| Cross-Country Ramble 28:
Anticipation--Again! Date: 3/4/98 1:13:48 AM Eastern
Standard Time
Tomorrow morning we'll be at it again--biking across the
continent towards St. Augustine, Florida. Just a year and eleven
months ago on April Fools' Day in 1996, freshly sprinkled with
Pacific Ocean water at the Ventura California Pier, Carol and I
started our cross-country bike tour. Sixty road days later on June 9
we dipped our front wheels in the Gulf of Mexico at High Island,
Texas. My right knee had decided that we were to go no further, but
we decided we could still declare victory.
We went back to Ventura, moved ourselves and our stuff to
Cincinnati as we had planned, and set up housekeeping in a wonderful
house across the street from where we had lived before we moved to
California for six years. For several months, we didn't mention
biking to each other and we didn't go near our bikes. But sometime
in October, I said to Carol, "Do you think we should think about
finishing our tour?" and she said, without missing a beat, "Sure!
Why not?"
So here we are in Houston, Texas, staying with members of one of
the travel clubs we belong to, as ready as we'll ever be to start
biking tomorrow. We shared our plans with our hosts. They expressed
the usual amazement, and we expressed the usual bravado.
Now, everyone else has gone to bed, and I'm awake, fretting as I
have fretted most nights for the past several weeks. My fears are on
a Merry-go-round in my head: I have feared that something would
happen which would make us have to cancel this trip. I have hoped
that something would happen which would make us have to cancel this
trip. Will my knee fail me again? Can we find a way through New
Orleans without getting killed in traffic? Can we even get out of
Houston alive? Will we get caught in the middle of nowhere with
nothing to eat and no place to stay? Is this the stupidest thing
we've ever done?
I can hardly wait for tomorrow. We'll leave our car with our
hosts and start pedaling for Galveston, heading for the place we
declared victory two years ago. The road will be flat, the weather,
cool. We'll feel a nice breeze in our faces. Our tires will hum on
the pavement. We'll be on the road again, taking in the sights and
sounds and experiences, and proving once again to ourselves that
we're free to do things that, for us, are simply outrageous.
Taking it easy, we should make it to High Island in three days.
And then, on into uncharted territory!
Ken
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