Is it even considered a bike tour if I spend as much time off the road as I do on the road? Life sure has been different since I started heading south compared to my 3 months of riding west. Feel free to call my journey whatever you want, I’m into the phrase, “Exceptional Bumming”. Labels are silly anyways. I spent this time with one of my best friends from home, Adrian and his lovely girlfriend, Cierra and their 2 crazy pups, Jackie and Lulu.
A lot changed in the time I wasn’t riding: the transition into holiday season, we set the clocks back, a terrible human being became the president, and weed became legal in California AND Massachusetts. The world was not the same place when I finally got back on my bike but, can the world really be the same from one minute to the next? No, not even one second to the next. What a trip it was to ride over the Golden Gate Bridge to see Adrian waiting for me. I had spoken to him that morning from Olema and then proceeded to ride 35 miles down the coast and over a mountain in the cool, gray haze.
The weather told me it would rain that day but, I somehow managed to make it all the way over the bridge before any drops fell, I’ve been a lucky boy out here. Just over a year ago, two friends and I flew out to visit Adrian; at that point, it had been a couple of years since I saw him last and probably too long since I had spoke to him over the phone. I’m bad at keeping in touch but, I’m trying to be better.
The last time I saw Adrian was last winter when he came back to Massachusetts for a week around Christmas time. What a strange thing to only see someone a small percentage of the last 5 years and still remain such good friends. It’s crazy to think of all the time and all the places we spend and visit in a lifetime and there are people out there, carrying out their own adventures in remote places and when you get together, it’s like encountering a part of yourself in some shared history with another person.
Even though Adrian and Cierra had their jobs to tend to, the 3 of us still got to spend some time together, cooking, going out to eat, and watching movies. I even took Adrian out for a 35 mile bike ride, his longest ride ever and he didn’t even hate me by the end of it. We have a good streak going in terms of visiting each other.
I hope it continues and I hope one day we live less than 3,000 miles away from each other again.
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