With hindsight...: Months later

I would have used the panniers. What was I thinking? As usual my arrogance got the better of me. The heavy rucksack messed up my back and it looks like it will be a long road to recovery. It took months for the numbness in my toes and fingers to completely subside. My tan has faded but, even after 10 months, a blurry line is still visible just above my knees. I could have gone slower as I finished my trip with 3 days to spare. I could have taken more pictures, I could have paused longer to take it all in. But probably long enough would never be enough. I could have been a better writer, I could have written a better journal, more descriptive, less boring.

One final word on America. I do not want to celebrate it with cheap words and used sentences. I was happy on the roads of America. It is as if they were made to be traveled on, as if they were built to provide relief for journeymen, drifters, travelers, lonesome, for the abandoned, for the runaways. I have witnessed a lot on the road. The diversity of the American wilderness is engaging to the point of complete fascination of the colors, the lights, the details. It sweeps it all: from the grand vistas of the Monument Valley or the Grand Canyon to the small details such as the insignificant worn out barn or the tender green of grass fields. And then I can talk about the diversity of the people. These are the ordinary folks, people that you don't normally see, you hardly hear. They do not have mad lives, there are the quiet ones, the happy ones, the fulfilled, the peace-seekers, the unassuming, the relaxed. But they are also the lonely, the wretched, the miserable, the broken ones. There are about 300 million different stories and they are probably not too differnt in their essence, the details may be different but they all strive for similar things. A solitary ride through the United States is worth a thousands relations.

I need to give credit to the hundreds of people I have met. Now they all seem part of a faceless crowd. The people I met are, without any equivocation, friendly, helpful, warm, curious, open to dialogue. It must come from the spirit upon which this country was built. It is a philosophy, it is a creed, it is a desire to help. The founders' vision is carried forward through small things, seemingly insignificant gestures. These are the people that make this country. And the country is yours for the taking. Taking not in the sense of stealing but in the sense of making it yours, making it personal, learning from it. It shows its beauties and its scars. It is wide open, it is there to be discovered. It is up to you.

I am back to my "normal" life now. I miss the open road, I miss the excitment and the challenge that riding 100 miles+ a day brings. I miss getting on the bicycle in the early morning hour when the sun is barely out, the fresh air pinches your skin and the road ahead is long and empty and the world is silent. I miss the sense of expectation.

I like missing all this.

An overwhelming sense of satisfation has filled me since my days on the road. It is not joy, it is not even happiness. It is rather a sense of stability, of peace that America has given me. I just hope it is going to linger a while longer. I am sure it will.

I have completed one of the best things I have ever done in my life.

To my dear grandfather.