November 16, 2022
Time shifting
A rant on journaling after the fact
A month in since we returned home, I am exasperated at my slow progress in completing the journal. I remember feeling the same way on the train to Sarlat in October. At that point I was nearly a week behind and still dithering with the kludgy website I was using at the time. I admire at all of you who manage to keep up with your daily accounts. Here for any tips on how you go about it.
Learning about Cycle Blaze from Scott and Rachael Anderson in Sarlat was a hallelujah moment. I love the look and the ease of it. Weary of toiling away on my phone in the wee hours trying to keep up on the old site, I let myself off the hook. I figured we'll just take a lot of notes and pictures and move everything to CB once we got home. I was sure I could bang out the rest in short order with time, my laptop and unfettered Internet. But here we are, and there are all sorts of reasons why I am still poking along, starting with all the entertaining CB journals I am getting lost in.
A year ago before we even planned this tour I signed up to teach a class on bicycle touring that turned out to be a few weeks after our return. Preparing for the class has been a major distraction. Still, it's been worth it for the chance to yammer on with 20 other bicycle tourists with various levels of experience about where and how we all go about it. And I had a glorious jumping-off point for the session – a bit of Rachael Anderson’s Cahors Loop video along the Lot River in southern France. Fangirling hard here, but I think hearing "Another Day in Paradise" will forever conjure up those cliffs and scenes by the river for me.
The bikes are another big source of procrastination. We've had fun getting back on the gravel bikes – my favorite wheels – with some gorgeous Indian summer days to wander the backroads around St. Louis.
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The Bike Fridays continue to call our name. After being on them for a month in Europe, we better appreciate their capabilities. It was a snap to load them in the car for a late fall kayak trip, and they were great all-terrain vehicles for a gravelly ride to check out the put-in point.
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As pretty as it’s been here, as I pedal around I can’t help daydreaming about transporting back to wander around France. And while it seems a bit strange to write about our adventures in the present tense a month later, I find it’s the best way to put myself back there. I just wish I had taken better notes.
As my Mom would say, enough dilly dallying. Back to the task at hand - finishing the account of our journey.
And to anyone who may despair of catching up on your own journals, I offer “Courage” in my best Julia Child accent.
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Hey, thanks for linking in Rachael’s video! It was great to have an excuse to watch it again. I’m pretty sure when I get too old or feeble to tour I’ll be pretty happy to just spin through old videos and imagine us back there again
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Highlights can be anything. What matters is to capture your thoughts and feelings in the moment. If you're including photos, key them to your notes so you know which ones you thought you might include, and in what order and context.
I carried a small notebook. It was useful not only as I reviewed my days in the evening, but also for taking notes throughout a day's ride. It was especially valuable to get the names, Instagram / email / blog information from the people I met during a day's ride.
It may be harder to keep journals current when riding in company than alone. I had very few other distractions most evenings and early mornings, so there was a window of opportunity to write.
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