« The Candy Hierarchy | Main | My Friends Call Me Mary »
October 23, 2010
Parting Shots
.jpg)
Now that I'm home, safe and sound in Colorado - only now can I begin to put the trip around Lake Michigan in perspective.
Always, when I go off on some epic journey, I convince myself that it will be some process of discovery. That I'll finally figure out what I want to be when I grow up. That I'll be a better person because I'll finally discover who I am.
But never, this happens. I never discover any deeper truths about myself, at least, not in the sense that I had hoped. I never come back with any wisdom that I didn't leave with. Only I'm more tired and confused than ever before. Probably that's the best way to describe my little adventures, if they could even be called that.
On the first day, we got up and as we were gassing up, Chak noticed that my rear tire was low, something that I'd not noticed. I didn't have a tire gauge, but got it inflated into the right ball-park of pressure before we left.
Another time, Chak noticed that my backpack had become unzipped by the 100 mph winds passing over it. This was a huge save, as my laptop was in there. This is something I would have missed.
At one point, I stopped and picked up a can of chain lube and sprayed my chain and Chak's, which were both in bad need of oiling.
Raj, of course, planned the entire trip, and led for much of the way. For some reason, as the leader, he had the balls to drive 95 mph for hours straight. Not clear why he decided to do this, but I'm very glad he did. It helped us catch up on the day's journey and made the trip a lot more fun, of course.
By the time we got to Macinac, I decided to break down and buy a map. Chak had is little hand-held phone, I'm not clear what it is, and between the two, we were able to plot our journey across Michigan a little better.
Raj was the one who picked where we would eat on the last day, and he hit a homerun. We ate at a little place in Manistee, I believe. When I wanted to eat at Wendy's, he stepped up and led us to this little local café that served the best Walleye on the planet.
When I think of riding with Chak and Raj, I think about "the wisdom of crowds," and, in our case at least, I think it worked as advertised. Namely that the group as a whole performed better than three individuals.
It made the trip so much more enjoyable, that as I'm planning next year's journey, I'm thinking I may not want to go alone.
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 23, 2010 at 3:40 PM
Comments