2,000 miles!

"Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring."

-Desmond Tutu

Somewhere between Silsbee, Texas and Merryville, Louisiana we hit the 2,000 mile mark. We've been on the road for 40 days now and have completed 2/3 of our trip/adventure/quest. We have bicycled through four states, are riding through a fifth, and have three more states to go before we reach St Augustine, Florida on May 2nd.

I know l've improved as a rider; I'm faster and more confident. Even though we seem to eat massive amounts of food, I'm still loosing weight and nothing fits quite right.

Denise and I have always maintained that we didn't know how to ride bicycles until we rode across Iowa on RAGBRAI IV in 1976. There was no spandex then and so we rode in Jean cut-offs and t-shirts. We also didn't wear helmets that year. I had never been on a bike trip longer than a week and I really didn't know what to expect on this one.

I've ridden over mountains on this trip and also crossed deserts. It's been freezing cold, and we've been rained on. There is nothing quite like seeing the country by bicycle. That is, unless you are looking at your front tire because you are screaming downhill on a road with a poor shoulder to ride on and curves ahead.

I don't know what's ahead. Heat? Probably . Bugs? Most assuredly. More rain? Seems likely. More flat tires? I hope not. Wind? Absolutely. The landscape keeps changing along with the terrain. Will we climb any more mountains ? Probably not, but it's a lie to think that the SE is flat. Onward!