Streaking Across America

To a more settled Caribbean life...

2008-08-24T20:38:00.003-04:00

Thanks to all the folks who helped me along this last stretch of my journey. I appreciate you so much.

Come visit me in Belize. I'll keep stretching in the meantime.

TRANS-ASIAN ODYSSEY: Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Armenia

2008-07-17T17:15:00.004-04:00

A wonderful, phantasmagoric, cross-continental journey (yes, partly in Europe) that included a Shinto wedding, eating pork fat with illegal fishing militia on the shores of Lake Baikal, and much meditation on idealism, destruction and renewal.

Lenin heads are ubiquitous. This one happens to be the largest among them, in Ulan-Ude, Siberia.

Ms. Susie Armitage riding the Moscow metro, most efficient and thoroughly used in the world.

One of many ancient monasteries in Armenia, overlooking the beautiful Lake Sevan.

Return to Central America

2008-07-17T16:35:00.006-04:00

I just spent three weeks helping lead a service project with FUCOHSO and St. Mark's Episcopal Church of Washington in Trinidad, Honduras. We built played with kids, danced to ranchera music in the mountains, made tree nurseries, and built chicken coops and wood-saving stoves. We also abstained from bathing for almost a week, due to water supply problems (meanwhile we were pummeled by tropical storms outside).

Then, a whirlwind 8-day tour of my haunts in Guatemala with my friend Ian. We could now both compete with Kobayashi in any poorly-conceived eating competition. Tomorrow we take off for Utah on our bikes. Wish us luck.

Oklahoma to New Mexico

2008-07-17T16:22:00.004-04:00

I was spat out by the OK panhandle after a rough spanking and landed in enchantment for
my 27th birthday. Thanks, Judy, Kenny, Kyle and Bree!

Contemplating Kaleidoscopes in the Sponge Capital of the World.

2008-05-08T21:42:00.003-04:00

About the invention of the kaleidoscope: http://www.kaleidoscopestoyou.com/hiofka1.html

Family and friends,

I have tried many times to compose a mass email to you all and have always felt it inadequate. For those of you who don't know, I left a wonderful existence in DC on March 3 to bike around the U.S. My reasons for doing this are still difficult to articulate, especially to curious folks along the road. "Is this for some benefit?" or "You lost, son?"are common questions. Fair enough, since I am unable to present myself as anything other than a ragamuffin and my bike getup is a hodgepodge of trinkets I've been given or things I've accumulated on the road. My goals are simple: to see people I miss that are scattered around the country, to be healthy, to spend a lot of time on my bike, to explore America and a little of the great beyond. You could say I took the easy route; it is impossible for me not to achieve these goals on my bike. I have engineered a journey that satisfies them all. That is, unless I get hit by a semi. (I have a running 'black list' of counties with disappearing highway shoulders)

So far I've wound my way through Piedmont to Tidewater Virginia and the Outer Banks of North Carolina with my dear friend Barrett; past inky cypress swamps and broken-down sharecropper cabins covered in spring blossoms in South Carolina and central Georgia; through the dry prairie and intoxicating citrus groves of Florida. I've seen an obscene variety of roadkill, fauna changing with latitude and longitude. I've been blessed to be hosted by some wonderful people: the Arnolds in Gloucester VA, Ben in Durham NC, Mary in Folly Beach SC, Dan and Maria in Macon GA, Emily in Fernandina Beach FL, Abby in Lorida FL, Gretchen and fam in Fruitville FL, and now Jonathan and Concepcion in Tarpon Springs FL. You've helped me process my journey to a degree I can't express, and taught me about community from your own. I've also had the opportunity to get some much needed rest and use this communication machine to reconnect a bit.

Biking is exhilarating and refreshing on most days. My mind hovers on particular impressions, flits back and forth among memories of people and places to a certain cadence, not unlike the movement of beetles along asummer highway. I try to whistle, but sometimes that requires more energy and skill than I can muster. Then there are moments when I'm bent to the pavement, cursing the bursitis in my left knee and my dysfunctional bike trailer tire, glowering at storm clouds or considering trading in my crate for a gunrack. I can always visualize the next hit of Gatorade waiting for me at the next country store. I love seeing the open sky each night, and often pretend the stars are souls like yours beaming down on me, recharging my body and spirit.

There is so much I could share, but I'll have to leave you with the simple blog below (please don't ask me to improve it- a huge undertaking for this Luddite!). It has an interactive map and slideshow of photos I will occasionally update. Much lies in between and will have to be shared in personal correspondence. http://www.streakacrossamerica.blogspot.com [Note: No 'streaking' on this trip yet, in the literal and figurative sense. I have only done so in 6% of theUnited States, previously. My average pace is somwehere between 12 and 15 mph...] I love and miss you all very much. Enjoy spring like it was your favorite ice cream cone.

- Kevin

See below for contact info and an itinerary. Come take a break from the primaries and meet me on the road.

"Get a bicycle. You will certainly not regret it, if you live." -Mark Twain

"I've never made 'Who's Who?', but I regularly appear in 'What's That?!'" - Anonymous

For those who live in DC, you can also listen in to DJ Utz and Bari's broadcast every other Sunday from 9 -11 PM on Radio CPR 97.5 FM. I will call in with a field report, hopefully with some live regional music. Next show is on April 13th. Tune in! (www.utzbari.blogspot.com)

2008-04-07T11:48:00.006-04:00

I miss you all very much.

Here's my tentative itinerary:

April 15th: Pensacola, FL

April 20th: New Orleans, LA

April 25th: Houston, TX

April 29th: Austin, TX

Early May: in central OK and the panhandle

May 15th: Santa Fe, NM

May 20th: Los Angeles, CA by train

May 21st - 27th: Japan (wedding in Osaka-not mine!, Kyoto]

May 28th - June 10th: Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia to Moscow, Russia by train

June 10th - June 18th: Russia, Georgia, Armenia

June 18th: fly back to US

June 20th - July 7th: Service project in Trinidad, Honduras with St Mark's Episcopal Church (Washington, DC)

July 8th - July 15th: Visit to Guatemala, including my Peace Corps site

July 17th - July 31st: Biking from New Mexico to Idaho

August 1st - 3rd: Wedding in upstate NY (not mine, again)

August 4th - September 19th: Crossing MT, ND and MN

September 20th: Wedding in Stillwater, MN (not mine either!)

End of September: Paddle in the Great Lakes?

October: Bike through IA, NB and KS? (depends on how massive my personal debt is)