Primary Objective Complete...Now What?

Nothing went wrong yesterday. No flat tires. No close calls with semi trucks. The wind wasn't even that bad. But it became absolutely crystal clear that September 1 was my last day of long distance bicycling for 2010.

Nashville had always been my initial goal. I considered other options after Nashville: Atlanta, North Carolina, Toronto (idiot), California (oh god). But the plan was always to get to Nashville and reassess. So that's what I did. And that reassessment revealed that nearly every minute of riding since Kansas City has been pure agony. Not physical agony, though. I'm stronger, fitter, and let's just admit it, sexier than I've ever been. Every day I was growing more resilient, while psychologically I was deteriorating.

And I think the psychological deterioration can be pegged to a couple of factors:

First, there was never anyone around to laugh at the funny things I see. As I whipped through small towns, seeing misspelled signs ("do to unforseen circumsances," "For sale, everything go's"), three-legged dogs, monstrously tasteless McMansions, meth houses next to daycares, etc., all I wanted to do was turn to someone and say, "look how ridiculous this is." But the local townspeople around here seem to be devoid of a sense of irony. People complained about the evaporation of their small towns, but also lauded the construction of new Wal-Marts. And I laughed inwardly.

The other factor I think is constantly being on the move. Rarely did I get a chance to stop somewhere interesting; the interesting things tend to be too far off the highways. And when something is 5 miles of extra riding, it's actually 10 miles of extra riding. So you skip it, kill time in the evening at your crappy motel or campground, and get up the next day and keep riding, because if you don't, you're stuck. And then all of a sudden, your life is routine again, even though routine is what I was trying to avoid in the first place.

So the bike portion of this trip is over. I found a very nice hostel in Nashville and I'm going to hang out here until September 8th, then head to Asheville, North Carolina to visit my old buddy Sarah Proppe and her family. Then to the east coast after the hurricanes pass, then New York, then Toronto, probably. Maybe Philadelphia in there somewhere. Greyhound is my friend - for $540 I get unlimited bus travel for 60 days. Nice.