Refuel

I am catching some embers from my past postings. My first blog, The Adventurous Spirit hit its thousandth view a few days ago. I suppose a humble accomplishment for having existed for some 4 years now (I began a few days into October 2009). As I listen to Why Should I Cry For You -- which is seeming to contain the emotional essence (in my mind's ear and amygdala, anyway) of my future, present, and past -- I am getting enough juice to write one more post. In 6 hours, that big silver eagle is taking me on a journey back to Utah. The freedom and entrapment all at the same time. Remember that?

We ride a bus, a big silver eagle
It ain't quite as nice as you think
The freedom of the highway can feel like a prison
With bars made of asphalt and paint

I had a conversation with one of my most amazing people I met on the mission. The work of gathering people to Christ allows you the realest and most bizarre and beautiful (all descriptors are fitting of this particular man) encounters. He suggested that "we are all trying to experience freedom. You are getting it with your bicycle, I am getting it with this room [he kept it immaculate and free of any junk. Spotless. Clutterless]". This gentleman extrapolated the conclusion merely from describing pleasure on a scale from one to ten that the greatest way to experience fun/joy/freedom/pleasure was to, as I would say, "lose yourself in the service of others". My 2 years in California can attest to that. I look back at my posts and see something in myself that I don't have right now, or at least is greatly suppressed. I want it back. I want me back. Is that all I wanted to find out here? I didn't find anything! What am I looking for?! A PC?! I love this ten times more than an iPod touch (now don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful thing to have, but its just second best at the end of the day. I put off writing in this blog until I have a PC in front of me). I feel like myself just for now, just by being at a PC for the first time in months! I will change the nature of my writings for a bit, a little experiment. We have spent enough time wondering about outer space and not enough time pondering on inner space. What I mean is that what is dramatically more important than what is outside us is what is inside us. And I don't mean you, I mean us. Each one of us, you and your brother, your mother, the love of your life, what lies on the other side of their eyes, that is what I will consider more important in my next blog. The inner man, not the outer world.

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

The leather-rubber tramp is tramped out and his rubber tires and leather shoes will finally get some rest.

Done

Oh how many travelers get weary
Bearing both their burdens and their scars
Don't you think they'd love to just stop caring
And fly like eagles, out among'st the stars?

Turns out, some that wander are lost. I realized this once and for all after my before-mentioned trip. I am tired. I want nothing, but I want everything. I dare to desire, yet, within the deep recesses of my mind, I want to sleep and dream and drift off. The dream keeps slipping away. My mind leans to when I'll leave a land, not what it should be.
I got into Ventura at 6am, the day before Thanksgiving. Within an hour, I was asleep. Within twelve hours, I had given away my dinner to a homeless person, bought a half-dollar pair of swim trunks and taken a dip in the Pacific. A day into my landing in Ventura, I became ill, and kept this illness with me for more than half of my time in the Golden State. That feeling of "Yes! I'm succeeding! I'm moving and loving and eating truth!" faded by time Bakersfield came. Some things don't go as planned. All will be well. 

Lompoc: Part Two

I must admit, Christmas burnt me out a little bit. Food, people, food, people. I needed some decompression time. I allowed this is the perfect time for me to go on that bicycle tour of the Santa Ynez Valley. I was later told that the places I traversed are an envy of the world for bicyclists and that roadies fly here to experience the ride which I, ultimately all the way from South Carolina, enjoyed.
First destination was Gaviota. Goodness, I had passed this section of America literally dozens of times during the mission and there were times that it called to me so strongly. It is an odd part of the US 101 that changes from sand hills to stoic rocky soil in nearly an instant. Two land masses seemingly smashed up together, resulting in dramatic sheer rock faces and mountains on both sides of the road. In a small dell between these formations, where the cold north winds find contest with the tropical sea winds than make Santa Barbara 5 to 10 degrees warmer and which swirl through the wind caves that overlook the Pacific. I arrived in Gaviota State Park but before getting into the actual park stopped at a rest stop. I watched a man playing Jingle Bells with a rabbit sitting on top of his head and gave him 5 dollars before he got in his van and drove off to Ojai. I love California because there are such a high "population of people who is what they is per square mile". I went to the beach and walked around. I eventually found a place to lay my blanket. All I brought with my bicycle was warm gear and a plastic bag with Ezekiel 3:7 cereal, honey, and dried cherries. I dropped all of my things except the food and practically leapt my way up to the summit where the wind caves are. Pockmarks and holes covered the entire rock faces, often having divots within divots. Some sections formed as if the rock was fluid. Caves often opened on opposing sides. I got to a point where my entire existence became climbing. The deformities and cubbyholes in the rocks served only as functional to me to grab hold of. At times I would hug the entire rock face to hold on while moving one knee then that same leg to get to the next grab point. Getting trapped was a grave possibility at many points, with my inexperience (climbing up or down, only to realize that you can neither go up nor down from that next spot). I came closer and closer to the peak, the sun shining on the last tip of the summit. I had to see that sunset over the ocean (it was just blocked by the last ridge)!! As the adrenaline levels rose with my altitude, fear left me and I skittered up the last bit like it was a race. When I reached to the top, in all honesty the first thing I did was not stand up and shout, nor did I look to catch that last bit of sunlight. I prayed. I prayed not to fall off and die. Any slip gave no reticence or chance for a redeeming correction or grab. I can see why people get into rock climbing. It is intimate, it is raw. I felt like an animal and invincible.
I stayed up on that summit and the hollow section below it for a good hour. It was so lovely. The hills offered slivers of the ocean and horizon, now set in fuchsia and bright reds and oranges. Looking more east the road made its elegant curve from south-going to east-going, the car lights going by casually. I took a rest in the cave, fitting my body to the curves and holes, almost as comfortable as a good bed. With night fall it was surprisingly charming, the lights from the cars in the distance and oil rigs at sea with the last-light ambient purple sky as a backdrop. The caves sounded beautiful, albeit quiet. I mused that the same winds that play on these also shaped them, like a master artisan, crafting ocarinas and steel drums. Sleep did not come easy that night. Dehydration played on my ability to get sleep and keep warm. The next day, the first place I headed was Nojoqui Falls, the only fresh water for dozens of miles. It was wonderful. One of the tourists (I there primarily to live, though it was pleasant to look at too!) suggested that perhaps there were animals urinating at higher elevations and that the water was unclean. I suggested that she wasn't thirsty enough! Either way, it was exactly what I needed. The ride to Solvang was surprisingly fast, and the view (again, looking behind) at the Santa Rita hills was just stunning. The final test was Santa Rosa Road. As you can imagine, what really attracted me to this road was the mention that it was shadier than the straighter route back to Lompoc! I felt my legs getting stronger as I passed the 10% grade, and felt my eyes getting purer as I finished out that wonderful road. The hills looked soft and caressed in the half sunlight, the banks of the road were green and lovely even in this exceptional drought. As I neared the end, a thought kept coming to my mind: "end with strength, not with weakness!". That was my way out of that road, not merely my legs. The last bit of it was an appreciable rise which ended with a scream at the top of my lungs. As I got home and showered and applied my sombra cream, I felt clean! I have to use this strenuous experience as a launching point to become a real roadie once I get to Utah!

Lompoc: Part One

I arrived in this great ol town Friday afternoon. First things first, I rode up the grade, surprised at how easy it was. I reveled in the warmth, open spaces and really the smells of the woods and bushes. Oh how I missed them. Some of the first things you notice when you get here is a rather large outcropping of white rock that can be seen across the Santa ynez river basin, looking from downtown. The next is when you go up to the Burton Mesa and you see that it is all sand! Beach soil 10 miles inland and yet there abounds a flora reminiscent of Muir's summer sierra foothills; pine trees, chaparral, manzanita, and chamise filled the air and my imagination. 

Every morning was a different adventure. The first was Miguelito canyon. I rode up for a few miles and then hit a grueling 13% grade. Thankfully it was short. The land was a wonderful blend of forest and beach flora, a mixing of aromas from the beaches and the deep forest. The next was Sweeney road, which lead to what I like to call crescent ridge. It is a remarkable outcropping of diatomaceous earth left from the time this land was a seabed. The road takes you right alongside the ridge, so much so that looking to see it requires looking straight up. In the distance in the Santa Ynez riverbed, trees stood with all of their leaves intact, blazing in color through a perpetual autumn (though I was told that this color recently came about with the freakish cold spell that passed over the central coast weeks prior). I rode the required distance to ensure all of these photos. I then rode off to the east end of town, soaking in all of the beauty, and all of the smells. Summer smells. Sugary smells. As I rode down one hill I was bathed in warmth. Oh it was excellent! It was like being In the old south again! I broke a sweat many a time that day. As I hinted at, it never gets cold long. While downtown is often fogged over and cool this time of year, the Mesa remains in the hands of Warmth and Light. Later that day, I was riding up above fog level, and I took in sweet aromas, spicy aromas and even the aroma of 

What I called "sweet mint ice cream" when it first hit my nostrils a year ago. And the sunlight in the last two hours f he day always gets me. As the land begins to prepare for bed, and the day draws so a close , The Lord almost seems to tuck a blanket over the land, and the sky turns the color of the sun. Back east we call the Blue Ridge Mountains such because the color of the mountains begins as green up close and fades to blue as you look farther away. In coastal California, mountains fade to white in the day, and to yellow and finally orange in the afternoon. 

Tehachapi, Calif.

I must admit, the weather kept me indoors a bit on this one.
The magic began for me when I was bicycling up to Alpine Forest in the late afternoon. I prepared for a bit of a glum ride, as the clouds filled the southwest sky. As I trudged up Arosa Road, the sun broke through on the western side and filled the northern mountains with the late afternoon color (that was identical in hue to the hills themselves) that originally made my heart yearn to one day return. That one day was today. Once I got to Alps Road and came to an opening between the foothills, what I saw to the north was so deep orange-red and warm. It was cold but my rekindled Tehachapi heart was emboldened. I rode downhill back to the CA 202 and headed west. I decided for a less car-travelled road and sunk down to Cummings Valley Road. It was dark and enchanting. I loved the cold air and the music playing on my iPod. The pure white light coming from my headlamp made things seem cozy and alright somehow. It was a gentle downhill ride almost the entire way to the entrance to Bear Valley. What a pleasant surprise! It allowed me a breathtaking survey of what was around me. It was peaceful and dark. A kind of enveloping comforting dark.

The next night was anything but contentment. Freezing rain. It was the beginning of a weather pattern that kept me inside for the better part of the next two days, as I had mentioned. The next morning I went for walk and was in awe. Everything had the appearance of glass. The trees, the shrubs and rocks, even the grasses were covered in a thin layer of ice, often stuck in bent position, frozen in the direction of the winds. I walked and explored this winter wonderland for an hour or so, coming to a dirt path near the side of a drop-off. It was blocked with rocks and trees, so I scrambled to the other side of the blockage. I slid behind a rock and came to thicket of tree/shrub growth with the past season's foliage crumpled up and soft on the ground, dry on top and damp beneath. It was enough to crawl through, but not to walk. I sat down beside the rock, out of view of the rest of any potential wanderers. I was overcome by a feeling to relax and close my eyes. The sun was just coming out, and shining harmoniously between the branches of the thicket. A final leaf hung onto a branch and was spinning rapidly, suspended in the sunlight. As beautifully cozy and recluse as it was, I'm glad I did not fall asleep. I may not have woken up!! The temperature never rose above freezing all that day and most of the next. I returned to the home to sleep.

Now what really caught me up in the adventurous spirit was what I travelled through as I left Tehachapi on to Bakersfield. I began to enjoy the cold on my face. finally getting used to the cold just as i was leaving it. it would be warmer down below. I got a flat (goat-head. I do not miss those) and had to replace the tube and patch the tire. Because of this delay, some friends who were heading down to Bakersfield saw me and stopped to offer me a ride. I figured to let them help, especially considering I wanted to spend some quality time with them before I left. I decided to cut it halfway and get dropped of in Caliente. Rolling hill country. Yellow and brown hills that caressed my daydreams and told me that I would always come back to them. This is where I rode into "Bakes" from. Lesson: Always enjoy the past for its sweetness

Caliente, California and environs

I looked behind and saw the road curving away. I looked below and saw dry riverbed. Above and afar were tan hills speckled with black dots of leafless shrubs. I stood still for a moment or two. In awe, the riverbed taking the exact same shape and bend as the road and hill. As I passed through all this I came to think about how when I hit tehachapi it was like pressing the reset button. Things were new and non-burdensome.
Just beyond around the next hill was a hidden trove of trees, still green and yellow, like I was looking back one season in time. After that, sights too beautiful for camera lens. It all got more accentuated as the sun got closer to setting. The cattle roads on the other side of the fence were fun just to imagine driving upon. A car passed and carved out the next mile of my travels, hugging the semicircular ridge. Next, a truck passed oncoming, I looked behind to admire it rising into the distance, the sun now casting a white glow on the entire land at my back.
I sit on a thrown away couch typing my thoughts. Looking westward at the tracks along the road, just moments away from the Bakersfield. I begin again, train tracks to my right and open field to my left. The field, frosty white-yellow; and the rise beyond it, a dark tan. The 3pm sun was doing its best work, and it also brought a Truman-show-like quality to the road ahead. It ramped up and disappeared over the horizon. I termed the final rise due west up ahead as "the portal". I belted out this name again and again, giving it saga-like airs. This was the final rise before The Central Valley. It was the portal to Bakersfield. The road gave one final lift (and I had to push to get up this last one), and I was in the Valley. Now, I am being generous with my pictures today, but my iPod died just as before I approached the land ramp. I cannot provide any pictures, but I can give this one oral camera shot:
The sun bathed the entire land. I rode along the orange groves, catching glimpses of forever between the rows. Twenty miles and a dozen hills later, here was I in Bakersfield, and the fruit thereof was most sweet. . . 

Oral Camera Shots

I wrote this 2 months ago. As I put the finishing touches on it today, I realized just how bless-ed and sun-caressed the land of the east is. I know going back there would be accompanied by the most "peaceful easy feeling," but the road is my home for now. However, for all of you westerners, here's a taste:

. . . As I was driving down the South Carolina coast, I passed along the I-526 across the Ashley River. Dawn was barely beginning. What opened before me to the southeast was what I shall call a dark pastel sunrise. All was under the spell of a gentle pre-sunbreak light, except the charcoal silhouette of the horizon, the marsh grasses, and the two Ravenel towers. They stood as mighty and entrancing as the silent contemplative evening I saw them so many years ago. The water below the bridge shimmered with the deepest, emotionally-potentate blue.

. . . An overcast sky ruled all day. Around 2 1/2 hours before sunset, the sun came blasting through and sent every inch of water along the Cooper River a-sparkle. The smoggy air gleamed with enough combined intensity to make driving difficult at first sight. Everything danced and felt alright. 

Pleasant Valley - Strawberry Fields Forever

I got dropped off in Ventura yesterday morning at twilight (we drove all thru the night), and it was oh so calm and gentil. The sophisticated kind of calm. The air held a welcoming and spicy smell of eucalyptus trees carried along by the new morning wind. I took a nap in the park and it was warm! Went and bought a pair of swim trunks for fifty cents, and took a dip at the beach. The water was cold but fun, and then went for an excellent 20 mile bicycle ride. I felt so cool, bare-chested and sunglasses propped on my head. The sun was so clear and the fog-banks rolling in so beautifully through the grape-y brown dusk. Vineyards sat on foothills and even mountains in the distance, and strawberry fields stretched to the left and right of me as far as the eye could see. I missed how open the country is here. Came to the home of a wonderful and hospitable family I knew a year ago. Through combination of lack of sleep and the strenuous ride, I needed a good day's rest. The next night I went for a stroll and to visit more people. I came back to the home during a slight drizzle. I put my bicycle in the back, hearing crickets chirping, other grand music (A Spanish Ballad) and a man next door saying "eat more, eat more" with the utmost hospitality in his voice. This is California. Camarillo, California, to be exact. I was here from January to March of 2012. Never a boring moment. Never a dark, gloomy day.

Reflection: A-town to K-town

An alternate title to this post would be "Letting the road show you who you are"
As I left Asheville, NC, I felt something awakening inside of me. Me and my 25 pounds of items on the back of my bicycle being all of my belongings, life became real and the road became a pathway to deeper understanding. Conversations with people got more pure and more real. I met people in the dead of night or on buses that I'd have never met otherwise. And the things I got to share with people: the joys of the road, my family, my religion. I think I became most pure when I was in Knoxville, TN and having just completed a 45-mile ride, finishing in the dark of night (though well lit through the dozens of miles of strip malls. I couldn't believe how maddeningly-long the shops all were). I went to a church social activity and introduced myself, all smiles, as "Hello, I'm John Kotab, and I'm a career hitch-hiker and cyclist." In other words, I was telling others that, like Kerouac in '49, "[I was] fulfilling [my] only one and true purpose of the time: to move". I was proud and happy and calm. I got stuck in Knoxville for 5 days, and it really tried my patience. I wanted to get out but kept ending up stuck. Looking back, it was for a reason. It is always for a reason. I think that my time in Tennessee served as a beacon to me: left and indication and compass in my heart as to what I should be and what I should feel while I travel.
Let me tell you about what made this all possible (somewhat of an homage to Daryl). A week before leaving for the 2-year mission to California, I borrowed a friend's bicycle. I didn't have it for more than a few hours before destroying the derailleur, having to spend 50 dollars to fix it (in hindsight, this may have roused his sympathy). I gave it back in a manner of speaking, not being able to return it to him directly but leaving it at my sister's house for him to get when he was able. He let me keep it. A Dawes Lightning, weighing in the high 20s (pounds). After quite a bit of trips to the bicycle shop, it was road worthy for a good multi-hundred mile trip. And many hundreds of miles it will get. I just calculated the distances between the towns I'll hit in California, its over 300 miles, and thats not counting the dozens of miles that will add up fast bicycling within towns.

I Like Trains

Today I thought I'd do something I haven't done before. I will simply relate, non-poetically and empirically, what I did today.
I woke up in Logan, Utah and it was very cold. Me and my friends got involved in service and then I was dropped off in Ogden, Utah. I rode five miles to the train station. It was pleasant and rural and a refreshing ride. After getting a ride to north temple street in Salt Lake City.  The train system and city creek mall are very impressive. Afterwards I rode with a friend back to Ogden to see a hockey game ( Weber State vs. BYU ). It was great. I felt like a kid again. I rode to the train station, getting there just in time. It was downhill the entire way. Boy was I glad to see the words "UNION STATION" in big red neon on Wall Street. The 2-hour ride home was tiring but invigorating. I had many good conversations with some passengers. After I got off the train is when I had the greatest exchange of the evening. A gentleman from Bozeman, Montana was holding up a sign that read "CHIHUAHUA".             He had an air of one who is completely liberated. He remarked that "they treat gringos really good there. And it is getting colder, and martial law is coming, so Mexico is the place to be. You should try it. . . " He wandered off into the night as I bicycled to where I'd be staying that night

Provo

I woke up this morning and opened up my tent and rain-fly to see snow. . . or least it appeared to be.
This was my first experience with sleet. The tent melted any ice and the tree above dripped plenty of water onto the bivouac. It certainly is a 3-season tent, though with the sleeping bag rolled up under where the rain-fly covers, it is a fine day shelter while I leave. I have already spent a week and a half in Provo, Utah, and I'm beginning to enter the harder weather. This morning, with rain just 500 feet below, I figured it was time to move before the rain line creeped up the mountainside. One of my socks was slightly moist and this was more than enough to make my trip from the campsite to the temple hasty and tingly-numb in the toes. All-in-all, I love this weather. Yesterday early evening, I saw the snow up on the elevation line adjacent to Rock Canyon opening. Most would shudder at the idea of camping at 5200 feet while below at 4600 the ground was draining rain from the day, but I looked up at that fresh powder and thought, "delicious," confident -- and later confirmed -- that the snow line would creep well into the valley come night time and leave me cozy and dry.
Flash back to right before I got here. We (me and my rideshare. He provided the vehicle) left Cadiz, KY at 9:30am and I took a nap (barely) in the back seats outside of Kansas. My partner woke me up to switch after remarking that the road was hypnotizing him. I began to drive, and began experiencing what caused him to surrender the wheel. I felt the certain madness of this very straight road. We headed due west for hundreds of miles. The road had one purpose and one purpose only: to plunge us straight into the mountains. I felt like we were journeying into the belly of some beast, being impelled incessantly, impetuously, onward. And this was no mere dramatization. Driving over Denver, Ft. Collins, and Vail in the dead of night with single digit temperatures was more than challening. We drove into Eagle, CO at 4am, both getting a bit tired, took an hour break and drove the rest of the way. I balled that truck all the way down the mountain to Utah floor. High desert. Passed another continental divide, and I brushed it off with no emotional cost. It was just beyond that point, east of the CO/UT border when that vagabond feeling came to me. I looked over the desert morning, yellow and teeming and realized finally and for all that I have no home anymore. I look forward to feeling that more often in the coming year. I looked at all the canyon water realizing that in a few weeks when I began my bicycle touring that this is all the water that I (with iodine tablets) would be drinking.
My plan (if no ride is secured) is to ride from Provo, Utah to Mojave, CA, and continue bicycling into Tehachapi, spend a few days in Alpine Forest, and then ride down the grade to Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, Lompoc, then Oxnard. Riding between SLO and Oxnard will be breath-takingly brown and tan and black. The best part about this: I may not even need my bivouac

Stories

"I might some day walk across this land, carryin' the Lord's book in my hands. Goin' 'cross the country singin' loud as I can, one of these days" - Rice, Rice, Hillman, Pedersen "One of These Days"
Leaving Asheville, NC, I stopped in Cherokee, NC b/c I wanted to deeply connect with the spirituality of this people. I wanted to marvel at and serve the descendants of Lehi's people. Between my religious and secular readings of these people's culture, I want to hear it directly from the source, not just from the mouth of the white man. I just read that gold in Georgia is what sold the Cherokee up the river. In 1805, all alliances were ignored in the lust for riches. The Cherokee stories and folklore are also what drew me to this area. Their account of the creation of the world and the Fall of man/Adam have chillingly similarities to the specifics of my religion. Were it not for the brilliant Tecumseh (who created the Cherokee phonetic system and a chief elder's decision to have someone write down these stories, they may have never made it into our books and minds. They have great and lasting value. And just like my pioneer forbears, so also the Cherokee were chased out of their own land. The trail of tears stories have always brought tears because it is like many stories we feel so connected to and grasped by: We are not hearing about another's experience, we are reliving our own experience, or vicariously living those of our forebears (the remnant of their existence lingering in our being, in our very chromosomes, moving us to action). When I got dropped off in Cherokee by a very kind man from Murphy, I began to fiddle with my pack, musing upon how when I was in Band or Jazz Ensemble in high school I realized that it is so much more rewarding to make (play) the music rather than simply listening to it. Anyone involved in performance music can attest to this. It is exactly the same way hitting the open road. It is one thing to read an adventure (story). It is an entirely different and deeper matter to play (make) your own song (story). That's where I am (2nd last paragraph). I am not satisfied to hear about the journeys, I must go and make my own stories.
The road is the guitar, so ride down it and sing your song. 

Continentally Divided

. . . as I was leaving Pigeon Forge i stopped and looked back at my mountains now all smoked over in dusk and casually observed that I had crossed the continental divide, offering a "oh well, bye bye" token of mild regret. . .
. . . So, here I am. One the verge of a new land. Crossed the continental divide, only 4 miles of open views for the some 20 miles I bicycled, but oh how spectacular! Each hill stood vigilantly, veneered in bronze and gold! They seemed to melt into the enveloping sunset sky as they neared an imaginary horizon. The air danced in a way. An excitement abounded as I passed a group of people parked at Newfound Gap. Dark comes early in these hills, so I hiked up a trail and camped for the night. I woke up just a few miles shy of the Newfound Gap. I had no idea that I'd be where I am as I write this.
I walk into the hotel room. My first instinct is to grab a towel and put bluegrass on the iTouch. My first shower in days! Boy did I feel chipper as I got out. The ever-present pinging of the banjo sounded from the Blue Highway record as I showered. Then something striking came to my thoughts, or rather returned, now with full force: your music drove you into the west, to the mountains of the Appalachia. Which logically leads to: what now? What next? I felt somewhat of an emotional back-suck into those hills. It was a certain odd thing. I've always longed to go to a place (blue ridge, etc), but I've never pined for a land behind me when a brand new land lays before me!
I felt somewhat like Kerouac as he laid on his hotel bed somewhere just across the Mississippi, realizing he had just done something incredible.
I bicycled over thousands of feet of incline. I did not go north. I did not go south. I plunged right Into the heart of Cherokee country. And I made it.
So what now? what next? Well the mountains of Colorado and Utah. I feel to declare along with another brave man, "give me these mountains. give me these challenges. give me one more mountain to climb."
I turned off the shower just as "Lord, won't you help me" sang "headed down to Nashville town, sunny south Anton' leavin' ol' Chicago with its rain and snow, chilled to the bone. Lord won't you help me ride this Greyhound home". I sat down and just soaked everything in for the first time since forsaking newfound gap (that's it! i feel I am forsaking the land, passing it too quickly). I took stock of everything I was: laying naked, in the dark, in a hotel, in a town I've never been to, 40 dollars poorer, listening to a song that calls me back to the mountains and onward to Utah all the same. My soul howled.
Now, at 8am the next morning, no sunshine yet -- still within the shadow of those mountains -- I again head west.

A Day On the Run

Yesterday was a wild day.
It is only because it was so wild that I didn't get to writing about it until now. I could not get enough sleep today. After hardly bicycling at all this week, I bicycled some 25 miles, with a grueling climb near the end of it all. I had quite an adventure! I traveled across the Ashley River to go hunting for a book at a library, and then went shopping at the front of a health store. Afterwards, I took my shopping bag to the back of the store and got some free on-expiration date items, in broad daylight!! After riding away and going down the bicycle path, I passed a small free farm (yes, free fresh food), and got some peppers and eggplant. I couldn't believe how perfect the afternoon was. Hippie paradise. The ride home was something else. I got walking on these railroad tracks that cross the Ashley River. I walked and walked and walked (and carrying a bicycle with you while doing so is no fun). When I finally got to the bridge, the neighborly night watchman called out, you better keep walking, train's coming, that trains going 79 miles an hour. I passed and paused for a moment. It was still warm out. I drank my newly-acquired cream amidst the moonlight on the marsh.

The closer I got to the switch yard, the more I got the night spooks. It came to the point where I had to exit the railway corridor and I climbed thru brush and was surprised to come across a ravine, just a small trickle of water. It was far more difficult with a bicycle. The uphill climb was crazy. I found myself grabbing and climbing over the plants just to get farther up. I paused and tried to relish in the dream-like beauty of it. The small elephant ear plants and carpeted greens were moist and gentle in my hands. They glistened in the orange-halogen glow of the church yard light. Even with the poetic pause, I missed how wonderful it was. I even feel guilty for trudging and climbing and ripping the plants just to get through. It was so untouched, and when I was in the bottom of the ravine, how I would have loved (looking back) to wrap myself in the soft blanket of greens and sleep like a child. It was all that was great about a mountain stream. I cannot miss an opportunity like that again.

Prequel to The Open Road

Today, at 9:43, it happened. . .
I was hauling along the Mark Clark and the radio had my heart, it set me a-dreaming, I passed Virginia Ave and decided to stop to check the trailer. I emerged from my cab and saw the great marsh grasses and trees poking up above the interstate, humble embassadors of nature. The morning haze was still over the Cooper, and the Blue Bridge rose in front of me, and a stiff wind greeted me. In that  moment, I was captured. I remembered what great dreams, what great adventures lie ahead. I saw it all, and I understood. I knew. Like a haunting call from my past life, remembering when my legs, my diaphragm, and my heart were one. When the road and the sun beating down upon it was all I knew.
I am about to return
Later that day, I did something I haven't do pen for a while: I bicycled for the sheer joy of it. I went along that old sweet sawmill branch creek, following my little ribbon of inverted sky, retuning my heart strings to those old feelings of love, bowing on them the soft tune of Gentle River. I normally take this route for business travel, but once I pedaled past the beaten trail of duty, things instantly waxed "
more starry, more immortal". I was pouring sweat like at work, but with no discomfort or angst, only joy.

Gentle river, take me away
To the time of a happier day
All I need is la-ove and company
Gentle river, bring [her] back to me

All on a Rising Day

In a world of trouble
Years of tears in pain
People of thirst in the pourin' rain
Now I say: There's got to be a better way. . . 
Let this morning light our way
All on a rising day

Wrote a song this morning
Sung it out my window
Up and over this world, everywhere the wind blows away
A song about a better day . . .

Sing it for the broken hearts
Sing it for the hungry eyes
Sing it for the homeless face, not so very far away
All on a rising day

Rise up to a morning crystal clear, rise up
From the shadows of doubt and fears
Oh sister and brother, we've got to help one another to find our way . . . All on a rising day

During these past few days, I have been bicycling and driving a substantial amount. I've been moving. All day sweat and sun-rays. I still assert that I am a plant -- all I need is water and sunshine. Most of my periods of daylight pass with little to no food consumed. You might say my food blog would be rather boring now had I updated it.
I have been visiting the past places that I traversed before leaving for the great California. The childhood of James Island, passing along our old home right by the old movie theater, cruising on the connector, seeing the marsh grass unroll before me like a great quilt, with threads of deep-hued blue water weaving in and out. I even passed the place where I ate so many apples and mangoes I felt sick and laid in the cushion-y grass by the hill for an hour. The awakening adolescence of downtown Charleston, and as I describe these places in connection with the times of my life, it hit me: I wasn't revisiting the land, I was revisiting myself.

I crossed a Rubicon of sorts recently. I bicycled 82 miles to Magic City to pick up that old car that me and Tommy ate in, traveled in, slept in -- came to know each other in. I remember being so content, with my companion the happy pine, friendly shoulder-grass waving as I passed, and sighing cloud. I remember the awe I felt as I realized I had covered 10 miles in little under 35 minutes. I remember the hot rain that stopped me in my tracks and caused me to marvel at my body's inability to shed heat at that moment. I drove home in the car, and couldn't help but think how less romantic, how much less shine there was in the car as opposed to the bicycle. This juxtaposition was as stark as the waters of that Rubicon I had just crossed.

I had the great gift of having legs that could carry me through the Charleston clouds and mist, along with all of their mystery and reverie. I had watched it pour heavily outside through floor-to-ceiling windows, and I emerged happy and prepared. I assembled my bicycle and took to  the road, as I veered right onto Meeting Street, I gave a little whoop to warn a driver of my presence, and it triggered the memory of a song with a similar whoop of joy in it. The old violin player in my head began a-fiddlin'. As the sound played in my mind, I soaked up all the sunshine I could, each patch on the road, shining between the standing rail-cars. Each ray of light blissfully eaten up by my hungry hungry soul. I even saw the glow of the leaves as I approached the bridge over the Ashley River. The sun had hidden itself, and given  the foliage their time to shine. Look closely, and you will see it. Subtle holiness. All of nature was hallowed in my eyes as I passed through soggy North Charleston.

Somewhere Along The Line - Billy Joel, last verse

I walked out this morning,
It was like a veil had been removed from before my eyes
For the first time I saw the work of heaven
In the line where the hills had been married to the sky
All around me
Every blade of singin' grass was [calling out to me, calling out to me]
- Gordon Sumner

At the end of my day today, I took a slow bicycle ride home. When I began I did not think I had the strength to complete the journey. I would certainly arrive home after day's end. Soon enough I felt my stamina return. I went at a deliberate bicycle's equivalent of a saunter. My purer, non-timed life came back to me as I traveled upper Rivers Avenue where I used to live. I passed the old home, and decided to take an overpass towards Summerville. It was small and low, but still rose my thoughts to a higher plane. There was about 30 minutes of daylight left, and what I saw was soft and warm. The road extended a bit beyond the guardrail and abruptly shifted to short pampas grass and marsh bush. It felt as though I was looking from a castle fortress at my benevolent kingdom, looking at the fields bathed in orange light. The light was just disappearing behind the clouds. This is the US 52/78 Split, where my cycling life began. This patch of half-manicured, half-wild land is what I'd pass through countless times. These are the gates to the rest of South Carolina. It all comes full-circle right here. This was my old land. So lush, so winding, so all mine. 

Roots and Wings

You must realize that in all reality you need both
I am going to work a job in just a few days. I momentarily entertained the idea that I might be throwing away a chance to trade all this suburbia traffic for a never-ending string of purple Appalachia sunrises and sultry Southern Piedmont afternoons, and I fell. Two thoughts come to mind: "Never second-guess yourself", and "To everything there is a season". I have a good friend to thank for that second thought. She encouraged me to read the Book of Ecclesiastes (from which I also took away the quip "Vanity of vanities. All is vanity [or transitory and fleeting]") after my two-year walkabout. Let me describe a bit of what these last two years have been like:
I traveled the greater portion of California's central coast, including Bakersfield (Ah, "When we first laid eyes on the San Joaquin it was like a friend we always knew. The gates swung open so far and wide even God could drive through" ). San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Malibu, even some of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula, with its Mayan Moroni gleaming in the dusty sunlight (The LDS Temple is the only place I visited when I went to that city. Turns out I don't like L.A. too much). It was hazy and dry in the daytime, with enough visibility to offer an expansive view of the golden hills, but also hidden enough to inspire your wanderlust. The drive along the 101 between Santa Barbara and Gaviota Rock is green, dreamy, and calls you to roam like nothing else I've ever experienced. The drive up the 58 towards Tehachapi from Bakersfield, the same, but drier and rougher. Rolling cattle hills as far as the eye can see.
These last two years have been an adventure. I have loved every second it, whether in tears of joy or of pain. But it feels like another life, a thousand years in the past. It has changed me in every way. It has allowed me to look upon the human face with the same love and purity with which I view the great green countryside. I need to tell you how my heart leapt when I saw you -- oh Charlotte land with your great green forests and mirror-like lakes reflecting the golden sun pouring through your congratulatory clouds of victory.

Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory we come
From God, who is our home

Walkabout

I was gone for 2 years.
I was on the central coast of California, and also in Bakersfield and Tehachapi. I loved every second of it. Lets say I was a "traveling preacher" (but not for mine own church, but for the Lord's Church). I helped people come unto Christ and learn and apply His teachings. I pointed people to the path that could change their life if they would but walk it. "But thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying: This is the way, walk ye in it" (Isaiah 30:20-21).
Now theological discourse is not the purpose of this blog, but suffice it to say for the Lord's sake that I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored by the Prophet Joseph Smith (Moroni 10:5).
Now that I am back, sometimes it seems like all I can accomplish that is within mine own power is simply to bicycle. I haven't been back but seven days and I have bicycled 80-85 miles. I also am so soothed by my old bluegrass music. It keeps me grounded in the damp dark soil of the Carolinas. As long as that banjo and those pedals roll on, I breathe a sigh of contentment, and I go on. I went from Ladson, South Carolina to Givhans State Park yesterday. Oh, if I could only share with you the smells of the trees, the grass, and the honeysuckle! One quick image: Large trucks whizzing by me and my humble bicycle, setting the tall grasses a-swaying, respond gracefully on the road shoulder, diplomatically waving. They looked like gentle fires, not as hurried and boisterous as the industrial trucks creating them.