From Alaska to Argentina – On a Bike

“I found this painting (in the house), behind a door in the television room,” de Lussac told Reuters, calling it one of the biggest surprises in his career.

“I started estimating this room and when I turned back, I saw this painting. It was a very good surprise for me.”

The painting “L’Avocat du village (the Village Lawyer)” was made by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and is one of artist’s largest known works, measuring 112 centimeters (44 inches) high and 184 centimeters (72 inches) wide. It is estimated that the artwork was painted between 1615 and 1617.

The family had owned it since the 1900s but had thought it was fake.

Now, the painting is up for auction and is expected to fetch 600,000 to 800,000 euros ($649,000 to $865,000).

That’s mighty fine art.

Liam Garner loves to bike. And that’s good because the teenager has now biked through 14 countries using his two feet. His adventure started after high school. Garner set off when he was 17 years old with his mountain bike, a tent, a sleeping bag, a day’s worth of food and water, some batteries, and some extra bike parts. Oh, and a few hundred dollars.

Garner was an experienced cyclist who had ridden from Los Angeles to San Francisco previously. After reading a book by adventurer Jedidiah Jenkins, who biked from Oregon to Argentina, Garner decided that he would cycle from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the northernmost point in the United States accessible by road, to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost point

He began his journey across the Pan-American Highway, a network of roads extending across the Americas, on August 1, 2021.

So far, he has cycled through 14 countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

“There’s an official route, and then there’s unofficial routes,” he explains. “I basically made my own [route] as I went along. As long as I was going south every day, I knew I was going in the right direction.”

His parents weren’t too keen on his adventure. In fact, he didn’t tell his father (his parents are separated) until he reached Alaska. Now, they are both his biggest supporters.

Of the many countries he cycled through, he was particularly surprised by El Salvador, which he describes as “one of the most peaceful, nicest, quietest countries.”

Still, not every part of Garner’s journey was easy street. He was robbed at least five times and had to spend a month in the hospital after coming off his bike in Colombia and landing on his head.

“The idea that you might get hurt, and something really awful might happen is in your mind traveling so much,” Garner said, before explaining that he received around 40 stitches and had to have plastic surgery to repair his ear and stitch it back together.

“But it wasn’t really a reality until I got hurt in Colombia. I was blacked out for about 15 minutes, and it took me a few hours to even be able to speak again.”

There were times when the heat was so intense that he couldn’t bike for more than just a few minutes each day. “There’s no point in torturing ourselves,” he recalls saying at the time. “This is not fun.”

Garner finally arrived in Ushuaia on January 10 after cycling almost 20,000 miles over the course of 527 days.

He’s now 19 years old.

Garner reflects on his journey, “If I had stayed home, and I had gone to community college, or something along those lines, would I have really been a better person than I am now?

“Would I really be as open minded as I am now? I strongly think that I wouldn’t be. That’s why I think this was the most competent decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’ve never been more sure about something I’ve done.”

Ride on.