the Roam

The first block is the hardest. I kept looking back, but I kept telling myself not to go back. My throat dried out and I felt my chest compress. By the second block I started to feel better and continued to feel better and better with each step.

I made it out of NYC shortly and moved into New Jersey. The thing is you can never escape Manhattan it seems.

After following an unkempt bike trail that dumped me into a highway interchange I had to escape by running down an onramp with no options to avoid being in the road I was in the river bottoms in the post industrial wasteland of New Jersey and there in the distance was still the WTC.

Many miles after that as I hit the Watchung Mountains, glacial ridges really, that I had not been aware of or suspecting… I lunged up the ridge side on my tip toes, my body almost parallel to the road surface. I was rewarded with this… still NYC! It’s like I’ve barely moved!

Once over Orange Mountain  and going down the other side and then up over a hill where I had to push the cart through mud along side the road because narrow lanes, a lack of shoulder and curbs on the road…  now I finally can’t see New York City anymore. I finally feel somewhere else. I’m glad I made this much distance today.

But its also weird to be outside the domain of the subway. My long walks always used to either bring me home or take me to someplace where I was a subway ride away from home. Now I’m in a hotel on the edge of suburbia.. about to launch out into the countryside in the morning, and happy for it, but I’m finally outside the safety blanket New York City felt like.

Oh and also I saw two fawns today. That was cool!

I’m excited to see what each day brings… now to see about getting myself some dinner. Well after I call my dad. It is father’s day!