Beasley of Bloomington

Alright. That's it. I'm tired of this day by daying in the blog. Most days, in my opinion, have nothing going on. We just ride our bikes and eat a lot of food. That's really all that happens. Maybe, sometimes, it'll pour on us or we'll encounter a wild animal, but even those are nothing special to write about unless I was really really trying to make it interesting writing. This is my new proposed plan! Forget all this day # this and day # that crap. It's time for some stories. It's time for stories of the craziness that tends to come about out of the blue while you're on a little tiny journey such as this. I lovd that stuff, I live for that stuff. So the first story I want to start with is about Bloomington, Illinois, and Steve Beasley! Because he is always the most wonderful host.

We have had only one day of tailwind this entire trip so far. One day only. That means that every other day we have had either a cross or a direct headwind and, if you know anything about biking, you know how demoralizing the wind can be. This was that one day. We woke up to the sound of someone unlocking a door to the Hoopeston community center. We were lying there on the huge stage they had inside the building we were staying in when a lady came walking around the corner to find us. She looked at us a little startled, guess she didn't expect to find these two homeless looking fools sleeping on the stage.
"Uhhhh.... Did they tell you we were going to be here?" Stumbles asked. "No". Well.... this is awkward. We do a little quick explaining, gather our things, roll out the back door, and into the cold windy morning for the days ride.

Our stage

Thank goodness the wind was in our favour. This was the first and only time this trip so far the the wind wasn't destroying us. Apparently there is a prevailing wind across America? And no one told us this before we started the trip. If we had known, surely, we would have started on the West coast and rode East. And I would almost bet, almost, that we'd be done already if we'd done it that way. That's how amazing the wind can be, or how infuriating. Needless to say we killed, and I mean killed, those 75 miles into Bloomington. So much so that we were calling it a nearo (near zero miles). It was just after noon when we rolled into the parking lot of Steve's apartment. The first drops of rain were just starting to come down, we made it just in time.

I've written about Steve a lot I know, because it seems I roll through Bloomington atleast every once in a while, but there could never be enough praise for the man. Steve is incredible, the best of guys, and just an incredible entertainer. He welcomed both me and Stumbles into his house, and then Flip and his girlfriend came over too! For some reason Flip was in the area and wanted to come visit me and Stumbles, the old Peru crew together again! So we spent the night hanging out with Steve, Flip, his girlfriend, Steve's roommates (Asa, Alix, and Sean), as well as Asa's brother and his friend. It ended up being a huge get together and untold amounts of fun. Knowing that we were taking our first zero the day after this, we stayed up for a while...

Ah... Finally, finally, finally. Our first zero day has arrived! We'd been going pretty hard until then, all the way in mid-Illinois, and we were feeling the need to take some time off. So, we spent it on the lake, having some amazing home cooked food for dinner, and then going out again. All that can be said is that it was amazing and exactly what we needed for our first zero.

Steve it was amazing to see you again, you are way too generous towards me! It was great to see you again Asa, Alix, and Sean! Can't wait until the next time I roll through! Great to see you again too Flip! We'll be seeing you when we roll through Iowa! First zero day was a complete success!

Be happy y'all,

Beacon

Sven and Helga, King and Queen of Hoopeston

Day !@: Lemme' tell you something about bicycling. Everyone thinks it's the hills that hurt. Everyone thinks it's fighting gravity that's the challenge. Gravity is a challenge for sure, it's just not the challenge. The challenge is wind. Wind is what hurts. Wind is where you watch all your energy and efforts evaporate into the nothingness that's bursting all over you. Wind's even more of a problem when you do no research on your bicycle ride across America and ride against the prevailing winds (which, I now know, is West to East). We rode 85 miles into the wind that day. Just sayin'.


Day !#: Okay, let's just tell you right now. This is a story. This isn't the shitty talking about miles or ass hurting or wind I've been writing of late (but sometimes there's just nothing else that happens). This is a real story, one of the random occurrences that happens on your random bike ride across America.

We were planning to spend the night in Hoopeston. On Google maps there was a little motel, called the Downtown Motel, and it was our only option considering we were in middle of nowhere Illinois at this point (yay for our first time zone crossing!). We were kind of tired from fighting the wind all day, so we ride directly up to the motel. In the window there was a piece of, what looked like, butcher paper with a scribble, looking not much better than a 4 year olds hand writing, claiming the manager was in room 5.

Illinois 

I'm kicking it outside with the bikes while Stumbles goes to find the manager. I'm chillen' minding my own business when a woman comes up to me and starts asking if we were planning on staying at this motel. She was Susan, one of our saviors for the day. She proceeded to tell me there was no way we are staying there. We just couldn't stay there, there is no way, and we should not stay there. She'd find us a better place. Then, right at that moment, Stumbles walks back out with a look on her face like she'd just seen a ghost. Eyes wide, she looks at me, and slowly shakes her head no, as if to say we are going to get murdered if we stay here. We follow Susan.

This is how Stumbles later described the room to me. She walked into the room and the first thing she sees is the sink in the middle of the room, completely detached from the wall. The manager was like "Hey, y'all don't need a sink do you?", but, apparently, it was in the middle of the floor! No sheets on the bed and when Stumbles asked him about that he pointed her to a pile of gray rags on the floor claiming they were 'clean'. I think that's the point where she walked out without one word or explanation and we followed Susan into the church next door.

We were quickly introduced to JoHanna and a few of the other people who work around the church. They told us all about how the motel next door is crazy terrible. It's one of those sorts of places that people live, not stay, for dirt cheap and it actually sounded like a drug house to me. There was even an unsolved murder there a few years ago. Susan was calling all sorts of people to find a place for us to stay finally landing on the community building in the park, which sounded awesome to us. It would save us some money and of course it just sounded like an awesome opportunity as well.

Susan, JoHanna, the pastor and his wife

It was crazy like this, they'd just seen us going over to the motel and said to themselves 'we cannot let them stay there'. And, so, the townspeople of Hoopeston came to rescue us from what was, apparently, going to be our inevitable demise at the Downtown Motel. We hung around the church for a bit chatting it up and talking logistics before the biker hunger overtook us and we went across the street to find some chow.

We were the only people sitting in the little Chinese food restaurant when a man with a camera comes in. It's the editor for the little towns newspaper and he has come to interview us for the newspaper. We're already laughing at the randomness of this situation as well as our good fortune and this makes it even better, we're going to be in the paper of this little town just for riding our bicycles through! Darn hilariously awesome!

After we get our photos taken and slay a plate of Chinese we go back over to the church where Susan tells us, I still don't know why, our new names are Sven and Helga. Which I think is great! Sven is a great biking across America name right?! And Helga, well, Stumbles I guess you're Helga now (hilarious). We're introduced to the pastor and his wife and the pastor is an incredibly nice guy. From talking to him it sounds like he's been all over the world doing all sorts of things and those are the kinds of people I like to chat it up with. Because it's not like me telling someone about Greece or whatever, it's like us talking about Greece and remembering our respective times there together. So they bring us cake and we chat it up until it's time to take us over to the community house we're going to stay in.

The pastor 

We're introduced to Paul, one of the groundskeepers, and he shows us how to prop the door open with a rock so we can get in and out. The place we are staying in is this crazy huge theater sort of thing with a stage in it and of course we choose to sleep center stage. Just as we were lying down to pass out we hear some loud rapping on the window that gave us a start. We tentatively investigate the source of the ruckus to find Susan and JoHanna outside with a huge blanket for us to sleep on.

Our stage

Hoopeston was seriously one of the most sincere, sweet, and honest little towns I've encountered. The total and complete unexpectedness of meeting all the people from this church in this tiny little town and all the help they gave us was magical. These are the things that make a trip like this, these are the people that make a trip like this something that you can never forget, restoring your faith in humanity all across America. Seriously though, we just show up randomly and the townspeople rescue us, put us in their paper, feed us cake, put us up for the night, and make us comfortable there?! Thank you so much for everything Susan, JoHanna, and everyone else we met over in Hoopeston! I hope I can come back to visit sometime, it was an honor to meet you all!

Stay happy everyone,

Sven (haha)

Somehow we're getting there

Day (: We rode our bikes 70 miles.

Day ): We rode our bikes 70 miles in the wind.

Day !): We rode our bikes 70 miles. BUT, something actually happened on this day! I was waiting at this Marathon gas station for Stumbles when this guy who works there came up to me and started asking me bike questions. Like where you going, how far, how long, yada yada yada. Well once he finds out I'm actually going a distance he launches into this crazy story.

A year and half ago he was riding his bike from Michigan to Virginia for the ginseng season or something random like that. He stopped at this very same Marathon and the owner, Bo, who has done some bike tours himself, offered to let him camp out back. After a couple days Bo offered him a job stacking wood and so he stayed for a month to make some money before continuing south. Well he heads off south and when the ginseng season is over he calls up Bo to see if there's any more wood that needs stacking. Bo offers him a full time job and, batta bing, batta boom, he has an awesome job working for the coolest gas station owner ever.

Stumbles comes up to the gas station and we go in together to meet Bo. Bo is the nicest old man ever, he has done a few long bike tours himself. He told us anyone who bikes that long can have anything they want in his store. He full on made breakfast for us and offered us any drink he had. He told us all about his tours and showed us the scrap book he'd made of it (because it was way back in the day). It was amazing talking to this random fellow biker! And then they give us t-shirts from the gas station too! As well as a special surprise ;). It was exactly what we needed at the time. A little crazy kindness from a stranger. He sent us off telling us that if we ever felt like quitting we should call him and he would give us hell for it. The grandest of guys, I thank them both for everything!

Our t-shirts (excuse the blurry photo)

Day !!: It's been like 10 days and I've gained like 15 pounds (at least). I thought I was supposed to get skinny this trip?!! Me and Stumbles have stopped yelling 'summer of skinny' and started on the 'summer of fat' yelling. It's pretty hilarious actually. Probably because my new favourite food is a salad with fries dumped on it. 

I swear there is a salad under that

We're about midway through Indiana and had an awesomely easy and short day of 50 miles down this bike trail. It's the first place we've encountered any other cyclist since beginning this thing. Anyways, all's good over here and sorry the updates are so uneventfully short!

Be happy!

Beacon

Neroing across the country

Day ^: The mountains hurt us. They hurt us really badly. We were both feeling it hard and so we decided on a nero. A nero is a day where you do near zero miles. It's really a hiking term, but me and Stumbles are trying to bring it over to the cycling community. We did about 38 painful and uneventful miles before spending pretty much the whole day in bed drinking wine and trying to recoup.

Day &: We had super good intentions for this day. We'd planned a pretty big mile day just short of Wheeling hoping to finally get out of Pennsylvania and hopefully out of the mountains as well. Then we got to little Washington and sat around a bit watching the wind rattle the streetlamps outside. It turned into a nero. Obviously we're really good at this bike riding thing.

Day *: Finally! Finally finally finally I made it to blogging the same day that I lived. Because that is just so much easier to do. Once a day becomes not today it blurs together with all the rest of the not today days. There is nothing as specific as last Monday, yesterday, or the 12th. In my mind days fall into one of two categories, and two categories only. Today, and not today. If it's today, cool, if it's not today, whatever. And that's how I see it. But it's today! Oh gloriousness it is today! Today today today! Let me tell you about today! Because today was one of those days where it didn't really go as planned and it was all the more eventful for it!

I woke up feeling pretty good today. So did Stumbles. We both woke up around 5:30 and unanimously decided to go back to sleep for another half hour before starting to get everything together. Since we'd neroed the past two days I was feeling fresh and I swear my quads are an inch or two wider than the day I started this trip. Stumbles informed me that she'd booked a place for us 70 miles away. Okay cool, that means we ARE going to go 70 miles today. It's time to start getting at least a little bit of distance now that we are out of the Appalachian mountains. We need some street cred you know? Instead of being these two fools drinking wine and eating their way across America we need to be these two fools drinking wine, eating, and riding their bikes across America. I was cool with it. It was a great day for big miles, super overcast, but cold. And so we were off.

We were off and doing great. The hills weren't killing us, in fact they were just enough to keep me warm. The terrain was good and my ass wasn't alight in pain. All was well, we were hitting it good and feeling great too. Before we knew it we were at the border of PA and WV! Woo! Goodbye PA and good riddance to your mountain riddled southern half! Hello West Virginia, I hope we get along well.

I realized quickly we wouldn't get along because West Virginia is still living about 100 years in the past and doesn't know how to pave a road properly. Pot hole after pot hole after giant crack traversing the entirety of the road. Every 10 feet there was something unavoidable and it took its toll on my already bent rim. I felt something go, and, at first, I thought it was a flat. I looked down at my back tire and no flat, but something was wrong. I stopped and looked at it. Looks like I just broke a spoke. No problem, I can handle that. Stumbles borrows some wire cutters from the working crew that happens to be across the street and I just cut it off thinking I'll ride the 10 more miles to Wheeling and get it fixed there. Well... it wasn't just the spoke. The rim was bent more than it was before hand. It was bent, really bent. Bent like I was in Ireland bent. Completely unrideable... No way at all. My grandpa, always having the best words of wisdom, would say this to me: you're SOL, shit out of luck. Thanks grandpa.

What was there to do but try and hitch into town? Good thing I'm the best hitcher there ever was. Stumbles wandered off to see if she could find a ride while I good ol' fashion thumbed it. 10 minutes maybe, that was it, before Jeff picked us up (a well doing mom tried to help us before that but we couldn't fit the bikes in the car). Jeff is a volunteer firefighter and an EMT. He was just on his way to breakfast when he saw these two no good bicyclist on the side of the road and being a biker himself (motorcyclist) helped us out by taking us to the bike store in Wheeling!

The guy at the bike store fixed me up good with one of his wheels that he'd recently acquired, he was a super nice dude. Lovely little bike shop and enthusiastic about life. It was awesome! We then proceeded to have breakfast at an amazing little diner with Jeff where we got to know him a little better. Super kind and nice guy! It was great meeting you Jeff!

(Bike guy and Jeff)

Since that took us a little while me and Stumbles decided to get on our way and hit it hard. Which we did for a while. We had to jump on the interstate once because we weren't going to take a 10 mile detour when we could just ride the interstate for one mile. Problem was half the interstate was missing...

We needed to do that same thing again later, jump on the interstate for a bit that is, by jumping a fence, hopping on the interstate, and riding a mile or two to the next access road. We decided to climb up over this little hill and the barbed wire fence to get to the interstate on the other side, but when we got to the top there was a little baby cow inside the fence. When I say little baby cow I mean, since I don't know anything about how to age a cow, he was probably like a 12 year old boy in human years. He was angsty and curious about us. We were considering braving him, but I was totally getting a rape vibe from him so we decided to ride back a ways and find a better crossing. As we rode off we heard a moo from a lonely cow follow us down the road.

When we were about to forge through the forest to the only fence stopping us a truck was driving by and we put our thumbs out mostly for fun and because it was a truck that could take our bikes too, Funnily enough mike stopped for us and drove us the 2 miles stretch of the interstate so we wouldn't have to ride it. It was awesome, thanks Mike!!

We finished out the last 16 miles of the day to make it to a total of 70 miles no problem, A really random day with a few twist and turns, but that's how adventure is supposed to be!

Be happy everyone!

Beacon

Confirmed: We really have no idea what we're doing

Day #: Stumbles convinced me to get up early and get ourselves on our way, but, I'm going to be honest here, my butt was absolutely killing me from being on the saddle for the 8 (or however long) hours it took us to ride the 78 (or however far) miles we ended up going the day before. My butt was so sore it was tender to the merest whispers of the wind, how was I supposed to perch the whole of my weight on a slim saddle atop my Cervelo? I just had to man up and do it. There was no questions about it, I knew this trip was going to hurt. After some goodbyes to Phys Ed and his wife me and Stumbles were on our way west! Not even knowing what we were really doing or where we were going for the night. We just knew we were on our way.

Until, 8 miles into that mornings ride, Stumbles' pedal fell off her crank again. Well....... It's hard to pedal one legged so I gave Phys Ed a call and he graciously drove the short distance we'd managed to put between us and Gettysburg, picked our sorry selves up off the side of the road, and took us to the bike store in Gettysburg so we could attempt to get our shit together. Stumbles got her pedal fixed and a new helmet so I couldn't make fun of her for looking like she was in elementary school anymore. We tried a to bend my rim back in to shape with some small success and I bought a new saddle. The best $100 I have ever spent, ever, in my entire life. I wasn't worried about my skinny little chicken legs for this ride. I wasn't worried about my pale complexion in the sun all day for this ride. I was worried about my ass. Only my ass, and this one purchase has saved my ass. It ain't like I'm sitting on a cloud, but it no longer feels like I'm trying to cut myself in half with my saddle.

After the bike store we took a nap in the grass. Made it 25 miles that day. I know, I know, we're pathetic. And I don't disagree, but we're gettin' there regardless of our lack of any idea about what we're doing.

Day $: This is it. This is the day we hit the mountains. This is what Stumbles had been fearing the whole time, and, probably, what I should have been fearing as well. My philosophy doesn't work fear into it though. I like to say things like 'It's all good' or 'no worries' or 'this is easy' the whole way through any adventure, even if it's not, because it gets me through the pain, and once all the pain is over I can look back and legitimately say 'that was easy' because it's over. Truthfully though, they hurt. They f'n hurt. We did 3 climbs on this day. 2 mountains, one hill between the two. That's how I would categorize it. 40 miles in the end, because the mountains hurt us. They hurt us bad. I reckon we rode 10+ miles at 9% on this day. Considering neither Stumbles or I am in shape, it hurt. It hurt a lot.

I could probably right some fanciful thing about how we conquered the mountains here. I absolutely could actually, because at the top of each mountain I could feel that we might actually make it all the way to the West coast on this insane endeavor of ours. I could feel the ecstasy of conquering something that was giving me doubts. Those sort of 'come to Jesus' (I don't think I'm using that how it's supposed to be used, but it's how I think of it) feelings where you don't actually know you can do something but you want to, and, then, suddenly, you realize you're already doing it. It's happening. It's going to happen. Some day next month I'm going to coast up to the West coast and, since I'm a wuss, probably cry a little bit as I look back and know I rode from the Atlantic for no other reason than I wanted to and I knew I could. I'm doing it, it's going to happen. That's all there is to it. Those sort of feelings, where you see all that coming true, make me want to write fanciful things full of imagery and impressive vocabulary (yeah right), but honestly I'm too tired to get fanciful for you right now. So, let's leave it at this: the mountains hurt, but they didn't kill us.

Day %: This is a notable day. Why? Because, the day before, we beat ourselves against mountain after mountain and we probably weren't ready for it. And we did the same against some other formidable hills and a mountain on this very day. The only thing that got us through this day was the antique shop. The cutest little antique shop almost at the top of this brutal beast of a climb. We were out of water, even though a car pulled over and gave us two extra bottles, out of energy, and out of desire to wage war against gravity. We reached the little store defeated with talks of hitching to a town because we just couldn't do the rest of the miles we'd planned for the day, and we needed a place to stay for the night. Camping wouldn't do it when we were wrecked like this. We needed a shower and warm water and shitty television. But we couldn't ride on.



Until the little antique shop. The sweetest old people inside. They gave us iced tea, brownies, fruit salad, pork sandwiches, bottles of water, and, the best of all, words of encouragement in the shape of 'you're done with the hills'. It was exactly what we needed in the middle of a sweltering climb. We needed it so badly and they were there to pull us out of the darkness we'd been sinking into. Such incredibly nice folk. And with that, we rallied. We fucking rallied and we fucking rode the 20 more miles into Somerset where we'd planned on making it for the day. It wrecked us, it hurt us bad, but we made it.

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I'm doing my best to get caught up to where we are now, but at the end of the day I'm usually pretty exhausted and can't muster enough heart to write. Sorry these are boring, but it's just us riding our bikes around screaming out Taylor Swift and Adele songs. Having catch phrases like 'summer of skinny' and 'let's just night bike to Cali'. Quite a damn good time actually, I'm loving it. And yeah we get flats and whatever and normal things happen, but that ain't worth writing about. We're having fun, and we're on our way! I'll write more when I can and, again, I apologize for the low quality of the blogs. I'll think up a fanciful one soon. Maybe.

(We've no idea what we're doin') 

Be happy y'all!

Beacon

Stumbles Tumbles and a couple days into the ride

I still find it the funniest damn thing in the world that me and Stumbles' first day 'riding our bikes across America' was a zero day. A zero day being a day where we do zero miles for one reason or another. And that one reason or another for us happened to be that we partied a little too hard the night before to be going on such an endeavor the next day. But that tends to happen every once in a while and now we are actually kind of on our way. Let me see, we've probably only done about 140 miles at this point and right now we're in Breezewood Pennsylvania... umm.. I just really don't know what to write about this sort of adventure you know? Do y'all want to know how we're doing it? Why? Should I write about miles and specifics? Or just romanticize the idea of the whole adventure on a whim sort of thing? The 'my body has no limits I don't tell it' sort of thing? I don't really know? It's really just me and Stumbles riding our bikes across America and all. Nothing fancy, and the funniest thing is how utterly and ridiculously unprepared we are. I'll just give a little outline with a little details of how on all this silliness we've been about, that sounds good.

Day !: That was the zero day, y'all know that. Stumbles maintains that we didn't really start until the day after, but I like to say we started out with a 0.

Day @: I made it out of the parking lot in the cute little park at the edge of Havre de Grace, Maryland. Well, maybe made it to the edge of the parking lot before I had to pump up my back tire for the first time. We made it another few blocks before I had to stop to pump it up again, because it was just looking really low ye know? After that I gave up and we went on for a few miles before, for the final f'n time, I decided to figure out what was wrong with my back wheel. While I stopped to examine it Stumbles had her first adorable tumble because she wasn't quite practiced at unclipping yet. Hell, we've all been there when we first get clip in pedals, it's a strange and foreign concept! Having your feet attached to your pedals like that! I only laughed at her a bit, and then discovered that my back rim was bent. My wheel was going whomp-a-whomping, nearly rubbing the frame with every rotation, and, if you don't know, that's not a good thing. Don't know how it happened, but I have my theories (I'm looking at you AMTRAK). This means that I couldn't use my rear break at all because the whomp-a-whomping simply would not allow. Grand. Nothing I could do about so I decided to keep on riding and ignore the fact that my back wheel looked drunk.

Ride a bit, get to a stop light, and down goes Stumbles, right in front of all the cars. Clip-ins take practice. Stumbles being Stumbles, she takes it like a champ and we get about 10 miles more before her pedal comes detached from her bike, still lodged in her shoe. And then she falls over. Well we rigged that as best we could, and that about does it for mishaps on the first day. Oh wait, except that Stumbles has never done a bike ride over 15 miles before and I hadn't ridden my bike in about a year and a half.... We had a painful lull around mile 40, where all the hills were. Regardless, we rode 78 miles to Gettysburg on day one and at one point we came to a road upon a lake where I had a serious sense of deja vu (where are accents on a computer?!). I realized I had hitched down that same road last year when I was doing my little hitching thing around America! It got me super excited. I love realizing I've been everywhere. Compared to our first day, the zero, we kind of had an infinite increase in mileage production. 

I'm sure people are going to be curious about how we eat and where we stay and all. For some reason people are always interested in specifics like that. On that first day we just ate at little country shops we found along the way. We stayed at my friend Phys Eds house in Gettysburg. Phys Ed is one of the coolest guys I know. I met him hiking the Appalachian trail and he does so much for trail that it's inspiring. It seems like he is always up at the museum giving a talk about trail or trying to figure out some cool way to do trail magic. Plus he welcomes my smelly self in whenever I role around on whatever random adventure I've been participating in at the time (AKA hitching/bike rides). Him and his wife both are some of the most generous and genuinely interesting people I've ever met. His excitement about things is unparalleled. When me and Stumbles finally got to Gettysburg there is no doubt we were a little beat (especially my ass). Phys Ed was hosting a fancifulish gathering at his house so we kind of got snuck into the upstairs where we showered up and got ready to hit the town. We'd meant to go to the bike store but it was too late by the time we were there. We just went out and met up with Lost'n'found, who we both know from trail as well. It was just one of those really good trail reunion nights where we can all really let loose all that held up trail talk we'd been waiting to get out. Phys Ed met up with us later that night and we all just had fun talking about trail. Couldn't get too wild though because we were dang beat from the 78 miles. But whatevs, it was all good!

Day #: To be continued....


I understand this is a reaaaaally boring blog. But this bike riding thing is pretty hard, at least while we're still fresh into it AND in the middle of the mountainish country. I am darn exhausted by the end of the day. Real writing takes time and energy, neither of which I have at the moment. Wait a bit and I promise they'll get better. This was as much as I could catch y'all up on for now!

Be happy,

Beacon

This one's for the Goose

4:30a. I'm still drunk. I haven't opened my eyes yet, but I can feel it. I know it. I'm still drunk, and pleasantly so, as my alarm is wailing beside me. I really don't want to wake up, I feel like it might even be physically impossible for me to leave the warm fuzzy stupor that last nights shenanigans have left me in. I groggily unstick my eyelids from each other and... I shoot straight up! What the hell happened last night? Why is there a bag of Cheezeits slung all over the bed and myself? Oh man. Standing on the hotel nightstand next to my bed is a lamp I reach over and switch on, turn off my alarm, and check my phone. It's blown up. Brushing the Cheezeits off me I make sure no ones trying to reach me for a reason. Nope. What time did I even go to bed last night? We couldn't have left the the bar later than 10pm... but we did start kind of early... And it was Cinco de Mayo... As well as the start of our trip... Those will be my excuses for how much I'm gonna' hurt for it today. Set my alarm for another half hours sleep, turn out the lamp.


5:00a. I'm still drunk. Well, that wasn't really gonna' change with a half hour sleep I suppose. Thank the lord I'm not hungover. I don't know what I did to deserve that beautiful blessing, but, regardless, thank the lord. Then I see my water bottle on the nightstand next to me and know that was probably the saving grace. My stomach's tight, but not in knots. I vaguely remember chugging as much water as I could each time I randomly awoke during the night, oh, and I was doing my laundry? I look at my bike on the other bed and I can see I certainly didn't change out my tires or pack anything like I was supposed to do yesterday. I check my phone and see that Stumbles texted me. "Who the fuck decided that shots of whiskey were a good idea!!!" Well, I slyly raise my hand, I guess you can blame me for that one. We agree to leave the hotel at 6:30a. Breakfast at 6:15a. Because WE ARE DOING THIS. And, with that realization, I really need to start doing this, we're supposed to leave on our 3000 (why can't you CAPS LOCK numbers?) mile bicycle ride across America in an hour and a half and I'm more than half drunk from margaritas, beers upon beers upon beers, hell in a shell (whatever the hell that is), and four shots o' Jameson. Instead of making a move I lay there staring at the ceiling, feeling out if I'm really up for this. Because I kind of knowingly and maybe a little bit on purpose/laziness/dgaf/I really don't know what I'm doing in life attitude didn't do JACK ALL in preparation for this itty bitty ride... Nah, it'll be grand and dandy, I ain't worried. So, I set my alarm for another half hour.


5:30a. I can do this. I can get up. I check my phone, Stumbles has changed the leaving time to 6:45a. Well that'll help me a little bit at least. If I get up that is. Alright, I'm doing it. RALLYING. I guess you could call it rallying? I don't know the logistics of what is or isn't a rally, but, fuck, I'm rallying. And roll off the bed to land with a thud. Pull my phone down on top of me by the charger cord and start to blast some upbeat music. 'Whistle while you work it' comes on and I can get my head around that. Moan, stand, look at the fake cheese all over the bed. Where did that even come from? Looks like I slept snuggling a bag of Cheezeits. Which, in fact, it also appears that I did sleep snuggling a bag of Cheezeits. I walk out and across the hall in my bibs (basically a unitard), no fucks given really, pull my laundry out the dryer, and then go back to dump it in a heap by my pack. I need some hot water, that'll get the blood goin'. So I go sit in my handicapped shower.


6:00a. Falling asleep in the shower is a thing cool kids do right? I guess I probably rightly deserved this handicapped room looking at how retarded my night must've been. Surprised I woke up in my room at this point even. I dress in my beacon of a cycling uniform slooooooowly and shoelessly wander out to the free breakfast where I expect to meet Stumbles. I rearrange some furniture and kick it with my feet up.


7:00a. Falling asleep in a crowded hotel breakfast room is a thing cool kids do right? Stumbles shows up, it looks like she may be feeling last night as well. And from the way she is describing Mr. Miller right now it sounds like he may be in the roughest spot of us all. But that's okay I guess because he isn't riding his bike spontaneously across America, he was just the one kind enough to drive us down to Maryland and see us off. Stumbles gets some coffee to take up to him and our chatty jibes about last night unlock some of what actually happened in my brain. I remember us laughing at Mr. Miller's spot on comment of 'your ass will be so tight by the end of this ride you won't be able to drive a nail into it with a sledgehammer'. Damn, we really did go at it last night. We really did get pretty turnt. I'm about to fall back asleep in the chair when Stumbles tells me to go sleep in my room and we'll leave a little later. I oblige.


9:00a. Stumbles is knocking at my door and I let her into the war zone (because of course I STILL have not done anything I need to). 'What is all over this bed?!'. 'Uh.... Cheezeits? Don't remember what happened really, but it's something to do with the Cheezeits I woke up covered in'. Definitely a wild night for a wild adventure to come. And then she drops the bomb. Mr. Miller is gonna' call in to work. Meaning we could potentially, actually, like we were supposed to, prepare for this trip and get a nights sleep before endeavoring on this silly adventure of ours IF we take a zero day... So,......? Decisions? Everyone's thinking it and he was just the one to say it. We walk over to breakfast for real and meet Mr. Miller there. First day riding our bikes across America was a zero day. Anyone who knows the two of us together wouldn't be surprised by it. First day, zero day. This is gonna be an awesome bike ride. We laugh and laugh about it.


Sometime during breakfast. Stumbles mentions the goose. I facepalm. THE GOOSE! HOW COULD I FORGET THE GOOSE! I can't believe we killed a motha' fuckin' suicidal goose yesterday guys!! But really, it flew right in front of the car. Surprised it didn't crash through the windshield actually. And then I ask myself what even is my life and go back to sleep.

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P.S.

I am aware that in some world far far away a blog post such as this could be looked upon as 'bad taste'. That retailing my drunken adventures and endeavors could be seen as 'unprofessional' or some such nonsense. And now, I'm saying to you, the reader, let's be honest with each other. People get drunk and do silly things and it's hilarious. And we all know damn well I ain't no saint. Plus I just enjoy writing, and, even though this blog is about adventure, I stand by that this sort of thing is under the classification of adventure. So, if you're offended by the content or my mouth (fingers?), then I apologize.

Other than that, if you didn't gather, Stumbles and I are about to ride our bikes across the country. Starting in northern Maryland and headed west. Maybe to Seattle, maybe to San Francisco, but we're not 100% sure. It's gonna be fun and I'll blog it for y'all! If you're kind of on that latitude somewhere hit me up and maybe we can stop in for a visit!

Anyways,

Be happy everyone!

Beacon