Hoping for a Tail Wind

This site is simply a training ground for my creative writing. I way to get better at the words. So I say to myself, “I should really practice writing more dialog”. No one answers, thus I have to utter, “yeah, and I’d like to keep that thread of the subject of the topic of the science of “Confirmational Bias”. You know, like if the whole right and wrong lesson learned as a child ended up being just pre-k and now we’ve pre-phd leveled up. Boss boss boss boss boss boss boss shit. Maybe some of you know more than me about it? Did you watch the YouTube TED thing yet? Yeah, me neither. I laugh at myself for thinking any of this is dialog. If you know more on the subject or science of anything, write a message, put that message in a bottle, and send it up along the Atlantic Coast to Washington, DC. When I get there I’ll be sure to get it and get back you right away — because I hear that’s what they’re really know for in that town.

Started in Jacksonville and now we’re here… in Jacksonboro. Twenty dolla holla. No coffee machine here in the Edisto Motel, so i’m finna set up the Jetboil press out front, pop the lid and realize that the rattling and riding somehow got the stove settled into the uncapped fuel and let er all out. Farted on me. I lose some brain cells upon my discovery. Luckily I have a microwave and coffee happens, for there’s not a drop of it outside of gas stations for 25 miles. I’m tolerant of that if I have to be, but what I brought with me is superior.

Back on my nemesis 17, just in time for the morning commute. Assholes overcompensate for something by passing me way too close. Some Dick lays on the horn. Im startled and nearly fall off my ride. He looks like a goddamn Richard too. I can hear your dumb car, dumb ass. Truckers are my peoples though. They know how to drive. They will use the brake if needed. And they know how to blow the supportive horn. I wave at them.

Finally some quiet roads and an upcoming rail trail gives me space to breath. There’s a nice headwind straight out of the east thigh and it’s picking up momentum. Forecasted to be five miles per hour, it’s definitely up to 10-15 now. I’m able to get back into my drops a little and it aids some tightness in my right hip. Days 3-6 are reliably the break in period of any long ride. Im feeling that in most places. Stops and stretches.

I love me some picnic table table naps. Right on top of the tabletop of it. I’ll do it anywhere on any kinda travel — on a solo long ride, they are clutch, especially when covered from rain or sun. I have got no picnic tables naps in yet. Worse and far more unbelievably tragic: I have not seen a single picnic table since entering South Carolina. Not on a rail trail. Not at a Food Lion. Not at a park. Not next to a fire station. And believe you me. I been looking. Not a one. Strange things afoot — though no picnic tables — at the circle K.

Still not a goddamn picnic table in sight.

Rolling down a rural road, i hear a loud pop! Thinking I blew a tire until… pop pop pop! Hmm fireworks? Nope, as I pedal up, soem old dude is literally out in his front yard letting off hand guns rounds. I don’t even know what her shooting at. It’s not immediately apparent, which I feel like it should be. Hopefully not me. He’s maybe 20 feet away. I survive. I pedal on, into the wind. I stop to take a break at an an abandoned gas station stretching and snacking. An older woman just stands there and stares at me. I mean for a few minutes. I say hello. Nothing. Just stares. For another few minutes. She looks like a Gertrude. Maybe she’s goes by Gerty, but she can’t spell Gertrude without rude.

Still no picnic tables! I don’t even wanna picnic, I just wanna stretch out and nap.

I’m back on 17 and the experience is wild different. Vehicular traffic is back up hard. At a standstill. I fly by at 11 mph. It’s bawesome. Straight up the best moment of the ride to this point. Check it out:

25 miles in or so and the wind has picked back up. Headwinds again. Manageable at least. I make it to a small park which doubles as a trailhead for the West Ashley rail trail. Fuck yeah. Not only do I get non motorized riding for a bit, but Rick has come out to do ride with me. Originally outta Olean, Rick is an official member of the Western New York diaspora. He’s definitely Bills Mafia. And he’s putting me up for the night just past Charleston. Rick is involved in all things cycling down here and is also planning a ride from LA to Maine. He plans to do it fully loaded and 100 miles per day. I get exhausted just hearing him talk about it. We ride and talk. Talk and we ride. The miles go by easier.

He navigates me through Charleston with ease. I like this city but it’s not a stop on this trip so we’re cruising right through, when — oh shit — South Carolinas first picnic table!!

Unfortunately it’s beyond nap time. I don’t even drink anymore coffee. I eat some beef jerky and a banana. We push another 25 miles to beat the rain. Getting into Mount Pleasant requires another tall long bridge and headwinds. The Arthur Ravenal Jr Bridge. Whoever he is, I ain’t got time to look him up, I’m trying to stay dry. Luckily this one has separated bike and pedestrian facilities. I get into the lowest gear i have and give it my all, Rick graciously purposely moving slowly so we don’t separate, he could probably hit 25 on the bike he’s riding.

I get a shower and some food in me and plan out my next couple of days. I get too tired to do that so instead I just pass out. Really excited endings I have to these adventure journals huh?

In his autobiography Glow, Buffalo-native James Johnson (professionally known as Rick James) writes that during his time in prison he met a man he comes to know as Brother Guru. Brother Guru talked a lot to Rick about what he referred to as the “Me Monster” and a balance between anarchy and discipline; most interestingly he went into the idea of a “thin line between breakdown and breakthrough”. It’s highly insightful, especially here on day four – feeling out my physical condition after a few tough days followed by a relatively restful one. Like in that flick “The Program”, James Caan is asking me if I’m hurt or injured. I’m not dead, Sonny.

For shits and giggles, let’s hot tub it up this morning and timespace travel forward to when I’m spending the later afternoon in the shade of a train depot. I’m weighing my options. Like scales of justice. There’s an ice cold water fountain within eyeshot; I’ve filled my bottle threefold already. I decide I’m gonna flip the power lever on this box and hope for the best and whaddya know? I’m chargin my phone, whilst I’m on it. Weighing. Not literally – wait does the iPhone do that yet? Nah, I’m figuring where I want to sleep. I never plan these rides out much beyond the day to day. Ruins the fun. I could probably never do an organized tour. I’m looking at distances to my various possibilities. I’ve got good weather; I’ve got 35 miles of riding under my belt today. It’s getting later – 357 in the pee em in fact. This depot is super cool. Literally, old brick got the temp real nice in here. No more trains; just a hollowed out and preserved structure; old doors and windows; looks like it get used as an event space at times and I’m betting I could camp right in it if I wanted.

Break.

I wake up to hippy alarm clock sounds or something, There’s chimes, probably a vibraphone, maybe a didgeridoo. I’m on Debbie’s couch. She getting ready to go to work. I get up. I thank her again, she’s out the door. I’m into some coffee and a banana and I poop and pack up and move out. Next thing I know I’m on the side of the road — hoping to get into a pickup with a strange man. Huh? Well really, Debbie asked favor of her coworker at the school she works, a guy I only know as Coach Collins. Yup. I’m getting a lift over that shitty bridge. I think Coach’s name is Brandon. But I’m calling him Coach, because I’m ready to go and “let’s go Coach sounds” like a travel invitation and “let’s go Brandon” sounds like, er, um, nevermind. Thanks for covering those four miles of morning shoulder-less rush hour, Coach.

A couple miles of riding post-Coach and now my Thavannah counterpart Robert has got me and my Raleigh Sojourn in his pickup, speeding over another bridge and past what he has told was — and what I now see definitely is — construction for a future widening, yet a currently COMPLETELY shoulder-less situation. A very very tight tight tight setup of one lane in each direction. And heavy volume. I would not want to ride that. We whiz through it and into South Carolina at 60 mph. Thanks for covering those 15 deadly miles for me.

Decipher some Heptapod and we’re again late in the day at that weighing the options moment. So. About 20 miles up out of this depot lay the ruins of an abandoned church. This known attraction has developed a little clearing nearby due to 1) how fucking cool this place sounds, plus 2) lazy motherfuckers needing to put their car somewhere while being awesomely there. I’m guessing I can use this clearing for rent free tent popping under cover of darkness. Tits McGee. Robert hipped me to the spot because Robert is a motherfucking G. A goddamn Jedi. A scholar and gentleman. He knows the area for sure. Some call it ghost camping. Or stealth. My real ones know it as Remote Sleeping.

Break.

We definitely don’t need two Dakotas and I’m not sure we need two Carolinas either. I’m at the circle K and yes, strange things are a foot. Then again this isn’t Georgia anymore, so its probably normal as fuck here in “south” Carolina. I’ve traded Ray Charles for Stephen Colbert. I’m filling bottles and the muzack station blaring in here (strangely loud as fuck) simmers down into a “DJ” telling her listeners that 53% of workers are in favor of a 4 day work week. Like really — show me the other 47% who oppose so that we can put them on a candidate list to be drawn and quartered. Or maybe just define “workers” in your poll for me, hun. And oh yeah, it’s apparently still cool to use “hun” here. Alright sugar. Sweetie. Dollface. Baby. Yuck.

Pedaling through Okatie and then Beaufort South Carolina. I pass Hilton Head. I pass Parris Island. Paris Hilton? Al Pacino. Hoo Rah. Cadence is in effect. My legs are feeling solid yet sore so I’m healing and riding. Taking it easy. Moving at like 8 mph. There’s some getting in gear going on Greg. Whoever in the hell Greg is. Maybe he’s a Gregg. Dunno. Don’t care. I’m using my gears, the granny one specifically. Winds the last few days had been out of the NNE while I had been ride directly north-north-East – now they’re out of the east, I’m generally heading northeast – so only headwinds half the time. And much less strong. Much less. I have gears for this wind. I’m focused on going slow and steady and easy.

The lesson timing in my head is not pushing. Something I’m still figuring out for myself. Lin Yutang’s The Importance Of Living did a lot for me, this ride appears to picking it up on another wavelength. I need to keep it slow and easy and avoid my natural tendency to shift up and force myself into full injury. Rest helps a lot, I have to be able to ride while allowing for things to get a little better in my hamstrings specifically. So I’m not in my drops. Keeping the cadence up and resistance down. Tricking my brain into not doing what it normally does and go for it.

Fuck it, pick your favorite literary or cinema timespace travel device, put it in the comments, use it, and find me looking on my maps for what’s past the church ruins. Basically I get back on 17 and there’s isn’t much. At least not on listed on Google maps or on my ACA map. Realistically the only things listed are an RV campground and and a motel in Jacksonboro – 40 more miles from this baller ass Spanish Moss Trail Train Depot things. Thats a lot of miles my man. Whew. Makes being right here right now in this funky little bike path/train depot building feel all the more comfy. Those combination Wendy’s and Timmy Ho ain’t got nothing on this.

Break.

I like making eye contact with the operators of motor vehicles when I can. Really let ‘em know I’m here and not interested in dying today. Sometimes I get a nod back or a wave or a smile. It puts me in my safe space of not being killed by you. The full blackout tints of the south piss me off. I understand the thermodynamics at play… still though. If I wave a thank you at a driver I can’t see who yielded, are they really there? Do they exist before I see them. Maybe it’s a driverless car? Finally! Bring them on.

Stargate to me frantically scrolling around on my phones satellite map — the service in this brick shit house of a structure is thin — I’m searching for a “medium option”. Something between the 20-40 more mile options. There’s isn’t even a store on this stretch. No gas station. Nothing. I find a volunteer fire station that looks likes it’s also somebody’s personal home too. Yet it is 31 miles up. It’ll have to do. Three options exist.

Break.

Through.

It’s a lot right now. Like right now, right now. I go back and forth on all three options for a bit. Do I really wanna do 40 more? Should I? It would probably just get me a crappy and expensive motel at the end. Could I even make it in time? I weigh the cost and realize I couldnt care if it was $70 or $100 at this point. The church ruins sounds so cool and I do have all this camping gear. Fuck. I get analysis paralysis. So I say fuck it and I get on the phone and use all the fake texas-montana-southern-country-slang-accent-drawl charm I can muster with Dolores, who answers the phone number listed for Edisto Motel with “hello this is Delores”. She actually says Susan, but later when I meet her, she looks more like a Delores so that’s what she said. She tells me I’m in luck. I get cabin 8. Oh. And it’s $65 with cash. This seals the deal. I’m going for it. Let’s roll and get these 40 miles in!

After the remainder of the Spanish Moss Rail Trail, I see very little if nothing but marsh mania, super swampy, muck and mud. Maybe one store early in the 40 miles to Jacksonboro. The wind has shifted again for me. Now out of the south, so even a slight tailwind is working with me. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Breakdown” comes on. Of course it does. I put it on this playlist. Right on time. The irony is that’s it’s getting late and I’m chasing my shadow — my body is exhausted yet holding up fine on mile 65, I just really can’t afford a mechanical issue. It’ll put me into darkness on this highway. And just for the record, Tom Petty is allowed to you use the word “honey” in this song because it’s art. And he’s dead now. There’s context. Fuckers.

Im chasing my shadow. The advantage of long days. It’s fun. Until it’s not. Especially outside of cities, it gets dark quickly. And very dark. A second store pops up with 8 miles left. Im out of water. Im on fumes. Im going on. It’s twilight and there’s no time to stop. The sun sets on me and i finish the last few miles in darkness. The motel is actually dope. Cozy little room trapped in the 50s. The wifi password is backintheday. I pay Dolores. I crush some instant pho noodles. I crash. That’s all.

Break.

Jacksonville to Jacksonboro

It’s a cool, quiet morning at Robert’s place. There’s coffee already made. I am sore as fuck, and there’s some left hamstring twinginess that clearly has persisted. I didn’t notice any specific injury in the last three days, though I’m realizing that each of my last five days consisted of: 3 mile run, 3 mile run, 2 mile run + 30+ ride, 70+ mile ride, 70+ mile ride. Which brings me back to this cool morning in Savanna Georgia, sipping black Folgers and slathering icy hot on the back of my leg. Popping ibuprofen like Boomers pop Lisinopril; like Millennials pop Adderall, like, like Gen Z pops anything. Exactly and precisely 7 days prior to the commencement of my forty seventh rotational journey around the giant fiery ball known of our solar system. Find me a more complex way of stating birthday and I’ll admit that Kubrick likely didn’t direct the first moon landing. Maybe.

Robert and I chat on all things bike tour nerd stuff. Routes and such, specifically. Empire Trail. C&O/GAP, Katy, Natchez Trace. All the wondrous lovelies of long rides. Conversely he tells me that the bicycling north out of Savannah is a current hellhole of suck, so I might take him up on a offering a lift to skip the first few miles of suburbia, construction and lack of shoulder. Maybe they’re building a separated bicycle trail? Meh. I leave all of my baggage and bike behind and get ready to head out on foot. I thank him again, explaining I just plan to walk and relax and read and use my mind to heal my body, to which — in his thick southern accent — he simply replies “the power of positive thinking”, to which I equi-simplistically affirm, “exactly”.

People and walking and squares oh my. Squares everywhere. This city is certainly amongst – if not the most walkable in the US&A, at least the historic core of it. A nice chunk of square mileage. Thanks King George? Am I right? Nope, Oglethorpe is the OG. More later. Now. Right now. It’s little parks every other block, connected by pedestrian only streets and this is all before even getting to the ubiquitous riverwalk. I’m like the Count of this foot thing: one mile, two miles, three miles, four. This is as much like a European level of urban chill and streets-for-people as I’ve seen. It reminds me of good old Barcelona. Real name Bar-they-lone-uh. I’m now deeming this place Thavannah. Kinda like Havana. Rhyme time. Maybe a little NOLA. Damn I’m drawing urban area mental threads everywhere as I wander around, liberated from the chains of navigation or care. And wind. Free to explore the more hidden parts of my brain tissues. I’ve been to something like 120 cities worldwide and most major ones domestically; this is my first time exploring this one. This is not just a new city for me, it’s a new situation. I’ve taken very few zero days in cities on long rides and none in one I have never been to and to actually recover. A vacation within a bike ride that is a vacation. It’s a god damn holiday inception. My focus and pecan pie is disrupted by a fire engine followed by an ambulance. I wonder if it’s the day shift back home. Then I realize that I don’t even know what day it is. Fuck it all. And I’m fine with the cerebral retirement, even if it’s only temporary.

There are 22 squares still in use today. The original four squares of Savannah date to 1733 and were a distinctive part of James Oglethorpe’s plan for the city. Eventually squares were located in the center of each of the city’s 24 neighborhoods or “wards.” The foresight of Oglethorpe’s design continues to provide an extraordinary example of how public space provides a timeless and lasting amenity to a community. Very much used and beloved, the squares are essentially public “living rooms”. This segment and the entirety of it all warms my cold heart. The whole thing was done to create a classless agrarian society. Oglethorpe believed that if only they were granted a degree of opportunity, the country’s “worthy poor” would evoke into successful farmers, businesses, and skilled workers. In order to prevent the growth of divisions, all settlers would work their own plots of land, and both slavery and large landholdings would be forbidden.

6 or 7 meandering by foot miles in, I make it down to the Savannah, er Thavannah River, just in time for a massive cargo freight ship to blow its horn. Fuck these fishing yachts, riverboats, cruse ships and what not — the Zim Bangkok is the hot ticket. Let’s I forget the most baller ass part — the tugboats doing they’re thug thizzle. It amazes me. The Jack T Moran and the Cooper Moran respectively. I’m walking by thinking about all the crap in all those cargo containers. Things people got on Amazon a month ago probably. A nautilus photo shoot ensues. It’s totally hawt. So hawt. These boats really know how to work the camera. Real professional vessels. I walk on and overhear a woman with her husband and kids “so many things have to be on there, probably some bodies”. She looks like a Sandra, and she probably watches a ton of true crime TV shows. I laugh out loud. She hears that I heard her and tries to apologize for being morbid – I let agree with her and love the perspective. “Yeah. Probably” Dead and alive I bet.

Positive thinking isn’t always about always everything roses always. Nothing is always. Everything is never. I sometimes focus on ways I can improve myself. That’s truly positive in the sense of the specific definition. Addition. I’ve always been good with a plus one or two. Big up!

I’ve gotta improve my cadence while riding. Especially on the rest of this ride. Relying more in the revolution than the force exerted by my legs. The wind hadn’t helped at all, I don’t have a gear for that and had little choice if I wanted to keep moving. My stretch game is gonna have to step up too. And I definitely need to pack less things, somehow, someway. More exi-mental-meta-physically, I meditate on the concept of “intellectual humanity” — recognizing that our reasoning is so flawed, so prone to bias, that we can rarely be certain that we are right. Mega meta my man. We don’t even know we’re wrong until we find out we are. Whenever we are in fact wrong, despite the fact that we’re actually in fact wrong the whole time, the feels of being wrong didn’t happen until we knew we were wrong. Until we find out. Mind fuck. I’m sure there’s a positive version of what I just said — sometimes to be positive you just gotta look at the negative I suppose. The empty space. There’s a TED Talk called “On Being Wrong”. I’m too lazy to link it. Look it up. It’s worth a google. How does it impact just what we see? Seeing someone or something or somewhere. All of it exists regardless right? Is it really there before we see it though? Are we experiencing or just creating reality? Maybe it’s all ancient aliens.

Still city walking. Aka hiking. Aka tramping in New Zealand. That’s my fave. I don’t need the forest or mountains to call it these words. There is truly a dedication to foot traffic. First. Even before bikes. And definitely before cars. That matters. It pisses me off that the word pedestrian now seems to come with a diminutive connotation. Somehow “ordinary” is the nicest version. Fuck that noise. Streets are for people. It’s peaceful and happy and the vibe is just right in everyone of these squares. Shout out to Bernard Rudosky and anyone in history who has ever laid a human city out in such a way that public places for people were prime purposes. Cities came before cars. We’d be better off if we had preserved that more in some of our more historic cities, mine included. Or put it back. Or made it brand new. I don’t giving a flying fuck how. If we are great then what else is there? Quality of life and livability are measurements we should put place a higher stock into — and just the ability to get up and out and around with ease is a big part of that. Simple Simon ain’t no rhymin.

Feeling much better after a day of chill. I’ve just got a few miles out toward the islands where my host Debbie is putting me up for my last night here. So much for a total zero day! I jump on the stallion of steel and my legs are screaming at me. And the rush hour traffic joins them. It’s a short haul yet of course I have a headwind and little to no shoulder to ride in. Another bridge. What the actual fuck. I survive. Meet Debbie. Fill my face with a shrimp salad. Shower. Settle into her couch and get ready to pass out hard, grateful that I continue to receipt the help of total strangers.