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.
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.
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