Take your best guess.

Location: Athens, GA

The weather channel can really fuck with your rides. Back in the day when there wasn't a 24 hour coverage of clouds and shit, you just looked up and made your best guess. Today, I mostly hung out wondering when and if the rain would come. Finally a text message from Gaimon;"Fuck it, can you go in twenty?" 

I've had days where I sat around being pissed off not being able to ride because the forecast was rain, and then it was sunny all day. Now, I'm not the kind of rider who won't ride in rain, and as evidence I present my ride in Perpignan, but I'd also rather not ride in the rain. Either way, the point is that I hate it when technology gets in the way of my spontaneity.

Pina Colada Effect

Location: Athens, GA 
Ride: here

When you aim your plane straight up into the air and give it full gas, you're just asking for a sputtering and a stall to occur. And I stalled and began a lead zeppelin descent since Saturday's ride. Big ride up Mount Mitchell. Move. Big ride at the Gran Fondo. Then Athens, GA. New city with no plan, I know no one, and it was motherfucking cold.

I questioned if coming to Athens (with the intent of staying put for an entire month) wasn't too hasty, given that my most cherished moments of last Exodus were flying into a new town, marking my spot, and then hauling ass again into the unknown. I was also feeling quite blue, as I am inclined to feel when it is chilly. So that wasn't something I was unsettled by.

Hincapie La Fawnduh

Location: Greenville, SC 

As good as yesterday was, riding in the Hincapie Gran Fondo, today has been the perfect storm. I've been knocking shit over, tripping on shit, and generally feeling like anything I touch or come into contact with has got a bad thing coming. I half-expect the chair I am sitting on to just decide it is sick and tired of keeping me off the ground. 

Yesterday, I was up at 5:30AM in order to drive myself the 22 miles to the parking area for the Hincapie ride. I thought of everything except the fact that it would be pitch black and the three mile ride from the parking area to the start/finish might be hairy without lighting.

Hand Fed Love

More than occasionally in my travels I come across people who need something fixed. Or they need a new set of eyes on a situation that they have been exhausted by. Or they just simply need to be told that no matter what; it will all be ok. I tell them that it will be. It's a mental hand-feed, and I'm happy to oblige.  

I know the complexity of this feeling because I too have been burdened, even handcuffed, almost all of my conscious life by anxieties, darkness, bouts of depression, things I can't control. I know what it is like to want to sleep all day, to avoid the reality, to run, run, and keep running until it's quiet again.

Dumb Luck

Location: Asheville, NC

 The begin has begun. I'm into day two and already it's been worth the while. I didn't leave with any (many) expectations but it's all been utterly copacetic from the flag drop. I feel that lightness again. Just a tip of the toes at this point, but I have some good wind and I had some good signs that this is my destiny. 

I made a video for the past couple of days, and I'm not sure why since they take my fucking forever to edit because I am a one man show and my only source of production opinion. I never know how they will be received, but I do know that I love watching them a year later, on my couch, getting inspired for the next adventure.

Maybe that's their real purpose. Here ya go:

Exodus Part Two: the beginning.

Tomorrow at high noon I'll be skipping town again. I may have said before I am not as light in spirit as I was last time around, but I think that's just because I have a better idea of what to expect. I will admit to a more melancholy feeling this time, because this summer I got a lot closer to my family. In particular, my relationship with my brother and his kids; huge leaps. 

Last time I wasn't thinking much about what I would miss, I was just thinking of what I had been missing. This time there is a bit more guilt. But that quickly diminishes when I remember the rush of the unknown.