Settling in at Headquaters

It's been two weeks to the day since returning to Seattle.  My initial thoughts are that things are, for the most part, excellent.  Most of my actual concerns and worries now have to do with financial stuff.  Strange that after goofing off for the better part of four months that I'd start to have to worry about money.  But there it is.

Last night was the first night spent in the new Expedition Headquarters.  Every piece of the Inventory was glad to end the ceaseless wanderings and to land in a permanent location.  The gang received various awards and commendations for valor and sturdiness.  We held a memorial service for our various fallen comrades (the Brown Bandanna, the Classic Cycle Water Bottles and all the others left behind by an absent-minded Trip Leader) with the ceremonial pouring of the 40 ounce Olde English Malt Liquor.  After interminable speeches and teary reminisces, we fell asleep on the pergo floor since those members of the Inventory who weren't lucky enough to head to Europe with us are still tapping their toes in a storage facility in Poulsbo.

Internet still isn't hooked up at HQ, so this morning I'm firmly ensconced in the corporatist womb of a Ballard Starbucks, nursing a horrible coffee and grabbing their free wi-fi.

My new sidekick, Morty the Dog Wonder, comes home on Sunday evening.  He's a beagle/dachshund who charms the pants of everybody he sees, but still manages to maintain an James Dean-esque aloofness.  Here's a shot of Morty with my niece:

Cute, huh?

Seattle is Nice, So I'll Say It Twice...

I've been back for about 4 days now, and events have come fast and furious from the moment Air Canada delivered me and the Chump Steamroller back on American soil.  As with the days previous to leaving back in May, I'm staying with my sister and her family, which makes a nice pair of bookends on the Expedition. Rental housing, social engagements, car maintenance...lots to do, and all of it good.

I've been asked a lot "how my trip was", and find that there's no set of adjectives that really describes what happened. I've settled on saying that it was simply an epic adventure (which is true), then launch into descriptions of German breakfast food, or some other entertaining detail.

Mostly, though, what happened on my long ride is a private affair, with repercussions that haven't quite made themselves known yet. One effect is that Seattle seems smaller than before, much more provincial and homogeneous; on top of that I love this town more than ever. It's truly a great place in this world, on par with anything experienced in these heady 3 months.

footnote: first person to tell me what sitcom the title of this post comes from wins a cocktail.

In Praise of Hairiness

"This, then, is the mark of man, the beard...It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness." -- St. Clement of Alexandria, 271 A.D.

July 22-23, 2010 - Celebration on the Baltic Sea

Thursday the 22nd was spent killing time in Swinousjcie, going from beach to cafe to dock to bookstore to park and back to the cafe until the SS Pomerania loaded up at 6PM headed for the port of Copenhagen.  For the last 2 hours, I plugged into the fantastic Marc Maron podcast WTF and watched the boats come in and out of the harbor.

Eventually a weather-beaten, drunken man came up to me and asked if I liked beer.  After answering him in the affirmative, he said, "Me too.  Give me 7 zloty so we can drink beer".  I was in an expansive and generous mood (and had two more hours to kill), so I gave him the coins (equivalent to around $2.50) and he returned with two beers.  He was travelling with his family as part of a musical group he called "The Crazy Family".  He was the leader and main singer.  The guitar player and the bodyguard were passed out a couple of benches over, equally red-faced and besotted.

Listening to his stories helped kill the time till I needed to hop onto this enormous boat:

When I came into the loading area, a fellow American bicycle tourist was in line with me.  He was the first American bicyclist I'd encountered on this trip, so I peppered him with questions.

Upon loading, we grabbed a bench on the top deck, enjoying the last views of Poland.  I grew wistful and teary-eyed, saying an emotional "Good-bye" to all I had seen and experienced in the Old Country.  But it was also a time to celebrate, since I had accomplished exactly what I had set out to do so many months ago. 

Here's a shot of the final bit of Polish terrain I'll see in a while:

Of course, a bit of horrendous Polish vodka was in order:

The American bike tourist and I drank the vodka: he out of a used beer glass and me out of one of my water bottles.  Classy, huh?  Regardless, we had a nice time comparing stories and philosophies, just two drunk guys on a boat talking all sorts of nonsense.

That night I bedded down on the top deck, shielded from the mists of the Baltic Sea by a small overhang.  Behold my quarters:

The next morning, I met up with my new buddy in the car deck, both of us shaking the last bits of vodka from our heads.  Here's Wyndham, my fellow bike tourist, in the car deck:

When we got off the boat, it was 8AM, and he didn't have a place to go, and didn't have the means to get onto the Internet to look for a place.  So I invited him to come over to my Danish brother's place to use his computer and get a cup of coffee.  The 10 mile ride to where we were headed helped sweat out the night's festivities.

The transition from Poland to Denmark was more than a bit startling.  From an emerging eastern European country to fantastically wealthy and developed world-class metropolis.  Quite a stark contrast.

Next up: 2 weeks in Copenhagen!

July 21, 2010 - Dziwnow to Swinousjcie

Did It!  Here's the Expedition (with the spotlight being hogged by me) in front of my symbolic final destination: the lighthouse in Swinousjcie (properly pronounced "Svee-no-oos-cheh" and improperly pronounced as "Swine-so-juicy")

And yes, you'll notice, if you look closely, that I've gone and done what innumerable other dudes in my carefree position have done: I've grown a beard.  Keep the jokes to a minimum, please.

Anyway, Swinousjcie is very similar to all of the other places along the north Polish coast except it's even more be-Germanned than usual.  The border is just a couple of kilometers west and it seems to be a popular spot for them to come, buy cigarettes and lather up their enormous guts with salves and unguents.

After a fish dinner and a cold beer (or two) I called around to various folks on my contact list, just wanting to celebrate the end of the bicycling portion of the trip.  I discovered all too soon that calling friends, a bit tipsy, at noon (Seattle-time) on a Wednesday is a bit presumptuous.  So I settled for strutting around the boardwalk, laughing and chuckling to myself all evening about what a goofy adventure this had all been.  I'm sure I looked more than a little nuts.  And I probably was.

July 20, 2010 - Kolobrzeg to Dziwnow

Estimated Mileage: 40 miles
Trip Route Link
Photo Album Link

July 19th was a rest day.  My host Maciek armed me with an English-language guidebook of Kolobrzeg and I spent the day visiting various tourist attractions that I had missed the day before.

On the 20th, Maciek rode with me a few kilometers out of town and sent me on my way down the coast, towards the German border.  This was to be my penultimate day of travelling and the emotions that inevitably accompany the waning days of an epic adventure were with me.  Emotional and pensive, but in a good way, like the end of a Cameron Crowe movie where the protagonists look wistfully at each other and realize that, goddammit, things are going to be all right and aren't we glad we had this journey together?

The ride was completely miserable and not worth talking about, mostly because I took beach bike paths that were half-dirt, half-sand causing me to fishtail constantly and leading to inumerable near-crashes.  Note to Poland: if you create a map of bike paths, it would be nice if those bike paths were actually RIDABLE BY A BICYCLE.  Ahem.  Here's a shot of a typical stretch of the days' ride: beautiful scenery, horrendous path surface:

Anyway, I had another fairly short day, just 40 miles or so to yet another beautiful beach surrounded by ostentatious and tacky beach shops selling all manner of crap.

The garish environs clashed with my mood.  I went to bed early after a few hours at the beach and some fried fish.  The next day was my last of travelling from city to city by bicycle.  Holy smokes....

What's Next?

Much of the posts on that I've put onto this site have been pretty straightforward: reports and photos of my daily rides interspersed with a few anecdotes and dumb jokes.  What I've left out is some of the more personal reflections that've come along with this trip.  Those who know me, know that this year has been one of intense change and regeneration: severe loss and sadness on a number of fronts combined with overwhelming joy and passion on a number of others.

The Expedition was the culmination of this year of change: completely outside my comfort zone and like nothing I've ever done before.  The challenges I've faced these last 12 months (both voluntary and involuntary ones) have been confronted and overcome for the most part.  I'm at the end of a long journey that's taken me over a year to complete, and the Expedition that's now nearly over was just one aspect of that journey.

In a week, I come back to the States full of new life and energy, ready for the next set of challenges, having put this last batch of Chumps finally to rest.  There were a few moments there, in northeast Poland in particular, when I didn't think I would make it out.  But the Old Country is behind me and what comes next is precisely up to me.