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Sept. 4, 2002: You didn't think I was going to let this blog end with a dumb joke about Samuel L. Jackson and squats on a train, did you? I couldn't. Still, it is proving to be more difficult to write this blog entry than I expected. Or at least it’s been more difficult to get myself to sit down and get started. Before I explain why, I guess I should start this blog entry off properly -- with some end-of-trip stats.

Chris Cross America Tour stats

Start: Home, on 16th Street NW in Washington, D.C., on April 23

End: Union Station, Portland, Ore., on Aug. 23

Total distance (not including side trips without my gear): 4,535 miles

Duration: 122 days, not including the train ride back to the East Coast. Those 122 days consist of 30 zero days and 92 days of riding.

Average distance per day of riding: 49.3 miles

Average distance per day (including zero days): 37.2 miles

Flat tires: I think it was 9 total. (This is slightly higher than I would’ve expected. That is largely because a piece of metal was stuck in my tire for days and I could not find it for the life of me, and it kept causing more flats. I found and successfully removed the piece of metal only after I had bought an entirely new tire and was about to replace it. Luckily, I was able to return the new tire.)

National parks visited: 4 (Mammoth Cave, Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier). The first three were reached by bike; the fourth was a side trip made with a rented vehicle.

Ice cream cones consumed: Ha, no, I did not count them. Let’s just say “dozens.”

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Mixed feelings after one week at home

As I said at the top of this blog entry, it’s been a challenge to get myself to sit down and start writing about the trip being truly, truly over. I’ve been home for a week, and by at least one metric, it was a really good week – I hung out with a friend on four separate occasions. My mood has swung back and forth dramatically between undeniably sad that this epic adventure is over and satisfied that I got to do what I had long dreamed of.

Contributing to the sadness is the fact that a (slightly embarrassing) medical issue that plagued me before the trip resurfaced the day I got home, and it’s forcing me to stay off my bike for any trip longer than a couple of miles. So I can still use Blue to get to work because my commute is so short, but there'll be no pleasure rides for me for at least a few weeks. I should be grateful that this wasn’t a problem during the tour. I am very grateful for that. I guess I would have been quite frustrated if I’d had to stop the tour early. I’m glad I got to do what I wanted.

I also kind of wish there was still a little more of the tour to do. I actually thought about cutting the tour short just a day shy of the coast. It would mean I hadn't finished what I set out to do, so I would have to go back and ride some more in the near future. Of course, I realized this was a ridiculous idea. Nothing is stopping me from going back to the Pacific Coast and riding more if that's what I want to do. No point in intentionally leaving the Chris Cross America Tour unfinished.

Speaking of finishing the tour and doing what I set out to do, let me react to the idea that I have accomplished something. Several people have told me this trip is a great “accomplishment” or “achievement,” but those words don’t sound quite right to me and I never know how to react. They don't fit because, in my view, I was on vacation for four months. So I can’t use those words myself; instead, I call it an adventure. I got to do a recreational activity that I love every day. And as for how difficult it sounds, if I'm being honest, I think that successfully transporting myself across the country was mostly just a function of affording to take enough time to do it. I know my perception of this is a little warped because my idea of a fun day is biking all day long and hauling all the gear I need with me. Maybe I just have a hard time accepting credit because the trip was something I was doing for myself. All the people out there serving others are the ones accomplishing something. (That is not to say we shouldn't do things for ourselves. Hmm. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, unnecessarily. I never do that, right? Ha. Yeah, maybe doing something for yourself can be an accomplishment. There is value in doing things that benefit yourself, as long as they don't harm anyone. Okay, maybe I can come around to the idea that I accomplished something. See, I'm learning, people. I'm learning.)

In any case, no matter which words I use to describe this bike tour, it was something I’ll look back on fondly for the rest of my life.

That said, it was fairly early in the tour when I decided that doing this once would be enough. I would never need to embark on such a long bike tour again in my life, I thought to myself. Don’t misunderstand that decision: I was glad to be doing it. There were only a few minutes on the entire tour when I even considered stopping before reaching the Pacific. But I knew I would not need to do a second tour like this again.

It took me three days back at home to reverse that decision.

In my first week back home, I surrounded myself with things that would make me feel like I was still on tour: photos played in an endless loop on the TV; music that I had sung to myself while cycling now played in the background at my apartment; I gradually pecked away at a giant supply of peanut M&M’s (thanks, Rob!) and some Tillamook ice cream that I bought on the premise of sharing with friends; I’m even writing this blog entry while hanging in a hammock and swatting at mosquitoes.

Editor’s note, 9/18/22 (two weeks after the fact): The mosquitoes -- and a general feeling of not knowing where I was going with this blog post -- led me to stop short and head inside. I never picked back up because I wasn’t in the right mood. Until now, two weeks later. Read on.

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After three weeks at home

Sept. 18, 2022: At last, I think I have fully accepted that the tour, my longtime dream, is truly over and life at home is beginning to include some of the things I had hoped for.

As you can see from the photo above, I recently had my first WarmShowers guests since the start of the pandemic. I was so glad to have a chance to pay it forward after all the amazing hospitality I had been shown when I was on tour. Gerard and Jim were fantastic guests. And seeing that they were about a generation older than me, they proved that I could continue touring for many years into the future if I'm lucky enough to stay healthy.

Speaking of which, the "slightly embarrassing" health issue I mentioned above is gradually going away. Actually, I don't like being vague, and I'm not actually embarrassed at all -- sometimes we have health problems, and if we're more willing to talk about them, we'd realize that some of them are far more common than we thought. I've avoided naming my problem only because I had been told that it's "too much information" for most people, but I think being vague just makes it worse. So, brace yourself (or skip the rest of this paragraph) in case this is "too much information" for you, but I'm just gonna say it: I've been dealing with hemorrhoids. They first became a problem for me in March, a few weeks before I was planning to start the Chris Cross America Tour. As you might imagine, this seemed to be terrible timing, but miraculously, I was able to get treated sufficiently and it posed no problem for me during the tour. The problems waited until my first day at home to return. I truly cannot believe my luck.

Of course, the return of the problem has kept me off my bike for a few weeks, but I saw my doctor again this past week, and I think I'll be ready to return, within a matter of days, to the regular tandem bike rides with the Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes. I am really looking forward to that (and of course, I'm glad to be feeling better and I'm also really looking forward to riding on my own, for exercise, for fun and for transportation). 

Yesterday, I had to skip riding the 50 States ride (a bucket-list ride around D.C. that is a fundraiser for the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, or WABA -- no M) because I did not think I was ready to ride that far.  Otherwise, I would have ridden on a tandem with MWABA. Instead, I decided to volunteer at the finish line, and I'm glad I did. First, I managed to bike the 5 miles from my apartment to the finish line, which is a real confidence boost that I'm starting to get back to normal. Second, it was a lot of fun to congratulate people on finishing the ride and give them their t-shirt commemorating the event. I may not have biked much on the day of the event, but I know the feeling of slogging through a tough ride. I was happy for these people. I also got to see some folks that I knew through both MWABA and WABA, and it felt good to be a part of those communities again.

Speaking of community, I went for a jog around the neighborhood this morning and was reminded by what a lovely place it is. A colleague jogged past me and said hi. The sidewalk was scribbled with upbeat messages such as "Smile at a stranger." And of course, there are the yard signs saying, "Hate has no home here," and "No matter where you are from, we're glad you're our neighbor." I know that this sort of welcoming attitude exists in many, many places. I'm so glad my neighborhood is one of them.

So, I may not get to go on an incredible adventure every day, but I'm pretty lucky to be where I am right now, surrounded by just the sort of kindness I got to experience on the road.

Looking into the future, I can start to imagine the next great adventure. I had originally thought the Chris Cross America Tour would scratch the itch and leave me tired of bike touring. I've since learned that this thought would turn out to be so, so wrong. I don't think I'll ever need to take a trip quite as long, but I definitely need to do a few more trips of a similar spirit, someday. In no other context have I experienced that perfect mix of self-sufficiency, physical challenge, self-actualization and pure adventure.

This experience that I just had was full of incredible luck. I got to go everywhere I wanted to go, see everything I'd hope to see and overcome every challenge that popped up along the way. It will probably be the most amazing and satisfying journey of my life. It would be foolish to expect to be able to create that kind of magic again. But that's perfectly okay. That doesn't take anything away from shorter or less-sprawling adventures. It only provides more experience that will prove useful for whatever comes next.

Along the tour, I tried to buy a sticker at each state and each national park that I reached on bike. I particularly enjoy my Yellowstone National Park sticker, which says "Don't pet the bison," and my Wyoming sticker, which says "Wyoming isn't real" (hinting at the idea that Wyoming residents coyly act like it would be a bad state for people to move to because they want to keep it from getting crowded). But my favorite is the one I picked up at the Adventure Cycling Assocation's headquarters in Missoula, Mont. It now sits on Blue's frame, along with the many other stickers cataloging my travels.

The sticker reads: "I Am An Adventure Cyclist."

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