Hudson Bike Trip-Creative

                Going home was the easy part.

                But then again, I suppose it always is.

                The trial is set up only in the first steps, not the last ones. Whatever happens second is staged by what came first.

                The trip, as I would come to call it, truly started with a shot of whiskey and a few cigarettes the night before. My roommate Eric and I traced the map while still mostly sober, before the heavy drunk of the city night filled our bellies and brought our bones the great sleep. We traced the map when immortality was still lightning in our veins.

                Such is youth, fleeting and magnificent.

                In the morning, before the hang over passed, I climbed out of bed. The night had become a casual college memory, and I knew there was something that I wanted to accomplish before the day ended, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was.

                Then Eric opened his door.

                “You feelin okay dude?”

                I took a moment to answer, and replied, “eh, I could be worse.”

                “You still gonna do it?”

                It? I didn’t know at first what he was talking about, but when I noticed my bike leaning against the wall, I remembered.

                “Hell yeah I’m still gonna do it, you having doubts?”

                “I’ve been up since dawn, and I feel like shit.”

                “Shit.”

                “Yeah, I know.”

                “Well dude, ima stick around for a bit more, memorize the map and stuff, I’ll wait to see if you change your mind.”

                “I’m just gonna try to sleep.”

                “Alright buddy.”

                He shut his door but I lingered a few seconds longer. By myself? I wasn’t so certain anymore if I could make it. The trip seemed manageable with a partner, someone to push me when I faltered, to mock me when it looked like I was wimping out. But by myself? I felt small, inadequate.

                But I’m from New England, and we are a stubborn and proud sort of people, and when we say we are going to do a task one way, we are damn well going to do it that way.

                So around noon, with no food yet in my belly, and only a few memorized road names, I took to the road.

                The Hudson River Greenway carried me fifteen miles up the west side of Manhattan toward the Bronx. The air was salty, and the wind was crisp, heralding the coming autumn. Bikers, runners and walkers of every sort created a human traffic jam on the narrow causeways as the West Side highway thundered beside us to the pace of the city.

                Soon I was crossing the Spuyten Duyvil Creek into the Bronx alongside the Henry Hudson Parkway. The waters down below swirled, there was no identifiable current, and I understood why it was named after the devil. It was not a place to be in the water.

                Here I turned from the protection of the trail to the chaos of Westchester County roads, riding first through Yonkers, and then continuing north. The smell of the city clung to the subsidized housing projects and the slum neighborhoods I passed through. Down below, the Hudson sat quietly, watching the city with indifference.

                It was not a place that I would stay long.

                Outside of Yonkers, where the chaos of the city began to dwindle, autumn started to fill the air. The smells of decaying leaves and the cool air beneath the trees was a welcome friend as the roads turned more country.

                I stopped for the first time in Hastings-on-Hudson. The town was small, and quaint. The type of place families go to raise their kids, or retire. I had lunch at a place called Mauds, I had a couple of pints and the chili. It was the way mama fixed it, right down to the cheese on the top. I tipped generously and explored the town a bit, trespassing onto an area by the water that was a few acres of concrete by what appeared an old abandoned factory.

                I left when the security guard began to creep about.

                I was back on the road.

                Just before Tarrytown I made a wrong turn. The road wound through small towns and brought me inland where the trees were thick and the first signs of fatigue took me. After a lucky guess and muscle I didn’t know I had, I passed over the hill and back toward the Hudson. The road brought me toward Sleepy Hollow. In the air was the scent of legend and apples, and along the main road, in an old graveyard, the Dutch festival was going on. I paused to watch families and teenagers pay their way into history for a brief moment.

                Sometimes homesickness finds us at the strangest times, and I wondered about my town. The apples would be ripe now, and the pumpkins almost. I could see my friends around the bonfire, in jeans, boots and sweatshirts, drinking cheap beer and playing low on the guitar as the night deepened.

                My body felt very tired for a moment, there was still a lot of road left.

                The next few hills I would climb tested me beyond what I would have expected. And after a brief stop at a firehouse for some water and friendly faces, and after a friendly truck driver gave me a lift, I was passing through Ossining, and nearing the trail that would take me to Croton Point. The sun was falling, and the light on the water of Croton Bay brought peace to my bones.

                The gold danced and shivered on the small wave crests as the reeds on the banks whispered of where the river came from. The whir of the highway behind me faded as I stood alone with the water and the sun and everything was right in the world for one moment.

                I took my time for the last couple of miles, and as I entered the park I felt accomplished. I didn’t think about the trip, and I didn’t think about the next day, I only thought about the trees, and the grasses and how it would feel to sleep beneath the stars for the first time in weeks.

                And resting that night, life was good.