “In the coming days, I hope to add an interactive element, as well, inviting all in our community to spend more time outdoors, post photos or videos of themselves on their own nature adventures, or images of peace or beauty that they may discover and appreciate with each step along the trails.”

• Parks reopen: All LaGrange County parks, which had closed for COVID-19, reopened Monday. They open from 8 a.m. to sunset daily. Restrooms are open, but you’re asked to plan ahead so you won’t need them. Drinking fountains and playgrounds are closed. These include Dallas Lake Park in Wolcottville, Ind., with a wetland observation deck in a nature preserve, and Maple Wood Nature Center in LaGrange, with hiking trails through woods and wildflowers. (lagrangecountyparks.org)

Topinabee Lake Preserve

This is one of the lesser-known preserves, here in Niles, where you won’t find a trail but you can stand on an observation platform as an incredible variety of bird life swarms around the wetland, especially at dawn and dusk. I stopped by Sunday evening and even saw a water snake resting on a branch near the water. Migrating species stop here. Warblers, orioles and tanagers will explore the brush in front of you, according to the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, which maintains this preserve. Nearly 20 kinds of ducks visit. Naturalist Wendy Jones, of Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve in Niles, this week saw ring-necked duck, mallard duck, pied-billed grebe, American coot, sandhill crane, Canada goose and yellow-rumped warbler. The large leaves of spatterdock in the water are emerging, she says, so it’ll be harder to see waterfowl in a few weeks. Bring binoculars. The preserve is on Portage Road just north of U.S. 12 and past the railroad tracks. Walk a few steps on mowed grass to the platform. There isn’t a bench. Park on the roadside but not in the grass, because the ground is soft. Details at swmlc.org.