June 11 Day 11 120 Km

The Birds

At about 5 AM every morning birds start going at it, non-stop, saying wake up Josh. Your missing this day. Wake up. And every morning at about 5:01 AM I shake the sleep from myself and open my eyes. A little sore, a little tired, and moderately excited to ride bike again. So, after I pack up my things (a 30 minute chore), I hit the road. Off to exploring the world.

Points +1

June 10 Day 9 125 Km

The Point System

In all of the travels that I have done, I have always allowed for a backdoor out, an excuse for me not to go through with it. In some ways this allows me the freedom to only do things that I truly am excited about. But at other times it offered me an opportunity to get out of some experiences that I am sure would have been amazing, the peace corps for example. On this trip I have a fairly elaborate exit strategy. Each day is given one of three different point values. +1 for a good day, 0 for a neutral day, and -1 for a bad day. The running total of the points determines my “happiness factor”. Points are awarded or subtracted according to following 3 criteria; the landscape, the people that I interact with, and my physical and mental condition. When I reach -10, I am going to seriously consider cutting my losses and going home. Yes I know how dorky an elaborate points system is to determine how much fun I am having, but give me a break I am a physicist. Today was a neutral day, 0 points, although I didn’t really want to be biking this morning.

I am staying Mexico Missouri tonight. Ironically Mexico is a lot closer than I originally thought.