Epilogue
Prologue
Day 1 - 8
Day 9 -17
Day 18 -26
Day 27 - 33
Day 34 - 40
Day 41 - 48
Day 49 - 56
Day 57 - 64
Day 65 - 72
Day 74 - 78
September 4, 2001
It's been over two years since I completed my journey and much has happened:
I've change jobs four times since returning. The company I left before I started my trip is gone, another I worked for upon returning has closed its doors and two others have cut staff including me. I've met an amazing woman and will be married in 5 days.
More than a year after I said good-bye to Tandem Teachers with the Grand Tetons as a backdrop, I paid them a visit. They spent the previous summer walking from Holland to Northern France and will finished that trip in the South of France this summer. Hob put on a slide show of great pictures that he took from our trip. It was great to relive the trip through someone else's eyes. The pictures were amazing and belonged in a book. Hob gave me some of the slides and I added some of the best to the site.
Here are some observations:
Getting to a destination by car is does not compare to the feeling of arriving by bicycle.
Too many people in New York City are in a hurry. Cabs rush up to red lights. People push into subways. No one gives anybody a break. They are all competing for nothing. They all need to take a long self-propelled journey.
The better our standard of living gets the more people complain. What's going to happen if things get really bad?
Every once in a while something around me takes me back to the trip. It could be a breeze, a smell, the sun on my face, the feeling of the road under the bike or just the routine of preparing for a short ride around the park.
I'll never forget my trip and it affects me everyday.ericactive.com | Coast To Coast 1999