Charleston charge of our wrongs and our rights.
And I sing, and I want
Charleston charge of me!
Hey, I thought I was clever haha...onto more important matters.
First of all sorry for the delay and cryptic Facebook statuses we are still reeling from the goings on...but more about that in a bit.
Let me start with the positives as there are a lot about this trip and Charleston, here are some:
We really have been enjoying Charleston. The city is super manageable to walk around and explore, has a strong southern look and feel which is really enjoyable and the people are wonderful!
The southern hospitality is something I had heard of but not yet really experienced (other than being around some of my sweet-as-sweet-tea southern friends).
Liz and I have had greatly inspiring and fascinating encounters with interesting people each step of the way and also we have had intense and enlightening conversations just the two of us.
We have been laughing a lot.
The not as overtly positive (just a few of the issues):
A combination of inexperience, overzealousness and not knowing. We had a lot of weight in our bags since we had anticipated a long trip and the way it was packed ended up being problematic (based upon the type and set up of one of our bikes, leaving it very unsteady and unsafe). Think unicycle with bags strapped to it essentially...
We also thought that since we are super amazing people that 10 days in a row, which I think we can do, was a very tall order for ourselves given so many unknowns such as in a new location with roads we thought would be more scenic but ended up being more like, well, highways.
Without going into too much detail to avoid your boredom and tons of my own embarrassment about the trip not planning out, I'll just share the top line info. Once we got out of Charleston city limits, which was a scary and arduous process (walking bikes over a huge highway overpass as just one example) we thought we might be in the clear.
The road we were to start out on was a 4 lane highway with basically NO shoulder whig means we were driving essentially in a lane on the highway with cars and semis changing lanes to go around us. Once we picked up some speed the baggage weight became a problem that was more noticeable than at slower speeds leading up to this point. With a bike that was unmanageable (looked like it was flapping in the wind, which we now can laugh about, was suddenly clearly weighted wrong for propper steering) which was followed by a scary spill on the highway.
This was very scary but ended up okay as we got off the road quickly. Liz was so brave and legitimately was spiderman-like in how she scrambled off the road almost mid fall. Thankfully she didn't break anything, but has some pretty nasty bruises and scratches that make her look like a total bad ass.
I was behind her with enough distance to make some room so that cars had to go around me in order to make sure she was kind of protected and luckily no cars were in our lane at the time. I was pretty freaked to see her fall but in awe at how the human reflexes work...and beyond thankful it wasn't worse and I was there and could help her). At this point we realized it was just not safe to continue without some major adjustments.
Since we were already 4-5 days behind due to snow and bike arrival delays it made it very challenging and likely impossible to fix up the bike and gear, get on the road and get to our destination in time.
We spent a lot of time brainstorming and attempting to problem solve to make it possible to do some riding but it came down to a time constraint and to be honest an overall deflation of our motivation/drive/confidence/energy/etc.
If this could have been fixed and salvaged we would have but there ia a point that you have to cut your losses, accept that things haven't worked to plan and let it go.
We can also appreciate that with each false start the outcome ended up being a better alternative than had it worked in the first place...and maybe long term this will be the case. When we both muster up the energy and courage to try this again we will be much more experienced and prepared and maybe it will be like the delayed train, broken luggage carrier and other set back that we both agree worked in our favor.
I can't deny that my feelings are all over the board. I'm disappointed that we didn't accomplish all that we had set out to do and that we didn't master this trip and biking as planned. I'm thankful that neither of us was physically disfigured or major injured despite the small accident that occurred. I'm relieved that we quickly learned that this trip wasn't going to be feasible early enough that we could make an educated decision to postpone the adventure. I'm embarrassed that I was so confident in our adventure that it just not working never actually occures to me and that I wrote a blog about it for the world to see. I'm proud that I/we even had the guts and drive to attempt a trip like this in the first place. I'm happy this happened with Liz as I think this experience has brought us closer and more aware of our mutual respect and cousinly love.
So I feel lucky in a lot of ways since I even had the opportunity and, in a way, privilege to even try this.
It's a funny thing to think of that every step of the way that we were just not able to start. Maybe in a cosmic way this trip wasn't meant to happen this way and it is bringing us down another path that is better or we are avoiding some disaster by laying this attempt to rest.
OR it is just simply an attempt that didn't work with some funny, but frustrating, happenstance.
Either way, bikes are boxed up, we are on a train to hang out in Savannah for a couple days and then ship us (and the bikes) back to Boston.
Keep you posted on how Savannah is, I'm sure its lovely...much like Charleston (here are some pictures from around town more to come once I'm home).
Cheers and only cheers, ;)
Esther
ps. please pardon typos as I wrote this on my Droid with auto correct and no proofreading...that goes for my posts via the computer too haha :)
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5
No comments:
Post a Comment