Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Katie Couric. (On screen they spelled my name wrong, it turns out, but that was another
thing I didn't know until I got home.) Twenty minutes or so after Katie signed off, I was
pedaling along when a station wagon passed me and screeched over to the shoulder of
the road, blocking my path. A woman got out tugging her small son, six or eight years
old, by the arm, and slung him toward me. “May I take a picture of him with you?” she
asked.
I was still mulling over the meaning of this when I stopped for breakfast at a restaur-
ant in the next town. I walked in carrying my helmet, and the diners began applauding.
For this trip, I'll be blogging regularly on the
Times
's website and sending out brief
updates on Twitter, my first ever venture into social media. We'll see how that goes; like
most reporters from the Pleistocene era, I'm curious about and fearful of this in equal
measure, not sure what I'll be inviting. The whole reader-friendly aspect of online journ-
alism is something that reporters often discuss. We get a lot of helpful stuff from read-
ers who, with the convenience of email, now write to us, and overall the close scrutiny
of our readership keeps us well warned about ever growing lazy, but we're also heaped
with a lot of scorn, disparagement, and complaint from those who live to play gotcha,
decry the incompetence or bias of the media, or simply send maledictions into the world.
Certainly one unexpected consequence of the cyber age is how much unprovoked venom
it has let loose. Pandora lives on the web.
Like last time, I'm starting in the West for two reasons—because the prevailing wind
blows west to east (though expecting the wind to assist you is foolish) and because home
is such a compelling destination. The idea of celebrating the finish by putting my feet
up on my own coffee table is irresistible.
In 1993, I started in Marin County, California, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge
(which I actually crossed the day before, just to be able to say I did); this time I'm push-
ing off farther up the Pacific Coast, riding initially in Oregon and Washington. The plan
is to stay north, mostly because it'll be cooler, and because the only state I've never set
foot in is North Dakota; I want to fix that. (Full disclosure: My only trespass in Hawaii
was in the Honolulu airport. I'm counting it.) For some reason, I'd like to visit Lake
Itasca, in Minnesota, the source of the Mississippi River. After that, we'll see.
One concession I've made to my age is a new bicycle, which I had custom-built to my
precise dimensions and for the precise purpose of this journey. It cost about as much as
a good—very good—used car. Not to be coy: the price was about $8,000.
As for other FAQs:
