New Year's Day, 2012. Before I had a chance to poke fun at the idea of it being yet another year in which the world is supposed to end, I am sent a /. article about how the 2012 apocalypse has been debunked by the Dutch, and that the new date is in 2220, if at all. Crumbs!
In more relevant news, this year does actually hold some significance to me personally. Today is the first day of what will more than likely prove to be one of the most challenging years of my life to date. Not only the physical, though that will be at the forefront of the list of obstacles I will face, but also the mental, emotional, and motivational. I will shiver. I will overheat. I will sweat, yell, and cry. I will curse people I used to know, and whatever part of myself I choose to blame for putting me on this path, which I so often regret. But, after whatever the rest of the tour faces me with, most importantly, this is the year during which I will finish. This is the year I will declare to myself and the world alike, that I have completed the crowning achievement of my lifetime, to date. Though, a few things need to happen first...
When the current winter, southern leg of the trip ends, I will begin heading North, towards the great Lakes. North, a word which, in my mind, has not just come to denote a direction, but has come to denote cold, wet, frozen roads. Numb fingers. Chapped lips. Damp clothing. Through the Midwest I will travel towards this area where, in my head, I picture as being frozen for half the year, ha. But, as I have done for the past 32 weeks, I will improvise, overcome, adapt, and continue on.
Thereafter, I will head into the heat, humidity, summer rains, and giant insects that I have been told await me in the Deep South. The cold, I have experienced, but this muggy, clinging, wet heat is something I've never experienced, and have had it described to me by other cyclists as simply "sticky." Though comical to think about, I'm sure it will not be pleasant. I am ballasted by the notion that I have also been told that the people I am likely to encounter there are just as amazingly friendly as all the other people I've been meeting.
Then the penultimate turnaround, to begin my third and final run North, more or less along the length of the Eastern Seaboard, bound for Maine. Aside from the finish line, this is perhaps the leg of the trip I am most eager for. Plantation and colonial history. Mossy trees hanging over fog frosted graveyards. Beaches, harbors, the smell of the sea. The origins of the US, and the most densely populated stretch of land I'll go through. The ocean of accents likely to flood into my ears. Looking, for the first times, across a different sea from the one I grew up next to. One which sits on my opposite shoulder while heading North Along its shores. One which looks out towards Africa, and not Japan. The visiting of a landmark I have wished to visit since before I dreamt of riding cross country.
Then, finally: The home stretch. The last, and shortest leg of this journey of mine. I have actually already mapped the route I will likely take from the tip of Maine, south to where I finish in Boston. I picture myself as riding with little concern for pace, the weather, or the constant logistics which help me govern my path. It will be a sprint to the end, where I will hopefully find the sense of accomplishment I long for. I try not to think about, or look at pictures of exactly where the actual riding aspect of the tour will come to an end, as I would prefer to see it all for the first time when I actually arrive, but I think it will be pretty awesome.
All this will happen this year, 2012.
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