The Idea: Yearn We for a Journey

Being 22 years old means being in a transitional time. The G-Unit and I feared the implications of such a time, or more accurately, the implications of the attitudes towards such a time. It seems to us that people thought of their youth as cooling lava, and while they enjoyed the fluid, energetic, destruction of having just been shot from the volcano, hot and brilliant, they looked forward to the comfort of being a more stable chunk of cooled-off pumice. The thought of allowing the harsh processes of time and life to petrify us into an thing that only changes when it breaks or is ground down was an unsettling one. We vowed to take a quest to find ourselves and find a way to continue growing vibrantly for our whole life before the real world found us and laid its frigid fingers frios on our passion for existing with chutzpah.

This summer seemed like a perfect time. We will have graduated from our respective institutions, Hope for Robbie and Saginaw Valley State University for me, and we would have nearly a half-year until our professional obligations recommenced, throwing us back into the prison that exists for ambitious people. It's like we are retired, but with a considerably smaller savings account and all the health of our youth. The "pros" column was unchallenged.

The time was set. The decision to travel via bike was an easy one. We want to cover alot of ground without the direct assistance of petrol. And as Robbie pointed out the other day, one traveling on a bike is able to enjoy not just the sight of the scenery scrolling by, but also the smells, sounds, and feeling on the skin. And our thighs will get HUGE!

Below is a very rough indication of where we are going to travel. You can see that my command of technology when it comes to map-making and insertion into blogs is lacking.Our checkpoints, in order, will be San Diego-->Los Angeles-->San Francisco-->Something in Southern Orergon-->Portland-->Boise-->Des Moines-->Madison--> Milwaukee-->(cross lake Michigan on the ferry)-->Ludington, MI--Bliss, MI.

The Route

The trip will commence with a flight to San Diego a few days after we graduate at the beginning of May. We will spend 3 nights in San Diego tuning our bikes and preparing mentally for the journey (probably at the Zoo), then depart. Roughly 7 weeks later, we will arrive at Blissfest, the music festival of all music festivals. In Michigan, Blissfest is a holiday with its own greetings, apparel, songs, and special foods. It is the perfect celebration to end a life-defining journey. 

The Blog:

This blog is as important to the trip as actually rolling over the miles of pavement. We will be moving through more than space on this voyage, and the blog will allow us to share the many layers of this experience with as many people as there are that want to taste some of the flavor. There will be laughs, games, tear-jerkers, revelations of knew knowledge, epiphanies of new understanding, and really good stories. This blog will be like a side-car to our bikes, but with seating for a few thousand people.