i wonder as i wander

I have spent a remarkable percentage of my travels in thought. Whether memories of the past or visions of the future, even the agonizing dissection of the present, it permeated every moment of my journey. I contemplated all things even as I churned up pavement. The bicycle is a remarkable invention. One can fly without wings and under one's own power. A wonderful creation.

Each day, I tried to find new material for thought, and largely succeeded. Every hill was a test of continuity. I would begin with a thought at the bottom of a mountain climb and see how far oxygen deprivation would take me from my original subject. Fascinating, really!

I'd like to say that I came to some conclusions, but I mainly gathered new and better questions. It remains to be seen if answers will come to them.

It sounds rather glamorous to some people, doing nothing but riding every day, camping in the wilderness of state parks and worrying about nothing but the road before you. There is an addiction to the simplicity of life that this involves, the wildness and untamed beauty of the earth that one encounters in an unbelievably real way. While I fly without wings, I touch the elements.

There is definitely a downside. The mountains don't move or shrink just because you're beyond the limits of exhaustion. The weather is sure to be extreme. But in the losing of oneself to the road, the smallness of your tiny wheels to the mountains and vast deserts, you feel a peacefulness and contentment that is unmatched in busy city life. When you encounter towns, you laugh at the joy of escape, knowing that your life looked like that of the busy people you meet not so long ago.

It's truly amazing to think that one can, in less than a year, go from knowing nothing about biking to wheeling day after day, mile after mile, mountain after hill from country to country, thousands of miles. Even though I only completed half of my proposed trip, I am content for now. Each day was filled with thousands of moments that live on only in my memory, but are very sweet. (aside from RV's, logging trucks, shoulder less roads, monster rain and heat waves, freeways, roadside debris, roadkill, etc. etc. etc.) I can hardly wait to return and face the remainder of the burning, desolate wastes of Utah, the Rockies of Colorado, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and the long road home via the Lewis and Clark trail. It calls to me and I burn once more for the open road ahead with no end in sight.