It has been nearly six months since Adam and I left on our trip, and so much has changed since then. It feels like a lifetime has passed.
When we left, I was looking forward to becoming a father several months after our return home. Now I still plan on becoming a father, but it must wait some time; we lost the baby just a week after I got back to North Carolina.
We didn't make it all the way across the country like we had planned, but the trip had a very complete feel about it nonetheless. Austin was a great place to stop, and a wonderful city to spend a week in. We made new friends, visited with Adam's family spent time visiting the places that form such a large part of his childhood memories. It was wonderful for me to see such things; it gives me more insight into the character of my best friend.
Coming home was a challenge. Losing the baby was hard for me, and much harder on Karen. On top of that, getting used to having a schedule, waking up in the same place each morning took some getting used to. Within a few weeks, I forgot the phase of the moon, the position of the stars at sunset and dawn, and I would be surprised by changes in the weather, all things I knew without even thinking about when we spent most nights outside without a cover.
I ride my bike as transportation much more often than before I left. Cary is not considered a great place for bike commuting, especially if you're headed to Raleigh or Durham. However, after averaging 60 miles a day across the desert, a 12 mile trip to North Raleigh seems like a silly thing to balk at. It's still to be seen whether this healthy new habit is permanent or not.
More than anything else, I look for opportunities to get back out on the road on my bike. A few weeks after returning from Austin, I was back out with my sister, for a trip from Raleigh to Williamsburg. Just last week, Adam and I got back together for a short trip through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.
Adam and I both discovered that we enjoy writing about our journeys nearly as much as we enjoy the trips themselves. The writing crystallizes the experience in our memories, and provides a valuable record for us to look back on later. Therefore, we have decided to continue this blog to document our continuing travels, whether they be on cycle, train, car, plane or boat.
Adam and I are both still unemployed. I'm looking for a job, and Adam is returning to school, to get a Master's Degree from the University of Texas in Lubbock. We are planning to develop a small business that will allow us to travel for a living, and hopefully this will start to take off over the next couple of years. So here's to an unending source of new blog material.
