Beyond the Classroom Door

Enlarge Image Image Gallery GEARING UP: Our equipment consisted of Fuji bikes (with 15""frames for kids) outfitted with toe clips, sturdy tire tubes, flags, racks and panniers, helmets, gloves, and water bottles. PHOTOS BY LINDA AND BOB WILSON

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"Education is experience , and the essence of experience is self-reliance."
(Merlyn to young Arthur in T.H. Whites the once and the future king)

Last year my husband, Bob, and I realized that our precocious children, Robert (12) and Tina (10), were beginning to perform poorly in school, apparently because they were bored with the routine classroom curriculum. So Bob and I decided that a temporary change of scenery was in order. Believing as we do that learning should be an active process of exploration and discovery, we felt that an extended family vacation in which the four of us could get out into nature, see new places, and meet new people might be just the elixir needed to renew our youngsters' waning sense of adventure and to revive their wavering enthusiasm for scholarly pursuits.

After considering all the different modes of transportation available to us, we finally opted for bike tripping. Cycling would allow us to stay outdoors most of the time and would offer us physical, as well as mental, stimulation. Besides, biking is fun ... and, after all, this was going to be our vacation! It didn't take us long to study up on our basic survival needs and to plan the "courses" Robert and Tina would have to tackle in order to satisfy their regular school requirements. Once we got these preliminaries out of the way, we packed up and took off on an exciting family adventure that led us from our home in Sevier County, Tennessee, through North and South Carolina and Virginia, all the way to Washington, DC-a fitting destination for an educational jaunt! By the time we got back home, we'd biked a grand total of 1,200 miles!

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