Preparation
After a couple of years' talk and planning, finally my son, Jason, and I began a multi-day bike trip to Washington DC from my home in North Carolina. I run a convenience store in front of NC State University in Raleigh and it's not easy to go on a multi-day trip of any kinds, due to the nature of my business. Thankfully my wife agreed on our multi-day trip, having to put more hours for the store during my absence. Also her sister's stay with us made this trip happen with ease.
Why were we taking this 375 mile excursion? First of all, my son and I like biking. Earlier this year, in spring, we biked about 60 miles around Triangle area for one day. My son enjoyed it overall, despite his dislike of uphills. If you've never been in any of the East Coast states, you might think it's a flat land as the map indicates as all green from the eastern outskirt of the Appalachian Mountains to the East Coast. Yeah, there are no mountains around here, but it doesn't mean it's flat. It consists of mild and endless rolling hills. So it's not monotonous to ride a bike around here. Or it can be a little bit of challenge for week muscles and smaller lungs. My son was approaching to 13 years old. His muscles were still developing and his lungs still growing.
He was in his early puberty. Too often we had yells at each other. A couple of days earlier, we got a knock of the door, and found our next door neighbor there, asking us if we knew who smashed the pumpkin on their door way. After some swears from my son and his friend about their innocence to God, scrutinies, threats, and afterward, confessions, it turned out to be my son and his friend's deed with a couple of other mischiefs, during their previous night's sleepover. However, there were other things which more concerned me about my son. Last Sunday, an elder member at a church gathering commented about my son, and I felt a pang in my heart. He said my son looked lonely and like in need of a lot of his parents' love. He and his wife had a similar experience with their first daughter who is now studying in Duke university. My family are christian but not very faithful and had been rather intermittent church goers. This may give a good reason why my son stayed as an outsider in his church society. He was in a great need of friends. This reminded me of my own lonely childhood. Jason is my first son and I didn't spend much time with him during his infancy and had not made up this absence yet. Consequently our mutual intimacy is not as close as those with my younger children. Spending less time with the first child is not uncommon, though. I got my first job only one year before my marriage, and my son is a honeymoon baby. When my son was born, I was still busy trying to show how competitive I was at my job. The company I worked at, sent me to province cities which were 60~80 miles away from my home at Seoul back in Korea. I went back home only on weekends, but exausted from long hours of work and traffic jammed weekend drive, I got to see my son only between my make-up sleeps. This lack of father-and-son company got virtually removed before long, when my family moved to the US when my son was 2 years old. However, perhaps, the first two years for an infant are more important than any following years, in terms of parent-child intimacy. Our intimacy didn't improve much in spite I sent much more time with Jason afterward. Two things can explain this; my mind was busy with something else and I was still a beginner in raising children. In the following years, I got my second child and my third one. I think I did a better job with them because I practiced with Jason.
He was in his early puberty. Too often we had yells at each other. A couple of days earlier, we got a knock of the door, and found our next door neighbor there, asking us if we knew who smashed the pumpkin on their door way. After some swears from my son and his friend about their innocence to God, scrutinies, threats, and afterward, confessions, it turned out to be my son and his friend's deed with a couple of other mischiefs, during their previous night's sleepover. However, there were other things which more concerned me about my son. Last Sunday, an elder member at a church gathering commented about my son, and I felt a pang in my heart. He said my son looked lonely and like in need of a lot of his parents' love. He and his wife had a similar experience with their first daughter who is now studying in Duke university. My family are christian but not very faithful and had been rather intermittent church goers. This may give a good reason why my son stayed as an outsider in his church society. He was in a great need of friends. This reminded me of my own lonely childhood. Jason is my first son and I didn't spend much time with him during his infancy and had not made up this absence yet. Consequently our mutual intimacy is not as close as those with my younger children. Spending less time with the first child is not uncommon, though. I got my first job only one year before my marriage, and my son is a honeymoon baby. When my son was born, I was still busy trying to show how competitive I was at my job. The company I worked at, sent me to province cities which were 60~80 miles away from my home at Seoul back in Korea. I went back home only on weekends, but exausted from long hours of work and traffic jammed weekend drive, I got to see my son only between my make-up sleeps. This lack of father-and-son company got virtually removed before long, when my family moved to the US when my son was 2 years old. However, perhaps, the first two years for an infant are more important than any following years, in terms of parent-child intimacy. Our intimacy didn't improve much in spite I sent much more time with Jason afterward. Two things can explain this; my mind was busy with something else and I was still a beginner in raising children. In the following years, I got my second child and my third one. I think I did a better job with them because I practiced with Jason.
Anyway, with this background, I wanted to spend a good amount of time only with Jason. This multi-day bike trip was going to be perfect for that purpose.
We set the kick start day to Jason's last school day which was Dec 19th. Since we had to set out in the morning, Jason told his teacher about this trip, took his quiz one day earlier which was scheduled on Dec 19th. Jason had chosen Washington DC among other candidate destinations like Wilmington NC, and did some research about our way to DC. It looked like 4 days were required, and I gave one more day for spare. US Bike Route 1 seemed desirable, so I checked some sections using the Google satelite map and was not convinced with the NC part of US Bike Route 1. So we would rather following US Hwy 1 which seemed to have good shoulders. After choosing our route, we had to have bikes for the trip, of course. We had a few bikes. If only adult bikes counted, we had 2 road bikes, 2 commuter bikes and 4 mountain bikes. (Jason biked to school and I am a seasoned bike commuter. We need to make sure at least two bikes are in good conditions - all the time). My first choice was of cource the 2 road bikes. However, the weather forcast said it's going to be a little wet. So we would need fenders for our bikes. Our road bikes didn't have any fenders. On the other hand, two mountain bikes were equipped with fenders. But mountain bikes are not meant to be for long distances on the road. Yet they are sturdy and strong especially when loaded with panniers and bags. Finally I asked Jason and he made it simple - he didn't like a road bike; he felt some back pain when he rode a road bike. We picked up the best mountain bikes and equipped with racks, fenders, quick stands, panniers, bags, head lights, GPS, cycling computer, bottle cages. Also replaced their tires with slick ones which are easier to pedal on the road. After that, we packed bike maintenance set, our cloths, water bottles, maps, energy bars, laptop, mp3 players, digital camera, cell phones, etc. At last, on Dec 19th morning, we set out for Washington DC!
First Day - Dec 19th
First Day - Dec 19th
The first 9 miles was the first half of my usual commute route. My commute route is beautiful 18 miles and 2/3 of it is a trail called Reedy Creek Trail which runs from Lake Crab Tree, a suburban lake, through the biggest park in the Triangle area, William B Umstead Park, and to a college. My son had ridden this part of the trail with me several times. When we rode out of the other entrance of Umstead Park, US Hwy 1 was about 16~7 miles away. Jason was riding fine and I got a feeling that this trip would be a smooth one. We were heading North East.
We took a left turn on US Hwy 1, and were heading almost straight North from that point. Jason said he was already feeling hungry. We had a lunch at a Subway. After lunch, we had the most pleasant ride until we reached Henderson, NC since we got a good tail wind at about 20 mps. And also that part of US Hwy 1 from North Raleigh all the way to Henderson, NC, was pretty flat with only gentle hills. We enjoyed a 20 MPS cruise for a couple of hours. We were going with the wind.
We took a left turn on US Hwy 1, and were heading almost straight North from that point. Jason said he was already feeling hungry. We had a lunch at a Subway. After lunch, we had the most pleasant ride until we reached Henderson, NC since we got a good tail wind at about 20 mps. And also that part of US Hwy 1 from North Raleigh all the way to Henderson, NC, was pretty flat with only gentle hills. We enjoyed a 20 MPS cruise for a couple of hours. We were going with the wind.
