There was a time…

I remember when I was quite young hearing stories of my older brother hitchhiking to get around. I’ll have to ask him about that someday. Today one might think it a bit crazy. Jim Gaffigan does a joke or two about it in his recent Netflix comedy routine – “Of course now we no longer refer to them as hitchhikers, we call them ‘murderers.’” And that’s what we think of everything these days. As the world has gotten smaller, we’ve caught on. Or maybe it’s just that the .0003% of cases where a hitchhiker actually murders someone (or is murdered) gets about 75% of the airtime. Hey, it’s the way news works these days, right?

Yeah. I think that’s what’s happened. Because pretty much 100% of the people I meet every day are not murderers. They’re not even bad people, no matter who they voted for in the last election. It’s just that we’ve been conditioned to think otherwise.

So I was fascinated by a CNN interactive story that caught my eye today – “What Happened to the Hippie Trail?” The hippie trail, a child of the 60’s — starts in London, winds its way through Europe, and…get this…goes through Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan on the way to India. You’d have to be nuts to try something like that today (actually, I don’t think you could). And yet, things like this appeal to me. Maybe that’s why I’m reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac again. Or why I follow the likes of Ryan Van Duzer and his bikepacking in the Rockies, or Matt Gallat triking around the world (well, not lately). Or maybe even on a smaller scale, my own travels – finding new roads and new challenges and new things to see on my bicycle right here in this small (but packed) corner of Korea. There’s something so appealing about the open road. So cool about finding stuff – witnessing it with your own eyes. Wondering about it as it sits there with its own history.

I really want to get out more, but such a combination of things have hit recently. Busy with things. Kind of have the feeling I’ve lost the knowledge of how to see new things. To do interesting things. I get out, but it’s only for a few hours, and seldom over roads I’d previously not travelled for the most part. Maybe it’s this whole COVID thing. I’m certainly not going to leave the country, but there’s still a lot of country to be seen, and I know it’s absolutely filled with interesting things. I’m still finding them even on roads I’ve travelled around where I live (although they’re harder to come by now that I’ve ridden over 20,000 miles pretty much entirely within this province).

That gets me thinking about next year’s cycling goal. I’ve grown it steadily over the years – culminating in topping 5,000 miles this year (looks like I’m going to end just under 5,500 this year unless the temps get out of the single digits – I’m only 28 miles from that distance right now). Longer distances have been good to me, and I think having those bigger goals have motivated me to get out more and go farther when I do. But what about discovery? I can take a dart and toss it at a map and guarantee seeing something interesting if I start from wherever it lands. But my biggest limitation is time. I love that Korea is small enough that I can travel anywhere within the country in about half a day…but half a day is still a long way to go, and that means I’d spend the other half getting back unless I plan an overnighter. Still, I’ve considered setting my goal at 6,403 – the distance from here to my mother’s house in Wisconsin.  I don’t know though – I rode a lot this year to get 5,500. Can I ride 900 more for 6,400?

And this leads me back to my point. I have memories of the trips our family used to take out West when I was young. Great memories. Perhaps this has put the desire to wander a bit into my heart. I’m certainly thankful for it. I think these days I know so little about it though that it’ll all seem like starting over. But it’s possible. There was a time when I knew. Maybe there will be a time when I know it again…