Last week, I posted an interview of a fellow traveler who rode from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I said I would follow-up the interview with my own accounts of a journey I took a few years ago. I don’t want to take anything away from Tony or his trek and I am not big on “look what I did”. I prefer, “look what I am doing”. The past is the past and that’s where it stays, in my humble opinion.
I was recently forwarded the contact information of a lady who was working to promote a charity ride through part of Southeast Asia. I initially thought the trip had not yet been completed. I was wrong. Mr. Tony Passmore, the Managing Director of More Ability, undertook a 500K sponsored bike ride through Vietnam and Cambodia in January, 2013. I arranged an interview to gain a deeper insight into how the trip went. This is a magical ride with various different landscapes, weather conditions and beautiful people that inspires your confidence in humanity, while feeding your passion for travel.
I had planned to be in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam this past Monday. I had my flight booked and I thought I might be able to pull it off. I had to pull the plug. I wasn’t willing to risk getting over there, getting on the road and having everything fall apart. I have been reluctant to write anything about it the past week. There’s one thing I pride myself in more than anything else in the world and that’s following through on what I say I am going to do. Embarrassment and self-pity hit me hard this week.
Setting out on the road this past April was an incredibly eye opening experience. My biggest and most liberating experience came in 2005 when I left America for the first time. I never told many people this, but I did not expect to return.
Getting off the road for a few weeks is a must. I’m a traveling man, but if I don’t take some time off the road, I don’t have time to implement some of the ideas that came up along the way. The next two months, I’ll be doing just that.
I arrived in San Diego last Wednesday pretty beat down after getting the door slammed in my face on the freeway. The perfect ending didn’t pan out, but I did finish the ride.
Crossing America was an unbelievable journey. There was so much I missed along my route and so much more that was not even in the path that I took. My goal was to get a job, chronicle my travels via Globetrekkin’, and bike across the country.
Mission accomplished! Now the fun begins.
The last 24 hours were pretty insane. I finally crashed and thought I might not make it until Thursday. When the opportunity to sleep presented itself, my body wouldn’t let me budge until it got its fill. I never expected it would happen in the middle of the desert.
I have arrived! I’m not at my final destination, but I finally reached California. It seems like it’s going to be more difficult to get to San Diego than I thought. Each region has brought its own specific challenges. Why I wrote the final one off as a walk in the park is anyone’s guess. It’s anything but! Enter…the Desert!
I grew up in a family where athletics were the norm. My grandfather played pro baseball and my father took a scholarship playing golf.
When I was younger, my dad got me to try every sport I wanted. In one of our father/son grudge matches, him teaching and me being a know it all, I told him I wasn’t doing something with the golf club that he told me I was in fact doing. The next time out, he brought the video camera. What he recorded was what he said. Turns out the old man wasn’t as dumb as I thought.
This is my record of America, spent on a bicycle, the last 139 days….. from the other side of the car window.