A drop in the Ocean

So, here I am. Sat in the Atlanta airport, awaiting a platter of chicken fingers and pancakes, a true breakfast of champions. Let A type weirdos munch robotically on heaping bowls of Wheaties in the morning. Those of us who've been up all hours of the night need stacks of flapjacks covered with deep fried protein and syrup. Only something that weird can fuel the adventure I'm about to get in to.

Perhaps it is said adventure that kept me up last night. It is no small feat to leave the warm wooden nest my bride had built for us in the mountains of northern Georgia. Yet the call of the road is strong and I bought this touring bicycle with a monster semi cross country ride in mind, I'd be a fool to pass the opportunity up. Right?

The A type would say,"Right!"

"You idiot, you have a pleasant, safe, and incalculably less stressful life then you've ever had all next to the woman you purportedly love more than anything else in the world. But here you are midflight attempting to Swype text a sentence or two into existence about your hair brained scheme to sleep on the ground and drink water from windmill pumped cattle troughs in the middle of nowhere Kansas," the A type would continue saying between shoveled mouthfuls of now soggy bran flakes. 

First, let me point out to you, A type, usage of "But" to begin a sentence is strictly forbidden in the AP style book. John Lofflin would fail you immediately. But, since this is my personal blog and not a periodical of note, I'll allow it.

Secondly, that is exactly why I must do this thing that I hope to do. Aren't there enough of you? Aren't there enough people faking to be you? I saw them all on the highway to the airport this morning. The A types behind the wheel of their SUVs barking orders  into their bluetooth equipped Bose handsfree audio auto entertainment systems at some assistant secretary.

Who is also behind the wheel of their car half asleep mashing the pedal of a compact fuel efficient japanese made car, because they hold their value well, jacked on caffeine and taurine, trying to process how their life got to where it is. Exhausted, financially underwater, and at the mercy of the petty tyrant on the other end of said phone call.

Takers and Fakers, A types and the people who wish they could be A types. Like individual droplets of rain they hurdle towards the sea extolling the virtues of their practices only to be folded into the anonymity of dark and endless waves.

We'll all get there in the end. I've no illusions that making this journey will somehow keep me from joining the anonymity of the wave. But, if I am to be a rain drop let me be the drop that falls on the peak of a vast and towering mountain range. Let my journey lead through and past the seldom visited canyons and valleys, let me be slurped up by a thirsty elk, mixed with the unprocessed vitamins of a stomach full of sweet grass, pissed out on to a log the next valley over, run down into a new stream, and eventually over the course of much This and That I can join the epic ocean. 

The A type is welcome to his path of least resistance, I don't begrudge him his store bought experiences.  And I am allowed to be as befuddled by he as he is by me. In truth we are not all that dissimilar. I too enjoy the warm embrace of family and home at the end of a journey. I just want my journey to have a few more twists and turns in it, that's all.

Just two guys, breathing on each other real good during a global pandemic. This is already a groovy adventure. 😷😷😷#frontierairlinessocialdistancing