SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — Sometimes uprooting your life, taking time off, and starting fresh are essential to finding yourself and thriving.
Leah Day, 53, and her son Oakley Bradenday, 18, of Peaks Island did just that.
In 2019, the mother-son duo pressed the pause button on their lives and flew out to Oregon to bike across the country.
The trip lasted from August to October, during which the two biked the TransAmerica Trail from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia.
Day decided to go on the trip to help her son, who at the time needed guidance in learning to understand himself and the world around him.
"He was struggling in high school ... and it just wasn't working being in traditional mainstream school," Day told NEWS CENTER Maine. "So, I took that moment, and I was like 'You know what? My value [is] being outdoors, my value is taking care of my family, and I love this guy.'"
From that realization, Day took her son out of school and biked across the country with him.
"It was an incredibly important turning point in our lives," Day added.
Braden-Day wasn't the only one who rediscovered themselves on the trip. Day did, too.
Before the bike trip, Day was an acceptance and commitment social worker, having helped people accept what they were feeling while staying committed to their values.
When the two returned from the trip, Day decided to leave her career as a social worker and open her very own bike shop: Lighthouse Bikes in South Portland.
"It was a great run, I have so much respect for the people I worked with," Day said. "But I love biking and I love seeing people happy outside. And so, we came back and opened this bike store.”
Lighthouse Bikes, in addition to repairing and selling bikes and gear, offers bike tours to the public. There are three tours with different difficulty levels, accommodating bikers at all skill levels from beginner to advanced.
The shortest bike tour offered, around 5 miles long, is mostly all on bike path and along flat land around South Portland.
A longer bike tour offered is about 12 miles roundtrip, making stops at Bug Light Park, Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse, and Portland Head Light. Members of the bike tour have the opportunity to stop and eat lunch at Bite Into Maine, a food truck parked at Portland Head Light known for its lobster rolls.
The longest bike tour that Day offers to the public is a 24-mile art tour that goes along the coast out to Higgins Beach and back. Throughout the tour, Day stops and talks about all the artists who have come and painted along the coast.
“It’s amazing how many people have [painted], and we have little postcard books of the famous artists that we talk about, that show the paintings where we are biking,” Day said.
"We have fun every day ... It’s so great to work with those people and they’re having a great time," Day said. "They're rediscovering playing on a bicycle. ... I also love that it feels like social work but with a really positive edge because you’re helping people rediscover their playful side."
As for the bike trip, it certainly made a positive impact on the mother and son.
"Since we were the only two on the trip, communication and sportsmanship were really important because there were some really tough times at some points on the trip," Bradenday said in an interview. "To always work together and sort things out together is the one takeaway I had."
"Finishing [the trip], he was definitely able ... to feel just so much better about himself and about life and about our relationship," Day said, warmly. "We have each other’s back."
Day and her son recall Wyoming and Montana being their favorite regions that they biked through. Day especially recalls a quaint, remote town with a population of only a little over 100 called Wisdom in Montana leaving a mark on her.
"That place really stood out to us like, ‘Wow, that is a whole different world that people live in.'"
The people they met along the way also helped shape their view of the world in a good way.
"The kindness was incredible," Day explained. "People would buy us lunch if they noticed what we were doing, and they wouldn’t even tell us they were buying us lunch. We’d go to pay the check, and it’d be done. Or, people would literally run out of their houses with ice-cold water when they see us going by, especially in middle America."
Upon returning home and opening Lighthouse Bikes, Day also decided to write a book about her trip with her son. "Changing Gears" was officially launched on May 10 of this year.
Bradenday even helped write the book, adding in "Oakley's 2 cents."
"My son, he wrote footnotes for every chapter pretty much," Day explained. "So, I tell the story of what was happening and at the end is what we call ‘Oakley’s 2 cents,’ where he’ll correct anything I said that he doesn’t agree with.”
The book is available for purchase online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Target, and more.
"The book is called ‘Changing Gears,’ and I feel like it did change," Day said. "It changed our whole life. That whole concept of if you really throw your hat over the wall and say, ‘I’m going to follow what it is I really do want,’ you don’t know where it’s going to lead but it led to opening up this bike shop. So, it’s like the adventure kind of continues. You just got to go for it. It’s all about getting out of a rut for everybody and not shying away from what makes you afraid."