9 pm on day 8

My routine is pretty simple. I wake up around 4:30 or 5, meditate and do a little yoga, break camp and hit the road by 6:30. I try to cover about 50 miles by noon and then take a fairly long break of about an hour and finish up my ninety miles in time to camp well before dark. After I’ve set up my tent I usually meditate again, eat a little food around 6:30 and then meditate on and off while doing a few chores when I finally go to sleep around 8. I usually just find a patch of woods along side the road to camp, which has been easy enough to do. The weather has held and I haven’t gotten rained on yet.

Food is both simple and unappealing. I can’t carry too much with me so if I see a supermarket I may just grab an apple or two and a piece of cheese. Other than that, I eat mostly out of little quick-stops and, so far, one really good Chinese buffet.

Today, although it threatened rain and even, according to a newspaper, tornadoes, my only weather challenge was a strong head wind all day long. I ended the day by catching the ferry across the mouth of Mobile Bay. Tonight, since it was pitch dark and probably 40 mph head winds I took a motel for the night.

Day 8, east of Pensacola

Florida has more churches than Mexico has restaurants, and everything is for sale, especially near the coasts where there was so much speculation.


Update on the sore butt thing - Subagh stopped at a bike store this am and bought gel pants and a gel bike seat cover.

DeFuniak Springs, Florida, Day 7

Subagh's Second Law: If I am bored it means I am not going deep enough.

This is a real challenge. One mile of black top is much like the next and so far the scenery is not too thrilling. So, I try to just feel each moment the best I am able.
Looks like rain; the first.
Boy, is my butt sore!


from Simran:
Just think of all the different ice cream flavors...that's what I do! ...oh wait...you said "deep"

from David Edward:
Your Puerto Escondido fan club sends "deep" healing energy to your butt! Go El Turbano, we love you and miss you.

Haute cuisine, Gretna,FL, day 6

Thank you to Alvin and Susan Stauber: my first and possibly only hosts on this trip. I'm writing this on their computer in the middle of the night as I find it hard to sleep in the soft bed and warm room they've provided. Or, perhaps I'm just not used to smelling good.

Day 5, 40 miles east of Tallahassee

Day 4, Outside of Gainesville, FL

Success, if I am to have it, will be the result not so much of strength or endurance or even perseverance. It will primarily be dependent on my ability to surrender, to accept precisely as they are, the conditions in which I find myself. Fighting against winds or cold or tired muscles over which I have no control is disheartening. Success will be in taking it as it comes.
249.5 miles so far.

Day3, Oklahawa River

Gratitude: my weakest point. Yet all is perfect.

They say we are afraid of the unknown but what we are afraid of arethe imaginings of our own minds. The unknown, the future, is a void with no qualities of its own, only what we give to it, and what we
assign to the future unknown is purely a product of imagination plus memory of past personal and vicarious experience. We invent our fears and although most would disagree, we do so by choice.

Subagh's First Law: If I am not finding joy in what I am doing, I'm doing it wrong.

This trip should test my resolve in following this dictum. I suspect it will be a bit of a slog with long, flat, boring stretches, prevailing head winds, bad food, too much heat or too much cold, and no companionship. My old master, Yogi Bhajan, said.," Consciousness is your best friend and soul is your only strength" and that had better guide me in the weeks ahead. If it doesn't, if I rely just on the strength of this old body and the delights of the countryside, I could suffer an acute lack of joy.