The Brothers’ Bike Ride

Palatka to St. Augustine
Friday, March 4

The morning of our last day didn’t feel particularly charged or different to me. We went through our standard drill, watching political coverage on the news over bowls of cereal in another Holiday Inn Express breakfast lounge, same as it ever was.

I’m gonna miss this.

My dad had had an upset stomach overnight, so I offered him some off-brand Imodium I’d made a friend buy for me in a hotel lobby in Kansas City. Dad had never used such medication before (I learned with surprise), so I had a hunch it would be especially effective.

From the hotel hallway: It’s a mess out there

“Bye, Mom!” (sniffle)

The day began cool and only got cooler and grayer, a bummer for their very last southern tier trek. It was a short ride, though, and the guys expected to be in St. Augustine around noon. I kicked around in the room for a bit, then packed up and headed out of Palatka.

The drive was flat and cloudy. I tried to savor it, but my heart couldn’t fully comprehend that this was the last time I’d be doing this.

Final moments of cross-country solitude

I wasn’t sure where we would actually be meeting beyond “at the water,” but I tried to time my drive so that I’d make it to St. Augustine at the same time as the boys, checking Dad’s location through our GPS app. GPS tracking of other humans might be creepy in theory, but it’s also really useful, and sometimes I wish all my friends had it.

I made a quick stop at a small grocery store for beer and a bag of never-to-be-eaten chips. Most of the other customers were college-age stoners, probably students at nearby Flagler College. The person in front of me got carded and I did not, but I consoled myself with the memory of being carded the day before. When I got back to the car I saw that Dad and the gang were now in downtown St. Augustine. I still didn’t know their plan and was now a few miles behind them. I headed in their direction.

My first impressions of downtown were of congestion. Cars and tourists clogged roads; traffic crawled. Some of the crowded scene looked charming, some less so. I began to get antsy. The guys started moving away from town in search of the Atlantic Ocean. I continued my slow pursuit, eventually halted by a drawbridge.

The bridge is up

Dad finally called while I was stuck on the bridge and told me to follow signs for Anastasia State Park. They would wait there and we’d head to the water as a team. Finally I started getting excited. This was it. They had really done this. The chance of a trip-ending catastrophe now was essentially zero. They’d made it.

I arrived at the park entrance just as Dad was paying the fee. He biked alongside Onyx for a while and we chatted a bit, mainly about the miraculous power of Imodium. Dad was in a great mood, and it made me happy to see him feeling so good. After a couple minutes he appropriately broke away to rejoin his brothers and Matt for the very final moments of their ride.

Here’s a shaky video of the homestretch (culminating in me trying to get out of the car without having put it in park, then running to catch up with them):

I caught up with them.

Bringing the bikes to the water

The symbolic dipping of the tires in the ocean felt genuinely momentous. The brothers had left San Diego on March 2, 2012, four years and two days before, with no solid sense of what this experience would be like; they had yet to face chip seal roads, intense headwinds, nerve-wracking bridges, dog chases, falls, achy and sleep-deprived nights; they had yet to encounter the otherworldly beauty of the desert, the lawlessness of the southwest, the quaintness of Texan towns, the friendliness of Floridian bike routes, the singular charm of America as viewed by bicycle. The one thing they did expect was a lot of laughter, and laughs were certainly plentiful.

The bike trip sort of took place out of time, six stretches of eight or nine days punctuated by many months of not-the-bike-trip. Many people who cycle across the southern tier do it in a single go, and I imagine the physical accomplishment feels especially profound upon reaching the Atlantic after two straight months on a bicycle. But I think the passage of four years grants additional weight to the brothers’ accomplishment; they started out old and they were four whole years older by the time they finished.

Seriously, I am so proud of all of you. I know it wasn’t easy but you made it look like it was.

Triumphant

We took pictures on the cold beach and spent a few minutes admiring the coast and the clouds. The wind blew my scarf and hair around. I let the tide splash around my feet and found the water surprisingly warm. Finally we headed for the hotel. We were all famished.

When we got there, though, we learned our rooms wouldn’t be ready for a while, some for a couple hours. The guys got to work dissembling their bikes outside while I ate snacks.

Breaking down the bikes

The room delay made it so that we never got to have a proper post-ride beer, but we’d soon make up for it.

After showering with some shower beers, Matt, Tim, and Mark headed out to meet up with Matt’s father-in-law, who happened to be in town. Dad and I strolled around a bit and landed in an Irish pub for a late lunch. It was Friday during Lent. Dad wanted a cheeseburger and I wasn’t about to remind him of the no-meat rule. Mark showed up a little later and had his own cheeseburger, then we headed to Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built by the Spanish in the seventeenth century primarily to protect St. Augustine from the threat of British siege.

Castillo de San Marcos

Palm trees at the fort

Brothers

We walked around the outside of the fort — I noted that two teenage girls who were taking selfies when we arrived were still at it when we left twenty minutes later — then met up with Tim and Matt. They were ready for dinner. So were Mark and Brian, despite having eaten less than an hour before.

We settled in to an empty steakhouse and enjoyed a very satisfying meal. During dinner I took out my audio recorder and asked the guys to talk about what they’d learned about themselves on the trip. I’ve got at least one more entry to write and will include some clips with my final reflections.

The sun sets on the cathedral

The weather improved as the day grew older. We meandered around the agreeably kitschy streets of St. Augustine, stopping for ice cream, taking in the tourist scene, eventually ending up in the lounge of our hotel, the Hilton. The Hilton was our splurgiest spot of the trip, but it was worth it (said the person who didn’t pay for any of this).

And then all of us except for wise Mark proceeded to get plastered in the low-key way that Sullivans do.

Fireside drinkfest — can you feel the energy?

We had a truly cozy and wonderful time. This picture doesn’t do the setting justice, but there’s a fire behind Dad and a TV in front of Tim, and the lounge feels like a wholly different space from the fluorescent hall in the background. The television was tuned to incessant insane election coverage, and it felt good to agree with these GOPers about the direction our country should (or at least shouldn’t) take. We talked about other things, too, but who remembers what now. Well, I do remember lighting into Matt for not being willing to divulge how much money he makes — sorry, Matt! — but aside from that it was all good vibes. It was a proper celebration of the cyclists’ grand achievement, and while I would regret it a little the next morning, I don’t in the long run.

High Springs to Palatka
Thursday, March 3

My room at the B&B was nice, one of the nicest in our entire journey, with windows on two sides, a plush king bed, and a large sitting room that I didn’t want to mess up by sitting in it.

And yet, as I am wont to do, I awoke in the middle of the night. I had left my bulky suitcase in Onyx, taking a fresh change of clothes in my backpack, and at 1:00 a.m. I decided that I’d forgotten to lock the minivan and that High Springs was full of wily teens who like to check whether car doors are unlocked and grab whatever they find. Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself, but an hour later this thought still kept poking at me. I contemplated going outside to make sure Onyx was locked, but I didn’t want to own up to actually believing this silliness. So I did the next best thing and held the fob under my chin — I’ve heard this is supposed to make the signal carry farther — and hit the lock button three times. The car was a couple hundred feet away, but I thought I detected a faint locking beep in the distance.

The B&B lady graciously accommodated the guys’ requests for an early breakfast. I opted to have my breakfast later, though, because I could tell she wanted me to, and I didn’t mind waiting till a normal hour. The men had a feast — ham and egg sandwiches, fruit, tomatoes (which I know are a fruit), who knows what else. I wasn’t paying close attention as I sat with them and drank coffee. They were happy with it.

The whole gang. This is one of my favorite photos of them.

After I saw them off I settled in for my own feast: bacon, tomatoes, a muffin, some kind of savory bread, and an egg and cheese casserole. It was great. I wish I’d been able to eat the entire thing. I wish I could eat it right now. I took the muffin with me in a little baggie and a week later found it smushed in the bottom of my purse. Gross.

Breakfast of champion

A leisurely breakfast can be intensely relaxing; it establishes the tone for the day while postponing all serious matters, helping to render them less urgent. And though I often have no truly serious matters to contend with, I usually feel like I do. I fed myself cheese and read a local paper while a CD of piano rags played in the background. My life was right.

Eventually the lady came in to chat. I’d felt wary of her before, thinking she was, not to put it mildly, an uptight killjoy, but we had a good conversation and I hereby reverse my impression. She had been a trial lawyer in Miami before deciding to buy the bed and breakfast, and I admire anyone who makes a dramatic life change in middle age. She liked the slow pace of life in High Springs, but she missed the urbanity and culture of Miami. I asked her about the challenges of running a B&B, and she said it’s very hard to go out because she always needs to be available if a guest locks himself out or needs help. And because she and her husband live in the house, she feels like she has very little privacy. She said she’s ready for a move in the way I talk about making changes to my own career — the way that indicates one is not yet at the point of doing anything about it. We also talked a little about my experience on the trip, and it impressed me that she intuited and sympathized with the demands of my role as handler. B&B lady, whom I’m not naming because I don’t want to make you feel bad with my initial negative impression: I like you and wish you luck.

My horoscope in the paper said that someone would question my integrity that day, and I immediately decided that it had to do with the olive oil store. The day before, after having two beers and many tortilla chips, I accompanied the guys into town for their bike store run. But I didn’t go to the bike store; I went to the olive oil store, because it was an olive oil store, and that meant samples. Upon entering I was offered a full tour, and during the tour I learned that the store had just opened the very day before. It was a two-day-old olive oil store, and the owner was an extremely sweet woman in her 60s who was still learning how to operate a cash register.

I had buzzedly sampled some very, very good olive oil and vinegar and wanted to take home four tiny bottles of different varieties. The owner said that the tiny bottles were due in the next morning before the store opened at 11 a.m. I told them I would be back. But as I left I thought that maybe I wouldn’t be back, because by the next morning I might not feel the same beneficent desire to support a new business and the same intoxicated need for olive oil I wouldn’t have any use for.

But the day’s horoscope was meant to make me a better person, I decided — at the time it didn’t cross my mind that this meant someone else would question my integrity, once I eliminated the olive oil store owner — so, after checking out of the B&B, I drove into town with the intention to waste time until 11 a.m.

High Springs has a railroad museum behind its police station, so I headed there first. It was closed. I walked around a bit and took a couple photos of churches:

Then I wandered into other stores along Main Street, growing increasingly ambivalent about upholding my integrity. The stores were boring.

I wish I weren’t the type of traveler who values being on the road, being in motion, more than the stops along the way. When there’s a destination ahead, all I want to do is get there; I don’t like waiting or stopping. But so often I’ve whizzed by small attractions, fighting with myself to stop the car, sensing I’m missing out on something memorable. It’s a constant cycle of ambition, missed opportunities, chastisement, peace.

The world fascinates me. (Antique store, High Springs)

It turned eleven o’clock eventually, the way it always does, and I went back to the olive oil store. “You’re back!” the owner said. Integrity redeemed.

I asked about the tiny bottles. She said they were still in Jacksonville but would get there later that day. So I decided to buy a single smallish bottle of their Tuscan olive oil, which was just divine, and order other varieties by phone later, which of course I’m not going to do. I am intentionally not linking to their website because it is bad and you can’t buy anything there. The store itself is attractive and thoughtfully constructed and I hope it succeeds.

The short drive took me through Gainesville, birthplace of Tom Petty, and so I listened to his songs the whole way. As Petty has said in so many words, Gainesville isn’t so great. It struck me as congested and flavorless, one of the standard varieties of smallish American cities.

My route diverged from that of the bikers, so I didn’t stop to meet them along the way and made it to the Holiday Inn Express before one o’clock. The nice woman who checked me in had an intriguing and familiar European accent, but I couldn’t place it. I asked her where she was from. “Poland,” she said, and I felt ashamed of my ignorance, having lived in a Polish neighborhood for three years.

After settling in I made a quick drive out to the supermarket to pick up snacks. We were staying outside of downtown Palatka, and our part of town seemed quiet and just a little downtrodden. At the supermarket I hovered in front of the rows of beer, and another woman around my age soon did the same. She told me she was looking for New Belgium Snapshot (a wheat variety with an illustration of a vintage camera on the label) but they never have it in stock anymore. I told her to talk to the manager. “I bet they’d order it for you,” I said, wise in my knowledge of the workings of supermarkets circa 1997.

Next stop, pool time:

Matt has just told Tim to suck in his tummy for his beefcake shot

The water was cold, but that didn’t stop them from going in. Here, Matt shows off how he can kind of do a flip:

Sorry for the shaky camera, I couldn’t see what I was doing because it was so bright.

The evening’s early dinner took place at the Italian Latin Grill, a homey restaurant serving both Italian and, yes, Latin cuisine, run by a nice-seeming older couple. We drank glasses of wine. I enjoyed my plate of ravioli until I got full and gave the rest to Mark. It was starting to dawn on all of us that our journey was almost over, and we talked a bit about highs and lows — best and worst hotels, food, towns, roads.

Back at the Holiday Inn Express I recorded Tim’s reading from Crossing the Borderlands, which is not worth publishing but definitely worth keeping. It turned out to be the last one he did. We never entirely finished the book! I guess we have to redo it all again and get it right this time.

Hotel Art of the Day

La Petite liseuse, ou Jeune bergère assise et lisant
(Little readers, or Young shepherdess sitting and reading)
1855-1861, Oil on canvas (print, of course)
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
B&B, High Springs, FL

Hotel Art Score

10/10. I was surprised and moved to encounter this. In my first assignment in my first high school art class, the teacher had us copy this painting twice, once in color and once in brown sienna. I will always feel attached to this work because it touched off an era of curiosity, growth, and self expression. Never have I felt more encouraged to make art, and specifically to make art in the way that feels natural to me, than in Archmere’s art building.

Art Art Score

7.5/10. I’m not really able to look at this objectively, but I find it pleasing. I like the brightness of the whites, the stripes on the skirt, the tranquility of it. It’s modest and peaceful.

Madison to High Springs
Wednesday, March 2

I didn’t get the best sleep at the Best Western in Madison. I woke up early and cranky, annoyed at those @*$%! fat pillows and at having to use a 20-year-old bathroom with its ugly brown speckled sink and ugly old shower. Woe was me.

I went down to breakfast ahead of our scheduled meetup time and found Mark, Tim, and Matt already halfway through their meals. The Sullivans reverse the standard party arrival etiquette; it’s cooler to be at least 15 minutes early.

“Is your dad okay?” Matt asked me.

“Well, it’s still not even seven yet,” I said. Technically none of us was supposed to be here.

The night before, Chris Christie had stood awkwardly behind Donald Trump at a press conference, and Fox News — it still semi-astounds me that any establishment would make Fox News its default TV channel — was playing clips of the conference.

Dad arrived just as the others were finishing up. He expressed disappointment and surprise in Christie’s support of Trump and in the early birdism of his brothers.

The view outside my window was way better than my room; note swamp in the background

When everyone was in the parking lot prepping to head out, I received a sign from the universe that it would be a good day.

This big birdlike creature was hanging out by itself in a not particularly clean field next to the hotel. What a strange thing to see! I didn’t even know what it was at first (I’m terrible at identifying plants and animals) and guessed it was an ostrich. Matt jokingly proposed that it was an emu, and Wikipedia confirmed that he was right.

How could any day with an emu sighting turn out to be bad? Famous last words, I know, but I just had a feeling about this.

Despite the gloomy sky their future is bright

Hotel hallway shot featuring emu in its habitat

After the bikers departed I extended my hotel checkout time and partook in a conference call. Everything went smoothly because I was now operating on emu power. Here’s a secret thing about me: when I see a bunny rabbit out in the world, I think of it as equivalent to getting a power-up heart in a video game. It’s called bunnergy. I take energy away from the bunny when I see it, but not enough to deplete the bunny in any significant way. The emu equivalent of bunnergy was like a 10x power-up.

On the drive, which also went smoothly, I relistened to a chapter from The Acceptance World because of some technical difficulties, but it turned out to be fortuitous, because it was the chapter in which the concept of the acceptance world was explained, and I hadn’t really understood it the first time. You don’t care what it is now but I think many of you (is anyone still reading?) would enjoy this novel.

I met up with the guys around lunchtime. Just behind Onyx in this picture are some horse stables, and both Tim and Brian noticed them at different times and asked whether they used to be a motel.

Speaking of horse lodging, were going to be staying in a B&B that night, and it had a check-in time of 4 p.m. B&Bs, I’ve learned, are fairly inflexible about check-in times. The guys were going to arrive around two o’clock, so during our pit stop I decided to call the owner and see if we could check in early. I told her we really only needed one room by then so that the guys could shower. She seemed like a high strung sort of person and told me they couldn’t all shower in the same room. I said, “Well, not at the same time, obviously!” I’m not sure what her reservation was — maybe she didn’t want to mix up the towels? Too much water usage from one room? Anyway, she thought that four rooms would be ready by then, and that sounded fine.

A tree

I had to kill about 45 minutes when I got to High Springs. Fortunately High Springs is very quaint and walkable. The town’s population is about 5,500, but it draws visitors who like to scuba dive, canoe, swim, and fish in the nearby Santa Fe and Itchetucknee Rivers. It was about 75 degrees that day, and I would have been happy to canoe down a river, but I was just as happy to wander around the town.

SERIOUSLY, WHO DID WHAT

High Springs Playhouse

I dipped into one of the many antique shops that line the main street and took my time looking at stuff, eventually finding an old card game called Flinch for $2. It was created in 1905 and is still being produced, though I’d never heard of it. My version is from 1951 and has great type.

Flinch

The B&B was on what passed for a busy street in High Springs, and I initially passed it and kept driving to see how far the historic district went. Not far. I looped back, pulling up at two o’clock on the dot. I was met by the husband of the woman from my phone call, an amiably smug fellow who predicted that by the time the guys arrived I’d be sitting on the front porch enjoying a gin and tonic. This sounded very appealing, but it was not to be. Midway through the house tour — soon after I met the woman and witnessed a tense exchange between husband and wife about where to store the bikes, after which she disappeared to her office and he put his arm around my waist and told me conspiratorially never to get married — the gang appeared. They sweatily but patiently listened to the entertaining but long-winded house rules, their need for beer growing more palpable by the minute.

Everyone’s bike had had some kind of problem that day, so our post-ride snack session turned into bike tune-up time. I cheerfully ate tortilla chips and fetched beers as needed.

Working on bikes in the backyard

We walked into town to get some bike parts, then settled into our rooms until dinnertime.

Porch swing!

Dinner was at the just-right Great Outdoors Restaurant, which by five o’clock was already filling up. The atmosphere was great, the food was plenty good, and we all felt so glad to be outside on a warm night. A couple guys played country, Mark’s and my favorite style of music. Honestly, that was pretty good, too. Thanks, emu.

Back home for one of the last sessions of Tim reading “Conquering the Borderlands”

Hotel Art of the Day

Flowers
Best Western, Madison, Florida

Hotel Art Score

7/10. The picture isn’t great so you can’t see the technique too well, but it’s got a nice illustrated style, and the background feels like an imagined mental space. The painting feels like a still from an arty animation. I like it.

Art Art Score

5/10.