For the Adventure
A ruckus ping sounds off on my phone, alerting me to a new email. It is from the cartography department at the ACA. My contact is back in the office and has responded to my inquires on the bike routes.
Hi Kiara,
Unfortunately, Virginia doesn't work at Adventure Cycling anymore. I apologize if she gave you the impression that section 1 of the Underground Railroad route follows many bike paths. Unfortunately, Alabama and Mississippi do not have very much biking infrastructure, so section 1 does not have any sections of actual bike paths or trails. Sections 2 and 3 have a few short sections of bike trails, but Section 4 of the Underground Railroad in Ohio route follows more bike trails than any other section of the route, thanks to following the Ohio to Erie Trail across most of the state. Section 4 was recently updated in 2020 and had major route changes to follow the Ohio to Erie Trail, so the old 2019 PDF map will not reflect the current routing. If you'd like, I'd be happy to send you the gpx files for section 4 for free. It also looks like the Ohio to Erie Trail website sells paper maps of the trail, although I am unsure if they symbolize bike paths and roads differently.
An audible growl escapes my throat. It is loud enough to make a child a few feet from me glance at me dubiously and hide behind their parents. My exact impression was that there was a decent mix of bike paths and road routes mixed in the overall route. If I had known that was not the case, I would not have bothered with adding the Underground Railroad Route into the mix. I could have saved both time and money. I would have left for the trip a few weeks later, allowing me at least another three or four checks from my former job.
This false assumption would have profound effects on the project later. Given the information I was just given, it seemed the only course of action would be to skip the rest of Section two and all of Section three.
The distance I would need to drive to leap ahead was just over 570 miles. I decided to break it in two. I would head to Owensboro at the end of section two and then drive to Milford, Ohio.
Taking the fastest route according to the GPS was still not that fast. We’re in the middle of two states and there are still a ton of back roads and state highways to navigate. It is driving my brother crazy, and I can hear him sighing in annoyance with every turn onto another two-lane highway. On the plus side, we are driving past Americana.
Corn fields, farms, and homesteads flash by on either side of the highway. As we move farther into Kentucky, we pass the type of corn fields I expected, large operations with automated watering systems, barns, tractors, and the ubiquitous corn silos. If I was on a bike, I would have taken a ton of photos, but I’m driving 60 miles an hour and do not want to stop.
It occurs to me that travelling by car sucks. My goal is to experience America and the places you never see. A car does not allow that. I’m driving through America, but I am not experiencing it. I will have more on that later.
We finally reach Owensboro, and I head to a Holiday Inn Express. The chain hotel has somehow become my go to for hotel stays. The transition from our route to where the hotel is located is jarring. In less than ten minutes, we go from country roads and fields to urban America. The location of the hotel is definitively on the wrong side of the tracks; or at least the streets surrounding it are.
It is here that I meet Jerry Palmer the inspiration for the title of this post entry. After six days, it was time for laundry. It takes only one load to wash both me and brother's clothes, but I still needed to wash the clothes I was wearing when I arrived. I mention this, because it's part of how I knew Jerry was a backpacker.
I’m checking on my load of just a shirt, pants, and socks in a big ass washer. The washer next to mine is also washing a paltry amount of clothes in it. When I see an older, bearded white gentleman walk in, I smile and comment. “You’re backpacking, aren’t you?”
“How can you tell?”
I point to the washers. “Cause you’re wasting a ton of space and water washing a handful of clothes like me.”
Jerry chuckles and reaches out to shake my hand. Jerry and his wife are not just backpacking. They are walking across America. He started out in Huntington, California and is 77 days in on the trip. By contrast, my goal of traveling the country via car and bike is, well, insignificant.
Nonetheless, Jerry still appears impressed by the idea. We talk about what he has seen and what I think the differences are between what I have done so far and his walk. I’m envious. As a walker, he is experiencing each road, town, and stop in ways I imagined I would, but have not yet. He tells me he has met incredibly friendly people, but also clued me in on some spots along his path where people were incredibly clannish. He chuckled, commenting that sometimes a grimy guy walking through town does not inspire comfort.
We spoke for probably 30 minutes and the most important part of our talk was the “why.” Why was he walking across the country? Why did I have this need that had turned into a compulsion to bike across it, and find a way to hit the road anyway, when it became obvious, I could not go alone?
If you Google stories about people who walk, bike, run, etc., across the country, often they are doing so for a charity or cause. Doing something most people consider extreme is a good way to bring awareness or raise money for some worthy cause. Jerry told me that more than a few people he had met along the way felt he should do it for charity.
But he is not. Jerry is walking across the country for the sheer adventure of it. I understood what he meant. He felt the “Call to Adventure,” and answered it. However, few people understood his motivation. Jerry shook his head as he related to me the puzzlement of a reporter that had interviewed him a few days before, when he answered the question.
I think it’s a good example of how far adults get from the joy of life. Everything needs a purpose. There is no play time any longer. And no happy hours, club visits, movie viewing, or vacations where you sit around a pool or on a beach do not count. That is downtime, or relaxing time, but it is not play. Play is frivolous with no mission other than to do what it is you are doing. Going on an adventure like when you are a child or running around and engaging in something for the sake of just doing it is something too many adults have lost.
I told Jerry one of my best friends thinks I’m going through a midlife crisis. But it’s more like an awakening—or perhaps remembering. This project is really a continuation of something that started years before when I started archery and hunting. A search for adventure. A desire to run through the woods like I was 13 again.
I may have added this newsletter and the goal of showcasing someone that actually loves this country, but that was an added hook for the newsletter. The original goal is I just thought biking across the country sounded like fun.
I thought about adding some charity angle to the project, but ultimately rejected it because it added more work and complexity to the trip. It would have made it less about the journey.
It was odd saying all of this to a man I met only a few dozen minutes ago, but Jerry just kept smiling and shaking his head in agreement. He knew exactly what I was talking about. “Why sit around the house watching television or thinking about all the places, you cannot go (because of COVID restrictions) when you can just go on an adventure.”
But why walk?
“Why not. Other than bad weather, it is not that hard. It is cheap. It’s just food and hotels occasionally.”
We concluded our chat with parting handshakes and a few tips on dealing with our sore muscles. It was nice meeting a kindred spirit. We were not concerned about me being black and him white. The question of who Republican or Democrat was irrelevant. We did not freak out over neither of us wearing a mask or thinking we would wither and die after shaking hands.
We were just two dudes answering the call and looking for adventure.
