Notes, Meditations, and Observations:

I forgot to bring a belt, so I’m using a bungee cord. It’s the best damn belt I’ve ever had.

Where ever I am, if I look down in the grass for a minute, I’ll find an ant. No matter what state I’m in, what forest, or compound, there are always ants. They’re as prevalent as clouds but they crawl and eat your food when you aren’t looking.

When I get really bored when I’m riding I think of appropriate analogies for mopeding for instance:

No I’m not a bat out of hell, that’s too badass. I’m like a squirl out of hell! That’s me, Hell squirl! Eating up the miles like acorns.

I’ve decided to name my moped Moraine. MOped, get it? The MO in MOped stands for motorized, so I get to say “Give me some MO’ Give me some MO’, comon’ baby give me some MO’.” I only do that on hills. Usually.

I spend 90% of my time alone, so I bring little friends with me. I’ve had one piece of wheat with me since my second day in PA.

Riding in a city is like doing a 10 foot all out sprint, getting into a wheel chair and getting pushed for 30 seconds, then getting up and running your ass off again… for 20 miles.

When your head throbs harder and harder, every time you do some physical exertion, it’s time to stop exerting yourself physically.

When unexpected bad stuff happens, I try to say to myself “Ok what’s the best thing that could happen from this crappy situation?” It’s one of the hardest questions that’s arisen on the trip so far.

I have come to have different names for the different difficulty levels of hills,

•Slight incline- “This isn’t flat?”

•Incline- “Pshhh no porblemo.”

•Slight hill- “Whew I made it… slow at the end though”

•Hill- “Man does pedaling suck”

•Steep Hill- “Oooh man walking sucks!”

•Mountain- “Good god! I thought this trip was a good idea because of what?”

Mopeding across the country is the best terrible idea I’ve ever had.

Mopeds are the quirky adolescent of the cycle family.

People always tell me to be careful of all the psychos out there, “don’t trust anyone,” they say, and yet they are trusting me and assuming that I’m not a psycho even though I’m the nutcase mopeding across the country without a damn clue where I’ll be sleeping that night.

I’ve made my peace with bugs. I try hard not kill them; instead I just brush them off. But the tent is off limits you bastards.

There’s nothing worse than riding down the road and hitting a butterfly. It’s just so damn sad.

I saw a deer that had been hit by a car that looked like it was doing yoga. It was sad too but oddly beautiful.

It’s just incredible that no two people look the same.

When it startles me the way someone looks I think “There are a lot of fish in the ocean. This one’s a cod. That one’s a trout. There goes blue gill. There’s a catfish.” How can you hold it against a catfish for looking like a catfish?

People everywhere are extraordinarily nice and normal. Except for in one place. Television.

If you’re riding and you need help, just take off your helmet. As long as you’re wearing your helmet, you don’t need help.

Truckers never wave. Sometimes they nod.

People in cars wave and or honk, and or yell out to me only if the windows are open. I don’t know if this is an observation about cars whose windows are rolled up, or about the people who roll them down.

Cyclists always wave. Or at least wave back.

Actually it’s not quite a wave. It’s a little different. You take our left hand off the handle bar, open it out into a fully open palm, and hold it out to the side a little bit. If you were close enough you’d hit each other a low five. I’ve always wanted to do that… low five a cyclist I mean.

There’s a muscle in my back that has gotten so tense from holding the accelerator that it feels like little evil gnomes are gnawing on it and then stabbing it with huge needles. And then ripping it in half and tying it back together. Rubbing my back on a big rock loosens it up though.

People will pass me all day, but if I ever pass them, they honk and yell. Ooh did little moped man go faster than you? ooooh nooooo, how could he! Don’t worry you’ll pass me in again soon.

A) I can meet someone and talk with them for a half an hour and we’ll go our separate ways, never exchanging names. This happens all the time.

B) I will most likely never see any of these people again for the rest of my life.

C) Do you realize how many people that means there are! Good god! So many! I see people all day long, day after day, and I could keep doing that for the rest of my life, and I would never get to the end of all the people!

There’s a town called climax in Ohio. It’s got a population of 500 or so,

There’s also a town named Avery.