Current location: Fort Scott, Kansas. For anyone keeping up with my twitter feed, it’s clear that my route has deviated majorly from the original plan to head north and west. Watching the weather in Wyoming these days, I’m pretty glad I’m not there. My current plan is to continue heading southwest into New Mexico and Arizona to stay ahead of the winter weather.
Watching the cold drizzle outside as I type this, I’m not sure I’m moving far enough. The days are also ticking by and I’ve got 42 left if I’m going to make it home in time for Thanksgiving. According to Google maps, I’ve got somewhere around 1600 miles to Los Angeles, my current California destination.
It’s interesting how a journey changes as you’re on it, when you have no fixed plans and rather vague goals. When I started out, my plan was pretty simple: bike to California. Stop and see things along the way. I figured I’d have it done in two months and change. However, as I’ve gone along, I’ve become a lot more interested in the in-between places, the small towns no one’s ever heard of. There are a lot of them out there. And the people in them are just so damn nice. So, I’ve lingered, and malingered, and dragged my feet and nearly two months after leaving, I’m about half way. And the weather is turning decidely shitty.
So, I’m struggling with keeping to my goal of reaching California in the time I’ve got left, which doesn’t leave much time for lingering at my current 50-60 mpd pace. And I’ve got some of the most interesting part of the US still to come. My choice is to make like a rabbit across the prairie and possibly miss out on cool places, or keep to my desultory tortoise pace and end up short of California. Missing Thanksgiving is just not an option - you’ve never had my father’s smoked turkey and yeast rolls.
Decisions, decisions. Well, I think the rain is clearing up, I think I’ll head out soon.
Tags: bike tour, Ciao America, lifestyle
October 9th, 2009 at 11:24 am
do you have a plane ticket home for thanksgiving? are you biking back? can I come see you in greensboro??
October 9th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I vote for lollygagging, enjoying the trip, and flying back for T’giving if absolutely necessary (then flying back out to continue the journey)- though I feel that one missed T’giving would not be tragic. I do NOT vote for you trying to hurry this up, I think you will regret it later! Just my two cents though.
October 10th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Donuts are more addictive than cocaine. Watch yourself, woman.
This explains your doughnut addiction
In a study, rats overwhelmingly prefer sweetened water to cocaine, even those already hooked on the drug.
By Denise Gellene
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2007
Researchers have learned that rats overwhelmingly prefer water sweetened with saccharin to cocaine, a finding that demonstrates the addictive potential of sweets.
Offering larger doses of cocaine did not alter the rats’ preference for saccharin, according to the report.
Scientists said the study, presented this week in San Diego at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, might help explain the rise in human obesity, which has been driven in part by an overconsumption of sugary foods.
In the experiment, 43 rats were placed in cages with two levers, one of which delivered an intravenous dose of cocaine and the other a sip of highly sweetened water. At the end of the 15-day trial, 40 of the rats consistently chose saccharin instead of cocaine.
When sugar water was substituted for the saccharin solution, the results were the same, researchers said.
Further testing the rat sweet tooth, scientists subjected 24 cocaine-addicted rats to a similar trial. At the end of 10 days, the majority of them preferred saccharin.
“Intense sweetness is more rewarding to the rats than cocaine,” said coauthor Magalie Lenoir of the University of Bordeaux in France.
Lenoir said mammalian taste receptors evolved in an environment that lacked sugar and so were not adapted to the high concentrations of sweets found in the modern diet. Excess sugar could increase levels of the brain chemical dopamine, she said, leading to a craving for sweets.
Cocaine also increases dopamine, she said, but through a different brain mechanism.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:19 am
i love how in the end, after months and months of physical, emotional, and economic planning, it all comes down to smoked turkey and yeast rolls.