It
was
both a goodbye and hello. Goodbye to the people I knew and my
home. Hello to people I had yet to meet and to the rest of
the
world.
In some ways I’m not sure which day my travels
started. It
might have been the day that I left my family’s home in
northern
Wisconsin. It was a nice fall day and I sat on the lakeshore
with
my Mom. At one point, I told her that I would be leaving in
five
minutes. It ended up being a few hours before I left, as it
was
so pleasant to sit next to the waters. I won’t
forget the look on
her face as I drove away. The next stop was to see my Grandpa
for
a few days. He was 89 years old and realistically speaking,
there
was a good possibility that I wouldn’t see him
again.
I was taking off on a trip around the world. I knew that it
would
last for at least 18 months, possibly longer. Whatever the
length, I was going to be gone for a long time. I had a
mountain
bike race after seeing my Grandpa. When I race in the cooler
weather, I wear a pair of penguin tights. The crowds were
cheering me on, “Go Penguin! Go
Penguin!” Racing was
another thing that was going to be missed. The following day
my
mountain bike was going into storage. I had to ride at least
one
more
time and went for a ride on a 20-km. trail. It was a perfect
autumn day and the perfect autumn ride. I flew up the hills
and took every curve perfectly. I rode better than I had the
entire year. It felt so good I took a second lap, then a
third,
and then a fourth. It was getting dark and I knew that it was
time to say goodbye to riding too. In some ways that felt
like
the day my travels started.
People were asking me,
“18 months
around the world,
aren’t you
excited?” I would tell them “No, not
really.” There are few
things that I enjoy more than travelling, but I was pretty ho-hum about
it. I really didn’t know why and honestly
didn’t care.
I’m going to be travelling and that is that.
Perhaps there is
plenty of time to be excited later on. I really felt like I
was
going to miss riding more than I wanted to travel. I had some
plans on what I would be doing on the trip. I had a plane
ticket
to Australia with stops in the U.S., Fiji, and New Zealand. I
had
some ideas that I would go to Papua-New Guinea and spend some time in
the Himalayas. I really didn’t know. I
would just have to
see how things went and how I felt and there wasn't much in
the way of a schedule. The best way to travel is to throw
plans to the winds of time and let them flutter back down to Earth
wherever they may.
However
they worked out, on October 21st, I met my parents at my
brother’s home and we all went to the airport. My
brother told me
he would come to airport as long as it would only be, “Hey,
see you
later. Send me a postcard. Have Fun” sort
of thing.
“No hugging” he said. We both agreed on
this point. My
parents weren’t of the same attitude, but they
didn’t make too much of
a scene. I started to feel a bit more enthusiasm at the
airport,
but was still pretty subdued about it all. I said goodbye to
my
family and boarded the airplane. I was finally off…
