Day #9 Bandon to Gold Beach, OR

Today was another day on the bike, like every day of my life over the last week and a half. I've completely gotten into the routine by now. Wake up at 7:15, get ready, on the road by 8, stop an hour later for a quick breakfast, keep riding until lunch. Depending on the morning ride I usually have another few hours after lunch. I typically ride until around 2 pm.

Just like today. And when I'm on the bike I think of many things. One of the things that pops into my head is what the hostel owner in Elma said to me after I had eaten dinner and taken a shower and unpacked some stuff. He said, "do you feel like a human again?" He was referring to me being off the bike and in comfortable clothes, fed, etc. But the line sticks with me and sometimes it will randomly be there in my thoughts. Do you feel like a human again? Every day I have moments where I feel more and more human. But strangely, these feelings of humanity are more often found when I'm riding than when I'm not.

At the beginning of my trip I thought to myself, "won't it be funny when I can look back in history and say 'remember that time I rode from Seattle to Mexico'?" Like it was a casual thing that I did, like "remember the time we went to see that movie?" or "the time I ate so much candy at Halloween I threw up." It will be another event in the history of my life, the history that has made me the human that I am up to this point.