Archive for the ‘Stuff that’s on My Mind’ Category

Rainbow or not, you can bet that after old Noah crawled out of his ark he spent the rest of his days  looking over his shoulder every time he felt the first few drops of rain from a summer storm. There is no promise of tomorrow and after years of following his heart, of listening to his god, of walking his own solitary path one thing the old man must surely have learned is that following your heart is the only way to survive. You must follow your heart because no one else is going to build your boat.

There are a thousand reasons for playing it safe.

The magazines tell you the products to buy, the formulas to follow, the safest route to security. Advisors tell you about the middle road, how to follow your dreams on the weekend, and be a productive member of society during the week.

They tell you how to be safe, how to bottle it up, put it in a jar, store it on the shelf. Canned heart.

Canned hearts never saved anyone.

The truth is that there is no secure path. Careers falter, houses fall into disrepair, life savings get swallowed up by misfortune and disaster. Anyone can end up on a park bench, tired, hungry and unsure.

There is no safe harbor when the whole world is flooded, but following your heart builds a boat tougher than any storm.

No, don’t follow your heart for the wealth which may not come, for the memories which may be more bitter than sweet, or for the hope of a brighter tomorrow that may never arrive. Follow your heart because it is the only way to fully embrace every second of life from the glorious moments of triumph to the depths of loss and despair. It is the only way to know that you can make it through the storm because you laid every plank and set every nail yourself.

Follow your heart because it’s the only option. Sure, there are easier ways to have a pleasant life, better plans for a nice future, statistically safer steps to apparent security. Life is risk. Any plan can falter, and the odds are too great, the rewards too uncertain, the shame of failure to close to do anything else.

Choose bold, choose brave, choose foolish. Be afraid and do it anyway.

Go big or start small, but start right now. Do something that tells that inner part of you that you hear the call. Pick up the hammer and start building your boat, and keep building it even when it doesn’t rain for thirty years. You must follow your heart because when you are old and gray and hairless and ready to die; when everyone else has gone on before and your best life’s work has been surpassed by the next generation; When the rains come and sweep normal and sense and reason off of their foundation; your heart is what will carry you to high ground.

You must follow your heart, because your heart is all you have.

“Follow your heart” they tell you, pointing to a few well chosen examples of people who found happiness by following theirs.

“Follow your heart” they say, and point to a select group who followed theirs and found untold riches.

“Follow your heart” they say while pointing to the broken detritus of broken people who failed while following theirs. “Even if you fail, at least you will have lived you life the way you choose.”

They are wrong.

They are wrong, because following your heart is the best way to break it. What you should do is follow a reasonable plan. Make a budget and stick to it. Work out a good career and build your nest egg until you can retire and pursue your interests on the weekend until then.

Part time heart following is the way to go. Put off your dreams, follow the steps laid out in places like “money magazine” walk the same path as everyone else, because statistically that is your best chance for building a well adjusted life. Save. Invest. Build for the future.

Passion is a fool’s game. The odds are astronomically stacked against you; the truth is that following your heart often leads to disenchantment. It leads to hating what you once loved. It leads to failure. It leads to pouring your life savings into a bad idea and ending up broke and broken. Choose sensible. Choose smart. Hearts are easily distracted and following one around can lead to years of wandering in the wilderness with nothing to show for it.

Following your heart is a dangerous business. I’ve spent big chunks of my life following mine and I am out here on a park bench nearly broke, tired, hungry, and often unsure of my next move. I learn from my strengths and my weakness by force, because they are all I have. There is no road in front of me except the one I make. I have nothing to show for my life but a few scattered files on a hard drive and a used bike. Following your heart is a total crock. It will never work, you will risk everything on the whims of fate, and more than likely you will fail.

“Follow your heart” they tell you, “I wish I had the time to follow mine.” But they don’t tell you about the peril, about the risk, about the hardship it can entail. They don’t tell you because most of them haven’t been there. I have, and you probably shouldn’t.

Following your heart is impossible.

But maybe that is exactly why you should do it.

Sure for the majority of people ‘follow your heart’ is the worst piece of advice imaginable, but maybe you aren’t most people. Maybe you can take it, and you want – you need – to know what it feels like to be deliriously wholly entirely alive. To know that everything you dream of rests with the roll of a pair of dice that you carved yourself. Maybe you can take the risk of losing everything you’ve never had and any hope of ever getting it. Maybe you can live with sleepless nights filled with eager anticipation of what the morning will bring. Maybe the tough times thrill you just as much as the good ones.

Maybe you don’t see any other way.

Don’t follow your heart for the wealth which may not come, for the memories which may be more bitter than sweet, or for the hope of a brighter tomorrow that may never arrive. Follow your heart because it is the only way to fully embrace every moment of life from the glorious moments of triumph to the depths of loss and despair.

Follow your heart if – and only if – it’s the only option left for you. There are easier ways to have a pleasant life, better plans for a nice future, more certain steps to security. It’s too much for most people, the risks are too great, the rewards too uncertain, the shame of failure to close.

But if following your impossible dream is the only thing that is left for you to do, if you must live this life because the other one is killing you, know this: You are not alone. There are more of us here than you know, and you’ll see us from time to time walking against the currents of life, smiling into a driving rain, out on the edge of broken, doing the impossible, because it’s all we know to do too.

And we are cheering for you.

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Lately I’ve been a bit stuck and burned out. I ride the bike too much and write too little. I have hardly made any photographs of the plains because I got burned out on corn fields and grain elevators after the first day. My writing brain works best in the early morning hours but during the summer, early morning is the best time to ride so I end up riding instead of writing. I scribble my thoughts into a notebook when I take breaks, but by the end of the day, my writing, thinking, planning brain is fried and all I want to do is sleep. I still haven’t found my rhythm, or a system that works consistently.

I am bored and frustrated.

Riding on the Raccoon River trail was one of the coolest riding days of the trip so far, and I want to try more of that, as well as more riding on dirt and gravel. I’m really close to the American Discovery trail, a collection of routes and trails that stretches from California to Washington DC. I can get on the trail near Davenport, IA and ride it nearly all the way into DC with a few detours in places too steep of too far off road for traditional touring bikes. It will be about 1600 miles of mixed terrain along old converted rail beds, state parks, some roads, and some paved bike paths. I know that I can ride the trail at least as far as Ohio, and it looks far more interesting than miles and miles of state roads with big trucks and no shoulders and endless rows of corn and soybeans.

The downside is that I have old friends along my current route, and riding the trails will mean that I will miss most of them. I sat up late yesterday night wrestling with the decision. Both choices – visiting friends or riding the trails – are appealing, and I found myself as usually wishing I could do both. I wrestled with the choice – when I am old which will I want more, to have spent a summer riding around the country catching up with old friends, or to have spent a summer riding my bike places where cars can’t go and seeing things many people will never see?

Finally about eleven o’clock last night, I pulled a quarter out of my handlebar bag and held it in my hand for a moment. I balanced it on the tip of my thumb, and went through the motions, watching it sail through the air, catching it in one hand and slapping it down onto the back of the other. I didn’t even need to look at it though; I made my decision the moment that I picked the coin out of the bag.

I’m going to ride the trail.

If you want to learn more about the discovery trail, you can click this link and it will take you to the site. I’ll be getting on the Hennepin River trail portion of it just outside Davenport IA and will follow it all the way in to DC.

I’m going to try to make more time to write too, and I hope to stop riding hundred miles days. 50-75 is a much nicer range and gives me the time I need to process everything and get it down on paper so I can remember it later.

ok, I know I’m still behind with the chronological story, and as long as I stay behind its tough for you to keep track of where I really am. So I’m going to just start from here and then fill in the old gaps as we go along. I’m in Des Moines this morning after spending a day off of the bike and off of the road doing absolutely nothing. Today I’ll get back at it rolling through some more of the Midwest up to Iowa City and then later this week on to Chicago and who knows where after that. For now, here’s the Midwest wrap up, a little early but if anything changes, I’ll let ya know.

The mountains made me strong. After my 147 mile day out of Limon I have cruised through the plains, averaging nearly 84 miles per riding day. I’m in Des Moines as I write this, holed up in a cheap hotel for a day off; updating the blog, resting, and laying out the basic route for the next leg.

A few quick highlights from the plains

Corn: Yep, there’s a lot of it. I saw my first field while still in eastern Colorado and it hasn’t let up yet.

Pork: I haven’t seen too many hogs but I think I have consumed about three of them. Nearly every host family I have stayed with has filled my belly with chops, tenderloin, corn and cake.

This brings me to

People: the people of the Midwest really are some of the most decent folks you could ever hope to meet. From the local farm kid in Kansas who insisted I sit with him in an otherwise empty subway because “Ya don’t want ta eat alone do ya?” to the numerous host families who have housed me, fed, me and pointed out the local sites along the way, the people of Midwest are what I’ll remember long after this trip is done. Well, the people and the miles and miles and miles of corn.

Pride: The museum in Minden, Nebraska features a quote from the late John F Kennedy. Kennedy said, “The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.” Several days after touring that museum and reading that quote I rode 80 miles in the rain with a cyclist from Iowa who proudly flew the state flag from the back of his bike. I noticed the Iowa State motto on the cloth, “Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.” There’s a lot of feeling in that sentences, but not once does it mention feelings. America was built on the ideas of individual liberty and rights, and lately it seems like a lot of people have confused “beliefs” with “rights” and limits with liberties. I haven’t had any deep discussions with the good people of Iowa, but I’d like to think that the ideas expressed in their motto are more than just idle conceits.

I’ve ridden past miles and miles of corn. I’ve seen small towns bursting with life, and small towns withering away to dust, I’ve met people proud of where they come from and happy with where they’ve stayed. I’ve tasted the food, slept under the stars, walked in fields, and pulled apples fresh from a tree along a bike path. People call these flyover states. They say there is nothing out here in the heartland. But if you are quiet, if you get in tune, you can feel the pulse; you can feel the heartbeat.

It’s easy to forget that we live in a place that is bigger than it parts. It’s easy to listen to the divisive dismissive chatter on the television and in the blogs and think that we are a nation of bickering and petty differences. You want to feel pride in your country again, slow down, get off the fast track, take a look across a thousand acres of ‘yeah we can do that’, then drive past a hundred miles farms and into the mountains and through the deserts and back to your own home and see how big and how unbelievable this place really is. Talk to your neighbors, talk to the people you wouldn’t normally talk to, and once you get past all that other crap you find out we’re not so different after all.

We all want a place to call home, we all want some food in our belly, we all want a story to tell, and someone to tell it to. And from the people I’ve met along my path so far, I think we all want our neighbor to have that too.

I wake up in a basement.

I wake up in a campground.

I wake up in a park, on a golf course, in a guest room with bedding that costs more than my bike, under a bandstand, behind a gas station, in a cheap motel.

I wake up and realize that I have been traveling for sixty days, and I get on my bike and I move through the landscape, and the landscape moves around me. There is wind, there is rain, there are blue skies and gray. It is hot, and it is cold. It is flat and it is hilly. It is and I am.

I meet truck drivers, and scientists, school teachers and housewives. I meet doctors, bikers, amateur paleontologists, cops and firefighters, farmers and ice cream vendors. I meet people who are going places and people who have never been anywhere. They talk about them and I talk about me. We find common ground in our experiences, in our hopes, in what we have done, and in what we hope to do. We smile and laugh over a beer, or a pipe, or a casserole, or tacos made from whatever is in the fridge. I am not them and they are not me, but parts of us are the same.

Do anything for long enough and it becomes normal. Normal is waking up in an unfamiliar place on someone else’s schedule. Normal is knowing where I will probably be today, but having no idea where I’ll be in four days. Normal is checking the map and changing directions just so I can say I’ve been to a place called “Funk”. Normal is forgetting what day it is. Normal is realizing that I haven’t known what day it is for a week. Normal is knowing that I haven’t been doing this nearly long enough.

I have only been here for 60 days. The atlas of the unseen grows. Millions of red shifted stars cover the deep dark sky like dust – fireflies a little too fast and a little too far away, and I am out here with my slow legs and my little jar, laughing as I run through the night trying to catch them all.

Riding from Limon, Colorado to St Francis Kansas I ran into a bit of storm. It was a fast moving cell and I managed to duck into a gas-n-go just before it hit. After it passed I got back on the road, and spent the evening watching the clouds and the rainbow. What a great ending to my time in Colorado

A short list of a few of the things I really enjoy right now.

• riding in the rain
• peanut butter
• picnic shelters
• friendly locals
• friends of friends
• new friends
• climbing – yeah that sounds weird, but I’ve done so much of it that I’m more comfortable climbing than on level ground
• clean clothes
• secure shelter
• care packages that will be here in a few days
• hosts who take me to national parks on their golden eagle pass
• chinese buffets
• pizza buffets
• big views
• little details
• conversation
• peace and quiet
• my solar charger that I traded one of my little cameras for
• mosquito netting
• new tires
• clouds – I’d forgotten how many different sizes shapes and styles there are
• sleep
• having less and doing more

I was talking with a friend today about the layers of insulation that we take for granted in our lives – and how important it is to have a ‘place’ to go to at the end of the day. Even when traveling we have the comfort of an RV, or that blissful phrase “Hi, I have a reservation.”  In the worst cases we can at least pull the car to the side of the road in a quiet residential neighborhood and catch some sleep undisturbed.

At any moment we can retreat from the world, catch up on sleep, get away from the heat, the people, the wind, the rain, the everything of it all. Click on the television, pick up a book, or just take a nap and recharge – insulated, safe.

One of the challenges of living off of the bike is the complete lack of insulation. Not only do I have to find a place to sleep, but everyone everywhere wants to know what I am doing and why. A simple stop at a sandwich stop for supper turns into a discussion about fitness, the weather, hills, hygiene and food. Eventually they get to the question – “Where do you sleep?” and I tell them about state parks and social networking sites, and friends, and friends of friends. I rarely tell the truth.

The truth is that after they finish their sandwich and get in their car and go to their house, I will put half of my sandwich into a paper sack for tomorrow’s breakfast. I’ll slip off in the darkness and find a quiet spot in a city park or an open gate into a field or a forest access road. I’ll lean Big Jim against a tree or a picnic table, pull out my sleeping bag and my bivy sack, grab a sweatshirt for a pillow, and hope that no one decides to be where I am for a few hours.

Some nights are easier than others, and the bike can make life easier as well. A friendly sheriff’s deputy sees me, and knowing I’ll move on in the morning, tells me that the park is fine for a night, or a tavern owner lets me toss out my bedroll behind the bar. Even tonight while I sit and write this in a city park with a furious storm raging all around the picnic shelter, a couple stops their car and comes up to ask about the bike, the trip, and me. “If you need someplace, come up to truck stop, the woman says. “You can sleep in lounge, watch TV, work on computer.” “Open twenty-four hours” chimes in her husband. Curiosity breeds small doses of kindness, just enough to get to the next curious stranger, just enough to get some rest for the night.

Other times, in heavily trafficked areas or popular tourist spots, kindness is harder to come by. “No Camping” signs cover every patch of grass and bright lights shine down on every corner in town. Finding a quiet spot for the night in these cases requires a bit more creativity.

I knew the bike would strip down the insulation of my life. I knew it would bring all kinds of exposure and challenge. It’s one of the reasons for the journey. The inconveniences of my life are optional, and while I make light of being a “voluntary vagrant” I know that there are those for whom finding a place to sleep is a serious matter – people who have reached the end of their rope through circumstance or by accident rather than because it looked like an interesting place to go.

We live in a society that favors hard-hitters, and go-getters. We look down on our indigent and blame their position on moral failings. The great fictional pugilist Rocky Balboa says, “It isn’t how hard you hit that matters, it’s how hard you can get hit and get back up again.” and the audience cheers its affirmation.

But not everyone can be the champion. What happens to the fallen that can’t get back up? What happens to those who pray to an un-answering god for a quiet night only to get a boot in their back and a gruff voice telling them to move along, when there is nowhere to move along to?

The world is indifferent to the plight of its inhabitants, we are social animals and when we fall out of the net it’s a long way down. The clock starts ticking the minute you hit the bottom and with each restless night that passes it gets harder to get back up.

Even with all of my apparent aimless wandering, I have a place to go. I can pull the plug any time I want. I can go back to Los Angeles, make some calls, and put my life back together the way it was in a matter of days. But what if the insulation was really stripped away? What if I truly lost my friends, my family, my work…? If I lost my hope – could I get back up?

Could you?

Yesterday I crossed a 7,000 foot pass, rode with traffic down a steep highway with gusty crosswinds and spent the night as a guest in the house of a fellow traveler whom I had only spoken to on the phone twice before. These are the thoughts that were in my mind when I woke up this morning.

I eat, I sleep, I ride my bike. I look for things to eat, I look for places to sleep, I look for places to ride my bike. I want to take pictures, I want to write, I want to meet new people. But instead I eat, I sleep, I ride my bike.

I do find some pictures along the way, and I do meet some people – but is seems like most of my day is spent getting to places rather than being where I am. On the days I take a lot of pictures I get behind schedule and don’t finish the ride until late. When I camp I don’t have time to edit the pictures. At the end of the day I am often too tired to write.

I know that there is a way to make this work, to travel through the world and make a record of it not to say “look what I’ve done” but rather to say “look at what is here” to show the world as big and beautiful and interesting and joyful and tragic as it can be – to tell a story worth listening to.

But I don’t know how to do all that yet, and I don’t know what the story is about. So I eat, I sleep, I ride my bike, and I try to get where I think I may be going.

I’m off the map now. I plot my course online a few days in advance then make changes as I go. A stranger suggests a more interesting or less traveled road, and I take it. A shop keeper tells me to stop along a river at a certain point and I go out of my way to check it out. My path is becoming fluid.

I know that I can get where I’m going, but all I can see is the road immediately in front of me. So I eat, I sleep, I ride my bike.

Someone asked me, “Why are you doing this? Are you trying to raise awareness?”
“Only my own.” I told them.

Today I will eat. Today I will sleep. Today I will ride my bike.

Menlo Park isn't on the official map, but there are bees in Menlo Park, and I got to meet them! (Oh that's my friend Kimberley the beekeeper beside me)

I’m in San Francisco for longer than I should be – taking care of some dog and cat friends of mine while their regular people are on the east coast for a vacation until the tenth. I do have a couple of guides to the city, and the use of a BART pass so if the people of Oakland can keep from burning the place down, I should be able to see some cool stuff over the next week.

This is a good place for me to stop and review the journey so far, take a look at what I’m doing right, think about ways to improve things that I’m not doing so well, and get prepared for the next phase.

Overall, I am very happy with my riding. From the 16^th through the 27^th I covered 567 miles for an average of 47.25 miles per day. My goal was to cover 50 miles a day, and I’m close to it in spite of riding a too heavy rig, taking several off days, and riding into a strong headwind on several of my days. My longest single day was 80 miles from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria, a stretch that included two tall, steep grades and headwinds over much of the distance. At the end of the ride I even had enough energy to stay up and eat pizza and talk with some old friends until nearly midnight before heading out at 8:00am the next morning. If there is one thing I can do well, its ride a bike.

My favorite things about the journey so far have been the times that I have gone “off the map”.  The first side trip to Santa Maria took me to the home of Jim Schettler and his family. Pastor Schettler was a huge part of my life growing up, and I wasn’t sure if I would make the effort to find him, or how well it would go if I did. Going to Santa Maria was definitely the right choice. Other side trips included the ride to Salinas, and skipping over highway 84 into the San Francisco Bay area. Each side trip, brought sites and mini-adventures that couldn’t have been predicted by the map, and have made me wonder just how much longer I’ll stay on my preplanned route before the spirit of adventure finally takes hold and blows me where it will.

Photography during the trip has been a mixed bag. For the most part I’m happy with the shots, but I need to get on the road earlier and stay out later to find shots in great light. I haven’t done enough to seek out great images and have taken far too few portraits. So far, I think that my shots look the same as they always have this year – the location has changed, but I’m still me. I rush on to the next thing instead of taking time to fully see what is in front of me. I can do better.

Writing and video have been non-existent. My typical day has consisted of waking up, loading the bike, riding and shooting, finding the place I’m going to stay for the night, eating, and sleeping. I take notes, and fortunately I have my pictures to trigger memories, but I need to start writing every day before it all slips away.

One of my biggest concerns is still all the weight that I am carrying. The bike is still too heavy and I still have too much stuff. I am still looking for ways to reduce the load.

My assessment: It’s been a good trip so far, but I can do better.

For those of you who get these updates in your email and want to keep up with where I am, I’m now making  updates through Twitter throughout the day. The cool thing about the twitter updates is that you can get them through twitter, but they also post directly to my facebook page, and on the right hand sidebar of the blog itself. Find the way that works best for you and follow along!

(Oh, by the way, I’m in Santa Cruz Sunday evening, headed to Half Moon Bay Monday, and then Oakland on Tuesday.)

Covered the 80 miles from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria over hills and into headwinds yesterday. 200 miles away from eagle rock now.

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June 18: The End

If they tell you that you have reached the end, but you can see that the road keeps going do you stop anyway – or do you follow the road?

Photo: Mong Chan

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June 16:
Overstimulated but Still Lazy: The Unsupervised Adventures of a Voluntary Vagrant

Yep I’m starting. Its early and I have too much stuff and didn’t get enough sleep. I’ve got about 50 miles in front of me today, a quick haul to Venice then out to Malibu for the night.

Someone who believed in me once got me a little metal bar that said “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”  I left the bar in some bushes in Long Beach in the hopes that someone else would find it and stop and think about limits and limitless living.

My answer to the question? This. I’d do this.

I’ll post the big wrap up with feelings and all that shit later tonight.

Thanks to everyone who helped pick a name for the adventure. There were many great names (and some not so great ones) but at the end it came down to a tie between a great accidental name, and a barrage of well thought out suggestions.

It’s my freaking blog, so I’m taking a little liberty and making a hybrid title and awarding the Prints to…

Michael Mwamba for: “overstimulated but still lazy”
And Becca Cox Cleary for: “unsupervised Adventures” and “Voluntary Vagrant”

Lots of words I know so here’s the working title for our story:

“Overstimulated but still lazy: The unsupervised adventures of a voluntary vagrant” Yeah, I know, it really rolls off your tongue doesn’t it.

Mike and Becky – go check out the blog, POTD galleries, choose a photo or that you want, and send me a message with the size of print you want (up to 11×14) and your address.