Easily the hardest part of the trip is the initial departure. There's a lot of procrastination before you go, and a lot of hesitation because it's the only day you'll be able to call it off and go back easily. At least that's how it feels. The apprehension before leaving is harder than any actual toiling along the trip. For those interested, the first song I listened to was David Axelrod's "Jimmy T."
Waycross, Georgia
The South is fucking hot. It's only the second night and I'm cheating and staying in a hotel. The last place I stayed was a small house in Valdosta. Valdosta seemed like any other small rural city or big town I've ever seen: a highway, an Applebees, and a university I've never heard of. The people I stayed with were nice. I stayed with a guy named Val Stado and his roommate, both of whom I had seen before at some bike races in Tallahassee.
After getting lost between Tallahassee and Valdosta, I made it in after dark and was found by Val. We went to some pizza parlor where his friends were waiting. Val, his roommate, and most of his friends had tattoos along their arms causing them to get profiled while riding around that night. Someone with tattoos had committed some unnamed crime on the local campus and had cops pulling over any tattooed brunettes.
At dinner, I kept trying to figure out how this small population of twenty or so hipsters popped up in the middle of a small town. I couldn't figure out if they congregated together because of shared interests or if they shared interests because they were friends. Valdosta is a big enough place to sustain a group like that, but what happens to all the proto-hipsters in vats growing in smaller towns? Do they never develop those interests or do they never express them for lack of similar kids? Either way, I'm not the only one who thought this. Two guys from Valdosta University were there interviewing Val about the local bike scene before I left. They interviewed me about my trip too, so I'll see if I can ever get that video on here.
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