A few things Sally and I have realized the past few months is we do not do well with downtime. We came from two busy careers, raised four kids and bought/built/sold several houses. Downtime is not a something we do well. We hauled Mariposa mid April, then spent a month doing boat projects to prepare for next season. The next month we spent on Jekyll Island house sitting while completing a few more boat projects. Once we ran out of boat projects the days began to grow longer and longer. At one point we decided to try and walk around the island on only the beach. That only took a few days, so then we decided to walk on all of the walking trails that spread over the island. A week later that was competed. Now what? I guess we could of attempted to swim about the island however much of that is marsh and very real idea of running into an alligator, we quickly passed on that foolish idea. It is not a very big island but in those few weeks we walked about 145 miles, dodged thunderstorms, changing tides and relentless bugs. Georga insects are no joke! If you want to check out our tracks you can see them here Jekyll Island Walkabout.

In a few days we fly to Columbus. Pull the bike out of storage, spend a week prepping it. Pack four months worth of clothes in a backpack and hit the long and windy road to the West Coast. Being homeless is not really a bad life. It does give us freedom to make the most out of our days.

We fill these walks with discussions about what is next, knowing that the end of hurricane season is another 5 months away, putting Mariposa back in the water was not the best idea. We talked about traveling to Europe to explore but with Covid & the war still lingering that was not the best choice. We could up our walking game and hike the Appalachian trail. It is a bit late in the season to make a reasonable attempt at that. We no longer have a car, so perhaps we could pick up a van and travel the US. With a bit of research, we quickly realized car prices are still insane, the camp grounds are totally full and gas prices only going up. So we shelved that idea. Out of the blue my incredibly adventurous wife suggested we ride the Harley across the US. We still own that and it would solve the issue of renting or buying a car. We have to visit our oldest daughter in Arizona so why not take it. I instantly wrote this idea off. When we purchased the Harley it was in Florida, and I remember flying down to ride it home with only a helmet and a backpack of tools. That trip consisted of 1200 miles over two days from southern Florida to Ohio, spanning the summer heat of Florida afternoons, and then navigating the late day thunderstorms followed by the cool nights in the mountains. Sounds fun right? Of coarse it does, the learning curve is small, I have ridden motorcycles as long as I have been able to walk and this seemed like the relaxing adventure we were looking for.