This was the part of my trip that I thought I would be in the best shape my life. I was not yet to the point in my journey that I was eating at Waffle House multiple times a day but I was still packing away a fair amount of calories in New Mexico, consisting mostly of peanut butter, tortillas, plantain chips, and anything else I could buy at Walmart. I was eating almost constantly and even when I wasn’t I was still thinking about food. I didn’t even care what kind of food- anything and everything was good enough for me.
I guess I always assumed that riding my bike 3,000 miles would be enough to cancel out all of the carbo-loading and binge eating but alas, I was sadly mistaken. Any attempt at dieting that I made on my journey was short lived; I didn’t have the energy to practice much self control. At the time this was a real disappointment for me; riding my bike across the country had seemed like such a crazy thing to me before I left, and I guess I always thought that embarking on it would not only leave me enlightened but also slimmer and more attractive. Yet by the time I reached Texas I still looked the same, I felt the same, and as we inched our way eastward I began to realize that I was going to return to my home essentially as I had left it; restless and ambitious, but ultimately average.
Now, as I look back on the whole thing, that is one of my favorite aspects of the experience; the fact that I did it all while still remaining as mediocre as ever, especially as far as cycling was concerned. I loved discovering that going off on these types of adventures was not reserved for the elite, I think knowing that has left me more enlightened than the act of cycling itself. I was in the gray area of being both an athlete and a couch potato and that felt weirdly freeing to me, despite the fact that it wasn’t what I had envisioned for myself.
At least I was not alone in my desperation. The four days that we were in New Mexico were disturbing not only in the way that they left me ravenously hungry (which was understandable; they were all almost 70 miles) but also because we were plagued by the presence of bird-sized locusts that had, by the grace of god, been given the ability to fly. When they weren’t hovering in the air too close for comfort they were crouched over their dead siblings on the pavement, feasting on their brothers without an ounce of guilt for the moral crime that they were committing. Cannibalism was a way of life for them, and in that state, I didn’t feel inclined to judge them for it. The only difference between us was that I was a vegetarian.
The constancy of my food cravings was similar to the constancy of my thoughts of home, my loneliness, and the tiredness of my body. This kind of rhythmic thinking was hypnotic. As to be expected, days were beginning to bleed into each other. When paired with the hours spent shuffling all of the songs on my iPhone, time began to pass in a blur and before I knew it I was through one state and into the next. The circular motion of the day was broken up by the same, predictable incident; I would be pedaling along on a gust of breeze from the west when suddenly my position in the atmosphere would drop two inches lower, and my rear tire would begin making an awful hissing sound. This happened every day, even up to two or three times. The warped rim of my bike was making holes in my inner tube, and the broken spokes that were held together with zip ties were causing enough friction on my tire that it was wearing thin. Just like my patience, and what little spunk I had left from the first week of my trip. I was starting to get worn out and I knew that it was too early for that to happen.
So I let myself be hungry, in every sense of the word. I let myself daydream about green chile Rellenos in family owned restaurants and nachos with queso blanco. But I also dreamed about the idea of a new, shiny bike, and craved the thought of being able to go one whole day without having to change my tire. I fantasized about Texas, and Louisiana, and the ocean. I thought about what I would do when I got home, and what kind of adventures I could plan next. New Mexico taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have learned, and I have stayed true to it ever since; being hungry can be a good thing.
Rove & Ponder 