This is the story of how I quit a good-paying engineering job to ride a bicycle across the country. Highlights somehow include wedding crashing, breaking and entering, partying in a 5th Ave penthouse, and possibly attempting to unlawfully enter some kind of black site at 2 AM.
I can't guarantee that this trip wasn't a dumb decision, but I can say it was a lot of things beyond just dumb, and it certainly helped point my life in a more interesting direction. Along the way, I saw a lot of pretty things, met a lot of interesting people, and experienced more than my fair share of adventure magic, or the unplanned and unlikely events that make for memorable experiences and good stories. Hopefully this will only be the prequel to greater experiences.
My "adventure style" involves sleeping in graveyards, spending too much time in bars, and pursuing whims farther than might be prudent. I honestly believe that trail magic is a skill that can be developed, and I'm proud of the efforts I've made to be curious, open, and available for the coincidences that make life worth living. This experience wouldn't have been half as rich without it.
That said, this was written primarily for myself, so it's not the polished story of a plucky roustabout traipsing through episodic adventures. I got a little depressed toward the end, and my experiences and writing reflect that.
Posts are presented in chronological order, meaning the most recent ones are at the top. To start from the beginning, click here. The writing is a little rough at the start but I settled into a rhythm with time.
As a preview, all 5,000 miles of the final route are presented below. Click through to the actual site to see more detail, including elevation profiles and campsites.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
The Return - Days 100-101: New York City, NY to Urbana, IL
Today was two days.
Also, I know this is another melodramatic title. For some reason I felt obliged to reference the final stage of the "hero's journey" despite my lack of heroism. Let me know if anybody finds the "gift of the goddess" I'm neglecting to bring back, because as it is, this feels pretty anticlimactic.
This time period started by marking myself "safe" from a pipe bomb attack in the NY metro near Penn Station, where I dozed uncomfortably on the grimy floor while waiting for a train to Chicago. New Yorkers are excellent at being sick and tired of things, and this was no exception: reactions decayed from "oh shit" to "why hasn't this been solved yet, I have places to be" in less than five minutes, and snarky complaints were shared freely among strangers in a touching display of community bonding. I'm convinced this town is built upon mutual fed-uppedness.
Not much else really happened, as the bulk of this time was spent on a train. I disassembled my bike, stuffed it into the Amtrak-provided box in New York, reassembled it in Chicago, put it on another train to Champaign, and rode it to my new home in Urbana. The 28-hour train ride via Washington, DC was only really remarkable for the sheer number of babies that were brought in and out of the train along the way, providing fresh reinforcements whenever previous squadrons became tired enough to nap.
The vivid fall colors I saw throughout the Appalachians made me question the decision not to simply ride by way back to Illinois. I could've stayed with the pedicab driver in DC, experienced the fall colors in their full glory through the Blue River trail in Virginia, taken part of the Trans-America trail that I missed all the way back to Carbondale, IL, and bushwhacked my way up to Urbana from there. Seeing these colors through a window felt profoundly disappointing even though I knew it was probably best not to put my knees through the dramatic ups and downs of the Appalachians. I tried not to think too much about whether my presence on the train represented some fundamental character flaw; logically, I know it doesn't, but I wish somebody would tell that to my more intrusive thoughts.
I'm not in much of a state to provide a satisfying conclusion right now, so I'm leaving that for a later post. I do have a fittingly patriotic image to leave you with after my trans-America journey, however: please stand for the red white and blue!
I had considered getting a tattoo to commemorate this experience, but I'm fairly certain this tan line is permanent.
Also, I know this is another melodramatic title. For some reason I felt obliged to reference the final stage of the "hero's journey" despite my lack of heroism. Let me know if anybody finds the "gift of the goddess" I'm neglecting to bring back, because as it is, this feels pretty anticlimactic.
This time period started by marking myself "safe" from a pipe bomb attack in the NY metro near Penn Station, where I dozed uncomfortably on the grimy floor while waiting for a train to Chicago. New Yorkers are excellent at being sick and tired of things, and this was no exception: reactions decayed from "oh shit" to "why hasn't this been solved yet, I have places to be" in less than five minutes, and snarky complaints were shared freely among strangers in a touching display of community bonding. I'm convinced this town is built upon mutual fed-uppedness.
Not much else really happened, as the bulk of this time was spent on a train. I disassembled my bike, stuffed it into the Amtrak-provided box in New York, reassembled it in Chicago, put it on another train to Champaign, and rode it to my new home in Urbana. The 28-hour train ride via Washington, DC was only really remarkable for the sheer number of babies that were brought in and out of the train along the way, providing fresh reinforcements whenever previous squadrons became tired enough to nap.
The vivid fall colors I saw throughout the Appalachians made me question the decision not to simply ride by way back to Illinois. I could've stayed with the pedicab driver in DC, experienced the fall colors in their full glory through the Blue River trail in Virginia, taken part of the Trans-America trail that I missed all the way back to Carbondale, IL, and bushwhacked my way up to Urbana from there. Seeing these colors through a window felt profoundly disappointing even though I knew it was probably best not to put my knees through the dramatic ups and downs of the Appalachians. I tried not to think too much about whether my presence on the train represented some fundamental character flaw; logically, I know it doesn't, but I wish somebody would tell that to my more intrusive thoughts.
I'm not in much of a state to provide a satisfying conclusion right now, so I'm leaving that for a later post. I do have a fittingly patriotic image to leave you with after my trans-America journey, however: please stand for the red white and blue!
I had considered getting a tattoo to commemorate this experience, but I'm fairly certain this tan line is permanent.
Monday, January 30, 2017
Shitshow - Day 99: Pathogue to New York City, NY
Today I just hung around Patchogue doing nothing of note until it was time to take the train back to Manhattan for the penthouse
party. The part itself is succinctly described in the title of this post. I almost don't want to write about it,
but it seems unfair to withhold details now.
I considered buying a black collared shirt from K-mart. This was the after-party for a fashion show, though, and I decided that dressing up would be futile on my budget. I did try to at least smell alright, but it ultimately didn't matter. By the time we arrived the formerly beautiful three-or-more-story 5th Avenue penthouse, it had been transformed into an absolute wreck with sticky floors, broken furniture, and no remaining alcohol. The elevator kept vomiting out fresh loads of aspiring party-goers who would repeat the same cycle: fight through the crowd of aspiring ex-party-goers, discover that coming here was a mistake, and then join the mob to fight their way out again while cursing whoever told them to come here.
Conversation was almost impossible and the novelty of the situation wore out quickly, both for me as a relative peasant failing to masquerade and for my host who quickly lost interest once he realized that nobody was excited about the scraggly-bearded vagrant he scraped out of the gutter. He couldn't brag about me without yelling directly into someone's ear, so after trying that a couple times to no avail, he left me to fend for myself. Bewildered and alone, I wandered off to survey the chaos.
The sizable and increasingly irritable crowd all agreed to respect the space around a red-carpet-style photo op near the elevator. Nobody dared cross the gap between the professional lighting and a backdrop with some designer's logo tiled across it. This void established a pressure gradient that spat me out into this sacred space through no action of my own, blinking stupidly at the lights. After a moment, a tiny model appropriated me as arm candy and I tried to look... some kind of way while a stranger used my new friend's phone to collect, I assumed, photographic evidence of how terrible the event was. After a few shots, she managed to communicate that she had lost track of her friends and was basically terrified by the whole ordeal. She hoped I could clear her a path to the elevator.
I did as requested. I learned she was 19 and Australian, but she didn't know the guy who brought me here -- dumb question, in retrospect. I didn't have the chance to pry much more than that before she found a ride. I have to say that I really enjoyed being identified as a safe person when I figured most people there expected me to ask for spare change.
Only now am I realizing that I will never get to see the photos she took. I hardly took any photos, but I feel like I should at least provide some evidence of how my bike ride ended with an abysmal 5th Avenue penthouse party, so here's a funky art piece and picture from the street afterward. I assumed this was a light fixture that was turned off to encourage people to leave, but I really have no idea.
I considered buying a black collared shirt from K-mart. This was the after-party for a fashion show, though, and I decided that dressing up would be futile on my budget. I did try to at least smell alright, but it ultimately didn't matter. By the time we arrived the formerly beautiful three-or-more-story 5th Avenue penthouse, it had been transformed into an absolute wreck with sticky floors, broken furniture, and no remaining alcohol. The elevator kept vomiting out fresh loads of aspiring party-goers who would repeat the same cycle: fight through the crowd of aspiring ex-party-goers, discover that coming here was a mistake, and then join the mob to fight their way out again while cursing whoever told them to come here.
Conversation was almost impossible and the novelty of the situation wore out quickly, both for me as a relative peasant failing to masquerade and for my host who quickly lost interest once he realized that nobody was excited about the scraggly-bearded vagrant he scraped out of the gutter. He couldn't brag about me without yelling directly into someone's ear, so after trying that a couple times to no avail, he left me to fend for myself. Bewildered and alone, I wandered off to survey the chaos.
The sizable and increasingly irritable crowd all agreed to respect the space around a red-carpet-style photo op near the elevator. Nobody dared cross the gap between the professional lighting and a backdrop with some designer's logo tiled across it. This void established a pressure gradient that spat me out into this sacred space through no action of my own, blinking stupidly at the lights. After a moment, a tiny model appropriated me as arm candy and I tried to look... some kind of way while a stranger used my new friend's phone to collect, I assumed, photographic evidence of how terrible the event was. After a few shots, she managed to communicate that she had lost track of her friends and was basically terrified by the whole ordeal. She hoped I could clear her a path to the elevator.
I did as requested. I learned she was 19 and Australian, but she didn't know the guy who brought me here -- dumb question, in retrospect. I didn't have the chance to pry much more than that before she found a ride. I have to say that I really enjoyed being identified as a safe person when I figured most people there expected me to ask for spare change.
Only now am I realizing that I will never get to see the photos she took. I hardly took any photos, but I feel like I should at least provide some evidence of how my bike ride ended with an abysmal 5th Avenue penthouse party, so here's a funky art piece and picture from the street afterward. I assumed this was a light fixture that was turned off to encourage people to leave, but I really have no idea.
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