Something Different 64

If I knew then (pick a date in the past) what I know now, I’d do things differently.  This is a universal story involving 20/20 hindsight.  In this specific case, I’d have used the tag “Great Loop” whenever it would have applied. 

In less than a short nine minutes, you can meet an unforgettable guy, Great Looper and so much more, who goes by Duker.  Click on the photo below to hear his story, He doesn’t get to a mention of a river trip until about the 3:50 minute mark, but the lead up is worth it too. The idea of a river trip led to his doing the Great Loop on a jet ski.  His trip–Minneapolis to Minneapolis–was over 6000 miles.

Dave Pike did the same loop in a 14’9″ RIB, a Walker Bay Generation 450.  It’s a lot of read but all his blog posts are here. A shorter version of the story can be read here. Steve Chard kayaked it!!  Nat Stone did it and more in a row boat.

I guess I’m tuning into these stories for a reason.  My Omaha trip had complications and didn’t satisfy the wanderlust.  Last year around this day I finished my bike trip along the Erie Canal here.

What I’m reading now is also telling, and I recommend it:  West of Wheeling:  How I quit My Job, Broke the Law, & Biked to a Better Life by Jeffrey Tanenhaus.  An excellent hour-long interview with the author can be heard here. My one-sentence synopsis is this:  The book tells the story of a frustrated urbanite who decides to pedal a CitiBike ride-share bicycle, which he attempted unsuccessfully to lease, from New York City to Los Angeles and discovered where he wanted to move to in the process.   You can order the book here.

Finally, I’m moved by all your responses to my revealing that I’m looking for a path to a sabbatical.  Thanks all.  I did not necessarily mean to turns off the lights here immediately.  I value the community you’ve created by participating too much to just turn off the lights.   Again, thank you.  And a fork in a road/trail/waterway just seems like a fork as you approach it;  once you choose what comes next and proceed, there no longer seems to be a fork until you come to the next decision point.

And unrelated:  I’ve enjoyed many of Sal Mercogliano’s WGOWS, but an installment I find especially interesting is this one about Amazon Prime chartering self-unloading vessels and docking them at non-container ports.  Listen to it here. WGOWS expands to “what’s going on with shipping?”

Finally you know what day it is today;  here‘s my tribute.