Autumnal Serenity

The seeminly endless stretches of prestine beaches and cozy neighborhoods littered with spanish moss came to a close as we began to transition to the east coast with its variety of people and wide spectrum of colors. Savannah had a great atmosphere, very laid back, but with that old southern charm that lets the lingering history of the area creep back in. Every street corner had some recognized historical significance and even the streets themselves were peeled back to old cobble stone roads to remind one of how things used to be. Here we part with our pal Todd and that night we met some couch surfers and an aspiring author that is traveling by bike all over the country after his financial stability took a turn for the worse (good luck man). The next morning we were off and away on the greyhound thanks to my grandparents and found our way to Roanoke at one in the morning. Here we met up with Paige and her friend Humi, we piled in her car and took off towards Virginia Tech. All together it was four jam packed days of laziness incredible hikes and parties galore. Needless to say, gin and tonic was not my friend and the beauty of blacksburg and the stillness of life here makes the existence of time drift far from conscious thought. Virginia tech like some medieval castle was layered in massive gray stone while the colorful country side that surrounded it gave off a château in France look. Overall I really enjoyed the town and the trails, I was really bummed not to have a bike to hit the trails with, but good people seemed to do just fine.



The next day Elo came by and took us from blacksburg up to Reston and gave us a place to stay in his living room. We toured the capital and saw the town and met plenty of friendly people. WE went to the rally of Sanity on the national mall which was pretty incredible. I have never seen anything like it before, it kind of felt like the zombie apocalypse was happening. We rode the metro into the city and there were lines of people all the way to the parking lot just to get on the subway in viginia 3 hours before the event even started. The streets were shut down in every direction and standing in the field with over 200,000 felt more like wading in the ocean than standing. It was really weird there wood be pockets of current that would develop and people would ride them to the outskirts of the crowd. Altogether though it was pretty stunning to just be a part of it. Probably the best thing about it was the speech at the end, it was dead silent on the mall except for Jon Stewarts voice and you could hear it echo all the way down the national mall, kind of made the spine tingle. Well its Halloween now and tomorrow we head to Philadelphia for some cheese steaks and New York that night via bus. Part II has officially begun.

Cadence clear air revival

A blank canvas unveils the uncertainty and randomness of human thought, every brush stroke adds contrast and meaning as the image unfolds. Every moment of this trip seems to reveal something amazing, some new perspective I have never thought of or some new direction to head. It is strange to think we are already on the east coast when leaving Portland feels like it was only yesterday. Some wild number of miles ago we left on bicycle and today we are sitting below the same stars in what looks like a world apart.
The ride out from New Orleans landed us in some picturesque places, we rode along the swamps of Mississippi, through the rolling hills of Alabama, into deluxe apartments overlooking Pensacola. We were fortunate enough to make a friends with an investor in the area that had this amazing apartment overlooking this harbor with enough couches to fit all three of us and one more in his place with no problems. He greeted us with beers and laughter, and became another great example of southern hospitality, when we needed it most. We left the next morning fed and clean and made our way down to some famous white sand beaches along the way. We even got to spend the night on a giant sand dune overlooking Fort Walton beach, which is a resort town with ocean on two sides of it. The next few days consisted of arduous night riding which kept our daily mileage near a century pretty consecutively. We made it through Tallahassee exhausted and slept behind a truck stop in the bushes, made it to live oak and slept in a shed next to a busy road and the next day we were surprised with a place to stay and a friend to ride out and meet us on bike. It's kind of funny we began our trip with my uncle Greg guiding us out of Portland and we ended the trip with Todd guiding us in; even the milage was about the same for both rides. We were brought around town and had a victory beer as we rode to his place. That night we checked out his buddies pizza place and the next day we rode to the beach to put the cap on the ride and dipped our bikes in the Atlantic on the border of Atlantic and Neptune Beach. We got some hook ups through a couple of local bike shops Todd was familiar with and got our bikes packed up and we leave tomorrow morning towards Savannah Georgia where we will take a bus to Virginia Tech to visit Jared's old friends.
The next portion of the trip is via greyhound buses, we have a pass that gives us unlimited travel for 15 consecutive days where we will pick up in Washington D.C. and begin to head up the east coast hitting Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Portland Maine. However, from Portland on things get tricky, we may separate and meet back up in Oregon, or travel together to Chicago and then split up an meet back again. The logistics are unclear, but the adventure still remains potentially epic. We hope to catch the rally for sanity in D.C. and after head out, landing us in Oregon about the 15th and back home in Newbury Park about the 19th.
If I had to take one part of this biking portion of our trip and apply any sort of moral or lesson to it; it would be that there is a lot more good out there then you think. People will surprise you in the most incredible ways, you could be down and out, your legs swollen from bug bites, your head pounding in the heat and the water you are drinking tastes like sewage, but it takes only two seconds of kindness to change all of that. Never let a moment pass where you can lend a helping hand to another human being. You don't have to know them, you don't have to be wealthy or uncommonly social, but a simple gesture of kindness in your own form can go miles to anyone going through a miserable time. I feel that if God were a painter, my life up to this point would be a massive mixture of different directions, swirls of random colors, distant odd looking things combined with crystal clear landscapes and it all somehow jumbled together into something purposeful with the rigidity and focus of the greatest architectural mind. There is still so much work to be done on it, but everyday seems to build into something I can smile back on.

Digressive English leads to Progressive Hospitality

Swamps, moss covered trees and our very own police escort down the ten and we find ourselves in the big easy. We left Chad’s place with a vague recollection of what bike riding was and made our way through Houston actually enjoying the cool winding bike paths that carved out the hill alongside the Bayou (small little river). We went through some rough parts of town and down long dust filled big rig ridden roads. We came out of Houston and settled down in Liberty Texas, found a park cooked up some dinner and slept under a playground of a park. After being harassed by some raccoons and hooligans we woke up and started our way toward Orange Texas where this nice lady named Jane bought us some sandwiches and drinks and we got our final taste of Texan hospitality as we took on some night riding into our first century of the trip ( a hundred miles). We landed just on the other side of the Texan/Louisiana border and I bought the guys some waffles for completing their first 100 mile ride. Waffle HOUSE!! We then crept behind the hotel next door and fell asleep in some bushes. The sprinklers gave us a nice wake up call at 3 in the morning and we moved into the dirt and slept in pretty late. After so many nights of just trying to get undisturbed sleep after a long day of testing your body, you are humbled by the small things in life you take for granted. Not many people give a second thought to where they are able to sleep that night or where they are going to get basic essentials like water; every single day is a constant test in finding these things. A lot of places refuse to give you ice and water on a scorching hot day, some people are so used to being manipulated and turned off to the concept of generally honest people that they won’t let you in their bathrooms or even give you nasty tasting sink water. Baton Rouge was a prime example of this, but to contrary belief of people in this world, the majority of people we have encountered have been extremely kind and welcoming.
Anyways, rants aside we set out the next day pretty late, but satisfied with the distance we had covered. The guys and I roll out and end up doing some more night riding to get another 100 miles as we lay just outside of Lafayette, but along the way we had more encounters with people just bewildered with our little endeavor. Jared and I struck up some conversations at a gas station as we were filling up water and end up with 47 dollars from people that just want to help contribute something to our adventure. We tried to convince them there are more deserving people of the money and that we don’t really need it all that much, but they insisted. It is incredible how serendipitous some of our encounters are; not a moment later and we would of never of met these people, would of never of even glanced at them, but a seemingly insignificant moment allows us to have some breathing room in our budget and allowed us to splurge on some good food in New Orleans.



The next day we cover about 85 miles, the first 25 miles were on the ten over this massive swamp, you would look out from the bridge you were riding on and see endless bodies of water with scattered trees with moss hanging from the branches and then before you can take in the immensity of it all I turn around to see flashing blue lights on the shoulder about a mile back. I ride back to see Derek and Jared sitting there and this state trooper in the car trying to figure out what to do. We were 25 miles to Baton Rouge and 25 miles back is the closest exit. We can’t turn around so he gave us the option of getting tickets and our bikes impounded or a police escort off the highway to the nearest exit and directions into the city; we chose the latter, in case it wasn’t obvious. We take a 10 mile detour through the country and evade citations, but were warned to not ride on the 10 again in Louisiana. Luckily we don’t need to ride on it again until Mississippi. So we take the detour cross the Mississippi river into baton rouge, navigate our way through and sleep behind an abandoned school bus and cement truck in a field. We got eaten alive by mosquitoes and the next day we got into New Orleans. The guys and I strolled the city that night drinking the patented Derek Wicks (Patent pending). I got a bit stumbly and fell asleep after drinking some strange drinks with toy alligators in them and wearing beads that seemed to fall from the sky. So after cruising some incredibly dangerous bridges on bikes, parading around the big easy and soaking in the awesome atmosphere our time in Louisiana comes to a close and tomorrow we take a bridge out of town and roll into Mississippi along the coast. Southern hospitality and the overall jovial nature of everyone we talk to here made the experience memorable and the million close calls and constant desperate praying while riding on some roads makes me thank God every moment I can take a breath in this place. God is great. Next milestone is Pensacola, should be beautiful, hope the weather stays nice.

The Houstonian Tree Gator

The journey from Becka’s place south was an interesting one; we went from towering mountains and a rolling horizon to long stretches of nothing. We dodged some cars in Denver and rolled down the highway out of civilization, as we were leaving we were greeted with some bizarre thunderstorm clouds that left the sky divided, one half was a bright sunset and the rest was shrouded in dark purple clouds that would occasionally light up the road as lightning surged through it. After meandering through the busy city and being chased by massive thundering clouds we were then blasted by rain in the pitch-black night, we took refuge in this warehouse until it blew over. It seems that every state has a saying about its weather; I guess Colorado’s is if you don’t like the weather wait 20 minutes. So once it passed we popped a tent behind the building and passed out.
The next day we rolled on to Limon which was around 60 or so miles down the road, we covered an easy 38 early in the morning and then made some awful split pea soup, no offense Jared, and then were hit by some of the worst head winds we have encountered yet, around 20 or 30 mph. They were so bad it took about 4 hours to cover 25 miles. The rockies and mountain passes have their challenges, but give a bad head wind it is like climbing hills all day. Absolutely destroys you mentally, let alone physically. So we roll in pretty late and sleep in a dug out again. We then begin to ride and realize that the winds are actually worse then the day before and we decide to make signs for a possible ride. We pass through about 8 miles of construction filled with the some of the biggest jerks I have met on this trip that made us get off our bikes to let traffic pass, making our timing pretty awful, then we begin to run out of water and some nice people helped us out, the winds kept picking up and after another construction zone we sit down to eat lunch looking at the large thunderstorm clouds closing in on us, we are about 42 miles out of limon and this guy in a massive white van pulls over to see if we are okay and asks if we need a ride anywhere. We were on our last straw and gladly took him up on the offer. So we packed up his van and off we went. We were on our way to Amarillo and it so happens that is where he was from, he tells me about his family, his business and some pretty funny stories about the area and his life. He ended up taking us about 290 miles south and gave us a place to stay along with plenty of food. We were about to head out the following day towards Cleburne and as we open the door it is dumping buckets of rain all around us, so we were invited to stay another night. His niece and her friends took us around town that night and showed us a good time. We then wake up the following morning to find out he is actually heading to Cleburne that night and asked us if we wanted another ride, we eventually reasoned out that whatever time and money saved here in Texas we gain on the east coast, which no offense to Texas, but is a bit more appealing to me. So we take another ride and arrive at my great aunt’s place and have a mini family reunion. My dad’s parents from California happen to be there too, and we meet Roger, Dorothy and Roger’s daughter. We get a ride to Rogers and spend the night in his beautiful ranch house, where we each have our own rooms and beds. We spend the next day shooting skeet and eating out and launching illegal fireworks. The next day we go fishing at my other cousin’s ranch (Alvin) catch a few fish and head back for some smoked brisket. So we continue on the skip Texas campaign and get picked up by my mom’s grandparents and are taken down to Saledo, a beautiful little ranch property near this little creek. We spend a few days with them, go down to Austin one night to hang with Chad and relax while soaking up the fantastic Texan hospitality. We make a massive tree swing, shoot some bows and arrows and get an idea of what retired life can look like. Awesome might I add, old people have it great. Anyways we begin to realize that riding in Texas is just something we are all willing to skip so we take another ride from my grandpa to Houston. Chad and Lindsay take us in and we spend the weekend going to the bayou, Galveston, and around town. We watch countless cat you tube videos, Rock a doodle, and City of Angels. We fill the void in our lives that lacked Chad’s awesome sense of humor.
Tomorrow we get back on the bikes and attempt to navigate our way towards New Orleans. Houston is a massive city and it will be tough trying to find a way out of it, but it has been great and Texas has been more than good to us, saving us tons of money and time, and gives us a head start that will enable us to see more of the east coast on this trip. The hitchhiking experiment pays off and we are looking forward to the big easy. I’ll cross my fingers for no hurricanes.

I apologize for all the spelling and grammar mistakes, again I don't have a lot of time to edit.