Janet Peterson and her husband spent the past year exploring and discovering the world on a bicycle.

On Saturday in Riley 201, the couple spoke at Linfield parents weekend about their journey across the sea.

Peterson, a professor in the Human Performance and Athletics Department here at Linfield, and her husband, Jay Swenberger traveled through Europe with only their bike and a few duffel bags.

“Jay and I never really had a honeymoon,” Peterson said.

Swenberger added, “We spent six hours planning it.”

Getting ready for the trip seemed to be the least of their problems.

While Linfield gave Peterson the whole year off to pursue this adventure, Swenberger’s boss said he could only have 90 days before he had to come back.

With that kind of time crunch, he was forced to make a big decision. “I quit,” Swenberger said.

During the speech, Peterson and Swenberger discussed the different parts of their trip. They began by talking about their lodging situations. Lodging might be a generous way of putting it.

“We stayed in a gamut of places.” Peterson said.

For many nights the couple stayed in their three-person tent on different European sites.

When they were feeling luxurious, they would use the website “Warm Showers” and occupy an extra room or even a backyard of someone’s house.

In the nights that they were living really large, there were some cabins that they would come across and stay in for a night or two.

The journey wasn’t all fun and games though, the couple talked about the hardest parts being the natural ruggedness of the earth.

Terrain seemed to be one of the biggest challenges, with much of the trip including heavy climbing.
At its worst, the journey wasn’t just hard but extremely treacherous.

One day, the road seemed to get narrower and narrower, and the surroundings weren’t helping. “Barbed wire on one side, 100 foot on the other,” Swenberger recounted. They stood up and walked the for the next couple miles.

When they returned, Peterson came back to teach at Linfield this year, the couple was featured in “The Newberg Graphic,” and Swenberger ended up getting his job back.

Everything came full circle and they ended up right back at home in Newberg with many marvelous tales to tell.