Hoping for a Tail Wind

I wanted to title today “And Then You Don’t”. Moron that later. However, I traditionally kick off the first Sunday of any good traveling situation with Gil Scott Heron’s classic tune:

I’m up and out on the road early. The winds don’t pick up until late morning so I wanna get 30-40 miles by noon. This 180° maneuver by the wind direction is due to a cold front that moves through. “Cold.” That’s what John tells me as it’s 70° at 8am. I bid Laura and him adieu, heading north. Winds probably only 5-6 mph. At first it’s a lot of public beaches. Nice. Then the headwinds pick up, sooner than I expect. Pushing 13-15 mph. I’m considering changing the name of this website to “Trying For A Headwind”. Maybe that’ll shift the winds in my favor. The public parks give way to more private residences, small town kinda stuff. Then that third lasagna layer comes back with a vengeance as I hit the big money underbelly. Lush shit. More wealth than can be described. I roll alongside gates and locks and so much money. There’s an old Rolls Royce for sale.

I cruise on. Small beach towns. Big beach resorts. I stop and jump in the ocean. Am I getting used to this? Am I becoming a beach person. I stop and feel like maybe it’s all rubbing off a little. I stop and check my bank balance… nope. Still proletarian. Maybe next time.

Still on A1A, I finally see an East Coast Greenway sign. It’s pretty weathered. Nothing special about where I am, just a bike lane on a road. I suppose I am on the east coast and there’s a lot of green. The internet would have you think there’s a separate trail all the way up the coast.

I eventually see a US Bike Route 1 sign. Right at that sign, my bike lane get an extra stripe. Oh shit the federales done went and got involved by adding more paint. Two white stripes for me? Are Jack and Meg in on this? I thought all my federal tax dollars went to feed the military industrial complex. Take that Dwight Eisenhower. I wonder if Ike likes bikes. Shit is strange because these ECG and USBR signs aren’t at turns or very frequent. One couldn’t navigate these “routes” whatsoever based on this minimal and consistent signage. So what the purpose?

I turn a corner it’s and sweet respite from the headwind. My entire being is overwhelmed with the smell of McDonald’s French fries. There’s no Micky D, not that I’d eat that shit. Damn it’s the exact scent though. Probably copyrighted. I pass a bistro I assume has wonderfully tasty fried potatoes. Frites. Why I got associate that shit with giant worldwide corporate exported and falsified culture and general mis-nourishment though? Shit gets deep, I mediate on the existential nature of my conditioning. I’m a victim, brother. Of brainwashing. Even my conditioning has been conditioned. I can’t watch Chameleon Street right now so I throw the BlackStar album on and it washes it all away. Im pretty sure all of that goes over your head and all this over thinking is interrupted by quite a high skyway bridge I’m now going over. Like at this moment. Cars don’t want me here. Back down I go, make a right and then another right and I’m crossing another one headed back east. Right now. This one’s a drawbridge, so a little less steep. The cars still don’t want me here. On my way down, I spot a dead fish or two in the shoulder. I don’t stop to take a photo, though they serve as a reminder of what I really wanted to talk about…

Roadkill… I don’t wanna be it. Please cars don’t kill me. I intended to try a pool noodle and forgot it in fort myers. Then I find one in the lane. Score. So yeah roadkill, or to more broadly telescope out of the world of the dead for a second — wildlife. Ain’t seen any gators. Mostly birds and reptiles. Lots of those. A couple tortoises. One massive. One tiny. I spot a third — another biggie — and it is dead set moving toward the street on the other side. Biggie is up on the shoulder about to step into traffic when A truck whirs by and it shells up. I yell at this Christopher Wallace looking creature “you’re not gonna make it — go back!” And cruise on, never knowing how that saga ends. On that tip, I’ve seen minimal roadkill thus far. A mangled armadillo, a truly annihilated 3 foot iguana. And this little bunny now at my feet. So much murder in these streets, all in the name is speeding to the next red light. I take another beach break and jump in the ocean to clear my mind and cool my body.

Sunday late afternoon up this little isthmus of island beach everything and the sun ones are definitely up to 20mph. Smacking me in the face. Howling so loudly I can hardy hear the traffic or The Police – wrapped around my finger. Blondie is singing about “In The Sun” while the wind competes with every note. It pushes back hard. Right into my face. Every mile is easily twice at hard. Moving 8 miles per hour and dreading bridges, I’ve never felt like an old lady on Slow Roll more.

Some guy is fishing on the non ocean sign of this windy strip of earth. His name is Candy Mike. I didn’t meet him but I stop near his truck and it’s on the back window of his pickup. I really want to make fun of him and can’t. So I take a photo, eat some trail mix and move on.

A couple more hours and I make it to my destination. I meet Lori and Wayne and Devin. Lori and Wayne are definitely engineers. Wayne is a massive gearhead so we talk bikes. Lori has completed 131 triathlons. Crazy! They got a carbon fiber tandem touring bike with wireless gear shifting. It’s tubeless and has an elliptical chain ring. So it’s about as specialized as you can get. I admit that I’m just too old school for all of that. Devon has a ton of corned beef and cabbage and shepherds pie for us. I get my Irish feast on and wash it down with a Guinness. We joke about distances and mock arbitrary distances of runs and rides that people geek out about. Like “centuries”. There’s also the most adorable pup named Bailey and he won’t stop licking everyone. He’s super chill and loves to wait for crumbs to fall.

We chat a bit and call it a night, except Bailey because he’s not talking much. I hope by the gods of old and new that the winds shift again, because I’ll be pushing nearly a century up the coast mañana.

Bumming. Beach bumming. I should have brought one of those goggle-snorkel combination thingamabobs (does goggle even look like goggle now after google?). Fuck Google, at least yesterday. I really wanted to thread this entry with Harmony Korrine references, notably to his last film, Beach Bum. McConaughey and Snoop Dogg? Yes lawd. Yet. I’m not big on beaches, moreso moved by mountains. Or canyon crazed. Though I don’t hate em and admit that when when life’s a bitch and you need life to be a beach, the beach comes through in spades. Shoutout to female dogs in heat. This ocean cooling effect alone is clutch in the playoffs. Straight money – no chaser, my monk. I take a dip and lay all salty in the breeze for a bit, drifting off, wondering quietly how I could ever live this lifestyle.

Bring it back one time selectah, to when it’s 4am on the dot and the robots fire the first shot, enacting their vengeance upon me. There an old saying that is a dish best served dark, wet, and paired with an auto timer on unbeknownst lawn sprinklers kicking in. The first shot wakes me out of a blissful slumber. Two seconds later and I’m suddenly laying in two inches of water, relieved I know how to swim, alarmed at how much water is coming out of the one closest to me. It’s like 5 inches out the screen door from my head. Fuck, it shot me in the eye! We’re under attack, whoever we are. I been a seeing Evacuation route, so I evacuate the pop up penthouse, promptly.

It rains so much here, why are there lawn sprinklers? This ain’t Dakota or Arizona. In a small town park in Montana, a sign informs tent campers that there are sprinklers and where they are. I manage to move everything minus a couple stubborn stakes over to the dry side of the pool. This would be more funny if I wasn’t “cold”. Now what. I’m soaked. My shit is soaked. It’s dark. I hang things as best I can around the patio, towel off and waddle inside on onto the couch for two hours. It takes me until 11am to recover, gratefully it’s viable due to the space Goonie and his crew provided. Thank you all.

Physically recovered yet emotionally scarred, I head back out and hit A1A pavement northbound. I’m still technically off route, as in a don’t have a map. But I do have the ocean on my right to keep me heading north. I’m technically on the Atlantic Coast route, the East Coast Greenway and USBR 1. None of these is signed. It seems much more like and actual trail online. Here in real life, it’s mostly just bike lanes on A1A, Ocean Drive meanders and the occasional off road section. Regardless it is pleasant as fuck today, despite the tumultuous start. It must be a weekend because 1) vehicular traffic is negligible 2) all sorts of other traffic is in effect. The amount of bicycles alone give me flashbacks to Copenhagen, though the humans riding them here are pretty much 95% MAMILs and FAMILs. Some are wearing numbered race bibs? They pass me all nice to start. “On your left” gently. I give ‘em a “g’mornin”. Lots of folks out doing paradise weather shit. Walking. Jogging. Kayaking. Paddleboards. Shit you can’t do for at least half the year in Buffalo. I pedal on, also wondering if the weekend has anything to do with this amazing tailwind directly behind my behind. If not maybe it was The Weeknd? Meh. Whatevs. Hoping for it and got it. I’ll take the power of intentional mental effort for $1000, zombie Alex. 17 mph winds take me north without hardly pedaling.

Holy shit. This is how the other half lives. Or something like that. That beach life. Lots of mammal shit happening on a Saturday afternoon here on the coastal enclaves of affluent south Florida. Real mammals. Bodies and body parts. Anatomy. Biology. Butts. Cleavage. Things humans with nipples enjoy. We’re just babies man and I am the beach baby, just figuring out how everything works. People are attractive and happy and smiling, though sometimes cosmetically. And by that I mean surgery. So it’s not quite Sweden, even with all the bikini teams playing volleyball. It is wild scene. I chill for a bit and then cruise through it at 12-13, letting the breeze do the work. Beach after beach. I take little breaks at some of them. The MS race that’s happening passes me. Then I pass some of them. I dunno. It’s certainly pleasant and relaxing, a short mileage day to boot. Can’t complain at all.

40 miles up, bicycle adventure tourists John and Laura have offered to let me camp on the Oceanside backyard of their beach house. On the Atlantic Ocean. For free. Maybe it’s not theirs but they are there for the weekend. They insist on taking me out for dinner too. All I have to do is show up on bicycle. Unicorns ain’t got shit on me.

Ok. Things done changed. I think I’m where the other other other 1% are at. At least by my rolling equational theory analysis. Like massive estates and houses and money money money that the Ojays couldn’t believe until they must have seen it. Scary shit. I mean for real though — at some points, each address has two separate driveways, two little signs with the number. One has some cute little catch phrase with the number and another has the number and “service”. Yo. Eventually this final boss levels up to like “south” and “north” whimsical things and “service” as the third. A private jet lands on a field next to me. Shit just feels expensive. I’m either losing or gaining money by osmosis right now is the way I’m seeing it. I’m not sure how I feel about all of it, which is probably the root of the problem. I drain my bladder and fill my water bottle and mosey along in the northbound direction.

Eventually, normal houses and a town come into view. At least more normal that yacht and jet club. Ooohhh. A nice non motorized bike trail? Yes. I get that for a few miles and happen upon a much smaller turtle. Teeny tiny. It’s actually a tortoise. Smaller than my hand, I scoop the little dude up and move him safely across the path onto the grass.

A couple bridges later and I’m at the beach house. John and Leah are super cool. Sure hospitable. A lot of hosts just wanna live vicariously through me, others actually tour just as much. I’m busy living vicariously through myself, so the awesome stories from fellow tourists are relatable. And they get the basics. Wait? What? Now there’s even a spare bedroom for me. Indoor sleep?! Ok I’ll do it. Some formalities and one shower later and I’m crushing $1 oysters, Mahi Mahi “fingers” and some wonderful horseradish crusted grouper. Short mileage and a tailwind today was dope, though heavy heat and sun still kicked my ass. Looks like that tailwind is turning to a headwind tomorrow, with many more miles to make. I don’t delay in hitting the hay, especially after the rude awakening this morning. I thank my hosts and crash out hard.

Don’t say you didn’t see it coming. Picture me dragging ass out of camp today. Sore and exhausted. Getting my moneys worth. I haven’t paid yet but I intend to, despite knowing i can easily wiggle out of these obtuse accommodations. I’m going with it though. The bathrooms and picnic table and electricity help me transition into another realm of this ride: I’m going off route. I’ve actually been “off route” since the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail closing detour, figuring out the best way forward, and balancing what Google maps tells me with what other people tell me with what is practical. The Google maps may suggest horrifically impassable dirt or mud roads or the Google maps maps may suggest a terrifyingly heavy traffic-volume highway. I seek the middle way. Over coffee and a date.

The Adventure Cycling Association map that I’ve acquired (see above) has me routed out of South Bay via good ol’ Highway 27 aka “bloody 27” aka “That’d be suicide” through the Everglades into Fort Lauderdale. I don’t need to go there anymore, since I got peoples with a landing spot in West Palm Beach. It’s a little further up the Atlantic coast so I have the option of heading due East rather than southeast on the death road. There’s some canal roads and another highway running east. Looks like I could avoid a majority of Highway 98/80/something else, at least until it becomes a striped bike lane through the suburban sprawl. I’m pondering the options when Squirt approaches. He looks me up and down and asks me how much all my ink set me back. He doesn’t say it that way though. I laugh and let him know it’s a collection and definitely an expensive addiction, though not too unhealthy, comparatively. Squirt insists his addiction is to sugar and it’s good for his pancreatic health, which is the key to his being alive at 92. He doesn’t have die-uh-bee-tuss and has “been drinking cola Pepsi” his whole life. I can’t argue with the old man. He’s 92. He’s ambulatory, has got decent vision and all the ladies in the RV community seem to love him. Go ahead, Squirt – you’re cool because you’re not a Boomer.

A shit and a shower later and I’m finally packing up. Still figuring on a route, I’m thinking back canal roads as opposed to the higher volume road. Either way there’s very little in front of me for the next 40 miles, a promise myself to take it 10-15 miles at a time. I think by this point Squirt has made the full loop — something the group of grannies does in one eighth the time — because he’s twenty five feet away gabbing with Debbie. He waddles back over, “let me give you some advice young man, I’d stay away from 880”. 880 is the canal route. Now he’s suggesting I take the heavier road, Southern Blvd. What the fuck, sir? I implore he elaborate on his advice. Squirt is concerned about the berth of trucks and myself. Basically how wide this back road is. There will be farm and machinery trucks on it. He tells me he’s afraid two trucks would have to pass each other and that not leave any room for me. It’s valid and it warms my heart Squirt… and you’re wrong old timer. There’s a real discrepancy with folks understanding bicycle travel or not. All of the experience and supposed knowledge of of the region and its terrain from speeding along in a car is moot when it comes to me being on a bike. I tell Squirt, “I’m going to take a look and play it by ear, thanks”, wishing he had walked or ridden a horse and given me advice off of that.

So now I’m standing in the office trying to pay. I’m already behind schedule, I should have just taped $30 to the little electric outlet and bounced. This lady is asking me the most obtuse questions for my situation. Vehicle size? Pets? She’s just reading a computer without any context, despite me sliding in my having-rode-on-a-bicycle at the start. Taking furrevvvvvver. Oh. There’s a nice sign hanging there: “A lot of people just need someone to be kind to them today”. I take a deep breath, muster another patient smile and read my card number out loud to her. She hasn’t gotten up from her desk and is behind a plexiglass wall. Finally, she gets up to hand me the printed out 8.5×11 receipt of my stay, adding to the absurdity of this entire experience. I push off into a long and hot and sunny day toward the coast.

Lots of sugarcane, canals and general Everglade-farmland type scenes invade my eyeballs. It’s really not much of anything, other than short lush wet green and flat. Direct headwind socks me in the jaw like Mike Tyson did Zach Galafinakos in The Hangover, except it’s for real, not Hollywood. Or Bollywood. Or any of those. So really nothing like that. More like Tyson did any of these chumps. The 80s and 90s were wild.

Miles and miles stack up like rounds in a fight and I realize this ain’t no boxing match, this is an MMA fight with the heat and sun and this fucking wind! With my mind wrapped around this ultra proper descriptive metaphor, I can now accurately gauge just how badly I’m getting beaten down. And the specific science says that it is a helluva whooping. The headwind has brought me down to a 9-10 mph pace. The sun has done a number on my legs for sure. If I stop heat and bugs overtake me within minutes. Like music clubs on Frenchmen Street, there’s no cover anywhere — so I just gotta keep on keepin on, Syl Johnson.

Let’s talk about it. I always rely on paper maps. Specifically waterproof paper maps. Always. Until today. Google maps hasn’t been bad so far, keeping it quiet, yet navigable. No impassable crap as I sometimes check the overhead imagery for striping. Thinking this could become a thing. Thanks robots, you’re really starting to make life better…

Butt…

I go to punch of the next 15 mile leg and bam! Like old school Batman. Or that chef Emeril with seasoning. Or The Turners… really any sort of outdated, dry and ineffective simile would work here – I’m too overwhelmed right now to think of anything actually clever: because Google Maps is down! What the fuck?! I’m leaning against a guard rail in the Everglades with just my memory of what I thought about doing earlier. This route is so fucked.

See this is that shit I’m talking about. This is how they get you. Whoever they is. Paralyzed by my own doing, I finish the last couple miles in this piece of back road and head toward the Highway know as Southern Boulevard. There’s nothing around me, hasn’t been for miles. A good 25 miles without even a store or a coffee shop or an abandoned building or a tree along the road. It reminds me of a couple stretches through Arizona due to the heat and few others in Texas for the lack of services. Just shorter in mileage: 25 miles ain’t bad, compared to 90 miles of nothing in west Texas. On the 26th mile I stop at the very first thing I see: a Dunkin Donuts. Gross. But I’m no snob. The coffee is standard but the ac and shade is primo. Muah. Everything is relative and this indoor seat and iced coffee is my cousin right now.

Eventually with no other good option, I realize I have to head directly east on Southern Blvd. so I do it. I’m doing it. Right now. Through space and time. The scenery changes more than I’ve changed clothes in three days. Here we go yo, here we go yo – so what’s the what’s the what’s the scenario? Swampy farmland gives way to suburban strip malls. Yuck. Deadly fossil fuel burning missiles fly by me at almost $5 a gallon. I take solace in the constant striped bike lane. Suburbs then to airport bypasses. I cross 95 south, whoomp there it went. 16 miles of this commotion right into west palm beach. Whew. The heat has me beat. I hit the convention center where Goonie is setting up for some rich folks art show. My man stays hustling. It’s been five or six years since I’ve seen him when he rolled through Buffalo doing trucker work. Always good to see fam, we hug it out like two grown men should. I meet Cookie from the crew and I’m given the door code. I hang a bit and then I head out, fully intending to make a b line to the spot for a dip in the pool and a shower and maybe a celebratory beer — I’ve made it from the west coast to the east coast of the state that is the syphilitic appendage of America, and it did it without getting an sort of disease. Man, I couldn’t be more wrong.

About the B line to the Airbnb part, not the disease part. I’m still clean. Well, actually I stink like all hell. That’s a whole other thing though.

Downtown WPB. Damn it’s good to be on the coast. Good to be anywhere with anything. This is especially great though, so much happening it’s like an overload of aesthetics and seduction and tranquility. Life, normally a bitch, apparently is a beach today. I’m only a mile and a half from the convention center and a food truck/brewery pop up event summons me. There’s no resistance, it feels a little like the day I got to Gainesville last year. That’s a good thing, bee tee dubs. Cisco Brewers are down from Nantucket just for me? No. Some sort of Sun Festival, let’s just say it’s all for me though, life is truly better that way. A nice light lager, a couple of fish tacos and some live music and — as the kids might say — I’m feeling the vibe. I push off making progress the 8 miles to my landing spot before the sun gets too low.

By almost 630pm, “Friday morning” is hitting just right as i hit this little city park beach in west palm. Like another 3 miles away. Public space, yay! Good vibes are good vibes. These are great vibes. Be warned though, this is definitely much less chic and hipster — which is code for much less white. So I turn down the Khruangbin yo. Take a big sip of water. My wristband from earlier makes me stand out more than the water spilled all over my shirt. Some black dude and his family spring up. He’s got some hipster ass sweatpants. Damn. I’m digging it. But I can’t get down with flip flops and socks bro. I don’t get his name but his name is definitely Al. He looks like my tenant Al even, for real. Shout out to Al. Except this Al got a wife and kids. Like 5 or 6 sons. Damn Muhammad. He says “I like yo number man!” My face definitely lights out – my sunglasses been off. I’m like, “yessir, I was born in 77 so what else could I do?” I give him a solid terrorist fist bump and blame Obama. And of course he’s all “#metoo”. Him and his wife. Both born is 77. That’s all we needed. Totes bffs fo sho Al. For real fur reel though – I’m fully immersed back into solo long ride lifestyle after three days. Run The Jewels with Pharrell and Zach from Rage Against The Machine plays softly in this public family space. Just loud enough. Deep down inside I’m elated to have reached the Atlantic Coast on bicycle two years in a row…

Yeah and for really real, these three days were definitely not those three thousand miles last year. Ask Damon Bodine. This is almost a vacation. I’m going to the Airbnb with pool, it’s a celebration, bitches.

I arrive and instantly go pool plunging. Shit is so refreshing right now. Words can’t express, so picture this.

The crew comes home. I’ve been hanging in the patio after setting up my tent. It’s a good evening catching up with Goonie and making new friends. We have both jovial and whimsical conversations and serious talks, gracefully interweaving the two over cheap beer. Eventually everyone except Cookie and I are left, and he starts oil painting on canvas. My peoples. I salute him and crawl into the outdoor palace. It’s quiet and dark and cozy and I’m so ready for some solid zees.