The First Day

I kept thinking back to lunch the week before we left at St. Heironymous Press. Richard Sielbert had made another amazing microwave spectacular, which was a blend of fennel, smoked salmon, and shrimp. It tasted warm and comforting, the complete opposite to how I was feeling. I was telling everyone about how for the first time, I was experiencing waves of fear–mostly in the form of nausea and always feeling like I was about to vomit. Richard looked over at me with a laugh, and said, “That is the feeling of freedom.”

Those first exhilarating miles past the levee-side houses heading toward Sacramento, I kept hearing those words. If that was the feeling of freedom, or perhaps more accurately the feeling of being set free, than this was freedom.

We rode 130 miles past our planned 270, through small towns, forested mountains, expansive valleys, desert, sun, lightening and rain. We saw a rainbow at dusk, a sunset that crossed the sky, and the moon rise over the mountains. It was an incredible feeling to think to myself, “We’ll find someplace to camp or stay overnight eventually, but right now I don’t care–I just want to keep going,” realizing that this is what lays ahead of us from now on.

Tagged as: Richard Sielbert, St. Heironymous