My Journey Cycling the Natchez Trace Parkway:
The Ups and Downs, the stories, the bumps in the road, and everything in between.
A Day With CK:
Day 5, Monday,
May 22:
“Breakfast is ready, I’m not waiting any longer!” CK yelled from
the other side of the campground.
It was about 7:30am and CK was yelling from the center of the
campground. Turned out he had already been up for over an hour, having already
taken his cats on a morning walk.
The peach and banana pancakes that CK made for me on his wooden
stove, despite clearly being from a piggly wiggly brand pancake mx base, were delicious.
After devouring the pancakes, I told CK that I was game to hang out and stay in
Tupelo another night.
After breakfast, CK helped me patch up my tire. He had some DucTape
and that combined with my tire patch I found on the road the prior day, we did
a reasonable job ensuring the tire would stay together for eight miles.
At this point, CK suggested that I bike over to the bike store
soon, while he did do some laundry for us (there was a trough and water
spickets, and he had some soap). After I returned, he would take me around town
and I could watch or help him wash some windows. Sounded good to me.
I rode on the newly cared for tire to the bike shop down the
Trace on the other end of Tupelo, about 8 miles from the campground. As I
walked into the store and explained my situation—Riding the Trace, biking about
100 miles on the bulging/splitting tire, etc.—the storekeeper was amazed that I
had gotten over 100 miles on the malfunctioning tire. I bought the lone tire
that fit my bike, replaced the old one, and I was back on the Trace riding back
towards the campground.* I felt like Lance Armstrong out there with the newly
found speed and efficiency I was biking at.
*Those 8 miles were the only miles I ended up riding backwards on
the Trace.
 |
| Was I the equivalent of Morty in 'Rick and Morty' ??? |
I arrived back at camp around noon. CK had begun hanging our wet
clothes on various branches around the campsite. About a half hour later, CK
was ready to go into town. So we both biked the 1.5-2 miles into town. I didn’t
haul anything, but CK still hauled about 100 pounds worth of stuff, including
his cleaning supplies and both of his cats. At this point, I wasn’t really sure
what was going to happen, and I was really just going along for the ride.* As
CK pulled into town, with me following closely behind, I felt sort of like a
puppy, or like Morty in Rick and Morty, not sure what would happen next.
*yes, pun intended.
I thought CK was going to pull into mostly local businesses, the
mom and pop stores (granted, we were sort of on a highway // strip mall // fast
food part of town), since I figured it was those types of stores that would
actually have the autonomy to hire him to wash windows, but to my surprised he
ended up pulling into a bunch of chains on both sides of the street—Sonic,
Starbucks, Buffalo Wild Wings, Lenny’s Sandwiches, Panda Express, to name a
few.
CK always had the same strategy. He would start by looking
around the neighborhoods, favoring stores that he had been to in the past
(remember, he’s traveled 122k miles, so he’s been around most blocks). He would
choose stores based on the size and number of windows a business had—he wanted
a reasonable amount that he could crank out in an hour or three, but not a
whole day.
Once he selected a business, he would ask for the general
manager of the store. If the general manager was not there or was unavailable,
he would leave, knowing the chance of a clerk able to help him was low. If the
general manager was there, he would start his spiel which he had clearly
rehearsed and perfectly thousands of times:
He would tell the GM that he cycles around the country, all 48
states, and that he is writing a journal in which he will one day publish. Then
he would say that he gets by and makes money by washing windows. Then he
politely asks—sometimes with a bit of sweet talking, sometimes having to state
that most companies that hire him think he does a better job than their normal
guy—if he can wash their windows for some cash, or at the very least, the front
door for a meal.
While CK didn’t get any work washing windows this day, of the
aforementioned first five stores that we went to, four of them gave us free
food—Sonic an Ice Cream Cone Coupon*, Lenny’s Subs a sub of our choice, Captain
D’s a take home fish and chips meal, and Panda Express a take home dinner of
our choice.
* I gave the coupon away minutes later to a homeless guy across the
street. Fun to see CK talk to a fellow homeless guy.
These are Restaurants that you should go to more...
Sure, CK was so rehearsed and great with his words, but that’s
an absurd success rate for simply asking for food/money. And these are the big,
bad corporate chains! CK routinely told me during our time together that one of
the main things he learned over the years is to never underestimate the
kindness of people—there are a lot of really good people out there. Maybe our
world doesn’t completely suck!
While were riding I asked him which regions or locations sectors
were the best to him. Although he did say that there were some companies (like
Panda Express) that were very generous, and that Jimmy John’s Sandwiches and
Best Western Hotels were the “fucking worst,”* that for almost all other chains,
it was foolish to make any assumptions, and that his success securing money or
food depended on the specific location and general manager. For places and
people he really liked, he would send them a postcard—he claimed to send over
200 postcards to people every year.
**He said that he had probably been to a hundred Jimmy John’s over the years, and 2, maybe 3 of them gave him either food or work. As I asked him this question, he even stuck out the bird and dramatically explained “This is what I think of Jimmy John’s and Best Western!” as we were riding down the street. Bummer here because Jimmy John’s Italian Sub is SOOO GOOD. I’ll actually be more likely to return to those stores that treated us though, so a solid business decision.
And these are the stores I likely won't go to anymore... I'll miss you JJ's Italian :(
At this point, and after trying a few more stores in which the
general manager was not there, CK had decided that he had enough for the day.
We went to a Kroger to get some supplies for CK, who came out of the store
bummed that the 2-pound bag of Sour Patch Kids was out of stock. (I ended up
giving him the rest of my 2-pound bag at camp the next morning). CK did come out
with a six pack of craft beers for us to share later that day, since he saw our
gathering as a festive event. A homeless guy buying and sharing a six pack with
me… who would’ve thunk it?
Following Kroger, we headed back to camp. It was about 4:00pm
now, and we did something that I to this day find as an utterly incredible
stroke of coincidence—we went to throw a frisbee around.
Let’s backtrack: earlier in our encounter he mentioned that
sometimes he’d bike past frisbee golf courses and play for fun, so I naturally
mentioned that I play ultimate competitively. He told me that he carried a
frisbee around and went to go get it. I expected some shitty disc, likely a
Wham-o, maybe not even 175g. But low and behold, he gets the disc out throws it
to me and it’s a perfect 175g Discraft Ultrastar (from some festival/tourney in
2006), not even warped.
So when we returned to camp, I asked him if he wanted to throw
the disc around and he was down. We grabbed a couple of the beers he got, went
to a field nearby the campsite, and started drinking and throwing. CK didn’t
have great mechanics or form, but the guy could bomb his backhand—clearly an
experienced disc golfer. He had better backhand hucks than I did, routinely
getting slow moving, floaty backhands up, both OI and IO. It was really
incredible. Not only that, he read the disc really well on my throws too.
He was impressed with my flick and especially my hammer, but
after throwing the long ones, I took about 5-10 minutes teaching him a variety
of other passes, including the flick, hammer, push pass, scoober, and anything
else I could think of. He picked up most of them very quickly.
It was actually a real pleasure throwing with him. He explained
to me that he loved throwing with me too. He loved how actually I knew what I
was doing. He explained that it had been well over a year since he last threw
his disc around with anyone, and even then it was so frustrating trying to
throw with someone who has no clue what is going on, a feeling us ultimate
players have all experienced.
So, on my bike trip—a small trip intended as a getaway from my
real life—I end up with a bicyclist who travels with cats, only to do something
I’d normally do: throw a disc around for an hour. Wow. What a world we live in.
 |
| Of all the things I could've done with CK, I threw a disc--his disc--with him. What a world we live in. |
After throwing around, we headed back to camp. It was probably
around 5ish, and we wanted to get a fire started early. After settling down and
relaxing for a bit, within an hour or so the fire was up and we were both finishing
the rest of the six pack, sitting around the fire.
At some point, during one of our deeper discussions, CK told me
that one benefit of his lifestyle was the quality of conversations that he had
with people. He explained that because he was always on the move and lived such
a fleeting life, whenever he met people all of his conversations were
completely genuine and candid, which was totally untrue for everyone in our
real world.
He explained it to me in more detail: every interaction,
conversation, that we have with others we, consciously or subconsciously, put
some sort of armor on to protect ourselves because we fear that the person may
know someone we know, and that in one way or another, that our every move may
be exposed on judged.
But for CK, when people meet him, they know he is just passing
through, and they are extremely unlikely to ever see him again, and they know
that he doesn’t know anyone they know. Thus, there is no reason to not be candid
and genuine, no possible ulterior motive. Similarly, CK is 100% genuine to
strangers because he knows he’ll never see and interact with us again, so is no
reason for him to not be 100% candid. It all made practical sense to me.
It was this point that was on my mind that made what CK said a
bit later so moving. CK said that he was so glad I decided to bike the Trace
and that he really enjoyed my company.
Probably because I was a bit tipsy at that point, I asked him
straight up, “Why you enjoy my company? What is it about me that makes my
company enjoyable? I really want to know.”
CK’s answer was succinct, but powerful:
“You know Josh, since the moment we met—and this is why you are good
company—I could tell that you have a good
heart.”
My heart melted a little bit. I might have even started tearing
up, I don’t know. CK went on.
 |
| Actual footage of me almost crying. |
Damn. What powerful stuff. I was speechless.
If this guy who just met me and has no reason to be anything but
100 percent candid just told me that I have a good heart, gosh darned it, maybe
I don’t suck as much as I think I do at times.
Isn’t it crazy and ironic that not my parents, not a sibling,
not a close friend, not a mentor, not a girlfriend, or anyone else who was ever
really important in my life, but a kinda crazy homeless guy who I literally
just met just said perhaps the most powerful, most genuine words to me that
I’ve ever heard in my life? And furthermore, none of those ‘important’ people
in my life even had the capability to do so?
Whoa.
As dusk turned into night, CK and I spent the next few hours chatting,
drinking, and eating the take home meals from Captain D’s and Panda Express. CK
had 200ml bottle of vodka that he shared and we split as well, which we mixed
with my Gatorade powder. It really was a celebration.
At around 11:00, it started to rain a little bit, so we back
into our tents and called it a night. As I drunkenly lied in my tent that
night, I thought about how fortunate I was in regards to the sequence of events
that led me until that point. Had my tire not been bulging and split as
severely as it was, I may have made it past Tupelo on Saturday, or at least to
Tupelo on Saturday early enough to get my tire fixed. Had I not been in
Mississippi on a Sunday, when all of the bike stores were closed, I wouldn’t
have stayed an extra day at camp. And if I didn’t stay that extra day at camp,
I may never have met CK, who convinced me to stay in Tupelo on Monday.
Furthermore, it turned out just about all of Mississippi south of Tupelo was
pouring all day on Monday – it’s fortunate that CK made it to Tupelo and
convinced to stay that extra day.
I guess blessings in disguise really do exist, and maybe, just
maybe there really is a greater plan set in place for you that is outside of
your control.
I knew at that point that even if I did not make it to the end
of the Trace, as long as I made it back home in one piece with this story about
CK, my bike trip was definitely worth it and I could hold my head up high.
Day 4 + Day 5 Combined Stats:
Distance Traveled: 22.040 miles
Max Speed: 22.9 mph
Average Speed: 10.1 mph
Time Traveled: 2:10:40
Guide:
Table of Contents
<<<Previous Chapter: Introducing CK
>>> Next Chapter: A Newfound Confidence and a Needed Pit Stop
Guide:
Table of Contents
<<<Previous Chapter: Introducing CK
>>> Next Chapter: A Newfound Confidence and a Needed Pit Stop
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