When the World Wide Web was in its infancy we were all very idealistic about how it would be used. Most of the early sites were universities and for a while academia ruled. Tim Berners-Lee of course was an academic and envisioned the web as an information management system. When I brought up the first web server at Southern Oregon University the earliest content was from professors posting their research papers.
Lieb's Log
I'm noticing that many of us are reacting to another Trump presidency about the same as we did the first time. Resistance best describes it. We keep calling out the lies, the incompetence, the meanness, hoping that, magically, enough people are going to wake up, and rise up, and somehow keep this country, and the world, from going over the cliff it is currently speeding towards. But I'm not sure we grasp the fundamental difference between his victory this time around and that of 2016.
Many people, including myself, are fleeing Facebook and starting to use Bluesky. Bluesky is nice, but in it's efforts to be a reincarnation of the old Twitter it has imposed a 300 character post limitation. So if I want to write anything of substance I need to do it here, and then link to it on Bluesky. The upside of that is that I can also link from other platforms, like FB.
I've been putting off sharing this story. I hardly know how to tell it. Once I made the decision to bail on the tour and fly home I had a lot of tasks to accomplish to make that happen.
- Book flight
- Rent a car to get to airport
- Ship bike
- Ship gear
I could have flown out of Tupelo but I thought it would be easier to drive to Nashville and fly from there. That way I would also be able to drive the rest of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
After a rest day in Natchez yesterday, I woke up this morning to severe thunderstorms and tornado watch. Well I ain't going nowhere. Call me a wimp but I'm riding this one out in my dry motel room. While I'm sure it's not an uncommon experience for cycle tourist to have to lay low and wait out inclement weather, it's just never happened to me before. In Oregon and Washington, where I've done most of my touring, getting caught in the rain may be unpleasant, but it is rarely life threatening.
I left St. Augustine on March 20, and crossed into Alabama on April 5. The weather was almost perfect with most days in the mid 70's. Only one day of rain which was a layover day in Tallahassee. I had many more days of tailwinds than of headwinds. I rode many really nice bike paths, some quiet country roads, and far too many busy highways. I never felt unsafe on the road as traffic was for the most part very respectful. I met some wonderful Warm Showers hosts, stayed in a couple of scenic campgrounds, and one really nice "old Florida" style motel.
Week one recap. I left St. Augustine a week ago and rode 316 miles to Tallahassee, and I'm only half way across the panhandle of Florida. I've stayed with fantastic Warm Showers hosts 3 nights, a couple of nice campgrounds, and a couple of motels. I've seen a lot of egrets, herons, turkeys, peacocks, and vultures. Florida is big on vultures. I've also seen bright red cardinals, which was a real treat. I've seen a lot of American flags, but relatively few Trump signs. I've seen 3 Israeli flags and one Ukrainian flag. Also lots of Florida flags.
Today I crossed the Suwannee River on my ride across Florida. Yes it is the Su - WA - nee River, not the Swanee River as Stephen Foster called it. Riding along you have plenty of time to think about stuff and so I spent a lot of time thinking about "The old folks at home". It's a song we all learned as kids, well before we learned about slavery. The lyrics had even been doctored to meet modern sensibility. But the song is indeed about how good life was "on the old plantation".
I added a new View to the system to tally up my touring stats. Here is what I have as of March 2024. My first tour was in 2005 so not quite 20 years. This includes overnight tours.
St. Augustine to Corvallis. There's a lot of country in between. I decided I could leave earlier in the spring if I started on the ACA Southern Tier, which starts in St. Augustine and heads west along the gulf coast. The other option would have been to head north along the Atlantic to the start of the ACA TransAm in Virginia.
I envisioned this as a road and rails-to-trails tour, with the occasional gravel road if it gets me away from traffic. I'm not planning any rugged bikepacking like the Oregon Outback, so I figured the Soma Saga was the best bike for the tour. The Saga worked well on my six days down the coast in 2022. But it needed work.
It's now late February. On March 11 I fly to Florida. I'll spend a week visiting family and then hop on my bike and ride home.
Yesterday I posted on Facebook about the well know reggae song and the psalm 137 it was based on. Today I want to dive into that a little deeper.. I read through psalm 137 a few more times and looked at some newer translations (other than the one by the old English king). The psalm can be be broken into three sections.
It's New Years Eve 2023. My last post was just after Joe Biden was elected president in November of 2020. I guess I've been happy enough with the way things were progressing that I haven't felt the need to write anything. I suppose were many things I could have written about.
Although Joe Biden came out on top the election was much closer than anyone had imagined. Democrats could not imagine that so many people would be willing to overlook Trump's racism, his lies, and his handling of the corona virus to ever vote for the man. Yet close to half of the country did. It seems this country is hopelessly divided with little chance of finding common ground. Is this really true? It certainly is if you listen to the political rhetoric. Republicans think Democrats are all radical leftists who want to take their money and give it to immigrants.
This recent opinion piece predicts that Trump will resign for a deal that shields him and his criminal empire (a.k.a. his family) from prosecution.
Not good enough!
The many faces of my Rawland Ravn
This bike is very versatile. I got this bike primarily for gravel road touring but I also wanted to be able to do unloaded rides in the woods and trails locally. I've played around with a lot of different configurations trying to find the ideal setup. It handles them all very well.
New bike naked. As light and free as it would get.
... and all the joy within you dies. It was 1967 when Grace Slick belted out those lyrics. 1967 certainly was a pivotal year for me. My first daughter was born in April and 4 months later I packed up our young family and left our home town of Long Beach, NY and headed for the sunny shores of San Diego. I don't think I was fully aware of just how deep those lies ran for at least another year or so but when it hit home, it hit hard. Growing up in the 1950s we were all feed this beautiful fantasy about America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.