34 MILES

It’s hard to beat going on a conversation-paced trike ride with someone you’ve met while on a trike adventure and managed to strike up a friendship with.  Over time the exchange in these rides can evolve into a matured tempered brand of shared wisdom. 

Or maybe you’re fortunate enough to trike with a pre-triking old friend you share an experienced-based trike appreciation with for triking’s advantages over biking … happy butt calmed wrist and shoulders, a panoramic view of the ongoing adventure, a seat whenever the desire for a break arises, etc…etc… You know they can understand and empathize with your subconsciously generated trike grin. Rehashed conversation over timeless topics definitely acquires a new flavor.

Then there’s riding with someone you’ve known all your life … literally … every second of your life. This someone’s partly responsible for conditioning your human condition’s early life perception of its human experience … the basic pre-kindergarten sandbox rules that set principle for the altruistic compassion that best seeds positive human relations. Trike riding mental activity morphs into another dimension. Don’t be confused … I’m in the photo to the right…

Taking a 2 week Florida trike adventure was the 1st sorta family vacation we’d been on since before my father died 6 weeks earlier. It was also a test run for my newly acquired RV that now sits at the RV dealership it was purchased at … for sale on consignment.

Over the entire 2K+ mile journey that included the waiting necessary to have 3 RV tire blowout situations resolved, losing the contents of a refrigerator that died, a short couch to sleep on and a son that whined much more than when in his terrible 2’s, she did not complain one time. Why isn’t this calmness a strand in human DNA?!

The only thing I had to do time-out for was telling those interested that she was only 87 years old. She was quick to let me know that she was 87 years, 11 and a half months old. She turns 88 on Valentine’s day.

Our first ride ventured 4 hours on a 14-mile RT out into central Florida’s Spanish moss-draped Green Pond Swamplands on Gen. James Van Fleet rail-trail. Four nights 30amp hookup on St. Jean Key’s Fort De Soto Park off the South end of St. Pete’s beach area allowed 3 more days for 20 more miles of beach-bordering trike adventure that completed our Florida visit.

This completed the best 34 miles of my long-distance Florida visit.

My big reward from this trip was seeing how much stronger her post-trip gait is. She sported a walker before leaving that she’d use for longer walking tasks. She didn’t use the walker once on our trip. She uses her grandpa’s hand-worn wooden cane. Her problem with it now is that she might forget it when leaving somewhere. Her heals now touch the ground first and her balance is surprisingly more in sync with where she wants to place it.

Maybe the best part of the trip will prove to be the insightful realizations that will surface during my future times ruminating over it.

THANKS, MARY JACK! (MOM)…I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO FUTURE TRIPS! I LOVE YOU!