The Trail Provides
Jan 19th, 2023
First night in the tent! I got a chuckle from this. The experienced outdoor enthusiast would immediately be able to tell that my rain fly is inside-out in this photo. I’m not going to embarrass myself further by revealing how many nights it took me to realize I had been pitching my tent wrong.
It was time for my second attempt. With my new gravel tires properly fitted to my bike, I set off on my transcontinental ride… again. I had ridden 73 of the 76 miles to my campsite a few days prior, before needing to return home. So, I basically had to do it twice. Starting at the Atlantic Ocean in Boynton Beach, I ripped out west on roads that carried a bit more traffic than I would have preferred. On Southern Blvd, a particularly busy road, a FedEx truck pulled up alongside me at a stoplight and the driver yelled something in my direction. I couldn’t hear what he had said. This was partially due to the engine noise and partially because I had blown out my left eardrum a few days earlier while surfing. Any noise coming from my left side sounded muffled. “What?!” I yelled back.
“Where are you going?” He was practically screaming. I suppose I looked as if I was riding a great distance with all the gear I had with me.
“San Diego!” I hollered over the rumbling engine. He looked puzzled. “San Diego!” I called out again thinking he didn’t hear me. No response. He shook his head and looked away as the light turned green.
I made it to my campsite for the night just outside Indiantown, Florida. I only had two flat tires for the day. I thought that was pretty good considering all the trouble I had a few days before. I began cooking my dinner on the picnic table near my tent when a man approached me. “Here we go again,” I thought.
“Where are you headed?” he asked, and I told him. To my surprise, instead of calling me crazy, he sat down and said “I rode from San Diego to St. Augustine in 2008.” And just like that, we spun into an incredible conversation about what I had in store. He gave me a few pointers, inquired about my questionable choice of a bike, and then asked if I was using the “ACA” routes.
“ACA routes?” I inquired. He chuckled, shook his head, and pulled out his phone.
“You weren’t going to ride across the U.S. without a route planned were you?” I noticeably cringed because that was exactly what I intended to do. He pulled up an application where you can purchase planned cycling routes that take you all over the country. The Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) has one called the Southern Tier that runs from San Diego to St. Augustine. The benefits of using one of these pre-planned routes are plentiful. For around $60 you have offline GPS navigation, detailed information about each section of the route, weather updates, alternative routes, and lists of campsites and resupply points. Additionally, the route is planned specifically to take mostly quiet country roads that carry far less commercial traffic. If I had actually done any amount of research beforehand, I would have found that a quick Google search of “best cross-country cycling routes” would have taken me directly to the ACA’s website. Fortunately, the kindness of this inquisitive stranger led me there instead. In hindsight, this moment probably saved me from getting flattened by an 18-wheeler on the side of a busy highway.
“The trail provides” is a saying that I’ve begun to hear more frequently in my travels. In other words, the universe has a funny way of spoon-feeding you the things that you don’t know you need. Who knows, if I hadn’t stumbled into this kind stranger on the first night of my expedition, I might not have ever made it to the Pacific.
This idea of “the trail provides” surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) became a common theme throughout my trip. On several other occasions, something similar happened where an unexpected meeting led to a favorable outcome. But, I’ll talk about them later. The important thing is that I actually made it more than one day this time.
