Read Slade Gorton\'s Biography

Riding with histoRy 109

photos and whenever we got discouraged we could pull them out and

gaze at them,” says Sarah.^5

Slade, who loves maps, was in his element as a trip planner, securing

U.S. Geological Survey maps with contour lines and studying routes that

would keep them off heavily traveled highways for most of the distance.^

He called his brothers and other family members back East and told them

they were coming; get the sleeping bags out of the attic. His brother Nat

guffawed. “I’ll tell you what, Slade: If you get as far as upstate New York

I’ll do the last week with you.” Slade told him he’d better buy a 10–speed

and learn how the gears worked.^6

Next, the Gortons recruited their good friends, Dick and Micki Hems-

tad, and their four kids to join them. Dick, then director of the State Of-

fice of Community Development, couldn’t get away for a whole month

and ended up staying behind with the youngest Hemstad, who was only

10. On June 6, 1973, the three adults and six kids, ranging from 16 to 11,
    set out from Olympia. It was Gloucester or bust. Forty-five days and 3,328
    miles later, they arrived in Massachusetts after a close call for Slade and
    Becky.^7

seAL d hAd LeARned from Fran Call that if you stuck to the back roads

you’d see more of the real America, and it was a lot safer than threading

your away single file along a highway, whiplashed by the vortex of semi

The Gorton bicycle expedition on July 3, 1973, outside St. John’s Lutheran Church in
Sparta, Wis., where they spent the night. From left: Micki, Chris, Jenny and Rachael
Hemstad, Sarah, Sally, Tod, Slade and Becky Gorton. Gorton Family Album