I was reminded that hills are just hills and wind is just wind. We breeze along when we can. We limp along when we have to.
I went outside my comfort zone and got comfortable there. Still, I'm glad to be home.
I ate. I ate a lot. I lost weight anyway.
BJ and I met a lot of people: vagrants, vagabonds, dropouts from society, an addict, a panhandler, hard-living people, hardworking people, a PhD, a precocious kid, farmers, ranchers, cooks, and servers. Most of them were kind to us.
We met people who have done long, self-contained bike rides; people who dream of taking a long, self-contained bike ride; and people who couldn't imagine themselves ever doing such a thing.
So many people wished us, "Have fun," and "Be safe."
We rode over mountains, through valleys, across rivers, through wheat fields, cornfields, forests, wetlands, deserts, prairies, open range, small towns, and large cities.
We saw countless railroad cars on hundreds of miles of track.
Blogging about this trip has been part of the fun. I'm grateful to everyone who has read this blog, and particularly to those who left comments or sent emails. Part of our morning ritual was to read, share, and chuckle over your remarks. Your encouragement helped to keep us going.
In my wife's office, there is a monthly meeting which always begins with an inspirational thought of some kind. They call it a "Higher Ground." Last month, the company's CEO was responsible for the Higher Ground. I was flattered to learn that, among other things, he read part of one of these blogposts. It was the post dated September 25, in which I related our nighttime difficulties with drunk boys, noisy neighbors, and an automatic sprinkler system. To that account he added this quote from G.K. Chesterton:
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.
It was a great adventure.
BJ was a good partner. We formed, for a while, a community of two, trusting, tolerating, and relying on one another. Frankly, I wouldn't have gone without a partner. BJ's different. I think he'll be fine out there on his own.
Anyway, thanks, Beej!
And thanks, especially, to Melanie who encouraged me to go and missed me when I did.
brant - we enjoyed your notes & you get special praise from audie:
ReplyDelete'Hey, if you email Brant, please also tell him how much I have enjoyed his posts. He has a gift for story-telling and for saying profound things without sounding overly sentimental. I can see why he’s a minister.'
Thanks, Paul, and thank Audie, too, for her kind words.
DeleteI was sorry to read on FaceBook today that BJ is abandoning his ride in Oelwein, IA due to illness. It was a great ride. I'm sorry he doesn't get to finish it.
Amen ................
DeleteAS a conflicted Epicurian, and/or a conflicted Lutheran (though I'm not one -- as I understand things, one has to be voted in, right? Ironically, I am but am not a Catholic.) I haven't entirely understood this adventure from the get go. I know it was a good experience for you, but it's seemed tortuous all the long. My Epicurian side says "torture: bad"; my Catholic side says "good living metaphor for life".
ReplyDeleteLutherans, naturally conflicted, are, ironically, or at least paradoxically, both catholic and not catholic.
DeleteI will be honest and say that, from the start, I haven't fully understood this adventure myself. I know that I love riding a bicycle and sleeping in a tent. A self-contained bicycle tour allows me to do both. Sometimes it was indeed tortuous. Other times it was sheer joy.
Even stoicism has its epicurean pleasures.
And I would say that it was more than a metaphor for life. It was, at least for a time, life.
Think of Socrates standing tall in the cold rain.