Year In Review: March
March was an entirely different sack of squirrels than January and February.
I spent very little money in the first two months of the year. In March I spent about $2,500 on a bike and other assorted gear.
The expense wasn’t too big of a problem. I would save a ton roughing it. Stealth camping is free, and cyclist rates at most campgrounds are less than $15. The biggest drain on my pocket would be food. On a long distance cycling tour conventional wisdom says that you’ll need somewhere around twice your normal amount of calories. (I usually have to eat 3,500-4,500 calories to maintain weight.) That averages out to $30-$40 per day on food and a place to sleep, if you stick to self-prepared, healthy, calorie-dense food with an occasional splurge on a diner-type meal.
After crunching the numbers it became obvious that I could either starve to death on a 9-month round-the-globe trek, or I could cycle across the United States and maybe have enough money to start a new life on the west coast. I settled on the option that didn’t end with me dead in the middle of some desert in Australia.
So across the USA I planned to go. I bought maps and read dozens of trip logs. Launch date: March 31st!
About a week before I left I got a message from a woman on a dating site. She was fascinating, smart, funny, and absolutely gorgeous.
Did it make sense to meet her before I left? I was going to be gone for three months, if not forever. It definitely wasn’t optimal but, still, I was curious.
The night before I left, it turned out that we were planning to be in the same place at the same time. In the end my plans changed and I didn’t get to meet her that night. It was probably a good thing, too. I would have been so nervous between that and starting my trip in the morning it wouldn’t have been a good situation.
The morning of the 31st rolled around and off I went, down to Yorktown, VA to start my trek.
