Look For The Helpers

A Day of Leisure 3/27/2023

I languished in a real bed this morning until almost 8 and allowed myself the luxury of waking up slowly while stretching my body and mind into a state of semi-consciousness before getting up to drink coffee while I sat on an angular couch the color of nougat, which basically completed my agenda for the day. Odie and The Bob followed a similar path into the new day, and together we basked in the glow of doing nothing beyond sitting with a hot cup-o-joe, on non-descript government-issued furniture, in a carbon-copy government house located on a military base in the southwestern corner of Texas. The fact that Odie and I had ridden a bicycle 1,190 miles, and The Bob had driven in patient support of our atypical adventure, to arrive in this moment in this place seemed implausible, and yet we had.

By mid-morning we started to move into the realm of normal, day-to-day adult responsibilities by doing a little personal hygiene (something that had slid toward the bottom of the priority list while riding and camping), a little laundry, some grocery shopping, as well as assessing the contents of the OREM and salvaging what we could in preparation for the next phase. All of this was conducted in a slow and wonderfully unhurried motion.

Deborah got home from work in the early afternoon and quickly joined us in our full-blown inertia, and along the way she taught us how to make Tom Hank’s version of cocaine, which is a mix of Diet Coke (it must be diet) and Champagne. It sounds odd, but it’s actually delicious! Later in the afternoon, The Bob made pizza from scratch, which we washed down with cold beer and easy conversation. It was a good day.

Tomorrow will be more of the same, but I’ll also be giving Hank the Tank some much-needed TLC in the form of a good cleaning and lubrication session. Take care of your ride and you’ll go far, but if you don’t, you won’t! We’ll also be reorganizing the OREM for Wednesday’s early morning departure, even though such efforts will be completely thrown asunder by Wednesday afternoon.

Before I close for the night, I want to share a few words from a wise sage, words that have become reality many times since we left San Diego. Fred Rogers, a.k.a. Mr. Rogers, would always tell his audience to “look for the helpers” when they were scared or afraid, and to date, our journey has been filled with “helpers.”  This hasn’t gone unnoticed, even if we were too tired in the moment to express our gratitude. Know that we’ll do our best to “pay it forward” every chance we get. The world may feel like it’s spinning out of control at times, but if we let the light of kindness show us the way, things will get better, I promise…