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.
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