While I was thinking about how to congratulate my oldest son, who entered college this spring, on his step into adulthood, a senior who I had heard was fighting an illness came to visit from Niigata. He had brought his son, who is in his twenties, with him; they were taking a three-week vacation, taking the ferry, and traveling together with a bicycle in their own car. He didn't work at all in Sapporo, his final goal, and didn't even look at his laptop, making time for his son and cycling around Hokkaido.

wondered about the slightly longer vacation and asked my senior about it. "My son decided to come back to my hometown from Tokyo when he was cured of his own illness, so I decided to make a father-son trip for the two of us. I decided to take a father-son trip because my son decided to come back to my hometown from Tokyo when he was cured of his illness, so I decided to take a father-son trip.

We decided to take a three-day, two-night trip to the town of Teshikaga in eastern Hokkaido. When I asked my oldest son if he wanted to go on a graduation trip with me, he brushed me off with a smile and said, "That's okay, I have plans with friends. Remembering that when he was in high school, he used to ride his bicycle with some friends to faraway places and liked long-distance rides, I suggested that we ride around Lake Mashu, Lake Kussharo, and Kushiro Marsh by bicycle.

From Lake Touro to Lake Kussharo

We decided to start from Lake Tangji and run 75 km to Lake Kussharo with father and son. Fortunately, the weather was fine and we started from Lake Tangji at a little past 6:00 am. Soon we saw Lake Tangji on our right hand side. The lake was quiet and two water birds which were resting on the surface of the water glistening in the morning sun noticed us and took off. It was really impressive to see them fly away slowly into the sky while running alongside our road bikes on the surface of the lake.

Cycling in Teshikaga was like riding across the Canadian continent from Japan on an endless stretch of road. We continued to ride as one team, feeling the birds chirping and the wind rustling in the trees.
(Continued in the second half)
Takashi Mizuguchi