Our Destination

"Goals are loose things, less tied to schedules, more amenable to circumnavigation than destinations, which seem to call for the straightest course possible: the one serves exploration, the other arrival." William Least Heat-Moon

Many of our friends have asked about the planned route for our adventure.  For those who are interested, a map can be found on the blog "Two for the Road". Generally speaking, we will travel on the "Underground Railroad" and "Lewis and Clark" bicycle trails from Mobile, AL to Seaside, OR using additional cycling routes to reach Mobile from our home in Lantana, FL. We plan to visit for a few days in St. Augustine, FL, tour the Shiloh Civil War Battlefield Park in southwestern Tennessee, and travel the Katy Rail Trail across Missouri. That is the extent of our plan. To say that our destination is Seaside, OR or even that we will traverse the US from the southeast to the northwest oversimplifies the more important goals of the trip.

Katherine Russell Rich, author of the book Dreaming in Hindi advocates that when one is facing a rescaling of life, "Don't just do something; sit there". For me, a 30 year career in business is coming to a close. I left a job that I held for eight years, a job that was comfortable, financially rewarding, but lately not emotionally satisfying. It's time for a change. What to do?

In the past I would have looked for another similar job at a different company while still employed at my present job. I have used that strategy five times in the past. This time it just did not feel right. I have reached the stage of life where my work needs to be more rewarding than just bringing home a paycheck. So, I'm going to "just sit there" on the back seat of a blue tandem bicycle as we pedal across the US. The trip will allow ample time to collect my thoughts about what comes next. The interesting people we meet along the way will provide clues about possible future endeavors. And with a belief in karma, a new opportunity will present itself that will set the course for the next 20 years.

So while Seaside, OR is a destination, it is not the goal. The goal is a new direction.

Origins of the trip

You could say that traveling the back roads is in my blood. As a teenager, family trips from Pittsburgh to New York included stretches on the " blue highways" of western and central Pennsylvania. ("Blue Highways" is a best selling book by William Least Heat-Moon about his circumnavigation of the US on the back roads of America. Reading this book in 2008 kick started the urge to see what's out there.)  Mesmerized by the passing towns, imagining life in Nanty Glo and Ebensburg, the agitation of a life in transition was, for a time, soothed.

As an adult, I am drawn to the roads less traveled. Getting off the interstate and finding the parallel routes is much more interesting. Jana and I have used US 1 and A1A to connect St. Augustine with West Palm Beach or US 441 to return from Orlando. The unhurried pace, wondering what lies around the next curve (or outside Florida, over the next hill), is so much more satisfying than the plugged in experience of the interstate. I find that the time flies.

Jana and I began dreaming about this trip while climbing a mountain in Big Sur in 2006. "Let's just quit our jobs and travel around", she said. Well, the time was not right. The economy was booming. We had a daughter still in college, a dog at home, a mortgage, responsibilities that could not be easily shed. But the seeds of freeing ourselves from the "things" that were holding us back were planted. In 2007 Jana biked across the US on a supported tour. I followed her itinerary as she journeyed, and with some assistance from her pictures, realized that there is a lot to see out there.

In 2008 we went to the RV show and looked at Roadtreks and pop-up campers. But it just didn't feel right to us. Some people are born RVers. We even talked to a few at the show and listened to their stories. It's just not for us. I truly believe that to get the most out of this journey, we need to be close to the road and so close to the people that inhabit the towns we will find along the way. The problem was that after falling twice on my bike, the idea of crossing the US on a bicycle caused my stomach to knot right up.

Behold Leonardo, our blue DaVinci tandem. Problem solved. Of course we are a little unconventional. The man is supposed to be the captain and the woman the stoker. But Jana is the better biker, so she's in front. I provide the power, so I'm in back. It works for us. So sit back and join us as together we see "what's out there".