To give you an idea, here is how the first day of owning a bike went. It started off well when, on my first proper travel day from New Orleans to Birmingham, I almost lost my bike completely. I had arrived at the station 30 minutes in advance, instead of the 60 minutes recommended on my ticket. Upon arriving, I was immediately told that they would no longer be able to load my bike onto the train.

“You’re too late,” the Amtrak employee behind the counter told me. She was speaking to me through a plastic shield, one of the few artifacts to remind us of the Covid pandemic not too long again.
At this point I was too tired, sweaty and dehydrated from lugging my heavy baggage around to really make much of a point (nobody had even boarded at that point), and besides it was on me for arriving too late.
I attempted to plead, but I could tell that my heart wasn’t quite into it. I had no case to stand on and besides, I had just learned that Amtrak employees are already overworked enough as is so it seemed unfair adding more pressure to an already underappreciated employee. So when I was made to choose between rebooking my ticket to a train the day after or getting on today but letting them put the bike on the next Birmingham-bound train, I gave in and chose for the latter. I was to arrive in Birmingham bike-less, and that on my first day – this didn’t bode well for the rest of my trip.

An unexpected phone call

Once I got to Birmingham, I made my way to the local bus station to catch a bus to the motel up in Homewood. I must admit I was secretly quite pleased to be without my bike, on account of it being darker and colder than I had assumed. Down in New Orleans, I had already begun to swap out my summer clothing for my fall gear and further up north, I almost seemed due for winter jackets (the thought of a winter in Canada terrified me at that point, as I had grown accustomed to the desert heart in Arizona). The prospect of essentially getting driven up to my humble abode up in the hills filled me with immeasurable joy, especially since the bus driver let me on for free. You can imagine the horror on my face when five minutes into my journey I suddenly got an anonymous call demanding to know why I hadn’t picked up my bike at the station. The following conversation went a little bit like this:

“Your bike is waiting for you.”
“What, in NYC? Already? How?”
“No, in Birmingham.”
“But it wasn’t supposed to be on the train at all?!” I hurriedly checked the paper slip they gave me in New Orleans, the word LATE being written on with a thick marker and a heavy hand. 
“Well, it’s here now.” He offered little understanding in his tone.
“But… I’m currently on my way out of Birmingham.” I looked outside and couldn’t see much beyond the evening slowly setting in, obscuring the medium-high buildings around me. 
He continued to tell me that if I wasn’t here to retrieve it as soon as I inhumanly could, I would have to find my prized possession in New York City instead.
“If you’re not here before the train leaves again,” he started, my heart now pumping in my chest as I scrambled all of my stuff together “your bike will leave without you.” At this point I essentially jumped off the bus (almost quite literally), and began speed walking my way back to the Amtrak station. Why oh why, did I get a bike?

Downsizing on the way

Fifteen minutes later, with sweat once more padded between my back and my backpack, I was back at the station pacing back and forth in front of a shut Amtrak desk. A sense of frustration was running through my body. This is fun, I convinced myself as the man I had spoken to on the phone emerged from the corner and handed my blue Huffy bike back to me a few minutes later. I begrudgingly put the heavy saddlebags and backpack back on, started my Maps (steep hills, it warned) and set off into the darkness. 

In the book Into the Woods by Bill Bryson there is a scene where his hiking partner Stephen Katz empties his pack on the way up the mountain as they’re hiking the Appalachian Trail. He discards their necessary bottles of water as well as their food and clothes, leaving behind a trail of goods as he huffs and puffs his way up. At the time of reading that, I had chuckled at the idea of it. How ridiculously stupid, I thought. Well, I must admit that cycling up that hill, similar tendencies ran through my brain. My valued books which I had once thought of as portals into different worlds were now nothing more than useless wads of heavy paper weighing me down as I navigated my way up that never-ending hill. I even began to think of my collection of socks and underwear as luxury goods… perhaps I could just do my laundry more often? Did I really need four t-shirts? Surely two pants was overkill. After sitting in front of a shut church for well over ten minutes, mentally picking my way through all my possessions, I decided to laboriously push my bike up the mountain instead – yes, I was so tired that by now the slope in front of me had grown into a challenge comparable to Mount Everest.

On top of the mountain

I arrived at the motel an hour later, sticky with sweat (a recurring pattern, you’ll find) and panting heavily into the night. All my goods had survived the journey, for now – a few days later, I did end up chucking out my old shoes that did nothing but give me blisters, my favorite pair of shorts that I wasn’t going to be able to wear now that I was making my way up North, a worn down pair of socks filled with holes beyond my repairing skills, and the book Deep South that I probably wasn’t going to finish anyway. I checked in while making small talk with the kind receptionist on shift, daydreaming about my mattress but pleased to be ending my day with a fun conversation.

He wore his brown hair in a long ponytale that moved from left to right as he spoke, his hands moving along to the rhytmn of his intonation. His deep amber eyes excuded kindness and I instantly decided to trust this talkative man whose Southern accent was sometimes so thick that I managed to mistake words like “cursed” for “curbed”. My new acquaintance gave me some recommendations of things to check out in Birmingham and Atlanta during my limited time there, among which were the fast-food chain Cookout whose hushpuppies truly ended up being delicious and the Varsity down in Atlanta. We briefly discussed the upcoming Thanksgiving celebrations which I personally didn’t celebrate on account of being a Non-American alone in a motel, and he didn’t celebrate on account of being part Native American. “It’s a genocidal holiday,” he told me as I nodded away in agreement. We wished each other good night and I made my way to my private room, my bike slash temporary roommate in tow. 

I ended my day by walking down to a Hardee’s, a fast-food chain more common in the Southern and Midwestern parts of the U.S., got a pack of cheap cigarettes at a gas station (I simply had to smoke at least in cigarette next to an ice machine in front of a motel, my experience wouldn’t be complete without it), and hiked my way back up the hill. My legs were sore, but not painful, and the clean chilled forest air filled my lungs. I saw my first possum staring at me from the darkness until it scurried back into the bushes, and in that moment everything that had happened that day in the way it had, was suddenly completely worth it. It was made even more special by the fact that I had cycled my way up here – all by myself.