A good night's rest.
A big, healthy breakfast.
A smooth morning routine.
This is all it takes to wake up on the good side of the bed. And to do all this requires a bit of work from the night before; however, if I choose to do no work I find myself on the wrong side of the bed. Those behaviors are:
Staying up late.
A calorie-defiicent breakfast.
Being completely unprepared.
I cemented these two opposing sides into my head as a matter of principle. The good side and the bad side were going to make or break my mileage on this trip. This was only a minor issue on previous bicycle trips where I totaled ~300 miles. On one as long and intense as this, it would magnify the results several times over the course of the ensuing months. As I laid down after my long day of traveling and rebuilding my bike, I had already completed two of three criteria for a good morning. So when I packed in some bagels, cream cheese, bananas, and trail mix at 6:30am on my second day, I knew I was going to have a good day.
And it sure did deliver.
The water is so clear and the weather so beautiful that they were filming it. I’m not exactly sure as to what they were filming, but there was a car with a camera rig attached to the top of it filming another car on a closed road. It was making for an interesting day.
Even my lunch was an interesting. I was trying to juggle my brain's processing power on how the hell to work a P38 can opener. The can opener is a standard piece of equipment for lots of hikers, campers, and the military. I was an idiot-civilian travelling solo across the country, so I may as well have been a chimp trying to start fire with a random river rock. I ended up stabbing the can with the thing until I had a hole big enough to slurp tuna and tuna juice from. It was at this point that I received a phone call with my car insurance company:
"Good news Joshua, you're turning 25 in a few months so we wanted to inform you that your insurance rates will be dropping. Hooray, isn’t that fun?!" This stranger and I had a very different idea of fun.
"Fantastic! Unfortunately, I'm canceling my insurance for six months."
The air of excitement left her voice as if I had told her I was dying. She seemed genuinely concerned to my existence to where I wouldn’t be needing a car. Once I explained the situation was temporary and really needed to get back to eating lunch so I could continue on did the tone finally change. My insurance dealer moved from genuine concern over me not driving a 2.5 ton piece of steel to jovial relief. I never confirmed I would continue to do business with her but she acted as if it was already a done deal. I told her I would call her at the terminus of my trip and coordinate “something” before I politely hung up and continued my lunch. As I ate my tuna, bread and peanut butter balls, and a bag of Ramen I realized I had cut the final rope that connected me to my car. I wasn’t complaining. After lunch I got back on my bicycle and continued my ride towards the Pacific Ocean.
I pushed East heading straight towards the sun when a headwind began to develop. The wind was slightly cooler than the air and felt nice, but as it picked up speed I began to struggle. As I rode through the wind my bike began to feel heavier and heavier. I kept downshifting and downshifting to a more comfortable gear but I was quickly running out of room on my cassette. I was very steadily heading up hill. While this “hill” was nothing more than a smooth incline, it still caught me by surprise. As I crested over the hill, I saw that the wind and incline was only going to get worse.
Photo Courtesy of Marinas.com
Seven Mile Bridge.
It was something my father, motorists, fellow cyclists, and many others warned me about. It had its own mythos of awe that complimented its size. It appeared in the distance with a single, massive hump that felt like it was the source of the headwind. I could make out shining windshields and blobs of colored steel heaving themselves over the sharp incline. I would have to heave myself over that hump as well, but I didn’t have a motor.
As I pedaled towards the expansive beast ahead, I saw two very small and thin blobs of color moving towards me, tight to the wall on the Key West-bound side of the road. As I got closer I saw that they were fellow cyclists, their bikes also loaded up for an adventure. In this moment I panicked. I was so focused on my first incline of the trip---like a toddler's first flailing step---I had forgotten about cycling etiquette. Do I wave or nod my head? Should I say "hi" or be quiet? Does my outfit look dumb? Do I look dumb? A sudden deluge of concerns crossed with a pang of Impostor Syndrome had flooded my mind.
I managed a sheepish wave that was either unseen or ignored.
After that failure of social interaction, I crossed onto the bridge proper and began riding over open water. While the scene was nothing short of gorgeous, the wind had picked up and was making the ride difficult. The cars, only a few inches off my elbow, were considerate, but traffic was only picking up as I got closer to the large hump. As I began my ride up the solitary hill, I reflected on all the research I had done about bicycle touring and going uphill. The advice given on managing breathing, the arguments made in the great "standing up vs in the saddle" debate, and the past experience I had on previous trips suddenly left me. I felt like I had forgotten how to shift. The bad day I had tried to avoid through careful preparation was now here.
I was running low on fuel.
The headwind was only getting stronger.
Cars were buzzing by, inches from my bike.
In a moment of existential clarity, I realized how dangerous this trip was.
Cars were very big and heavy. I was very small and light. The only thing separating me and these large beasts was a white line, about six feet of air, and a lot of trust in human's ability to control that vehicle. It wouldn't take more than a few degrees to the right on their steering wheel to end my existence. Not to mention I was trapped on a thin long road over open water with guard rails only a few feet high. With these thoughts my heart sunk into its anxiety-chamber somewhere in my gut. A gut that was also loudly demanding food and was threatening purging what was inside of it if it’s demands weren’t quickly met. Fortunately I was nearing the crest of the hill and heading towards a nice downhill where I could get some rest.
That didn't happen.
Once over the hill the wind had gotten considerably stronger. With the surface area to weight ratio I had while on Kona, I found myself coasting downhill at a blistering five miles per hour. Instead of a relaxing coast, I was now working to bike downhill. Then, as if someone wanted my obituary to say "Josh got off his bike when shouldn't have" my left calf collapsed into a cramp.
A bad one.
I got off my bike at the bottom of the hill and did my best to stretch my calf out without ending up as a hood ornament. After a few quick stretches and the final couple of miles off of Seven Mile Bridge, I stopped in at a local FAST FOOD™ joint and tried to refuel my body and mind. At this point I have to admit that I got lazy. I sat in the store for an hour and a half, just watching the world go by, enjoying sitting somewhere that wasn’t Kona. The sun, battling wind, and trying to move 250 pounds of man and bicycle uphill will take a fair amount of energy out of a person. I needed this time to recharge. However, this had consequences.
It pushed my arrival time at my campsite to just before dark. The time I spent in a fast food restaurant was time I could have spent looking for a grocery store to buy a proper amount of food. Even with a pit stop at a gas station to grab another night's worth of supplies, I still didn't have a solid reservoir of food on my bike. Meaning I would be slowed down by constant stops again tomorrow. Being under-prepared was killing me on the minutes and those minutes would quickly turn into slowed miles and then those become missing days. I want to stay on target, so I absolutely have to fill up on food tomorrow. I recognized this chain of thinking as I finished up my meal and re-mounted Kona, eyes pointed North.
After a final, grease-laden, gut-churning sprint to camp, I was now in the woods on a small strip of land in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean called “Long Key State Park.” The sun was setting quietly over the trees across the street and the rhythm of life was winding down for supper then sleep. It was also the time right when the ranger station at the park I would be staying at closes. Fortunately, I have impeccable timing and I slid in under the wire and snagged a primitive campsite. I asked the ranger if there was any place I could charge my phone and he shook his head. "Primitive's primitive man." To anyone reading this, it appears as if “well, duh. Primitive IS Primitive dingus.” This is true. Additionally, it made me take a step back and realize how I would have to adjust on this trip. I was presently camping in a state park not far from homes full of fresh water and electricity and a secure structure. However, I may as well have been in the middle of nowhere. While I had known there would be times I would be without my cell phone or cell service, access to clean water, or many other pieces of modern life, I didn't realize the depth of this situation. Now, with nearly no phone battery, and no way of knowing where I was even going tomorrow I was understanding this problem. I walked all around the park looking for a stray outlet outside of a building and found nothing. Fortunately, there is also a positive side.
The night sky was beautiful. The water lapped quietly against the mangroves as the shiny, black water merged with the blackness of the sky. It was a new moon and the world was as dark one could hope for, except for the sky. A tapestry of stars had filled the sky. They shined more brilliant than I had ever seen. I stood on the beach, staring out to the ocean in awe and reverent silence. The Universe was giving Earth a show, and I had a front row seat. I sat outside staring at the stars and pondering the big questions and how my trip would handle these big questions and how I would produce content and how I would come home a different person and how…and how…and how…. After a few thoughts of trying to race to the next “step” in my quickly approaching future, I decided to let my brain have its rest as I watched the ocean and the stars without a thought between my ears.
As I headed back to my tent, flashlight in hand, I saw two raccoons eyes flash by, staring at me from the thick weaving of mangrove roots. I ignored them and headed into my tent where I made an important discovery. I had left an empty tuna can in my tent from dinner and the raccoons were drawing near. I threw the can of tuna away but knew that the smell was going to be lingering in my tent for the rest of the night. I yelled and gestured wildly to the raccoons, telling them to head off, hoping they'd head to another campsite. The shine of their eyes turned and darkened. I lied down and sat in silence for several moments. The primitive campsites I had camped on was a boardwalk that served to keep us above water, even if the tide or a storm came through. Through the silence of the night, I heard the wood being lightly scratched by paws, slowly inching their way towards me. I popped my head up to see the raccoons coming to investigate my tent zipper with more of them coming out of the mangroves.
In a bit of a panic, I kicked my tent where the raccoon was on the other side. The raccoon panicked, the other raccoons panicked, I panicked, and a lot of swearing and raccoon chattering began to fill the night air.
The sea quietly lapped in the distance as the Universe continued its show.