June 27, 2008 at 11:06 am (Georgia, Tennessee)
Tags: air quality, cesar, depopulation, drum circle, flu, greenling, rideshare, starbucks
Originally I had planned to pass through Knoxville on my way south to see my friend Greenling. The bus I took from Roanoke transferred in Knoxville, though, and I figured it would be too much of a drag to bike back the way I came. On the eve of my departure from Asheville, however, a lady I had only just met offered me a ride to Knoxville. Taking this as divine providence, I met with her the following morning and was soon wandering about the city with Greenling.
At this time of year, Knoxville is unnervingly quiet. An entire evening of pedestrians can number only a couple dozen, and car traffic is minimal. This depopulation, as we explored the quaint and crumbling Old City, made me feel like we were wandering in the ruins of a once-great civilization.
But among the ruins there was yet life. Out on my own one evening I stumbled upon a small group of musicians who lent me a drum to join them and gave me some beer. Here the lack of people worked out as a benefit, as this was a far more intimate and involved drum circle than I’d experienced in Asheville, and every bit as enjoyable. We were joined by a couple other drummers and an old black flautist with one blind eye. When we were finishing up our jam session, he told me I played so scared that when everybody else was starting to lose it I still held it. I’m not entirely sure what he meant, but I took it as a compliment. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 22, 2008 at 2:39 pm (North Carolina)
Tags: acid, appalachians, bonfire, celebration, circus, couch surfing, drum circle, future, hippies, history, love, mushrooms, party, solstice, sun, tobacco, travelers
Asheville, NC, is a place where people go when they’re on their way somewhere else. Practically half the population (at least among the people I’ve met) is transient: young hobos hopping trains across the country; traveling musicians and artists; even a man who, inspired by the Bible, gave up his larger-than life in California and has lived on his bicycle ever since. The people I’m staying with have hosted over a hundred couch surfers since October, as many as thirteen at one time, and they are only a few hosts among over a hundred who live here. On the whole, the city is a traveler’s paradise.
Beside its friendly and outgoing population, Asheville is notable for being surrounded by mountains and beautiful Appalachian forests. These, I am told, are the oldest mountains on Earth – they were formed when Africa collided with America and have been eroding ever since – but the spirit that fills the air is of eternal youth and renewal. On the solstice, after a pounding, ecstatic drum circle in town and a perilous nighttime bike ride on acid, I found myself at a party in the countryside with a bonfire and lots of hippies. Some were singing old-time folk songs in harmony while others chatted and offered up pot smoke to the cloudheavy sky. Among this I wandered, half-crazed and filled with joy.
Under the influence of the psychedelics I had taken, the meaning of the solstice suddenly came into sharp focus: here was the eternal core, the very essence, around which the rest of the year revolves and we with it. I perceived a connection between this temporal nexus, the sun, and the campfire around which we like planets orbited. No matter what else happened, this core of love and celebration would persist forever. I smoked tobacco as I wandered, and, as if in playful reference to my thoughts of eternity, it seemed as though my pipe was never empty no matter how much I smoked.
At last it occurred to me that this summer should be commemorated in years to come. The hippies had their Summer of Love in 1967: simply by getting together and celebrating life en masse, they created a historical event – literally fun so large it ended up in the textbooks. Why should posterity not also remember the summer of ‘08? My future, or a possible future, unfolded before me: I saw myself as an aged author, well-known in certain circles, telling everyone of what happened that summer so long ago and how it changed the world, how it changed me, forever.
It’s up to us, of course: we just have to celebrate. Shall we make it happen?
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June 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm (North Carolina)
Tags: burning man, next time, phone, self-reliance, hitchhiking
Whereas this is my first time really, seriously traveling, and whereas my personality is undergoing significant revision along the way, I find I’m now saddled with a game plan that does not quite fit my actual desires. To a certain extent I can try to change this plan, but Burning Man, shining like Zion on the western horizon, keeps me locked in on a track that is increasingly a source of frustration. Although it may be too late to make this trip anything different than what it is, I can at least compile this list of what will be different during my next adventure: Read the rest of this entry »
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June 19, 2008 at 12:01 pm (North Carolina, Virginia)
Tags: bookstore, communication, cuckoo's nest, farmers' market, greyhound
This post was supposed to be published several days ago. Oops!
In Roanoke I stayed with a Unitarian Universalist minister named Audette and her husband and daughters and cats and dogs. Roanoke has a perpetual farmers’ market, where I ate a whole bunch of fruit, and a bookstore whose owner is absolutely anal about customers even opening books before buying them. She helpfully informed me that the book was like a movie and the back of the book was “like the movie trailer” and that was how I should decide whether or not to make the purchase. I’d have sassed her in response, except I intended to buy her copy of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and money speaks louder than sass. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 12, 2008 at 6:46 pm (Virginia)
Tags: blue ridge, bus, camping, panic
Well, after my brief panic attack yesterday I got back on my bike (this is a great solution to any momentary sense of existential ) and biked up the Blue Ridge. It is possibly one of the most physically demanding things I have ever done - over an hour of steep climbing without any level or downhill sections – but I felt so elated at the top that I decided, rather than descending the other side, to continue along the Parkway. Some other bikers told me it was about ten miles to a campground. I wasn’t so sure, but they reassured me that in the worst case scenario I could just descend the ridge, so I went along my way. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 11, 2008 at 4:24 pm (Virginia)
Tags: blue ridge, solstice
Now that I’m actually looking at the timing of this thing, particularly with respect to distances between campsites, the Blue Ridge seems like a really bad idea if I want to get to Athens by the solstice. I think I’ll follow the I-81 instead (it looks like there are bike-friendly roads running alongside it all the way along), or something like that. That’ll still give me the benefit of the beautiful scenery without the difficulty of the Blue Ridge’s terrain and (from what I’ve heard) the hazards of biking on the narrow Parkway. Even so I might need to take a bus somewhere along the way.
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June 11, 2008 at 2:52 pm (Virginia)
Tags: blue ridge, heat, internet, nutrition
Rural Virginia is a lot like rural New York – lush, hilly and absolutely gorgeous. In the slightly more populated areas, however, things start to get a bit depressing: vast parking lots enclosing monolithic megachain stores, between which highways without sidewalks or shoulders carve the land. The sight of the vast Blue Ridge against the vaster sky has kept my spirits up, though, and now I’m about to get onto the Parkway. To be honest I’m not looking forward to riding the Ridge, but I’ll probably have a great time once I’m up there – and if I don’t, then I’ll just ride down the mountain and continue alongside it.
With the heat and with the exertion of biking 50+ miles a day, nutrition and hydration are becoming a bit of an issue. I’m guzzling milk and juice and Gatorade all day, which keeps me well-lubricated, but also makes me feel bloated and icky and not so inclined to eat. I’ve been able to get enough food into myself that this has not yet become an issue, but I’m just not sure I’m replacing calories as fast as I can burn them. No matter – I’ll be sure to take a nice long recuperative rest once I get to Georgia.
This does mean that I’ll only have internet access once every few days, so if I’m not updating my blog or responding to e-mails, no one need get worried. With any luck I’ll be in Athens, GA no later than the 21st. After that, maybe you could start getting concerned.
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June 5, 2008 at 12:41 pm (D.C., Maryland)
Tags: mail, photos, poe
First: I’ve been sending out bits and pieces of mail, but I don’t trust the USPS in the slightest. If you receive something from me, please let me know!
Second: Camila has graciously provided me with some of the photos from Baltimore. So here’s a shot of me and Camila at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe (click for full size):
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June 4, 2008 at 3:01 pm (D.C., Delaware, Maryland, pennsylvania)
Tags: anarchists, blue ridge, burning man, camila, concert, hostel, kerouac, omar
After my first night in Philadelphia, I woke up and briefly couldn’t remember who I am. A couple days later, in On the Road, I read that Kerouac had the same experience. I guess that to travel like this is – or can be – an attack on one’s own congealed identity. In Toronto, surrounded by the same people and the same surroundings, day after day, I found myself acting compulsively in the same ways; now that I’m out here, much of that is falling away.
My hosts in Philly treated me wonderfully. Their neighbourhood in west Philadelphia is a hotbed for anarchists, which suited me just fine. Once again I found myself staying longer than expected, attending a concert, partaking of a seven-course Moroccan meal, and drawing a picture to be sent to the White House. And then I found I had moved on again, headed for the U.S. capitol.
Delaware was the first, and probably the last, state I was able to cross in one day, and then I stayed the night in Elkton, MD. The next night, in a Baltimore hostel, I met Omar, an Argentinian-born veteran bike tourist, and his 20 year-old daughter Camila. They’re going roughly the same way I am: down the Blue Ridge to New Orleans, then west from there to California (although I might have convinced them to go to Burning Man instead). So from Baltimore to D.C. I rode with them. Omar is forceful and sometimes demanding, telling almost everyone he meets about his round-the-world project and requesting donations or freebies. Remarkably, it often works: not only did he get cash from some people, he convinced the owner of a pizza place to feed us all for free, and a guy at a roadside deli bought us some Gatorade after the owners kicked him out for soliciting. Camila is a very quiet sort who didn’t had much to do with her father when she was growing up; she went to New York to meet him and then bus with him to Vancouver where he lives, but he sprung the bike trip idea on her, and off they went. At any rate, although I only just met them, I love them both because their madness points the same way as mine.
I’m here in Washington for a few days, and then I’ll be off towards the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway. The warnings I’ve received of endless steep hills seem less dire now that I’m in better shape: climbing is no longer the heart-pounding ordeal it was when I started the trip. I’d like to ride with Omar and Camila, but I’m much faster than they are, and I’m already behind if I’m to get to Burning Man on time. Still, we may yet meet again.
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