Yeah that doesn’t really make sense, but neither does the article, so why not?
[Note: this is another one of those rambling pieces, where I’m really just talking to myself. I wouldn’t dive into it unless you have some time to kill and like exploring abstract concepts that wander in and out of focus.]
I often use the term “silver-plated problems” to describe my life the past few years. There have been some serious problems, mind you, some of which took months and thousands of dollars I didn’t have in order to correct them. But I’m not getting shot at, I’m not sleeping in the dirt, and for the most part I choose what to do with my time, not other people.
Lately the repeating problem in my head has been just that: what to do with my time. When you can do just about anything you imagine, your imagination can get in the way. You don’t want to give up the possibilities by choosing just one. Analysis paralysis it is sometimes called.
There’s more to it than that, but let me get to the point already: I need to go somewhere this year. I have no place to call home, so travel isn’t so much a hobby or passion as it is a way to keep from facing the fact I have no connection to any place or any community. I have no tribe. And hey, not having a bunch of people pulling you ten directions sounds pretty good. It’s not like I’ve always had this: I definitely remember having other people’s needs take the driver’s seat and wanting to just be alone.
But the point is, I’ve been sitting here staring at a map thinking, “you can go anywhere…literally anywhere on this planet.” That sounds exciting, but then I start looking at places, because you need to get specific if you want to turn a dream into a plan. The more I looked, the more empty space I saw.
I want to visit the Andes in Ecuador and Peru, and also Patagonia, but look at a map closely — you see that distance in between? Yeah, it’s just shy of 3,000 miles. The Andes themselves run the entire length of the continent, but the Ecuadorian Andes is way the hell up there, and it’s about the same distance to them back up to the US border with Mexico.
So, you’re talking 6,000 miles as the crow flies. That would be one damn-determined crow. And of course yes, it’s doable — there are people doing it right now…some by bicycle or even on foot. The point is, if I’m going to put together a trip like that, you’d think it was something to get excited about. Yet the more I plotted sights to see and routes to take, the more it felt like being at a dead-end job, trying to look busy until it’s time to clock out.
That is not how you want to feel about an upcoming trip. The planning is like a freebie; you get excited laying out the routes without ever spending a dime, then you get to actually go out and do it… it’s like a 2-fer. So yes, that was all the indication I needed to know a trip to Patagonia was a bad idea — at least for 2024. I still do want to go, and now I have a few pins in a map of places I think of as “must see” stops; I just need a few more of them so I can justify months on the road, doing over 12,000mi and shipping over the Darien Gap twice.
12,000 Latin American miles is not the same as 12,000 in the US. The roads are not even paved in long stretches, and the mountains can have rains, slides, and vehicle wrecks that block the only route for days. That’s part of the excitement, but if I already feel “meh” about being there in the first place, it’s more of a reason to lament than to dig deep into the reserves we didn’t know we have, and find a solution.
That’s what makes those trips an adventure. But damnit, you reach a certain point when you’ve dug deep enough times for enough reasons that there’s no reason to see if you can do it. I ain’t ready for the canned, tourist-ready cruiseline or guided tour in a bus, but I don’t have that compelling urge to carpe that mother-f___king diem.
Scotty, We Have A Conundrum
So, if you’ve read this far we’ve clearly identified a conundrum. And that’s really the point I should have arrived at in like two paragraphs. What to do? If not “this” then what?! Nepal is still on the list, but that’s a pretty expensive one and I still haven’t really committed to it beyond a vague “I want to see that area” sort of thing. Do I ship a bike there and explore all of Asia? Do I just buy or rent something locally and ride around for 30 days?
Australia? No, that is probably a winter destination. I’ve got too many people to meet, and our winter is their summer. Europe? For sure one day, but an expensive one, and with Ukraine being one of the “must see” destinations, I might want to wait and see how this whole “full scale war” thing pans out. I’d be happy to give some tourist dollars to a post-war Ukraine, when they can spare the fuel, the food, the time, and when they’d be happy to see foreign faces coming across their border without rifles or tanks.
Ah, Alaska. That’s been on the list almost the entire time I’ve been riding. True enough, but I ran into the same problem as South America: the more pins I added into a map, the more I felt like I was killing time until the whistle blew and my work day was over. So, remember back to my opening paragraph? Silver-plated problems? We’ve arrived at the point of all this. Talk about burying the lede…
While I can’t just up-and-go without some careful planning, all of those destinations are possible. Nothing’s stopping me, so long as I stop from time to time to do a little side-work and fill in the financial gaps. But the problem — although silver-plated — is still a problem. Damnit, I just don’t care. Until, that is, I stumbled on something entirely random: Canada.
Canada is one of those places I’ve also had on my list, but it’s also much bigger than it looks, like Australia or South America (or really any region not close to the equator: making a globe 2D for maps distorts distances). Canada as a trip was looking daunting, but while adding pins to the Alaska map I started taking a lot of time to drop pins in western Canada, since the only thing really separating Canada’s Yukon Territory and the 49th US State is an imaginary line.
Well, with western Canada enveloped by that trip, and much of the deep north and central parts of Canada offering repeating scenery, the eastern third of Canada piqued my interest. And wouldn’t ya know it… there’s a lot more than you first think (that’s a theme at this point). I tend to forget anything above the 50th parallel as just being the Arctic, but that technically doesn’t start until around the 66th (although if you’ve been in a Minnesota blizzard even once, you’ll forgive me for believing it’s a snow-filled wasteland up there).
Even if you draw a line on the 50th parallel though, maps of the US again have that tendency to smoosh everything above Maine into a corner. That corner not only has Nova Scotia and Ontario, but New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, where Vikings came across perhaps 500 years before Christopher Columbus.
And suddenly, I’m populating a map as fast as I can — like my life depends on it. Lighthouses? Yep, too many of course, so you’ll actually have to pick unique ones. That region is full of coves and straits and bays, and has been sailed in times of peace and war for centuries: there’s gonna be a lot of lighthouses.
World’s longest covered bridge? Yep. Nearly 1900-feet Famous aviation? Well, before jet liners could easily cross the Atlantic, everyone who is anyone flew out of Newfoundland — even Amelia Earhart left from there to do her solo Atlantic crossing.
Shipwrecks? Of course. Abandoned coastal batteries? Yep. Whaling and fishing history? Indeed. Ferry routes galore? Heck, some of their settlements are only accessible by boat. Plenty of nature? Yep, not too many people want to eek out a living in such a harsh climate. And hey, they’ve got Tim Horton’s all over the place (think of Dunkin’ or Strabucks but created by a Canadian hokey legend).
So yes, old buildings and cemeteries from the 1500s-1700’s, entire towns that are a little bit Northeastern US, a little bit Europe. There’s even a museum for Anne of Green Gables on Prince Edward Island. I never read the books myself but I somehow got hooked on the Netflix series “Anne With an E” when I first saw the high production level and the insanely wordy monologues the actress playing Anne had to memorize. For someone who actually was coming of age, doing that good a job with a coming-of-age story was really impressive.
Heading that far into the Northeast also means another run through the Blue Ridge Mountains, a place that always feels like I’m coming home, even though I’ve never lived there. I can visit family and friends, ride the Blue Ridge Parkway, do some hiking and plenty of camping, and also hit some of the things I had to bypass during my 2022 trip to get a lobster roll in Maine. I only made it to the corner of Maine — Kittery — right across the border.
And so, here we are. I’m not sure why the far east of Canada has drawn me to it this year, seemingly out of nowhere. I’ve actually wanted to explore Ontario and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula since 2020, but COVID restrictions were in the way each time. Now, COVID seems like a fever dream I read about in some dystopian novel when I was a kid. Remember when everyone was railing against each other over vaccine mandates? It was so important, and now it’s a memory… like Middle School drama.
So off I’ll go, probably in May. I have friends to try and see in multiple locations, family to visit, and many miles in between, but a robust interstate system means I can alternate between burning miles and burning daylight on the backroads. I’ll probably have to take my big bike though, which is a bit of a let down because the DR650 is perfect for exploring trails in the mountains, plus it gets better fuel mileage and the tires may only last half as long, but they only cost about 20% as much.
It will be nice to have some new places to see though. Baja is a gem mind you, but it is still the desert, and I’ve seen so much damn desert over the years it just doesn’t have the draw of a forested mountain range. Plus, believe it or not, gas costs more down here. It’s up over $5.50/gal, and my fuel tank goes on reserve about 25-miles before it usually does back in the US.
So yes, if you know of any “must see” attractions in eastern Canada, leave me a comment. I’ll be finally excited to stare at a map and and points-of-interest. 2024 feels officially underway now that there’s a place not only worth exploring, but pulling me towards it.
Johnny Killmore 