Arizona

When I started Arizona, I was already still wearing down my knees, and have already lost weight at this point. I’m down to like <1% body fat it seems, and I’ve had cuts on my legs and arms that were from the first few weeks that still haven’t healed up. They scabbed over quickly, but because of the extreme exercise my body is too focused on healing muscles than it is to heal minor cuts and inflamed knees.

When talking to John Deustch about tour, he remarked that he rode only 3000 miles in 4 months, while I did over that in 2 months. Majority of people touring will ride 50-60 miles a day, with 3-5 days off in major cities or when seeing friends, while I was pushing 70-105 mile days, with only 1 or 2 off days each day.

I finished the tour last night, and slept all night, but still feel exhausted and tired. My knees constantly hurt for the last few weeks and continuing now, I’m always hungry (and I have been eating as often as possible, once every 2-3 hours), I just feel worn out. But it’s finished.

At this point now I just started my first round of calling people to be true to their pledges they made in March of donating a penny per mile, or $35 to rally.org/biketobefreetour, but I have little hope people will be true to their word. Talk is cheap. That doesn’t mean the tour didn’t have meaning or purpose though, raising awareness of human trafficking is extremely important and we did that. Ya’ll helped me do that, and I am very thankful.

By the time I got to Phoenix, my knees were shot. I met up with Jonny Brown of the band Papertowns.

I only met him through my friends in Creations. They’re coming out with a new EP in a few days, check them out!

So Jonny and I become instant bros. That evening we got our meal sponsored by Chipotle (thanks!) and the lunch was sponsored by Chic Fila (thanks!).

I typically go to sleep on this tour around sundown, between 8pm and 10pm, so at 11pm Jonny wants to visit friends so I tag along and soon realize it’s a party. And by midnight I’m passed out on the couch while a gaggle of Phoenicians (phoenixites? Phoenicians can’t be right, but lets roll with it) played beer pong. I woke up around 130 and sat outside on the porch with everyone smoking, and Jonny wasn’t drinking that night, but there were a few drunk girls going on and on about drama and just being drunk girls. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.

Being a drunk is one of the saddest characteristics someone can have. You have so much worth and you waste it on a bottle. I’ve been there. Strive for value, because you’re worth fighting for, and the pain may temporarily be numbed and you might find attention from the wrong crowd, but seek respect. It lasts longer and there is honor in respect, there is no honor in drunkenness. That night made me want to edge, and I might. Still debating it. I just have found as this tour went on the more and more I don’t want to drink. I had a beer with Justin last night and only took a few sips, I just have lost interest in it. I’m not against people drinking, and I think it’s biblical, but I just think it’s something for now at this season I just don’t really have interest in. And I know when I turned 21 for a few months I would often drink to get drunk and make a fool of myself with my friends, whether dropping someone while two-stepping, or being pretentious and obnoxious. I haven’t been drunk since March, and I don’t really plan on it again. I just made a fool of myself and I was actually on tour with MOTS at the time, and really disappointed them and gave a bad representation to the band I was merching for on that tour. So I don’t drink on music tour anyways, and it’d be a way to set myself apart, even for just this season.

Edge, or sxe, or XXX is short for Straight Edge. Which is a lifestyle choice where you abstain from alcohol, drugs for recreational use, and smoking. Typically in the hardcore scene it is seen as arrogant pride, but not always. There’s a sect of sxe thats called POSI, or positive, which is just abstinence of those substances without judgement of others who use them.

This one time I was trying to look up the XXX hardcore symbol for edge, and I just googled “xxx” and I got some surprising results, not what I was looking for. So I tried looking up “hardcore xxx” trying to look for the hardcore punk symbol for edge. Even worse results!! (don’t do it!) Finally I had to look up straight edge xxx to find it. That was an interesting little search.

Since I dropped my iPod in the toilet at Lawton, I have only had a few albums on my iPhone to listen to. Including 1 sermon. And I listened to that 1 sermon over and over again over the last few weeks. It felt like a first century church, where they didn’t have any scripture except like 1 letter that Paul to wrote to them in Corinth, but man they read that 1 letter over and over again and studied it and memorized it. How often do we take for granted the access to scripture or sermons? It’s humbling. I feel so small sometimes in the scheme of things. As Americans we don’t have many problems, we get upset if our iPhone YouTube videos don’t load fast enough. It’s going into space and coming down from a satellite into your phone and I’m upset it isn’t loading fast enough? There are people without water and I complain about not having fast enough wifi. It’s silly in perspective.

So the next day while Jonny was at work I left his apartment looking for a church. I’m wearing short sleeves at the time, and man it was so stinking hot in Phoenix! I quickly realized the next church was miles away and it was too hot to walk, so I asked the first person I saw (on her way to work) to give me a lift to a church, she asked why, I laughed and mentioned the tour and that I just really want to attend church it’s Sunday and she declined quickly, so I just went back to Jonny’s apartment and cleaned until he got home.

Jerome texted me Saturday night and said he’d be passing through Flagstaff if I needed a lift, but I was in Phoenix. Jonny was actually already planning on visiting his parents in Flagstaff Sunday evening so I just went with him to Flagstaff, where his parents blessed us with a nice dinner, a fancy lunch, and financial donation to help the tour. Thanks!

Now this might seem a little weird, so let me explicate. Joe Kurmaskie writes in the Metal Cowboy, that it’s perfectly acceptable to get rides. That it is better to enjoy the experience than to do something that is dangerous, stupid, or completely against your wants. Life is too short. Some more EXTREME riders will say that is extremely taboo, while most tourists, like Chris Clabundy, Kim Yung Sun, John Deustch, don’t have a problem with it. And neither do I. Me riding through the Arizona desert, where it’s 80 miles in between gas stations or stops, in the desert in 90+ degree heat, alone, is too freaking dangerous. Especially with my knees and body the way it is. I probably had about 1 last good day of riding in me before I had to stop.

I should’ve stopped in California, honestly. But despite the pain I pressed on.

Jerome canceled, so I just decided to go to the gas station. I was wondering whether or not to do this, if this was of the Lord, or if I should keep going on what to do, but I don’t think all these opportunities that line up perfectly would happen without a reason, and the fact that Mr and Mrs Brown blessed the pants off me wasn’t coincidence either, and I took it as affirmation that this was the path I needed to choose.

So I ride to the nearest truck stop, and immediately sharp pains shoot through my knees. I ride for another mile, and I actually turn back to just ride to his parents house. They offered to just give me a bus ticket to Albuquerque and at the time it seemed pretty tempting. I get almost to their house and turn around and decide, no, I need to finish this last leg. I ride through the pain to the nearest truck stop a few miles away and the first people I ask are on their way to ABQ and offer to let me ride in the bed of their truck. So I took that as a providence sign of the Lord that this was what I am to do.

They drop me off in Sanders, AZ. and I ride from Sanders to Gallup, NM that day. It was the first day I had to ride off a paved road onto a dirt road, it got really chilly really fast and had to wear all my northface jackets and gloves and pants to stay warm.

Often on the road when riding across America, I would turn around and see the “WRONG WAY” signs, and it would actually be really encouraging, wrong way, don’t look back, keep going. When I ride at night it has become habit to take the reflective flag off the front of my hat and stick it on the velcroe on the back so lights can be reflected off it. Lights reflected off my jacket, wheels, and bags too. My lights are so bright I can see signs 2 football fields ahead. When cars pass me, they gave me plenty of room often going to the far left lane to do so.

At one point I just turned off my front lights when on an empty state road (road 118 in AZ) and turned me hat around so the brim wouldn’t block the night sky. It was gorgeous. Thousands of dots in the sky, looking down at me. From front to back, side to side, complete darkness except the occasional car passing by, the dots in the sky, and the dim glow of city lights in the horizon encouraging me to keep going, that I’m almost to the city, glimmering signs of hope and motivation.

My knees are killing me at this point on the trip, but I just wanted to finish out this final leg.

A car last night actually flashed their brights on me and started to slowly creep behind me, and then next to me, and then finally drove off but because I was so distracted by them I missed my turn and ended up on I-40 again and quickly got off as soon as possible, but there were almost no cars/trucks on that trip (probably because it was memorial day) and it was really nice and peaceful. A good finale.

So Justin Lauer picked me up from Gallup, NM and we drove to Albuquerque where I am at now sitting on his bed typing this. He is on his phone, checking instagram, probably wondering how many likes his picture got and what hash tags to use next, and I’m just resting. About to visit friends we met in ABQ a few weeks ago. Then I’ll ship my bike out in a few days and fly home this week, then going on a weekend tour run with MOTS to Arkansas, then I’ll be home for 2 weeks, then volunteering at a special needs camp like I do every year, and then heading out on tour with MOTS June-28 til TBA. Should be back by July 25th at the latest though.

I’ll post a video talking about my final touring gear for Andrew Spurlin, who requested it and I’m sure other people would like to see that, and then I’ll keep you updated on what money we raise. There should be another 400 coming in from the Springfield, MO benefit show, and then all the pledges that people made are starting to come in. Let’s hope this works out, ya’ll.

I’ll keep you updated in a few weeks what is going on.

Thank you for your support.