Previous Trips I've made.

Growing up in super-flat, treeless, waterless, South Texas, a 28 day vacation when I was 8 years old changed my life in a way. I spent a month in places that far outshone my rather drab hometown. So, 34 years later, God allowed me, and my whole family to move 800 miles east to the Smoky Mountains of Tenn., an area that I had visited years before. Though I would love to travel the world, there is still a bunch of the US east coast that still needs to be discovered. And though I would love to travel all over, the Smoky Mountains are wonderful enough to come home to.



First Single trip



         After graduating high school, I took off one day on my bicycle with a homemade, wooden framed backpack that my brother had made for himself. (yes, I rode a bike while leaning over from the weight of a pack on my back) I went about 40 miles west through a heavy, steady wind at my face. I ended up that night in a state park just a half mile from the swampy, mosquito-ridden Rio Grande., app. 80 miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico. Though I had a sleeping bag, I swatted flies all night and got no sleep. This, remember, was after fighting a strong headwind all day. I was so eaten up and beaten down, I sadly called my father the next morning and he drove an hour just to pick me up and take me home.



Second Single trip



         A year later, 1978, just days after I finished my freshman year in college, I set off again on my bicycle and headed home, 400 miles across Texas. Along the way, I stayed two nights with a county sheriff, and saw the insides of my first jail. I also met the G-Grandmother of a clan who would 6 years later have their 3500 acre ranch raided by federal marshalls and have a slave ranch operation exposed. (Trust me, google it.) I also attended a San Antonio Historical Society meeting wearing blue-jeans and tennis shoes. I was highly underdressed. Also, I spent two nights in the Baptist Camp I spent 8 weeks of my childhood in. This is where my eternity changed by confessing my sinfulness to Jesus Christ. Then, my trip was cut short because of the death of one of my closest uncles. I never had a flat tire, and never got rained on the entire trip, except on the last day on Greyhound, heading home. It was an hour long deluge.


First trip with a friend


 In the fall of my second year in college, 1978, my roommate, David, and I took off on bicycle for a football game, 100 miles away. We left shortly after noon and rode 35 miles. The next day we rode the other 65 miles and went to an evening game which our college Angelo State Rams, soundly won against Howard Payne. A friend brought our bikes back to where we lived.


Second trip, with friends


Two years later, I and two college buddies,  took off on bicycle from just south of Ft. Worth Texas heading to the Smoky Mountains and Knoxville Tenn. My two riding buddies were Pat and David, David being the previously mentioned roommate. Pat's brother lived in Knoxville at the time, and well, we had a free summer. So we rode about 12 days, and 400 miles and got as far as Monroe, La. While staying the night before in a motel room in Ruston, La. we decided to cut our trip short. We rode the next day into Monroe, tore the bikes apart, put them in boxes, and hopped on Greyhound. From there we spent all night until evening the next day on a crowded bus and was picked up in Knoxville by Pat's brother. While there, we borrowed the brother's car and drove up into the Roanoke, Va area where my father was born and spent two days with a great-aunt of mine. In all, the three of us were gone for a whole 4 weeks on a once in a lifetime trip.

Total, I have biked over 950 miles, almost half of it on my own.

No, I have never made a cross-country walk, but these four trips have hopefully mentally prepared me for something crazy like a cross-state walk.