Two months. No cell phone. No credit cards. No forms of communication. Just two friends, two bikes, one tent, two sleeping bags, and a few changes of clothes.

After graduating college in New York in 1991, and in between jobs, counselor Chris Hartford spent 21 days of his life biking from New Jersey to Florida.

“My parents thought I was insane,” Hartford said.

Because the first solo trip was a success, Hartford decided he needed to share this special experience with someone else. So, in 1996, Hartford embarked on another trip, spending two months of his life biking down the West Coast, this time with his friend, Jim Henniger.

“He was in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I was in San Francisco, and we decided to do another trip when we were in between jobs again,” Hartford said.

Hartford and Henniger flew to Vancouver, Canada, and started their biking journey.

“We had the craziest adventures,” Hartford said. “Sometimes we would sleep in parks.”

Hartford said they lived very simply, with only a rack on the back of the bike, a tent, sleeping bag, a few clothing items, and a camping stove; all being about 30 pounds.

“We spent probably $1000 the whole two months, it was pretty minimal,” Hartford said. “It was pretty much just [for] food and the occasional campground. We didn’t stay in a hotel once the whole trip.”

Hartford said one of his most memorable experiences was near Monterey, California.

“We stopped at this art gallery, in a really unpopulated area, looking over the ocean, and they were having an open house with a band, an open bar, and all this gourmet food,” Hartford said. “We were amazed that they invited us, and we hung out for like six hours, just talking to people, dancing.”

Senior Shannon Murphy, who has known Hartford most of her life, said that this trip shows how trusting he is of other people, and how easy it is for him to adapt to new things.

“It just shows his positive energy in general,” Murphy said. “He has such zest for life, like coming in and wishing kids happy birthday, and singing songs.”

The goal of the trip was to make it all the way down to Mexico, Hartford said. But Hartford and Henniger were advised to not bike all the way down, so they flew home, and then returned to Mexico a few months later.

“We stayed in Mexico for four months, in Morelia, Mexico,” Hartford said. “We taught English at a private school. We weren’t qualified at all, but we just winged it.”

Henniger stayed in Mexico longer than Hartford, and married someone from Colombia who he met there. Today, they now have two kids together.

“In a strange kind of way, the whole trip opened up his whole life,” Hartford said.

Junior Maxine Miller said that she is not surprised that Hartford went on a trip like that, and that it shows a lot about his character. Miller said that it shows how social Hartford is and how he can find connections everywhere he goes.

“It was a unique time in our lives, it wasn’t reality, total freedom,” Hartford said. “We could do whatever we wanted, no responsibility.”