More or less downhill from here.

I’m currently in a coffee shop in Pueblo, CO waiting out some of the heat before I press on for the day. I crossed over the highest point of tour the other day and have gradually lost 6500+ feet over the last 130 miles.

The couple of days before going over the pass were one of the highlights of the trip so far. I met four great people (and a great dog!) in Silverthorne, CO. And I went rock climbing for the first time ever!

It was definitely a bit of a bummer to leave from there, but the folks I met will be life-long friends, so I’ll see them again.

I should be getting into Kansas tomorrow, and working my way towards the Katy Trail and into St. Louis.

Operation Homeward Bound!

Like a non-stop buffet, but I have to keep paying.

So, things have been pretty rad lately. I’m currently in Steamboat Springs, CO after spending the weekend in Denver with my friend Chris. We did a ride that involved going up Lookout Mountain. Riding a touring bike uphill without all my bags on is kind of like using a rocket ship!

While I was in Wyoming I had a bit of a turn of luck. The 126 miles between Lander and Rawlins is a desolate stretch with limited services and sketchy camping options. I started, and was considering hitch hiking to Rawlins. While I was thinking about that, a uhaul truck pulled over on the shoulder. It just so happened to be another touring cyclist that had the same concerns I did, so he rented the truck and threw his bike in the back, as did I. Turns out he’s headed back to alabama, so I’ll meet back up with him and we’ll ride to Tennessee or so together.

Spent a couple days in Jackson Hole, WY with my friend Ken. We graduated high school together, but I hadn’t seen him since. It was rad.

The three days prior to getting to Yellowstone I hooked up with a group of four Dutch cyclists. It was not only good having the company, but it was also cool talking about some of the ins and outs of the Netherlands. Yellowstone and Grand Teton were, of course, incredibly beautiful.

So I’ve seen moose and elk and osprey and pronghorn antelope and a screech owl and all kinds of cool shit BUT STILL NO BEARS. Kinda bummed about that last one.

Some other rad things: free hot springs pool in Saratoga, WY, meeting awesome people, dirt track figure 8 racing at the Jackson Hole fair, eating too much food & then being hungry again an hour later, riding my bike nearly every day, and just being alive.

Be well y’all.

A tale of two cities

By and large, this trip has been incredible. The scenery, the people, eating all the time- all of it. It’s been mostly great.

There are those times, those days, those rides into heat and headwind and desolation, however, where doubts and questions come into my mind.

Did I bite off more than I can chew?

Why am I doing this?

I really miss my people in North Carolina and Alabama.

Seriously, this headwind has got to fucking stop.

And then I meet new people or see amazing sights and those doubts and questions are abated for a while.

But there’s always more headwind…

On the kindness of strangers

I’m in Hamilton, Montana right now after having spent a couple days in Missoula. I took a much needed rest day catching up on errands and, most importantly, not riding my bike with eleventy bazillion pounds of gear. But that’s neither here nor there.

The reason I wanted to write was so I could talk about what is becoming the best part of this trip: the overwhelming kindness of strangers. It’s easy to get sad and frustrated with the world around us because there are so many negative things out there. What I’m being reminded of daily is that there are still some really fucking good people out there.

In Walla Walla, Wa I stayed with a guy that, at 21 and with minimal planning/training, rode from WA to Maine to Florida, and now as a means of paying forward the generosity he experienced on his trip, hosts touring cyclists. The next day in Dayton, WA (population 1200 or so), I was set to camp at a sketchy looking trailer/RV park. A guy in line behind me at the grocery store, after talking to me about my tattoos and then my trip, invited me to set my tent up in his back yard. That led to hanging out with his family, learning about fast pitch softball, and then eventually a moon-lit ride in a ’64 Skylark convertible while being shown the sights of town. And then! And then! The next day in Lewiston, ID, after finding out all the campgrounds were full, I met a woman whose sister has a farm, and I was invited to camp there. And then I hung out with a bunch of rafting guides and had a dance party! And then! In Kooskia, ID I randomly met the inventor of PRO Bar, a vegan nutrition bar. That led to being shown around the land where he’s planning a natural health & wellness retreat/community, then dinner with his neighbors down the valley in an incredible cored wood construction house with the most incredible garden I’ve ever seen.

I then got to spend my time in Missoula at the house of the boyfriend of one of the women I met in Lewiston. And now I’m in Hamilton, staying with a couple who has been hosting touring cyclists since their son did a cross-country tour in 2009.

I can’t adequately convey how great it’s been to meet all the people I have along the way so far. A lot of giant big ole hearts are out there in the world, and I’ve been lucky enough to get to experience them first hand. I hope it continues.

Oh, and Montana is awfully beautiful.

Oh!

And on the hottest day of the six day Oregon tour we did we ate fresh berries from a fruit stand and swam in a river with a bunch of folks and then rode some more and then swam in a river again!

And mosquitoes can still go to hell.

The real nitty gritty.

Tommy flew back to NC today, and tomorrow I leave to head towards Missoula. It’s been a rad two weeks (complete with frustrating moments for both of us), but I’m really going to miss him. It was definitely a bummer seeing him cruise away on the train, but we both have things to attend to.

That said, tomorrow begins the great solo adventure vision quest back to NC. My friend Sarah and her uncle Steven are riding with me to Hood River, OR tomorrow, but they’re getting a ride back to Portland after dinner and I’ll be headed to camp for my first solo night of tour. I’m a bit nervous, to be honest. Tommy was really good at planning where to stay and much better at navigating by map than I am, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that I’ll end up in Arizona. I hear Flagstaff is nice this time of year.

Portland summer has been incredible and it certainly makes me miss aspects about living here. The food is great, there is some solid road riding, and I have some great friends, both old and new, here. They even have a city-wide composting program! I mean, they have three bins for houses: garbage, recycling, and compost! That shit is bananas! But really, it’s kind of rad here.

But! My heart’s in the south, for a multitude of reasons.

Itchy feet are a hell of a thing though…

Brief update.

It’s a bit hard trying to figure out what to write. Do I do a summation of each ride? Do I talk about the people I’ve met? Do I list the wildlife I’ve seen? Do I tie it in to the fundamental human condition?

Here are some of the facts: it hasn’t all gone according to plan. After four days of battling headwinds up the Pacific coast, we ended up catching an Amtrak from Oakland to Portland. I’ve seen some old friends I haven’t seen years. I’ve seen seals, banana slugs, lizards, and a bald eagle. We’ve met touring cyclists from all across the country, as well as from Europe. And I’ve had the incredible privilege to ride my bike along hundreds of miles of Pacific coastline.

So, to sum it up: FUCK YES LIFE RULES!

Chase beauty?

Chase beauty? Chase what beauty? What is “beautiful”?

Truthfully, it’s not for me to say what your beauty should be, or how to go about chasing it, or how to live your life. This, however, is what I know:

Life is fucking short, and the time we have to make our lives really count is fucking fleeting.

Given that it’s father’s day, the aforementioned shortness of time is particularly on my mind. My dad died when he was 45, a life cut short by cancer. He didn’t have all the time he needed to do everything he wanted. I’m 35 now, ten years short of where he was when he gave up the ghost. It’s been a long road to processing through how his death has affected me, and it’s something that I work on every day.

To that end, I’ve decided that, after years of talking about it, I’m going to ride my bike across the country. I leave Wednesday morning for Santa Cruz, California, and my final destination will likely be Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. I’m estimating that it’ll take in the neighborhood of three to four months to complete. There’s no doubt that it will be amazing, uncomfortable, terrifying, heartbreaking (in both good and bad senses), and a learning experience. I’m sure that if I make it all the way, I will be a stronger, more grounded person.

Either way, the main thing that I’ve taken away from my dad’s death is that we have to make the most of our moments count, because there is no guarantee of how many of those moments we’ll get.

So, that’s what “chase beauty” means to me: looking for those moments and places and people and actions that fill up the times, that fill our hearts with hope and nourishment and a desire to fucking live life as hard and as meaningfully as we can.

Here we go.