Teaser 014 from mike ambs on Vimeo. This was taken in Glacier Park Montana – it poured there for about two days. At this point in the trip Larry didn’t even own a tent, I’m not quite sure how he managed to sleep and stay dry. He used a tarp and a picnic table to create a kind of make-shift tent. It’s a strange thing to be so cold and so wet in weather like this – and not have a real roof over your head. Not only for just a few hours, but for days. When the sun finally comes out and hits your skin – it’s an amazing feeling to be back on your bike.

Teaser 013 from mike ambs on Vimeo. This was taken around out 9th morning of our trip – we’re either on the far end of Washington or just getting into Idaho. In the background you can half see a group of female bicyclists that we ran into several times up until Montana. They had a pretty inspiring mindset about traveling – and one of the women would later email me on the memories from her ride, saying: “…It haunts me now like a dream that only exists in my head, separate from everything in my day to day ‘real’ life.” I thought that was one of the most perfect and beautiful ways I’d ever heard a person describe the after effects of their trip.

Teaser 011 from mike ambs ☂ on Vimeo. This was one of the rare days that the wind was to Larry’s back – which also meant that I didn’t have to fight the wind when working the crane. Most days it felt like trying to steady a massive sail with a camera on the end of it – but this day, the wind kept perfect pace with us, and I could move the camera almost anywhere without any real resistance. This shot is a snippet from the middle of a longer 360˚ that follows Larry. But if I posted the whole rotation, it would be about 2 min… and that’s not much of a teaser.

Teaser 010 from mike ambs on Vimeo. This is almost a cut & paste right from the first 14 minutes of the feature film – I just decided to pull the music out because I’d like to keep that a secret… or something like that. This is Larry watching the sunset on the Mississippi… he sat there and watched the sky for a long time on that bench. Tonight he sent me an email, and near the end of it, he reminded me of a few things from that night, he wrote: “I remember watching that movie that was like Quiinosquatsi but callled something else [Baraka], in the van. And than I went and waded in the Mississippi and drank beers listening to Jeff Buckley and wishing he didn’t drown in that river.“

Teaser 009 from mike ambs on Vimeo. There’s something about this clip that is heavily nostalgic for me. I can remember so clearly nights from my past bicycle trips, laying in my sleeping bag on the grass… hearing the bugs… watching the sun sink behind the horizon as I tried to finish writing in my journal about that day when I’m watching this.

Teaser 007 from mike ambs on Vimeo. This was still in Washington… probably only 3 or 4 days into the trip. It was a very beautiful area… big skies… endless evergreens… slow climbing hills. I remember when logging and tagging this footage – just how much we captured here… I have tons and tons of wide open shots, tons of close ups of everything from Larry… to evergreens… to chipmunks :)