This American Adventure begins

THIS AMERICAN ADVENTURE

This is my record of experiences bicycling across America with the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure.

Though we are on the eve of meeting for the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure, this seed of an idea took root over 30 years ago for me, after finishing 6 years of active duty in the Navy. Unemployed and trying to find my way in life I took up bicycling. During that time, somewhere along the back roads of Florida in 1981, I had the grandiose idea of just riding off into the sunset to find my fate. That idea vaporized with my sudden employment, uninterrupted to this day, chasing the American dream with the help of Walt Disney World.

I work at "The American Adventure", an attraction at Epcot. This is where my dream came back to life- at first just the notion it was before, but within the past 7 months with an urgency compelling me to abandon prudence. I've witnessed men crushed under the weight of years, old men I shared youth with building Epcot. As another Christmas passed I was plotting to do whatever necessary to live my dream. My wife Leslie and I would quit our jobs, sell the house, and live on the road from the fat of the land. Yeah, I had a plan that wasn’t much more than a route to follow from Florida to Washington State, where we could arrive impoverished to burden our daughter.

December 30th someone in Facebook asked “do you ever look at those ads to the right of your page?” I never do, but at this prompting did, and seeing “Bicycle across America” clicked on it. There I discovered the Fuller Center for Housing and their Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure. They would provide food and shelter and a route that fell right over what I had imagined!  I hadn’t prayed about any of this, but if I had, this would have been its answer. I could bicycle across America for $150? Sign me up!

If I had looked more closely I would have realized there was far more involved. Once I had committed my credit card  I learned they wanted me to raise funds for their charity and build houses along the way. Well, I can drive a nail, but a fund drive? There was no way I could raise the $3,700 they asked! I was about to abandon hope and write the registration fee off as a donation when for the first time in my life I recognized the work of Providence, and decided to let Him take me the rest of the way. I’ve given God lip-service over the years, but now I absolutely had to rely on Him to make this happen, for I knew I couldn’t. “God, if this is to be it’s up to you” was my prayer and I didn’t worry from then on, for enough of you took up my cause. One week prior to the start of the trip the last donation came in bringing my total to $3,715. I’m amazed at how incredibly easy it was, and I’ve been told this is the hardest part of the experience. Yup, now I can figure on sunny skies and following winds as I pedal my merry way from Savannah to Vancouver. Thank You God!