Therese Marie

A very rainy start to a new adventure

I set off to begin bikepacking the Empire State Trail, and it was absolutely pouring.

But rain is never a reason to not do something. (…that’s a big ole double negative!) Me and my dad casually made our way up to somewhere in New York on Sunday afternoon. It seemed that once we left, the heavens opened up and an endless amount of rain came down. But strangely enough, I wasn’t phased at all?

I think because…I was starting an adventure, and on adventures, everything changes every day. Everything changes every hour. In that moment, when it was raining, I was in a car. How could I be upset about the rain if I was in a car, safe, warm and dry?

By the time we got to the trailhead, the weather cleared up. It was 3:30pm, and I got my things together and said goodbye to my dad and my dog.

And, I just started pedaling.

Those beginnings are always so strange to me. You get dropped off somewhere you’ve probably never really been before, you find the trail marking, and you unceremoniously go forward. Into the unknown.

My immediate thoughts were: oh, wait, this is kind of really easy.

Turns out, what I’m doing is mostly riding on rail trails. And those are paved, and flat, and full of little stops with train cars!

And that’s not really difficult to ride on. That’s when I first realized I was thinking about all this with my hiker brain, and not a biker brain. And I realized, I didn’t know what it’s like to have a biker brain. I just looked at all this from a backpacking standpoint. Generally lower-than-20 mile days, big inclines up mountains, having to pack a lot of food and water…that’s not the way it is on this trip.

And man, I feel like a queen.

There’s water like, everywhere? Because I’m just in society? So I don’t really have to carry any. And I can pick up snacks pretty much whenever I want. It feels like I’m living in the lap of luxury, like I’m hardly doing anything at all.

My second day started again with the threat of rain.

But it didn’t really rain that much. And soon I was over the Hudson, on a footbridge hundreds of feet up, thinking, “huh. This is pretty cool I guess.”

I set my sights on Kingston, NY. I imagined it was pretty close in my head. And then my mind started playing terrible tricks on me. I felt as if I wasn’t moving forward. I kept checking the GPS. And it looked like the little blue dot wasn’t moving at all. I increasingly felt like I was pedaling in a vortex, neither moving forward nor backward. Just somehow…in place, but so so tired.

What a fitting metaphor.

The biggest challenge so far has been making time to work.

When you don’t have time to take off work, you make work work for you! My job can be done remotely, and remote I am. But scheduling enough time to bike while it’s still light outside of work hours is proving to be a little difficult. I’m trying to bike during my lunch break, but that’s making me frustrated. I keep running out of time, and I think that’s also what made me feel like I was in a vortex. I knew I could take an hour for lunch, but in that hour I’d hardly ended up further down the trail at all.

I’ll tell ya, feeling discouraged sure makes the days go slower.

Thankfully, I found a safe haven in Kingston.

I was absolutely PSYCHED to make some new friends in what turns out to be a very groovy town. These two made me feel so welcomed and safe. We spent the evening chatting (before I inevitably needed to zonk out) and it felt so good to finally talk to someone about biking, and life, and everything in between.

Thankfully I have friends at home who are always checking in and supporting. That makes a huge difference, because it can feel really lonely out here, on my bike, by myself. I keep comparing everything to the AT. But…on the AT, people know when you’re thru-hikers. There’s trail magic, there’s camaraderie at the hostels. Here? I’m just a biker in a city, or on a rail trail, and then I’m gone. No one’s really cared to ask why I have so much stuff on my bike. I could just be commuting to work. So, what a welcomed gift this kind of in-person connection and recognition was.

Both Amanda and Aaron taught me so much just in the short time we shared together. And they treated me with such kindness. I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t feel like I deserved any of it. But god damn did I need it. And until I sat down to breakfast with Amanda, I didn’t realize how badly I’d needed that kind of compassion from someone. I’m not sure I have the words for it, but it felt like a very fortuitous moment, an intentional connection. I never expected to find myself there, but I am so glad I did.

Well, time to move onward.

My mind is still full of so many thoughts, and my thinking hasn’t really changed. But I am starting to notice the wild flowers, and the way the air smells. It is early yet, and I cannot remain untouched by this journey.

Fly on,

Lil