This wasn't supposed to happen to me. I don't even know where to get treatment for it. I'm talking about becoming addicted to travel blogs. A journal junkie. No, not RV travel blogs. They're nice folks, but their notion of travel is un-adventuresome to the extreme, as is the case with about any motor-vehicle culture. With RV culture, old age makes it even worse. Nor have I gotten hooked on the young world-vagabonder blogs; hitchhiking around the globe and staying in youth hostels is something I just can't relate to.
Rather, it's the bicycle touring blogs that have hooked me, even though I loathe tent camping and high-traffic highways. Perhaps the key to enjoying any subculture is to discount or laugh off 95 percent of it as uninteresting or uncomfortable stereotypes, and then look for the 5 percent that is juicy and interesting.
Deja vu helped too. When I was being drawn into dog culture I went to an agility trial for the first time, and was really entertained. The dogs who screwed up were the most interesting. The same thing tends to happen in the bicycle touring blog genre.
For instance some bloggers are taking their first tour and are woefully ill-equipped and naive. What, the wind blows from the west most of the time? That never would have occurred to them as they set off riding from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Or they ride the Continental Divide route with little appreciation of altitude, the monsoon season, or goatheads in the Southwest. It's a hoot to watch people make astounding discoveries such as: mornings are less windy, hot, and thunderstormy than afternoons. Gee, the guys writes as he is thinking out loud, Maybe I should start riding across the Mojave Desert in June as early as sunrise!
The armchair traveler can get some real kicks seeing people mess up and then dig their way out of it. There are travelers who are marvelous at improvising. The local tours by beginners are the best of all. The other day I even found one guy who took off with only a vague goal, and then asked locals about road traffic. He kept finding quiet roads, pastures and barns. That was a masterful job. Anybody can do it if they avoid the great besotting vice of getting obsessed with excess mileage, and then have deadlines, destinations, and airline tickets breathing down their neck for two months.
Rather, it's the bicycle touring blogs that have hooked me, even though I loathe tent camping and high-traffic highways. Perhaps the key to enjoying any subculture is to discount or laugh off 95 percent of it as uninteresting or uncomfortable stereotypes, and then look for the 5 percent that is juicy and interesting.
Deja vu helped too. When I was being drawn into dog culture I went to an agility trial for the first time, and was really entertained. The dogs who screwed up were the most interesting. The same thing tends to happen in the bicycle touring blog genre.
For instance some bloggers are taking their first tour and are woefully ill-equipped and naive. What, the wind blows from the west most of the time? That never would have occurred to them as they set off riding from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Or they ride the Continental Divide route with little appreciation of altitude, the monsoon season, or goatheads in the Southwest. It's a hoot to watch people make astounding discoveries such as: mornings are less windy, hot, and thunderstormy than afternoons. Gee, the guys writes as he is thinking out loud, Maybe I should start riding across the Mojave Desert in June as early as sunrise!
In some ways it is a vice to study and think too much. Maybe it would be better to be more like crazy college kids who just take off, and stumble into one "Tom Jones" (Henry Fielding) misadventure after the next. They bounce well at that age.
Comments
Have you outgrown boondocking and roaming to the point of finding vicarious relief on bike blogs? What happened to taking to the trail/backroad and blogging your own adventure... the way you'd do it? We ain't getting any younger now, are we?
That's what I'm afraid of: that I've substituted vicarious (armchair) travel on cycle touring blogs for the real thing.
I haven't outgrown boondocking; I've just decided that I don't want to buy a new van and travel trailer.
That only leaves two options that I can think of: 1. get a four-banger pickup truck, a cap, customize it, and take short hub-and-spoke trips.
2. Remain carless, and become a bicycle tourer.