Cross-Country Ramble 28: Anticipation--Again!

Date: 3/4/98 1:13:48 AM Eastern Standard Time

Tomorrow morning we'll be at it again--biking across the continent towards St. Augustine, Florida. Just a year and eleven months ago on April Fools' Day in 1996, freshly sprinkled with Pacific Ocean water at the Ventura California Pier, Carol and I started our cross-country bike tour. Sixty road days later on June 9 we dipped our front wheels in the Gulf of Mexico at High Island, Texas. My right knee had decided that we were to go no further, but we decided we could still declare victory.

We went back to Ventura, moved ourselves and our stuff to Cincinnati as we had planned, and set up housekeeping in a wonderful house across the street from where we had lived before we moved to California for six years. For several months, we didn't mention biking to each other and we didn't go near our bikes. But sometime in October, I said to Carol, "Do you think we should think about finishing our tour?" and she said, without missing a beat, "Sure! Why not?"

So here we are in Houston, Texas, staying with members of one of the travel clubs we belong to, as ready as we'll ever be to start biking tomorrow. We shared our plans with our hosts. They expressed the usual amazement, and we expressed the usual bravado.

Now, everyone else has gone to bed, and I'm awake, fretting as I have fretted most nights for the past several weeks. My fears are on a merry-go-round in my head:

• I have feared that something would happen which would make us have to cancel this trip.
  
• I have hoped that something would happen which would make us have to cancel this trip.
  
• Will my knee fail me again?
  
• Can we find a way through New Orleans without getting killed in traffic?
  
• Can we even get out of Houston alive?
  
• Will we get caught in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat and no place to stay?
  
• Is this the stupidest thing we've ever done?

I can hardly wait for tomorrow. We'll leave our car with our hosts and start pedaling for Galveston, heading for the place we declared victory two years ago. The road will be flat, the weather, cool. We'll feel a nice breeze in our faces. Our tires will hum on the pavement. We'll be on the road again, taking in the sights and sounds and experiences, and proving once again to ourselves that we're free to do things that, for us, are simply outrageous.

Taking it easy, we should make it to High Island in three days. And then, on into uncharted territory!

Ken

Ramble 29: First Day