This blog didn't start out as a blog.

It started out as a way to ensure my mother didn't freak out daily while I was riding my bike from my home in Ridgeland MS to San Diego CA. I wrote daily during my roughly two-month long bike ride on a site called https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/?o=tS which features journals from bike tourists from all over the world riding...and journaling...about many amazing journeys.

While it achieved its purpose (except on days when I didn't have any internet connection and mom freaked out anyway), I soon found out that the real purpose of my writing was for myself. By writing down what happened around me...and, even more importantly, what was happening in my thoughts...the entire experience become revelatory. Revelatory in that, by writing, I came to realize what I was really doing on my jaunt to the sea was learning a great deal about me.

Socrates was purported to have once said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." When I first heard that quote it struck me that it was so powerful a thought there is no wonder it has traveled down through the centuries to inspire me thousands of years later. And, though I've now finished my bike first bike tour, I want...indeed NEED...to continue examining my life in order to make it as rich and full as I possibly can.

Thus, while this didn't start out as a blog, it has become one now. The first 50 posts (or so) you see will be all the posts I made during my journey (but re-created here). After that, you'll then be able to read all of the thoughts I've had since the end of my ride including the background for why I named this blog "A Gap Year Life."