July 22, 2025 • 45 mins
After interviewing a friend that has done multiple cross-country bike trips, Ian shares the story of his bike trip. Recounting the motivation, training, excitement, and reality of a life on the road, Ian shares what actually happened when he set out for an adventure of his own.
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Halfway through my senior year at the Savannah College of
Art and Design also known as SCAD, I was taking
a class on documentary filmmaking and one of our assignments
was to record and interview someone about their lives. The
restaurant I worked at at the time hired lots of
guys who were fresh out of prison, and I found
that they were more than happy to talk about how
they ended up there. I ended up interviewing one of
(00:35):
the cooks. His name was Mike, and he had just
gotten out of prison after being locked up for thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I went to prison for a lot of burglaries and
a lot of arm robbers, and I got twenty years.
I did just about thirteen years on the centers.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'm out own parole now.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
As far as a class assignment goes, it turned out great.
Mike was an open book, and I learned all about
prison and breaking and entering.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Okay, what, for instance, I want to break in a house?
All right? First of all, I have to get all
the things I need to get in the house, screwdrivers
or pro bob whatever, on't need because there's no real
strain when you're going into a house. It's not like
you're going into a business homes. I mean you can
just raise the wind up if they ain't got alarm
(01:20):
on it, you know what I mean. Sometime you can
go in from under the house. Commercial. Burg was like
you going in drug stoves, warehouses.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You need to do all this when they're clothes.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, Well that's what Burg was about being need
breaking it in it right.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
But it was the subject of another student in the
classes interview who really caught my attention. He interviewed this
guy named Matt, who had just returned to Savannah after
a summer long cross country bike trip, a recent scad grab.
Matt was a few years older than the rest of us.
If you saw him on the street, he might seem
a little intense, a disciple of the DIY punk scene.
(01:59):
He looked like you right at home with the folks.
Marcus went down the Mississippi with tattered clothes, tattoos on
his arms and legs, dark hair, a thick black beard,
and piercing gray eyes. But once he starts talking with
his old golly shuck's demeanor, it turns out he's a
pretty affable guy. Now nearly twenty years later, he looks
pretty much exactly the same. He just has a lot
(02:21):
more tattoos and his black hair and beard are now silver.
This is Matt talking about his trip.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
I graduated from SCAD and had like essentially everyone, no
real agenda, no job. And one of my good friends
had moved out to Portland and he was like, you
should come hang out at here. It's awesome. And I'd
never been to the West Coast ever before, so I
was like, all right, well why not.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He started from his mom's house in North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I don't know why, Like I had this like total
stupid plan of like I'm never gonna get psych of biking,
so I'll just keep going forever.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Instead of going across the country, he decided to go
north first.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
From North Carolina two Pennsylvania, saw some friends, met some
momish people whatever, and then turned left and went through
a lot of Ohio and then like like legs started
doing some things, not muscle pain, but like bone pain,
where I was like, this is like a real persistent
issue that I was like, oh, this kind of sucks.
Wound up getting a ride from my brother to Iowa
because he was going to school in Iowa, and then
(03:20):
I biked all across Iowa and most of Nebraska, and
I was like, oh my god, this knee thing is
like coming back and something about like I was getting
pummeled by wind at that point too, like eastbound wind.
It was just like absolutely decimating my interest in trying
to keep going. I'd literally wake up in a cornfield
in my crappy little tent, and I was like, again,
(03:43):
like this sucks. So I biked all the way back
to Iowa City, where my brother was.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Matt decided he was going to get to the West
coast one way or another and bought a BLUs ticket
to Sacramento.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So I took a horrible sixty five hour bus trip
and which by the time I was done, I was
like I can't wait to get back of my bike
and be hurting from my knee pain and my tendon pain.
And you know, hung out in the bay for like
a week, and then bikes from there all the way
up to Portland. Spent like three or four days kind
of hanging out on some random person's porch because I
didn't have anywhere to stay, and then went all the
(04:16):
way up to Seattle because I actually knew somebody in Seattle,
and then you know, I crossed the country in heavy
quotation marks. It was like a twenty four hundred mile
bike ride or something. So I was like, all right,
that's pretty good. Like it wasn't exactly what I wanted
to look like, you know, I did a lot of
bike riding, and like biking up California through Oregon and
stuff was super fun because the very worst, like if
(04:37):
you're like, eugh, I just want to take a break,
he can just do it by the ocean. Like if
you take a break in Iowa, You're like, all right,
I'll hang out like behind this like the most busted
target you've ever seen, and like see these like crappy
skateboarders spray painting stuff and bugging me with their dumb
questions when I'm like, I just I literally just want
to sit down.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The Savannah to Seattle trip was actually Matt's second bike trip.
He'd done a smaller one hundred mile one the year before.
Ten years after his Savannah to Seattle trip, he biked
a thousand miles through Alaska. At the time of this interview,
he was a week away from going on his fourth
bike trip, a couple hundred miles along the Blue Ridge
Parkway in the Smoky Mountains North Carolina to Virginia. So,
(05:18):
as far as I'm concerned, this guy is kind of
an expert when it comes to cross country bike trips.
So for my bike trip, when I was spending the
night my uncle's trailer, this dude, Glenn, fresh out of prison.
The thing that he kept saying was, if you weren't
your uncle's nephew, I'd kill you and take your shit.
(05:39):
And he his refrain and my uncle's refrain the whole
night was basically, people are going to try to kill you.
Do you know how to fight? Can you kill anyone
with your bare hands? But they really got me prepared
for the idea that I was about to enter mad
Max World and everywhere I looked there were going to
be people jumping out from every corner trying to kill me.
(06:01):
So I'm curious how many people tried to kill you?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I feel like that disappointingly zero, Like I I mean,
like the worst, the absolute worst I ever ran across
was like maybe random conspiracy theory dude being like, oh,
like this guy's locking up his bike and just coming
at me and to talk, like you know, still keeping
like a distance with like five feet but explaining like,
you know, see those things in the sky like they're
(06:30):
watching us, and I'm like the clouds, dude, Like what
I did a bike tour in Alaska, Like I did
a thousand miles in Alaska, which is like no man's
land type of stuff, Like if I pop both tires,
I have to walk a hundred miles to get to
civilization and nothing, you know, nothing went wrong up there,
but like people were like the easiest part of that,
and they're like some of the most grizzled, like like grizzled,
(06:51):
but in that like okay, I'll give you like a
wide berth kind of grizzled way up there. Yeah, animals
were way worse, Like I was more freaked out by
bears and stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, did you have any bear running?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Is there anything I saw one? I saw a wolf
on the first day, like fifteen feet away from me,
which is pretty wild, which was immediately shattered by this
random like bro runner dude like coming up and he
was like, dude, that dog was awesome, And I was like,
that wasn't it, Like it wasn't a dog, Like what.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I feel like, I remember you telling me something about
a weird night in Baltimore or was it just because
it's Baltimore it seems weird. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
There was a dude in Baltimore who kept like intentionally
driving in front of me and then like trying to
dore me at every red light, which was like almost
like quaintly annoying, where I was like, this is so dumb,
like what are you doing, dude? And actually, now I
think about it. Two rednecks, which to this point I
didn't believe rednecks existed in California because I was like,
you know, grew up in North Carolina, had never been
(07:44):
to the West Coast. I was like, oh, it's all
like you know, tech billionaires and environmentally whatever conscious people.
But like two guys drove by in like the most
busted truck you've ever seen and threw like a glass
bottle at me, like on the one on one and
like thing goodness, very pleased. Did not hit me. But
the downside was I watched like this, you know, forty
of whatever like sail off into this like pristine wilderness
(08:08):
and like smash on this tree, and I was like, man,
that sucks, Like people could be jerks. That's annoying.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I got I got bad news for you, Galk those
dudes are trying to kill.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
You right now, I've got like that. Now I have
the DVD extra that I'm like, Oh my god, they
were trying to kill me the whole time.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
As established in the last episode, I was primed and
ready for an adventure of my own. After seeing the
video about Matt, I knew what I wanted to do
my own solo bike trip. As I started telling people
what I was thinking about doing after I graduated, one
of my neighbors, a doctor who lived in my apartment building,
said that if I made it up to Portland, Maine,
I could stay at her beach cottage for as long
(08:50):
as I wanted. She made me a copy of the
key and gave me directions. So once I had a destination,
it felt like a no brainer to actually go for it.
I decided that after I graduated, I would spend the
whole summer biking up the East Coast. I was born
in Virginia and moved to Minnesota when I was seven,
so the idea of returning to Virginia and visiting with
family and old friends seemed like a great idea. I
(09:13):
had a lot of friends from scad who were from
the East Coast, which gave me a long list of
people in places that I could visit along the way.
The second half of my senior year was more or
less spent getting ready for the trip. The bike that
I had been using was a gorgeous beach cruiser that
I got at Walmart called the Keluna Moondog. The Moondog
and I were thick as thieves. I rode this thing everywhere.
(09:36):
I ended up removing the seat and replacing it with
a red Igloo cooler so I could fill the thing
up with beer wherever I went. So as great as
the Moondog was for a party animal in Savannah, it
wasn't exactly a vehicle suitable for a cross country bike trip.
At some point I made an incredible find at a
good Will. For fifteen dollars, I got a yellow Shwind
Varsity road bike from the nineteen seventies that just happened
(09:58):
to be the same kind of bike my dad had
when he was in college, and it fit me perfectly.
It seemed cosmic preordained. I ended up spending another sixty
dollars to get it tuned up and started to train
for the trip on the weekends I would bike the
forty mile round trip from Savannah to the beach on
Tybee Island. But aside from just biking all over the place,
I realized that there was a lot I needed to
(10:19):
know about how to successfully take on a trip like this.
So I tracked down this Matt guy from the video
and asked if he would show me the ropes. Viewing
him is my sense a. I hung onto his every
word as he shared his experience and imparted valuable wisdom,
making sure that I would know everything I needed to
know before going on a trip of my own. How
(10:40):
much prep went into the bigger trip or the trip,
the Alaska trip, or I guess your upcoming trip.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Still it always feels like less prep than it should be,
Like I'm just so bad at like research like kills
the interest for me when I'm like, I'll just figure
out when to get there or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
This was my sense I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I would say, it's like exactly like a camping trip
where you're like, all right, I'll get the general idea
of where we might be able to camp, Like I
don't call ahead to book anything, which is easily the
most stressful part is like come five pm, where you're like,
all right, where am I going to like hide my
body tonight?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Aside from biking one oh one and replacing tubes, patching tires,
fixing brake lines, et cetera, he had plenty of tips
and recommendations, like figuring out where to sleep.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Like if I came across like a church or like
a school, especially during summer, I was like, well, I
can camp at the back there, like it's not going
to be a big issue or whatever. I'm you know,
somewhere I'm less likely to get kicked out and they're
not going to care if someone's there between nine pm
and seven am or whatever. But I remember waking up
like in my tent and hearing three like women walk
by and be like, what an odd place to camp
behind a middle school? And I was like, ah god,
(11:49):
I was like hearing it from their perspective, I was like, well,
there's really nothing I could say. That is a really
strange place to set up shop. But even now, my
mom was like, please don't sleep on the roof of.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Any sleeping out of KFC. Is that one of the
ones you did?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
There was a KFC that like had a little access
ladder in the back and I just climbed up there,
and mostly because I was like, I'm into like a
little town. I don't want anyone to mess with me
when I'm asleep. You know. It's one thing like if
you're in the middle of nowhere like Alaska, like you
set up shop with your tent in the woods, no
one cares, Like there's just no one up there to
even notice. But yeah, like going through Baltimore or whatever,
like DC, like I literally slept under a bridge like
(12:25):
a full on highway system. There's like spiders, it's dry,
it's gross, it's like a super loud You don't get
good sleep, you know, you get whatever you can and
then you just go on the next day and you
fall asleep on a park bench somewhere.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Fun stuff, good stuff, excellent note, thank you. Finding places
to sleep was definitely something I was worried about. I
figured I'd try it out in Savannah, because if I
couldn't do it there, how would I be able to
do it on the road. So one night I grabbed
my pillow in a blanket and went up to the
top of one of the parking garages downtown. I found
(13:02):
a corner that was in the shadows, so it'd be
hard for anyone to see me. And somehow I just
fell asleep and I woke up the next morning right
at sunrise with birds tweeting and the sounds of the
(13:23):
city starting to come to life. It was pretty easy
and pretty exciting. It was a success. Matt did a
lot to help me get ready for the trip, but
the most valuable thing he taught me was the art
(13:44):
of dumpster diving. So dumpster diving, that was the plan
for sustenance.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Anyone who's ever dumpster dive, you're like, you won't believe
the stuff you'll find. Some of it's like super exciting,
like you'll find like, oh my god, it's like seven
protein shakes, Like this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I warned you on the first episode that I would
evangelize about dumpster diving, and here it is. Dumpster diving, or,
if you want to go with one of its more
euphemistic titles, Fhreaganism or foraging is pretty much what it
sounds like, hopping into dumpsters and looking for food, food
that's safe to eat. I heard about it before I
ever tried it and thought it sounded absolutely disgusting. But
(14:22):
once Matt took me on a tour of his favorite dumpsters.
My mind was blown. First off, so much food gets
thrown away just because it's reached its expiration date. Granted
that can get sketchy with meat or dairy or produce,
but it's not that gross when you're looking at non perishables.
The first Kroger dumpster that I went to was loaded
with unopened boxes of cereal, jars of peanut butter, cookies, crackers.
(14:45):
All of it just happened to expire the day we
got there. I mean, how exact are those expiration dates? Anyway,
As part of the DIY Punk mill U, dumpster diving
was something that Matt had been doing for a while
and it was how he fed himself during his entire
cross country bike trip.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
People in California, or like West Coast folks in general,
are like a little more aware of it. You'll actually
meet people dumpster diving stuff there on the East Coast,
like everywhere I was going, like little towns in the Carolinas, Virginia, DC,
et cetera. Like you're not going to bump into anybody.
I would just stop behind, you know, grocery stores, like
chain grocery stores got a lot of like free bananas,
(15:23):
all that kind of stuff. You'd find like twenty salads
that were like, you know, past their due date or whatever,
but they're all still fine, you know, or like you
can use judgment and be like, oh, this bactally puffed
up and it's like gonna explode. I'm not gonna eat that.
So yeah, like I ate pretty well, Like I had,
you know, salads like probably every night, lots of fruit,
lots of bread, like some you know, random bread delivery
guys would see me and I'd be like, do you
have any like day old stuff, and they would just
(15:43):
you know, kick me down, like twenty bagels or whatever
because they don't care.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So when I met Matt, he was CouchSurfing around town.
He didn't have a job or any money, and he
was dumpster diving regularly. So he took me all over
Savannah and showed me all of his favorite dumpsters. And
to those of you who are coiling just hearing me
talk about this, I just want to stress that it's
not not gross. It's just not as gross as you'd expect.
(16:09):
Everyone's reaction when you tell them about it, it's just like, oh,
that's so gross. It's surprisingly not that gross.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
It's not. Yeah, I had the like I had the
wrong thing in mind. I was like, oh, like, I'm
picturing like the stuff they throw away when I go
to like a decent restaurant.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And it's more like a good will bin filled with
just perfectly packaged food.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Dumpster diving at a grocery store, you're way more likely
to find like unopened peanut butter that like the label
got printed wrong, or like that Kroger and Savannah would
misorder stuff all the time.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I remember when you took me to teach me
how to dumpster dive. Yeah, we just went all over
Savannah and by the end of it we had a
giant hefty bag filled with popcorn from the movie theater right,
a case of unopened Oreos ye, like tons and tons
of Oreos.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
But no, the thing that I remember in Savannah when
you and I went out, probably the first time, was
that's by that point I was stopping at that like
Dominoes or like Pizza Hut.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Or something, Yeah, the Pizza Hut, and it was like it.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Was so hit or miss that I was like, well,
I don't know. And when we went it was like
I remember there being like three full cheese pizzas.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
That fresh, still steaming exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I know I burned my hand on it when I
picked it up. Yeah, that was the best. And I
was like, because that never happens when I would show
someone like, oh, yeah, you can find free food. Sometimes
it was like typically a bust, you know, where we'd
find like a like a bloody rag and they'd be like,
what the hell are you doing with your life?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So we're gonna jump ahead in time here for a second.
After my bike trip, I ended up moving to Chicago
and lived with Matt for a while. When I showed
up in town, I had just enough money for the
first month's rent and that was it. So while I
was looking for a job, I did a lot of
dumpster diving, and to this day, my first few months
in Chicago were probably the healthiest I've ever eaten. It
(17:52):
was winter, so anything that went into the dumpster was
basically in the freezer. I would load up on organic
chicken breasts from Whole Foods that expire that day. I
would also get prepackaged produce from Whole Foods and Trader Joe's,
and we had a seemingly infinite supply of Paneras baked
goods because every night when they closed, they would take
everything off the shelf they made that day, throw it
in a big garbage bag and toss it in their dumpster.
(18:15):
It was ridiculous. We had piles of Panera bread, bagels, muffins, pastries, cookies,
And to this day I still can't pay for Panera
because I had so much of it for free.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
When I was doing Jimmy John's delivery back in Chicago.
That Panera like was sort of at the midpoint of
like every you know, anything west of where I was
going and the shop that I was going back to,
so I would just like stop there consistently for lunch
and be like, oh sweet, like round sugar bagels, all right,
Like they just eat it on the way, like it
would have taken more time to go buy one than
it would to just like zip around back.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And most exciting was our refrigerator always stocked with dozens
of bottles of oad Walla, the very expensive health food juice.
Some of the bottles were expired, but most of them
were mislabeled or had the labels on upside down or something.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
That was like the the Holy Grail to me because
there was the supplier of the main distribution point. So
I'd like, you know, twenty different stores worth of on
Wallace stuff that was expiring.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, and to those of you listening, picture me and
my Mazda Protege filling the trunk completely with on Wallas
and then our entire refrigerator just being nothing but on Walla.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
It would have liked to to the untrained eye, would
have looked like our apartment was like weirdly sponsored to
buy on Wa.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
For some reason, I haven't gone dumpster diving since my
first few months in Chicago. I also haven't eaten Whole
Food's organic chicken breast every night for dinner either. Once
I did get a job, I didn't have time to
buke all over town searching through dumpsters. I started eating
at restaurants, buying my own groceries, and nothing was ever
as healthy as what I'd been living on during my
(19:47):
dumpster days. That was nearly twenty years ago, and a
lot has changed since then. For instance, a lot more
people became aware of freaganism. Thanks to the Internet. You
no longer needed to meet a guy like Matt who
could become your dumpster diving spiritual guide. You could just
learn about it online, and grocery stores got wise to
people rooting around through their dumpsters so to put a
(20:08):
stop to it instead of not throwing away perfectly good food.
You'll now see that a lot of dumpsters have locks
on them, they have lids, they're enclosed, or they're behind
a fence. In Chicago since then, a a lot of
dumpsters are locked now because a lot of people started
doing it. But be huge rat problem, oh, which was
(20:29):
not happening when we were here the first time. But
back then it just seemed like nothing but a good idea.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah, yeah, it was the I mean in a lot
of ways, it was like the Halcyon era for like
that type of situation.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
We were there, We were there for the salad days
of the dumpster days. I learned everything I could for
Matt and continued to get ready for my trip. By
the end of my senior year, everybody I knew knew
what I was planning, and for the most part, everyone
thought it was a great idea. Everyone except for my parents.
Here's my mom at.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
My initial thing is he's so naive. How can he
be that naive? Why is he wanting to do this
there makes no point why he would want to ride
a bike and eat out of garbage cans. What is
he trying to prove with that said, why would I
try to talk you out of something? I mean, at
that point, you were twenty one, You know you need
I just wanted you to live through it, Okay, At
(21:22):
the bottom line, do what you need to do. Although
I think it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in
my life, but then just live through it. And that's
before I knew about all your adventures of my dear
beloved brother Chris.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Despite letting me know that they thought it was a
stupid idea, my parents didn't try to talk me out
of it. My dad even went as far as to
help me get outfitted for the trip. He even let
me use some of his camping gear, waterproof bags, a
gortex rainsuit, and a one person ten So after I graduated,
I emptied out my apartment and flew home with all
my possessions worth keeping. I spent a week or two
(21:57):
with my family and friends in Minnesota. At the time,
I had an on again, off again girlfriend, and while
I was back in Minnesota during that visit, things kind
of became on again, but I was still committed to
the trip and flew back to Savannah, where I spent
a couple of days crashing with a friend while I
got everything ready. I packed as light as I could,
and had installed these racks on the front and back
(22:17):
wheels of the bike so I was able to hook
bags on either side of both wheels. For comfort. I
had a tent, a sleeping pad, and a sleeping bag
For hygiene. I had a change of clothes and a
toothbrush For maintenance. I had a bike repair tool, spare tubes,
a tire patch kit, a small hand pump, a leatherman,
some bungee cords, and a roll of duct tape. For sustenance,
(22:39):
I had analgae water bottle, some dumpster muffins, and fifty
dollars in McDonald's gift certificates, a graduation gift from one
of my mom's friends. For entertainment, I had some pens
and a sketchbook, a copy of Kirk Vonnegut's Mother Night,
a fully loaded iPod, and a cheap kid sized acoustic
guitar that I got at a pawn shop For money.
I had one hundred and six i'd closed my bank
(23:01):
account in Savannah, and this was all the money I
had in the world. The plan was to do some
panhandling with the guitar to make a few bucks here
and there, which was something I had done before, so
it wasn't a completely insane idea. Otherwise I would just
be eating out of dumpsters, sleeping on the beach, and
hanging out with friends. Finally, the day had come, I
(23:22):
loaded the bike into my Grandpa's car and drove the
two hours to Uncle Chris's trailer. Somehow I slept through
(23:42):
the night, despite Glenning Kittycat's sexual escapades. I woke up
the next morning in the recliner. Uncle Chris had already
left around four or five in the morning to go
drive his garbage truck. It was just Glenn, Kitty Cat
and me. Kitty Cat made us bacon and eggs for breakfast,
and after we ate, Glenn, remembering our deal, he said
he was ready to take me to the coast. It
(24:03):
was a hot, muggy morning. The sun was bright beaming
down on the trailer. There were these leftover beers on
the steps to the trailer, just being blasted by the sun.
I'll never forget Glenn's stepping out of the trailer. This
giant man with his string ponytail, his lazy eye, his
huge belly hanging out of an unbuttoned short sleeve shirt.
He lights up a cigarette, grabs one of the hot
(24:27):
keystone lights off the steps and chugs it. He tosses
the can, takes a puff off his cigarette, grabs a
second hot beer and chugs it too. Then he grabs
(24:51):
two more beers, puts one in his pocket, cracks the
other one open, and says, all right, let's go. Kitty
Cat gave me a hug goodbye. Glenn and I got
in the car. I was behind the wheel, and we
took off. My uncle Chris lived near Cordsville, South Carolina.
(25:19):
It was about an hour drive through the Francis Marion
National Forest, which is a giant swamp to get to
the coast. During that hour, Glenn told me his entire
life story, and it's quite a story. Prison murder, prostitutes, Vietnam,
a Black Sabbath cover band, Brothels. I'll get into the
specifics in the next episode, but for now we'll stick
(25:39):
with my story. We emerged from the swamp in a
suburb of Charleston, called North Mount Pleasant on Highway seventeen.
I unloaded my bike from the Mazda and double checked everything.
Once I was ready, Glenn took a picture of me.
In the photo, I'm awkwardly standing behind my bike, fully
loaded with gear. The expression on my face this is
(26:00):
hard to read. I know I was nervous and excited,
but in the photo I looked surprisingly calm, chubby with
the belly, wearing cargo shorts, a white yellow polo shirt,
red sweat bands on my wrists, chuck tailors on my feet,
and a yellow baseball cap made of reflective material. I
was not exactly lance Armstrong. Glen and I said our goodbyes,
(26:21):
and then I took a left on Highway seventeen and
started pedaling. I covered about fifty miles on my first day,
and it was incredible. The beginning of the ride felt
like any suburban area strip malls and chain stores, but
eventually it opened up to the low country, grassy fields
and marshlands as far as the eye could see, and
(26:42):
every now and then I'd catch a glimpse of the
ocean to my right. Twenty miles or so was spent
biking through the little Wambas swamp part of the Francis
Marian National Forest, and the timing was perfect. It was
middle of the day, so the sun was high in
the sky, but I was shielded by a tunnel of
trees and surrounded by dense swamp. I hardly saw any cars,
and there were whole stretches where I was the only
(27:04):
person within miles on the other side of the swamp.
I got my first flat tire and it was no
big deal. I patched it up in a grassy field.
I had some dumpster muffins for lunch. I filled up
my naljeene with some water at a gas station, and
around four o'clock in the afternoon, I arrived in Georgetown,
South Carolina. My butt was killing me from riding all day,
(27:24):
so I decided this is where I would spend my
first night. Georgetown is a charming little river town. It
looks like something out of a Hallmark movie. There's a
small downtown with a clock tower in a main street,
and a harbor filled with boats. A walking trail, a
wooden boardwalk called the Harbor Walk, goes along the entire shoreline,
giving a lovely view of the low country and the river.
(27:45):
The first thing I did. When I got there, was
blow about fifteen dollars worth of McDonald's bucks on a
stupid amount of burgers and fries. Then I found the
local library where I could charge my phone, and I
used a computer to type up a moment by moment
account of my previous night in Uncle Cree trailer. I
emailed it to myself so I could remember everything. After
the library closed, I sat on a park bench and
(28:07):
drew up Uncle Chris's Guide to Death. I didn't want
to forget all of the life saving slash life taking
techniques that I had learned the night before. I gave
my parents a call to let them know I was alive.
I gave my on again, off again now sort of
on again girlfriend a call and we talked for a bit.
Once I was off the phone, I had nothing else
to do. There were some restaurants and bars, but I
(28:28):
didn't have any money to spend. I'd already written everything
down and drawn in my notebook. I have to admit
that at this point I was bored, but that feeling
of boredom was soon replaced by a feeling of dread.
It was nearly dark and I hadn't figured out where
I was going to sleep yet. I explored the area
around Main Street but found it was mostly residential. I
(28:49):
wanted to find a school or a church, like Matt recommended,
but it was already dark in pre iPhone, so I
couldn't look up where to find one, and I wasn't
having any luck. I started getting pretty worried. I wasn't
sure what to do, so I ended up calling Matt.
I remember calling you, Oh my god, Yeah, yeah, because
I showed up at this town and I start looking around.
(29:10):
I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Basically You're just like, yeah, you'll figure it out. And
I just needed someone to say, like, yeah, it's okay, you'll.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
You know, right.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Not sure where to go, I returned to the park
bench that i'd been sitting at. The bench was in
a public park that was close to the river, and
on the edge of the park there were some trees.
A walking path led to a portion of the harbor
Walk that veered off into the tree line. Past the trees,
a portion of the harbor Walk hung out over the water.
I guess you'd call it a scenic overlook, but picture
a small dock or a deck that would be on
(29:41):
the back of someone's house about ten feet wide that
went out over the water. It was surrounded by a
metal railing, and I imagine a great place to take
photos during daytime. It also happened to be a great
place to sleep during nighttime. I locked my bike to
the metal railing and laid out my sleeping pad and
sleeping bag on the side where i'd hardest a spot.
Despite seeing a couple of palmetto bugs scurrying around those
(30:04):
are the giant cockroaches you see in the South, and
being nervous, I'll admit it, terrified. I was also exhausted
thanks to the combination of trying to sleep through Glenning
Kittycat's sexual exploits, and a fifty mile bike ride. I
fell asleep immediately. I woke up around six the next
(30:30):
morning and there was a man standing over me, jogging
in place, wearing running shoes and tennis shorts. He was
checking his pulse with his finger while he stared at me.
I immediately scrambled, grabbed all my things and tried to apologize,
saying something stupid like oh sorry, I'm on a bike trip.
He didn't say anything, but it was clear that he
did not approve of me sleeping on his harbor walk.
(30:51):
He jogged away. I took a picture of where I slept,
packed up my gear, and hit the road. Whatever dread
and fear that I felt the night before was matched
that morning by the exhilaration of having pulled it off.
I refilled my water bottle at a gas station in
Georgetown and then continued up Highway seventeen. Still in the
(31:13):
low country, the bright sun reflected off the haze of
the marsh's morning fog. Everything had a golden glow to it.
It looked like some kind of dream. It was absolutely beautiful.
I would end up biking about forty miles one day two,
which took me just past Myrtle Beach. About twenty miles
in the magic started to fade. There was a lot
more traffic, and my butt was killing me. My mom
(31:36):
would periodically check in, and I took a few breaks
throughout the day that somehow turned into longer and longer
phone calls with the on again off again. Now it
seems like things are really on again girlfriend. Even at
the time, I was aware that these phone calls weren't
exactly in line with my buddy Turner's idea of sometimes
I've just needed to go off and be fucking weird
by myself, let my brain untangle itself for a while.
(31:58):
You know, hell, you know hell, you know how. But
I knew my parents were worried, and I didn't want
them to worry more than they had to. And you know,
having a girlfriend is nice, So why would I get
in the way of that. I think the reality of
the trip was sinking in a little bit too. I
was surprised by how bored I was getting, and these
phone calls were a nice distraction. But any feelings of
(32:19):
boredom subsided once I actually got to Myrtle Beach. I'd
never been there before, and it was awesome. It's got
the classic beach town vibe. There's a boardwalk, a ferris wheel,
souvenir shops, people walking around in airbrush t shirts. It's
pretty rare. I was also excited to find the corporate
headquarters of the restaurant Hooters. I went around back to
their dumpster, hoping to find some type of ridiculous Hooters paraphernalia,
(32:42):
like extra calendars or maybe some spreadsheets, but I had
no such luck. I ended up hanging out on the
beach for a little bit. I was going to go
for a swim, but apparently a girl had been bitten
by a bull shark the day before and nobody was
going in the water, so I opted for air conditioning
and hung out at the library instead, where I was
able to charge my phone and look through some books.
(33:04):
I decided that i'd like to sleep on the beach
that night, but because Myrtle Beach was so busy, I
thought I should bike up the coast a bit to
see if I could find a more secluded spot. I
ended up going about five or six miles past Myrtle
Beach and was surprised to find that access to the
beach was going to be harder than I thought. At
this point, it was around six pm and I was
starting to get worried again. I hadn't found a spot
(33:25):
to sleep yet, and I knew that it would be
dark in a couple of hours, and I didn't want
to be biking along the highway at night. As I
was thinking about all of this, I guess I didn't
see a pothole up ahead, and my back wheel slammed
right into it. It almost knocked me off the bike,
but I managed to stay up and wabble over to
the side of the road. My bike's back wheel had tacoed,
which is a biking term for when your wheel bends
(33:48):
in half, as if you were folding a tortilla to
make a taco. Several of the spokes were bent, and
when I tried pedaling the wheel, it would rub against
the bike frame, making it incredibly hard to move forward.
Of all of the things that I expected to happen
to my bike, this was not one of them. When
I originally spent the sixty bucks to get the bike
tuned up, they suggested I get new wheels at around
(34:09):
eighty bucks a pop. I couldn't afford it at the time,
and now, with only one hundred and sixty dollars to
my name, I knew that an eighty dollars wheel replacement
was out of the question. During all of my planning
and preparation, I never considered that I would have to
spend money on the bike itself. In retrospect, there are
so many things I could have done. I'm sure that
(34:30):
if I really tried, I could have found a place
to sleep and the next day walked to the bike
into town and found a bike shop. I'm sure they
would have been sympathetic to my situation and would have
helped me out or at least given me a deal.
It would have been so easy to spend a day
or two hanging out on the beach panhandling with the
guitar until I made enough money to buy a new
wheel and keep going to Maine. But in the moment
(34:54):
I panicked it would be dark soon, I hadn't found
anywhere to sleep. I was along the side of a
busy highway, my butt hurt, my bike wasn't working, and
I was scared. The reality of how alone I was
and how vulnerable I was really hit me. And as
all of this was sinking in, I saw a taxi
(35:14):
coming my way, and without thinking reflexively, I flagged it down.
I wish I had taken five more minutes to calm
myself down and come up with a plan. I wish
I'd been able to see all the different options in
front of me, but I didn't. Something went wrong, I
got scared, and I decided to quit. This is a
(35:36):
recording that I made to document the end of my
bike trip.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
Well, it would appear that my fun little bike trip
has come to a close the back wheel. That fun
little wobble action going on there was doing that, which
means there's no way it's going to make it the
main obviously. And on top of that, this thing mean
(36:05):
she fancied to be The bike's a piece of shit,
and it looks like I am calling it quits. That sucks.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I had seen a Greyhound bus station in town and
asked the taxi driver to take me there. I took
everything with me that I could, got into the taxi
and left the bike on the side of Highway seventeen.
The taxi driver was talkative and charming and very curious
about what I was up to. Even at the time,
the irony didn't escape me. For the past six months,
(36:37):
I'd been talking about this bike trip to anyone who
would listen, and now that I was actually on the trip,
the very first person who asked me about it, I
had to explain to them that I was quitting. After that,
I didn't really feel like talking. The taxi ride was
about ten dollars. At the Greyhound station, I saw there
was a bus leaving for Charleston that night and the
(36:58):
ticket was fifty dollars. I called my parents and explained
the situation. They were sympathetic, but I knew they were
also very excited and relieved that I had called it quits.
My mom told me to take the bus to Charleston
and drive my grandpa's car back to Minnesota. She would
call Uncle Chris and get it all sorted out. At
seven o'clock, I got on the bus with all my
(37:18):
gear piled up in my lap and looked out the window.
The bus left downtown Myrtle Beach and took a right
onto Highway seventeen, heading back the same way I came.
From when I got into the taxi to when the
bus started driving. The whole thing felt like a dream.
It was like I was in shock. But during that
(37:39):
bus ride, when I looked out the window and saw
the exact stretch of road that had taken me two
days to ride passed by it fifty miles an hour,
the reality really sank in. Each passing landmark that had
symbolized a triumphal I was on my bike became another
reminder of how pathetic I was. I've never, in my
(38:02):
entire life before or after that bus ride felt anything
as low as the shame I felt for quitting. Sad, angry, embarrassed.
I absolutely hated myself. As I looked out the window,
I replayed every conversation I had had leading up to
the trip, all those people that I had told everything
(38:23):
about what I was going to do. I replayed every
fantasy that had been rolling around in my head, sleeping
on beaches, panhandling, hanging out with family and friends, and
pulling up to some amazing cottage in Maine. All of
those dreams had become impossible because I got scared. I
was flooded with regret, because I knew I had reached
(38:43):
the point of no return. The bus drove past Georgetown
in the grassy field where I fixed my tire. The
whole time I stared out the window, trying my hardest
not to cry. And then things got worse. Halfway through
(39:13):
the Little Wambas Swamp, there was commotion at the back
of the bus. Some of the people started arguing, and
a woman close to me shouted, Ah, somebody done shit
they pants. Apparently someone had taken a dump on the
bus without using the bus's bathroom, and the smell slowly
spread throughout the bus. Several women began to spray perfume
(39:33):
into the air to cover up the stench, but that
only made things worse, and pretty soon everyone on the
bus was complaining. Eventually, the smell made its way to
the front of the bus and the driver lost it.
He began yelling at the passengers.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Who did it? Who took a shit on my bus?
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Normally I would find something like this hilarious, but in
my dejected state of self loathing, I felt nothing. I
could care less. The driver pulled the bus over and
parked it on the side of the road. He marched
to the back of the bus and was shown what
I guess was a pile of human feces.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Dear God, who the hell shit on my bus?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Again? He demanded to know who did it, but no
one came clean. Because human waste was present on the
bus and considered a biohazard, it was protocol for everyone
to get off of the bus. All of the passengers
were forced to exit and stand along the road in
the middle of the swamp. It was pitch black, the
only light source coming from inside the bus. It was
(40:34):
pretty creepy. The bus driver informed us that we could
not reboard the bus because it would need to be cleaned.
A replacement bus was on its way from Myrtle Beach
and would be there as soon as possible. The bus
(40:57):
driver was livid and continued to interrogate the pass until
the replacement bus arrived.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Who the hell shit on my bus? I don't one
of you did it. No one's going anywhere until I
know who's shit on my bus.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
But no one ever fessed up. It was an hour
and a half before the replacement bus arrived. We all
boarded and made it to Charleston an hour later. It
was close to eleven by the time the bus pulled
into the Greyhound station. I got off and was surprised
(41:31):
to see Glenn waiting for me. He helped me carry
my gear and put it in the trunk of the Mazda.
I was expecting him to give me a bunch of
shit for quitting, but he was actually really nice about everything.
He even said he was proud of me for trying,
and the nicer he was, the worse it made me feel.
It was a quiet car ride back to Uncle Chris's trailer.
(41:52):
By the time we got there, Chris was already asleep.
Kitty Kat gave me a huge hug and was even
nicer than Glenn had been about everything. Then they went
to bed. I looked around to make sure there weren't
any guns hidden in the couch, and then I laid
down and went to sleep. When I woke up the
next morning, Uncle Chris had already left for work. I
said goodbye to Glenn and Kittycat, got into the Mazda
(42:15):
and began the twenty hour drive back home. I had
one hundred dollars in cash and thirty five dollars in
McDonald's bucks. It was just enough to make it back
to Minnesota. At some point during the drive, I called
Matt and begrudgingly told him about what happened. He was
now living in Chicago and said I could crash with
him on my way back. My parents were relieved that
(42:38):
I was coming home, and to be honest, that felt
like a huge weight had been lifted. I spent a
good chunk of the drive talking to my officially now
on again girlfriend, and she was excited for me to
be coming home early too. I had a lot of
fun with Matt once I got to Chicago, and just
happened to be there when one of the roommates announced
that they would be moving out. My now girlfriend still
(42:58):
had another year to go at her college, which was
only a couple hours away from Chicago, So I figured,
why not Chicago seems cool, and I offered to take
the roommate's place. I drove back to Minnesota, spent the
rest of the summer working as a landscaper, saved up
enough money for rent, and in the fall, I moved
to Chicago, and that's when the actual adventure of my
(43:21):
life began. As i'm recording this, it's been almost twenty
years since I went on my bike trip, and I
am still extremely embarrassed with how it all turned out.
As much as I still wish that I had been
able to pull it off, I've come to appreciate the
(43:41):
experience I actually had. I was counting on a summer
long adventure to show me who I really was, and
instead I found out exactly who I was in about
two days. The experience was humbling and humiliating, but ultimately
it's what I needed. I don't want to feel how
I felt on that bus ride ever again, and since then,
(44:02):
I've tried living my life in a way where I
won't have to, and for that, I'm so glad that
I failed so miserably, But man, it would have been
a lot cooler if I pulled it off.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
Well, that's what you told me. You said it was
what you needed. I think so much of people's problems
in general is not acknowledging who they are. But you know,
if you're comfortable with who you are, you're ninety nine
percent of the way there.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
There's a Frank Zappa song, you are what you are,
You is what you is, You is what you am.
A cow, don't make ham very deep. Yes, On the
next episode, we're gonna get a little philosophical with a
deep dive into Glenn's life story and exploring ideas like luck, privilege,
(44:50):
and stability from the perspective of guys who grew up
in actual war zones. Special thanks to Matt Gouk for
sharing his adventures, my buddy Steve for making the original
video about Matt back in the day, all of the
friends who supported my bike trip attempt, and all of
(45:12):
the adults who had no problem telling me how stupid
it was. And special thanks to Will Ferrell for playing
the bus driver who doesn't like people shitting on his bus.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Dear God who took a shit on my bus.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Uncle Chris is a production by Will Ferrell's Big Money
Players Network and iHeart Podcasts. It's created and hosted by
me Ian faff I, wrote, directed, scored, edited and mixed
this episode. The show is executive produced by Hans Sanhi
and Will Ferrell and co produced by Olivia Aguilar. If
you want to see what else I'm up to, go
to ianfaff dot com or check out my Instagram. Spring
(45:46):
Break nineteen eighty four. Thanks for listening.
Halfway through my senior year at the Savannah College of
Art and Design also known as SCAD, I was taking
a class on documentary filmmaking and one of our assignments
was to record and interview someone about their lives. The
restaurant I worked at at the time hired lots of
guys who were fresh out of prison, and I found
that they were more than happy to talk about how
they ended up there. I ended up interviewing one of
(00:35):
the cooks. His name was Mike, and he had just
gotten out of prison after being locked up for thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I went to prison for a lot of burglaries and
a lot of arm robbers, and I got twenty years.
I did just about thirteen years on the centers.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'm out own parole now.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
As far as a class assignment goes, it turned out great.
Mike was an open book, and I learned all about
prison and breaking and entering.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Okay, what, for instance, I want to break in a house?
All right? First of all, I have to get all
the things I need to get in the house, screwdrivers
or pro bob whatever, on't need because there's no real
strain when you're going into a house. It's not like
you're going into a business homes. I mean you can
just raise the wind up if they ain't got alarm
(01:20):
on it, you know what I mean. Sometime you can
go in from under the house. Commercial. Burg was like
you going in drug stoves, warehouses.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You need to do all this when they're clothes.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, Well that's what Burg was about being need
breaking it in it right.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
But it was the subject of another student in the
classes interview who really caught my attention. He interviewed this
guy named Matt, who had just returned to Savannah after
a summer long cross country bike trip, a recent scad grab.
Matt was a few years older than the rest of us.
If you saw him on the street, he might seem
a little intense, a disciple of the DIY punk scene.
(01:59):
He looked like you right at home with the folks.
Marcus went down the Mississippi with tattered clothes, tattoos on
his arms and legs, dark hair, a thick black beard,
and piercing gray eyes. But once he starts talking with
his old golly shuck's demeanor, it turns out he's a
pretty affable guy. Now nearly twenty years later, he looks
pretty much exactly the same. He just has a lot
(02:21):
more tattoos and his black hair and beard are now silver.
This is Matt talking about his trip.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
I graduated from SCAD and had like essentially everyone, no
real agenda, no job. And one of my good friends
had moved out to Portland and he was like, you
should come hang out at here. It's awesome. And I'd
never been to the West Coast ever before, so I
was like, all right, well why not.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He started from his mom's house in North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I don't know why, Like I had this like total
stupid plan of like I'm never gonna get psych of biking,
so I'll just keep going forever.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Instead of going across the country, he decided to go
north first.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
From North Carolina two Pennsylvania, saw some friends, met some
momish people whatever, and then turned left and went through
a lot of Ohio and then like like legs started
doing some things, not muscle pain, but like bone pain,
where I was like, this is like a real persistent
issue that I was like, oh, this kind of sucks.
Wound up getting a ride from my brother to Iowa
because he was going to school in Iowa, and then
(03:20):
I biked all across Iowa and most of Nebraska, and
I was like, oh my god, this knee thing is
like coming back and something about like I was getting
pummeled by wind at that point too, like eastbound wind.
It was just like absolutely decimating my interest in trying
to keep going. I'd literally wake up in a cornfield
in my crappy little tent, and I was like, again,
(03:43):
like this sucks. So I biked all the way back
to Iowa City, where my brother was.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Matt decided he was going to get to the West
coast one way or another and bought a BLUs ticket
to Sacramento.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So I took a horrible sixty five hour bus trip
and which by the time I was done, I was
like I can't wait to get back of my bike
and be hurting from my knee pain and my tendon pain.
And you know, hung out in the bay for like
a week, and then bikes from there all the way
up to Portland. Spent like three or four days kind
of hanging out on some random person's porch because I
didn't have anywhere to stay, and then went all the
(04:16):
way up to Seattle because I actually knew somebody in Seattle,
and then you know, I crossed the country in heavy
quotation marks. It was like a twenty four hundred mile
bike ride or something. So I was like, all right,
that's pretty good. Like it wasn't exactly what I wanted
to look like, you know, I did a lot of
bike riding, and like biking up California through Oregon and
stuff was super fun because the very worst, like if
(04:37):
you're like, eugh, I just want to take a break,
he can just do it by the ocean. Like if
you take a break in Iowa, You're like, all right,
I'll hang out like behind this like the most busted
target you've ever seen, and like see these like crappy
skateboarders spray painting stuff and bugging me with their dumb
questions when I'm like, I just I literally just want
to sit down.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The Savannah to Seattle trip was actually Matt's second bike trip.
He'd done a smaller one hundred mile one the year before.
Ten years after his Savannah to Seattle trip, he biked
a thousand miles through Alaska. At the time of this interview,
he was a week away from going on his fourth
bike trip, a couple hundred miles along the Blue Ridge
Parkway in the Smoky Mountains North Carolina to Virginia. So,
(05:18):
as far as I'm concerned, this guy is kind of
an expert when it comes to cross country bike trips.
So for my bike trip, when I was spending the
night my uncle's trailer, this dude, Glenn, fresh out of prison.
The thing that he kept saying was, if you weren't
your uncle's nephew, I'd kill you and take your shit.
(05:39):
And he his refrain and my uncle's refrain the whole
night was basically, people are going to try to kill you.
Do you know how to fight? Can you kill anyone
with your bare hands? But they really got me prepared
for the idea that I was about to enter mad
Max World and everywhere I looked there were going to
be people jumping out from every corner trying to kill me.
(06:01):
So I'm curious how many people tried to kill you?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I feel like that disappointingly zero, Like I I mean,
like the worst, the absolute worst I ever ran across
was like maybe random conspiracy theory dude being like, oh,
like this guy's locking up his bike and just coming
at me and to talk, like you know, still keeping
like a distance with like five feet but explaining like,
you know, see those things in the sky like they're
(06:30):
watching us, and I'm like the clouds, dude, Like what
I did a bike tour in Alaska, Like I did
a thousand miles in Alaska, which is like no man's
land type of stuff, Like if I pop both tires,
I have to walk a hundred miles to get to
civilization and nothing, you know, nothing went wrong up there,
but like people were like the easiest part of that,
and they're like some of the most grizzled, like like grizzled,
(06:51):
but in that like okay, I'll give you like a
wide berth kind of grizzled way up there. Yeah, animals
were way worse, Like I was more freaked out by
bears and stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, did you have any bear running?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Is there anything I saw one? I saw a wolf
on the first day, like fifteen feet away from me,
which is pretty wild, which was immediately shattered by this
random like bro runner dude like coming up and he
was like, dude, that dog was awesome, And I was like,
that wasn't it, Like it wasn't a dog, Like what.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I feel like, I remember you telling me something about
a weird night in Baltimore or was it just because
it's Baltimore it seems weird. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
There was a dude in Baltimore who kept like intentionally
driving in front of me and then like trying to
dore me at every red light, which was like almost
like quaintly annoying, where I was like, this is so dumb,
like what are you doing, dude? And actually, now I
think about it. Two rednecks, which to this point I
didn't believe rednecks existed in California because I was like,
you know, grew up in North Carolina, had never been
(07:44):
to the West Coast. I was like, oh, it's all
like you know, tech billionaires and environmentally whatever conscious people.
But like two guys drove by in like the most
busted truck you've ever seen and threw like a glass
bottle at me, like on the one on one and
like thing goodness, very pleased. Did not hit me. But
the downside was I watched like this, you know, forty
of whatever like sail off into this like pristine wilderness
(08:08):
and like smash on this tree, and I was like, man,
that sucks, Like people could be jerks. That's annoying.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I got I got bad news for you, Galk those
dudes are trying to kill.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
You right now, I've got like that. Now I have
the DVD extra that I'm like, Oh my god, they
were trying to kill me the whole time.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
As established in the last episode, I was primed and
ready for an adventure of my own. After seeing the
video about Matt, I knew what I wanted to do
my own solo bike trip. As I started telling people
what I was thinking about doing after I graduated, one
of my neighbors, a doctor who lived in my apartment building,
said that if I made it up to Portland, Maine,
I could stay at her beach cottage for as long
(08:50):
as I wanted. She made me a copy of the
key and gave me directions. So once I had a destination,
it felt like a no brainer to actually go for it.
I decided that after I graduated, I would spend the
whole summer biking up the East Coast. I was born
in Virginia and moved to Minnesota when I was seven,
so the idea of returning to Virginia and visiting with
family and old friends seemed like a great idea. I
(09:13):
had a lot of friends from scad who were from
the East Coast, which gave me a long list of
people in places that I could visit along the way.
The second half of my senior year was more or
less spent getting ready for the trip. The bike that
I had been using was a gorgeous beach cruiser that
I got at Walmart called the Keluna Moondog. The Moondog
and I were thick as thieves. I rode this thing everywhere.
(09:36):
I ended up removing the seat and replacing it with
a red Igloo cooler so I could fill the thing
up with beer wherever I went. So as great as
the Moondog was for a party animal in Savannah, it
wasn't exactly a vehicle suitable for a cross country bike trip.
At some point I made an incredible find at a
good Will. For fifteen dollars, I got a yellow Shwind
Varsity road bike from the nineteen seventies that just happened
(09:58):
to be the same kind of bike my dad had
when he was in college, and it fit me perfectly.
It seemed cosmic preordained. I ended up spending another sixty
dollars to get it tuned up and started to train
for the trip on the weekends I would bike the
forty mile round trip from Savannah to the beach on
Tybee Island. But aside from just biking all over the place,
I realized that there was a lot I needed to
(10:19):
know about how to successfully take on a trip like this.
So I tracked down this Matt guy from the video
and asked if he would show me the ropes. Viewing
him is my sense a. I hung onto his every
word as he shared his experience and imparted valuable wisdom,
making sure that I would know everything I needed to
know before going on a trip of my own. How
(10:40):
much prep went into the bigger trip or the trip,
the Alaska trip, or I guess your upcoming trip.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Still it always feels like less prep than it should be,
Like I'm just so bad at like research like kills
the interest for me when I'm like, I'll just figure
out when to get there or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
This was my sense I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I would say, it's like exactly like a camping trip
where you're like, all right, I'll get the general idea
of where we might be able to camp, Like I
don't call ahead to book anything, which is easily the
most stressful part is like come five pm, where you're like,
all right, where am I going to like hide my
body tonight?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Aside from biking one oh one and replacing tubes, patching tires,
fixing brake lines, et cetera, he had plenty of tips
and recommendations, like figuring out where to sleep.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Like if I came across like a church or like
a school, especially during summer, I was like, well, I
can camp at the back there, like it's not going
to be a big issue or whatever. I'm you know,
somewhere I'm less likely to get kicked out and they're
not going to care if someone's there between nine pm
and seven am or whatever. But I remember waking up
like in my tent and hearing three like women walk
by and be like, what an odd place to camp
behind a middle school? And I was like, ah god,
(11:49):
I was like hearing it from their perspective, I was like, well,
there's really nothing I could say. That is a really
strange place to set up shop. But even now, my
mom was like, please don't sleep on the roof of.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Any sleeping out of KFC. Is that one of the
ones you did?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
There was a KFC that like had a little access
ladder in the back and I just climbed up there,
and mostly because I was like, I'm into like a
little town. I don't want anyone to mess with me
when I'm asleep. You know. It's one thing like if
you're in the middle of nowhere like Alaska, like you
set up shop with your tent in the woods, no
one cares, Like there's just no one up there to
even notice. But yeah, like going through Baltimore or whatever,
like DC, like I literally slept under a bridge like
(12:25):
a full on highway system. There's like spiders, it's dry,
it's gross, it's like a super loud You don't get
good sleep, you know, you get whatever you can and
then you just go on the next day and you
fall asleep on a park bench somewhere.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Fun stuff, good stuff, excellent note, thank you. Finding places
to sleep was definitely something I was worried about. I
figured I'd try it out in Savannah, because if I
couldn't do it there, how would I be able to
do it on the road. So one night I grabbed
my pillow in a blanket and went up to the
top of one of the parking garages downtown. I found
(13:02):
a corner that was in the shadows, so it'd be
hard for anyone to see me. And somehow I just
fell asleep and I woke up the next morning right
at sunrise with birds tweeting and the sounds of the
(13:23):
city starting to come to life. It was pretty easy
and pretty exciting. It was a success. Matt did a
lot to help me get ready for the trip, but
the most valuable thing he taught me was the art
(13:44):
of dumpster diving. So dumpster diving, that was the plan
for sustenance.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Anyone who's ever dumpster dive, you're like, you won't believe
the stuff you'll find. Some of it's like super exciting,
like you'll find like, oh my god, it's like seven
protein shakes, Like this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I warned you on the first episode that I would
evangelize about dumpster diving, and here it is. Dumpster diving, or,
if you want to go with one of its more
euphemistic titles, Fhreaganism or foraging is pretty much what it
sounds like, hopping into dumpsters and looking for food, food
that's safe to eat. I heard about it before I
ever tried it and thought it sounded absolutely disgusting. But
(14:22):
once Matt took me on a tour of his favorite dumpsters.
My mind was blown. First off, so much food gets
thrown away just because it's reached its expiration date. Granted
that can get sketchy with meat or dairy or produce,
but it's not that gross when you're looking at non perishables.
The first Kroger dumpster that I went to was loaded
with unopened boxes of cereal, jars of peanut butter, cookies, crackers.
(14:45):
All of it just happened to expire the day we
got there. I mean, how exact are those expiration dates? Anyway,
As part of the DIY Punk mill U, dumpster diving
was something that Matt had been doing for a while
and it was how he fed himself during his entire
cross country bike trip.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
People in California, or like West Coast folks in general,
are like a little more aware of it. You'll actually
meet people dumpster diving stuff there on the East Coast,
like everywhere I was going, like little towns in the Carolinas, Virginia, DC,
et cetera. Like you're not going to bump into anybody.
I would just stop behind, you know, grocery stores, like
chain grocery stores got a lot of like free bananas,
(15:23):
all that kind of stuff. You'd find like twenty salads
that were like, you know, past their due date or whatever,
but they're all still fine, you know, or like you
can use judgment and be like, oh, this bactally puffed
up and it's like gonna explode. I'm not gonna eat that.
So yeah, like I ate pretty well, Like I had,
you know, salads like probably every night, lots of fruit,
lots of bread, like some you know, random bread delivery
guys would see me and I'd be like, do you
have any like day old stuff, and they would just
(15:43):
you know, kick me down, like twenty bagels or whatever
because they don't care.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So when I met Matt, he was CouchSurfing around town.
He didn't have a job or any money, and he
was dumpster diving regularly. So he took me all over
Savannah and showed me all of his favorite dumpsters. And
to those of you who are coiling just hearing me
talk about this, I just want to stress that it's
not not gross. It's just not as gross as you'd expect.
(16:09):
Everyone's reaction when you tell them about it, it's just like, oh,
that's so gross. It's surprisingly not that gross.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
It's not. Yeah, I had the like I had the
wrong thing in mind. I was like, oh, like, I'm
picturing like the stuff they throw away when I go
to like a decent restaurant.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And it's more like a good will bin filled with
just perfectly packaged food.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Dumpster diving at a grocery store, you're way more likely
to find like unopened peanut butter that like the label
got printed wrong, or like that Kroger and Savannah would
misorder stuff all the time.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I remember when you took me to teach me
how to dumpster dive. Yeah, we just went all over
Savannah and by the end of it we had a
giant hefty bag filled with popcorn from the movie theater right,
a case of unopened Oreos ye, like tons and tons
of Oreos.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
But no, the thing that I remember in Savannah when
you and I went out, probably the first time, was
that's by that point I was stopping at that like
Dominoes or like Pizza Hut.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Or something, Yeah, the Pizza Hut, and it was like it.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Was so hit or miss that I was like, well,
I don't know. And when we went it was like
I remember there being like three full cheese pizzas.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
That fresh, still steaming exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I know I burned my hand on it when I
picked it up. Yeah, that was the best. And I
was like, because that never happens when I would show
someone like, oh, yeah, you can find free food. Sometimes
it was like typically a bust, you know, where we'd
find like a like a bloody rag and they'd be like,
what the hell are you doing with your life?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So we're gonna jump ahead in time here for a second.
After my bike trip, I ended up moving to Chicago
and lived with Matt for a while. When I showed
up in town, I had just enough money for the
first month's rent and that was it. So while I
was looking for a job, I did a lot of
dumpster diving, and to this day, my first few months
in Chicago were probably the healthiest I've ever eaten. It
(17:52):
was winter, so anything that went into the dumpster was
basically in the freezer. I would load up on organic
chicken breasts from Whole Foods that expire that day. I
would also get prepackaged produce from Whole Foods and Trader Joe's,
and we had a seemingly infinite supply of Paneras baked
goods because every night when they closed, they would take
everything off the shelf they made that day, throw it
in a big garbage bag and toss it in their dumpster.
(18:15):
It was ridiculous. We had piles of Panera bread, bagels, muffins, pastries, cookies,
And to this day I still can't pay for Panera
because I had so much of it for free.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
When I was doing Jimmy John's delivery back in Chicago.
That Panera like was sort of at the midpoint of
like every you know, anything west of where I was
going and the shop that I was going back to,
so I would just like stop there consistently for lunch
and be like, oh sweet, like round sugar bagels, all right,
Like they just eat it on the way, like it
would have taken more time to go buy one than
it would to just like zip around back.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And most exciting was our refrigerator always stocked with dozens
of bottles of oad Walla, the very expensive health food juice.
Some of the bottles were expired, but most of them
were mislabeled or had the labels on upside down or something.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
That was like the the Holy Grail to me because
there was the supplier of the main distribution point. So
I'd like, you know, twenty different stores worth of on
Wallace stuff that was expiring.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, and to those of you listening, picture me and
my Mazda Protege filling the trunk completely with on Wallas
and then our entire refrigerator just being nothing but on Walla.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
It would have liked to to the untrained eye, would
have looked like our apartment was like weirdly sponsored to
buy on Wa.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
For some reason, I haven't gone dumpster diving since my
first few months in Chicago. I also haven't eaten Whole
Food's organic chicken breast every night for dinner either. Once
I did get a job, I didn't have time to
buke all over town searching through dumpsters. I started eating
at restaurants, buying my own groceries, and nothing was ever
as healthy as what I'd been living on during my
(19:47):
dumpster days. That was nearly twenty years ago, and a
lot has changed since then. For instance, a lot more
people became aware of freaganism. Thanks to the Internet. You
no longer needed to meet a guy like Matt who
could become your dumpster diving spiritual guide. You could just
learn about it online, and grocery stores got wise to
people rooting around through their dumpsters so to put a
(20:08):
stop to it instead of not throwing away perfectly good food.
You'll now see that a lot of dumpsters have locks
on them, they have lids, they're enclosed, or they're behind
a fence. In Chicago since then, a a lot of
dumpsters are locked now because a lot of people started
doing it. But be huge rat problem, oh, which was
(20:29):
not happening when we were here the first time. But
back then it just seemed like nothing but a good idea.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah, yeah, it was the I mean in a lot
of ways, it was like the Halcyon era for like
that type of situation.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
We were there, We were there for the salad days
of the dumpster days. I learned everything I could for
Matt and continued to get ready for my trip. By
the end of my senior year, everybody I knew knew
what I was planning, and for the most part, everyone
thought it was a great idea. Everyone except for my parents.
Here's my mom at.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
My initial thing is he's so naive. How can he
be that naive? Why is he wanting to do this
there makes no point why he would want to ride
a bike and eat out of garbage cans. What is
he trying to prove with that said, why would I
try to talk you out of something? I mean, at
that point, you were twenty one, You know you need
I just wanted you to live through it, Okay, At
(21:22):
the bottom line, do what you need to do. Although
I think it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in
my life, but then just live through it. And that's
before I knew about all your adventures of my dear
beloved brother Chris.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Despite letting me know that they thought it was a
stupid idea, my parents didn't try to talk me out
of it. My dad even went as far as to
help me get outfitted for the trip. He even let
me use some of his camping gear, waterproof bags, a
gortex rainsuit, and a one person ten So after I graduated,
I emptied out my apartment and flew home with all
my possessions worth keeping. I spent a week or two
(21:57):
with my family and friends in Minnesota. At the time,
I had an on again, off again girlfriend, and while
I was back in Minnesota during that visit, things kind
of became on again, but I was still committed to
the trip and flew back to Savannah, where I spent
a couple of days crashing with a friend while I
got everything ready. I packed as light as I could,
and had installed these racks on the front and back
(22:17):
wheels of the bike so I was able to hook
bags on either side of both wheels. For comfort. I
had a tent, a sleeping pad, and a sleeping bag
For hygiene. I had a change of clothes and a
toothbrush For maintenance. I had a bike repair tool, spare tubes,
a tire patch kit, a small hand pump, a leatherman,
some bungee cords, and a roll of duct tape. For sustenance,
(22:39):
I had analgae water bottle, some dumpster muffins, and fifty
dollars in McDonald's gift certificates, a graduation gift from one
of my mom's friends. For entertainment, I had some pens
and a sketchbook, a copy of Kirk Vonnegut's Mother Night,
a fully loaded iPod, and a cheap kid sized acoustic
guitar that I got at a pawn shop For money.
I had one hundred and six i'd closed my bank
(23:01):
account in Savannah, and this was all the money I
had in the world. The plan was to do some
panhandling with the guitar to make a few bucks here
and there, which was something I had done before, so
it wasn't a completely insane idea. Otherwise I would just
be eating out of dumpsters, sleeping on the beach, and
hanging out with friends. Finally, the day had come, I
(23:22):
loaded the bike into my Grandpa's car and drove the
two hours to Uncle Chris's trailer. Somehow I slept through
(23:42):
the night, despite Glenning Kittycat's sexual escapades. I woke up
the next morning in the recliner. Uncle Chris had already
left around four or five in the morning to go
drive his garbage truck. It was just Glenn, Kitty Cat
and me. Kitty Cat made us bacon and eggs for breakfast,
and after we ate, Glenn, remembering our deal, he said
he was ready to take me to the coast. It
(24:03):
was a hot, muggy morning. The sun was bright beaming
down on the trailer. There were these leftover beers on
the steps to the trailer, just being blasted by the sun.
I'll never forget Glenn's stepping out of the trailer. This
giant man with his string ponytail, his lazy eye, his
huge belly hanging out of an unbuttoned short sleeve shirt.
He lights up a cigarette, grabs one of the hot
(24:27):
keystone lights off the steps and chugs it. He tosses
the can, takes a puff off his cigarette, grabs a
second hot beer and chugs it too. Then he grabs
(24:51):
two more beers, puts one in his pocket, cracks the
other one open, and says, all right, let's go. Kitty
Cat gave me a hug goodbye. Glenn and I got
in the car. I was behind the wheel, and we
took off. My uncle Chris lived near Cordsville, South Carolina.
(25:19):
It was about an hour drive through the Francis Marion
National Forest, which is a giant swamp to get to
the coast. During that hour, Glenn told me his entire
life story, and it's quite a story. Prison murder, prostitutes, Vietnam,
a Black Sabbath cover band, Brothels. I'll get into the
specifics in the next episode, but for now we'll stick
(25:39):
with my story. We emerged from the swamp in a
suburb of Charleston, called North Mount Pleasant on Highway seventeen.
I unloaded my bike from the Mazda and double checked everything.
Once I was ready, Glenn took a picture of me.
In the photo, I'm awkwardly standing behind my bike, fully
loaded with gear. The expression on my face this is
(26:00):
hard to read. I know I was nervous and excited,
but in the photo I looked surprisingly calm, chubby with
the belly, wearing cargo shorts, a white yellow polo shirt,
red sweat bands on my wrists, chuck tailors on my feet,
and a yellow baseball cap made of reflective material. I
was not exactly lance Armstrong. Glen and I said our goodbyes,
(26:21):
and then I took a left on Highway seventeen and
started pedaling. I covered about fifty miles on my first day,
and it was incredible. The beginning of the ride felt
like any suburban area strip malls and chain stores, but
eventually it opened up to the low country, grassy fields
and marshlands as far as the eye could see, and
(26:42):
every now and then I'd catch a glimpse of the
ocean to my right. Twenty miles or so was spent
biking through the little Wambas swamp part of the Francis
Marian National Forest, and the timing was perfect. It was
middle of the day, so the sun was high in
the sky, but I was shielded by a tunnel of
trees and surrounded by dense swamp. I hardly saw any cars,
and there were whole stretches where I was the only
(27:04):
person within miles on the other side of the swamp.
I got my first flat tire and it was no
big deal. I patched it up in a grassy field.
I had some dumpster muffins for lunch. I filled up
my naljeene with some water at a gas station, and
around four o'clock in the afternoon, I arrived in Georgetown,
South Carolina. My butt was killing me from riding all day,
(27:24):
so I decided this is where I would spend my
first night. Georgetown is a charming little river town. It
looks like something out of a Hallmark movie. There's a
small downtown with a clock tower in a main street,
and a harbor filled with boats. A walking trail, a
wooden boardwalk called the Harbor Walk, goes along the entire shoreline,
giving a lovely view of the low country and the river.
(27:45):
The first thing I did. When I got there, was
blow about fifteen dollars worth of McDonald's bucks on a
stupid amount of burgers and fries. Then I found the
local library where I could charge my phone, and I
used a computer to type up a moment by moment
account of my previous night in Uncle Cree trailer. I
emailed it to myself so I could remember everything. After
the library closed, I sat on a park bench and
(28:07):
drew up Uncle Chris's Guide to Death. I didn't want
to forget all of the life saving slash life taking
techniques that I had learned the night before. I gave
my parents a call to let them know I was alive.
I gave my on again, off again now sort of
on again girlfriend a call and we talked for a bit.
Once I was off the phone, I had nothing else
to do. There were some restaurants and bars, but I
(28:28):
didn't have any money to spend. I'd already written everything
down and drawn in my notebook. I have to admit
that at this point I was bored, but that feeling
of boredom was soon replaced by a feeling of dread.
It was nearly dark and I hadn't figured out where
I was going to sleep yet. I explored the area
around Main Street but found it was mostly residential. I
(28:49):
wanted to find a school or a church, like Matt recommended,
but it was already dark in pre iPhone, so I
couldn't look up where to find one, and I wasn't
having any luck. I started getting pretty worried. I wasn't
sure what to do, so I ended up calling Matt.
I remember calling you, Oh my god, Yeah, yeah, because
I showed up at this town and I start looking around.
(29:10):
I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Basically You're just like, yeah, you'll figure it out. And
I just needed someone to say, like, yeah, it's okay, you'll.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
You know, right.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Not sure where to go, I returned to the park
bench that i'd been sitting at. The bench was in
a public park that was close to the river, and
on the edge of the park there were some trees.
A walking path led to a portion of the harbor
Walk that veered off into the tree line. Past the trees,
a portion of the harbor Walk hung out over the water.
I guess you'd call it a scenic overlook, but picture
a small dock or a deck that would be on
(29:41):
the back of someone's house about ten feet wide that
went out over the water. It was surrounded by a
metal railing, and I imagine a great place to take
photos during daytime. It also happened to be a great
place to sleep during nighttime. I locked my bike to
the metal railing and laid out my sleeping pad and
sleeping bag on the side where i'd hardest a spot.
Despite seeing a couple of palmetto bugs scurrying around those
(30:04):
are the giant cockroaches you see in the South, and
being nervous, I'll admit it, terrified. I was also exhausted
thanks to the combination of trying to sleep through Glenning
Kittycat's sexual exploits, and a fifty mile bike ride. I
fell asleep immediately. I woke up around six the next
(30:30):
morning and there was a man standing over me, jogging
in place, wearing running shoes and tennis shorts. He was
checking his pulse with his finger while he stared at me.
I immediately scrambled, grabbed all my things and tried to apologize,
saying something stupid like oh sorry, I'm on a bike trip.
He didn't say anything, but it was clear that he
did not approve of me sleeping on his harbor walk.
(30:51):
He jogged away. I took a picture of where I slept,
packed up my gear, and hit the road. Whatever dread
and fear that I felt the night before was matched
that morning by the exhilaration of having pulled it off.
I refilled my water bottle at a gas station in
Georgetown and then continued up Highway seventeen. Still in the
(31:13):
low country, the bright sun reflected off the haze of
the marsh's morning fog. Everything had a golden glow to it.
It looked like some kind of dream. It was absolutely beautiful.
I would end up biking about forty miles one day two,
which took me just past Myrtle Beach. About twenty miles
in the magic started to fade. There was a lot
more traffic, and my butt was killing me. My mom
(31:36):
would periodically check in, and I took a few breaks
throughout the day that somehow turned into longer and longer
phone calls with the on again off again. Now it
seems like things are really on again girlfriend. Even at
the time, I was aware that these phone calls weren't
exactly in line with my buddy Turner's idea of sometimes
I've just needed to go off and be fucking weird
by myself, let my brain untangle itself for a while.
(31:58):
You know, hell, you know hell, you know how. But
I knew my parents were worried, and I didn't want
them to worry more than they had to. And you know,
having a girlfriend is nice, So why would I get
in the way of that. I think the reality of
the trip was sinking in a little bit too. I
was surprised by how bored I was getting, and these
phone calls were a nice distraction. But any feelings of
(32:19):
boredom subsided once I actually got to Myrtle Beach. I'd
never been there before, and it was awesome. It's got
the classic beach town vibe. There's a boardwalk, a ferris wheel,
souvenir shops, people walking around in airbrush t shirts. It's
pretty rare. I was also excited to find the corporate
headquarters of the restaurant Hooters. I went around back to
their dumpster, hoping to find some type of ridiculous Hooters paraphernalia,
(32:42):
like extra calendars or maybe some spreadsheets, but I had
no such luck. I ended up hanging out on the
beach for a little bit. I was going to go
for a swim, but apparently a girl had been bitten
by a bull shark the day before and nobody was
going in the water, so I opted for air conditioning
and hung out at the library instead, where I was
able to charge my phone and look through some books.
(33:04):
I decided that i'd like to sleep on the beach
that night, but because Myrtle Beach was so busy, I
thought I should bike up the coast a bit to
see if I could find a more secluded spot. I
ended up going about five or six miles past Myrtle
Beach and was surprised to find that access to the
beach was going to be harder than I thought. At
this point, it was around six pm and I was
starting to get worried again. I hadn't found a spot
(33:25):
to sleep yet, and I knew that it would be
dark in a couple of hours, and I didn't want
to be biking along the highway at night. As I
was thinking about all of this, I guess I didn't
see a pothole up ahead, and my back wheel slammed
right into it. It almost knocked me off the bike,
but I managed to stay up and wabble over to
the side of the road. My bike's back wheel had tacoed,
which is a biking term for when your wheel bends
(33:48):
in half, as if you were folding a tortilla to
make a taco. Several of the spokes were bent, and
when I tried pedaling the wheel, it would rub against
the bike frame, making it incredibly hard to move forward.
Of all of the things that I expected to happen
to my bike, this was not one of them. When
I originally spent the sixty bucks to get the bike
tuned up, they suggested I get new wheels at around
(34:09):
eighty bucks a pop. I couldn't afford it at the time,
and now, with only one hundred and sixty dollars to
my name, I knew that an eighty dollars wheel replacement
was out of the question. During all of my planning
and preparation, I never considered that I would have to
spend money on the bike itself. In retrospect, there are
so many things I could have done. I'm sure that
(34:30):
if I really tried, I could have found a place
to sleep and the next day walked to the bike
into town and found a bike shop. I'm sure they
would have been sympathetic to my situation and would have
helped me out or at least given me a deal.
It would have been so easy to spend a day
or two hanging out on the beach panhandling with the
guitar until I made enough money to buy a new
wheel and keep going to Maine. But in the moment
(34:54):
I panicked it would be dark soon, I hadn't found
anywhere to sleep. I was along the side of a
busy highway, my butt hurt, my bike wasn't working, and
I was scared. The reality of how alone I was
and how vulnerable I was really hit me. And as
all of this was sinking in, I saw a taxi
(35:14):
coming my way, and without thinking reflexively, I flagged it down.
I wish I had taken five more minutes to calm
myself down and come up with a plan. I wish
I'd been able to see all the different options in
front of me, but I didn't. Something went wrong, I
got scared, and I decided to quit. This is a
(35:36):
recording that I made to document the end of my
bike trip.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
Well, it would appear that my fun little bike trip
has come to a close the back wheel. That fun
little wobble action going on there was doing that, which
means there's no way it's going to make it the
main obviously. And on top of that, this thing mean
(36:05):
she fancied to be The bike's a piece of shit,
and it looks like I am calling it quits. That sucks.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I had seen a Greyhound bus station in town and
asked the taxi driver to take me there. I took
everything with me that I could, got into the taxi
and left the bike on the side of Highway seventeen.
The taxi driver was talkative and charming and very curious
about what I was up to. Even at the time,
the irony didn't escape me. For the past six months,
(36:37):
I'd been talking about this bike trip to anyone who
would listen, and now that I was actually on the trip,
the very first person who asked me about it, I
had to explain to them that I was quitting. After that,
I didn't really feel like talking. The taxi ride was
about ten dollars. At the Greyhound station, I saw there
was a bus leaving for Charleston that night and the
(36:58):
ticket was fifty dollars. I called my parents and explained
the situation. They were sympathetic, but I knew they were
also very excited and relieved that I had called it quits.
My mom told me to take the bus to Charleston
and drive my grandpa's car back to Minnesota. She would
call Uncle Chris and get it all sorted out. At
seven o'clock, I got on the bus with all my
(37:18):
gear piled up in my lap and looked out the window.
The bus left downtown Myrtle Beach and took a right
onto Highway seventeen, heading back the same way I came.
From when I got into the taxi to when the
bus started driving. The whole thing felt like a dream.
It was like I was in shock. But during that
(37:39):
bus ride, when I looked out the window and saw
the exact stretch of road that had taken me two
days to ride passed by it fifty miles an hour,
the reality really sank in. Each passing landmark that had
symbolized a triumphal I was on my bike became another
reminder of how pathetic I was. I've never, in my
(38:02):
entire life before or after that bus ride felt anything
as low as the shame I felt for quitting. Sad, angry, embarrassed.
I absolutely hated myself. As I looked out the window,
I replayed every conversation I had had leading up to
the trip, all those people that I had told everything
(38:23):
about what I was going to do. I replayed every
fantasy that had been rolling around in my head, sleeping
on beaches, panhandling, hanging out with family and friends, and
pulling up to some amazing cottage in Maine. All of
those dreams had become impossible because I got scared. I
was flooded with regret, because I knew I had reached
(38:43):
the point of no return. The bus drove past Georgetown
in the grassy field where I fixed my tire. The
whole time I stared out the window, trying my hardest
not to cry. And then things got worse. Halfway through
(39:13):
the Little Wambas Swamp, there was commotion at the back
of the bus. Some of the people started arguing, and
a woman close to me shouted, Ah, somebody done shit
they pants. Apparently someone had taken a dump on the
bus without using the bus's bathroom, and the smell slowly
spread throughout the bus. Several women began to spray perfume
(39:33):
into the air to cover up the stench, but that
only made things worse, and pretty soon everyone on the
bus was complaining. Eventually, the smell made its way to
the front of the bus and the driver lost it.
He began yelling at the passengers.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Who did it? Who took a shit on my bus?
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Normally I would find something like this hilarious, but in
my dejected state of self loathing, I felt nothing. I
could care less. The driver pulled the bus over and
parked it on the side of the road. He marched
to the back of the bus and was shown what
I guess was a pile of human feces.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Dear God, who the hell shit on my bus?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Again? He demanded to know who did it, but no
one came clean. Because human waste was present on the
bus and considered a biohazard, it was protocol for everyone
to get off of the bus. All of the passengers
were forced to exit and stand along the road in
the middle of the swamp. It was pitch black, the
only light source coming from inside the bus. It was
(40:34):
pretty creepy. The bus driver informed us that we could
not reboard the bus because it would need to be cleaned.
A replacement bus was on its way from Myrtle Beach
and would be there as soon as possible. The bus
(40:57):
driver was livid and continued to interrogate the pass until
the replacement bus arrived.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Who the hell shit on my bus? I don't one
of you did it. No one's going anywhere until I
know who's shit on my bus.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
But no one ever fessed up. It was an hour
and a half before the replacement bus arrived. We all
boarded and made it to Charleston an hour later. It
was close to eleven by the time the bus pulled
into the Greyhound station. I got off and was surprised
(41:31):
to see Glenn waiting for me. He helped me carry
my gear and put it in the trunk of the Mazda.
I was expecting him to give me a bunch of
shit for quitting, but he was actually really nice about everything.
He even said he was proud of me for trying,
and the nicer he was, the worse it made me feel.
It was a quiet car ride back to Uncle Chris's trailer.
(41:52):
By the time we got there, Chris was already asleep.
Kitty Kat gave me a huge hug and was even
nicer than Glenn had been about everything. Then they went
to bed. I looked around to make sure there weren't
any guns hidden in the couch, and then I laid
down and went to sleep. When I woke up the
next morning, Uncle Chris had already left for work. I
said goodbye to Glenn and Kittycat, got into the Mazda
(42:15):
and began the twenty hour drive back home. I had
one hundred dollars in cash and thirty five dollars in
McDonald's bucks. It was just enough to make it back
to Minnesota. At some point during the drive, I called
Matt and begrudgingly told him about what happened. He was
now living in Chicago and said I could crash with
him on my way back. My parents were relieved that
(42:38):
I was coming home, and to be honest, that felt
like a huge weight had been lifted. I spent a
good chunk of the drive talking to my officially now
on again girlfriend, and she was excited for me to
be coming home early too. I had a lot of
fun with Matt once I got to Chicago, and just
happened to be there when one of the roommates announced
that they would be moving out. My now girlfriend still
(42:58):
had another year to go at her college, which was
only a couple hours away from Chicago, So I figured,
why not Chicago seems cool, and I offered to take
the roommate's place. I drove back to Minnesota, spent the
rest of the summer working as a landscaper, saved up
enough money for rent, and in the fall, I moved
to Chicago, and that's when the actual adventure of my
(43:21):
life began. As i'm recording this, it's been almost twenty
years since I went on my bike trip, and I
am still extremely embarrassed with how it all turned out.
As much as I still wish that I had been
able to pull it off, I've come to appreciate the
(43:41):
experience I actually had. I was counting on a summer
long adventure to show me who I really was, and
instead I found out exactly who I was in about
two days. The experience was humbling and humiliating, but ultimately
it's what I needed. I don't want to feel how
I felt on that bus ride ever again, and since then,
(44:02):
I've tried living my life in a way where I
won't have to, and for that, I'm so glad that
I failed so miserably, But man, it would have been
a lot cooler if I pulled it off.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
Well, that's what you told me. You said it was
what you needed. I think so much of people's problems
in general is not acknowledging who they are. But you know,
if you're comfortable with who you are, you're ninety nine
percent of the way there.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
There's a Frank Zappa song, you are what you are,
You is what you is, You is what you am.
A cow, don't make ham very deep. Yes, On the
next episode, we're gonna get a little philosophical with a
deep dive into Glenn's life story and exploring ideas like luck, privilege,
(44:50):
and stability from the perspective of guys who grew up
in actual war zones. Special thanks to Matt Gouk for
sharing his adventures, my buddy Steve for making the original
video about Matt back in the day, all of the
friends who supported my bike trip attempt, and all of
(45:12):
the adults who had no problem telling me how stupid
it was. And special thanks to Will Ferrell for playing
the bus driver who doesn't like people shitting on his bus.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Dear God who took a shit on my bus.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Uncle Chris is a production by Will Ferrell's Big Money
Players Network and iHeart Podcasts. It's created and hosted by
me Ian faff I, wrote, directed, scored, edited and mixed
this episode. The show is executive produced by Hans Sanhi
and Will Ferrell and co produced by Olivia Aguilar. If
you want to see what else I'm up to, go
to ianfaff dot com or check out my Instagram. Spring
(45:46):
Break nineteen eighty four. Thanks for listening.
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