St. Augustine Florida
This has been an epic journey. When you complete an accomplishment like this, I suppose it is natural to ask yourself, will you do this again. Yes. There are more bicycle adventures in my future, I know that. I also know you only need to ride the Southern Tier once. There’s a big country out there, and a lot more to be seen.
I’m definitely not a Hemingway or a Stephen King. But a big part of this journey has been giving myself the opportunity write. By doing that I have improved my skill a tiny bit, but more importantly I received, time after time, a joy at the end of the day that I would not otherwise have experienced. That brings me to you, the reader. Thank you for stopping by, many of you daily, to read this what-ever-it-is. All I can say about that is, thank you. I hope this provided you with some small bit of entertainment.
This is the end of my “Southern Tier” journaling adventure. I know I will keep writing. I don’t know if it will appear on the site “Life on a B17” or not. Maybe some bad poetry once in a while. I don’t have any specific plans for the site. I’ll take it where the spirit moves me. I don’t know where that will be.
What else can I say about the journey? I’m grateful I was able to undertake it. I’m also grateful I was able to finish it. It is humbling to achieve something so extraordinary. It is also a memory I will cherish for the rest of my life. When I’m 90 years old and my friends and I are down at the gas station having our morning coffee, they will be talking about their glory days in High School. They will be recalling when they struck out this batter, or got that big hit. I’ll be talking about how I rode my bicycle across the country, “Just how I like.” After my morning coffee in the winter I’ll go skiing. In the summer after morning coffee I’ll go for a bike ride. Feel free to join me.
This experience has certainly brought me tremendous joy, but I was reminded time-and-again, joy is not what you find at the end of the journey, joy is what you experience along the way.
“If you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.” - Stephen King
Brad Adkins, November 20th, 2019
