exhalations

Cross country trip memories

In 1999 I left the USGS and took a bicycle trip from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL with 13 other cyclists on an Adventure Cycling trip. We left San Diego on Sept. 19 and arrived in St. Augustine on Nov. 20, nearly 10 years ago. It was a great trip with a friendly, interesting group of people.

During the trip we all used reflective safety triangles to increase our visibility on the road. I've used one ever since. It's a small device that sends a clear message: slow vehicle ahead. It's also very reflective. It was used for another purpose on our trip. If we left the established route for a side trip and hadn't told anyone beforehand, we were supposed to leave the triangle in a visible location to let the others know where we were.

One day a small group of us decided at the last minute to take a short side trip. I left my triangle tied to a sign post. I think I forgot to pick it up when we rejoined the route, and our leader who was riding sweep didn't see it either. As a result, a new triangle was ordered from Adventure Cycling and we received it a few days later.

I mentioned this episode to Art McMundie, a friend of a friend who was going to take the same trip with four other cyclists this year. They completed their trip in in April. Yesterday I received an envelope that contained the triangle pictured above. Art had remembered my story about the long lost triangle and during his trip he spotted the tattered, sun-bleached triangle that is likely the one I left behind 10 years ago. I was floored.

Labels: safety triangle, southern tier

posted by Bruce Wright at 11:24 AM #

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