Roadrunner

In this episode, we finish this trip. The trip is over. Done. Completed. Behind me. It is all a memory in the past. Donzo. Bye bye. Behind me. Over-dover? I don't think that's a saying. Anyway, the trip is over, I'm feeling sentimental, and I need to go hug my mom. Ciao.

In this episode, we recall the last few especially hard weeks and miles in this trip. Sick and with a breaking motorcycle, all I wanted was to quit. At one point, I was so desperate to end the entire thing that I secretly wished someone would steal my motorcycle in the night and end it all for me.

In this episode, we talk about 2 of the greatest lessons I have learned on this journey on the bike, the steadily increasing realization that I have almost reached the end of this journey, and how soothing and soft my voice is in these podcasts.

In this episode, live from the side of the road with trembling, cold, possibly permanently harmed fingers we talk about some of the realities of the winding, demanding road laid out in front of me.

In this episode, roadblocks, burning tires, tinder dates, and the most perfect of tattoo experiences. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

In this episode, we sit down with Jeremiah once again to speak about the meaning of the universe, why he ever left tacos in Mexico behind, and whether showing up on time is a good or bad cultural trait. JK, it's just an update from the road to Patagonia :)

In this episode, I talk about how the trip has changed me and continues to change me. I talk about sticking with my gut and the clarity that comes with time spent pursuing a goal that few people believed in at its start.

In this episode, we talk about fear, me flirting with nervous strangers who'd rather that I just move along, and why I am more than happy to admit how afraid I have been and continue to be every damn day of this trip to anyone who asks me, "but aren't you afraid on this trip?" Fear has been a huge part of my life since the day I realized I needed to step out into the world for myself.

In this episode, I take you along on the 2-day mountain escape to the town of Urrao, Colombia from my home for the last week of Medellin. I am waiting for papers for my motorcycle to arrive here in Medellin. I was getting a little restless... so I planned a quick escape to a mountain town that gave me perhaps the best day of the entire trip so far...

In this episode, we talk about the best of worst days on the bike... from new adventures to new friends to new injuries both on myself and my precious Gordita (the name of my bike). Colombia has been a rollercoaster... from a very rocky and difficult start (emotionally and physically) to the most wonderful of difficult and painful days, I am so happy to have made it this far.

In this episode, we sit down to try to take in the actual what the heck fact that I rode my motorcycle... to... Colombia...! People, Jeremiah, the anxiety-ridden, and not particularly durable or brave road his motorcycle to Colombia... as in the country, not the overpriced similarly spelled outdoor apparel store down the street. We also talk about killing snakes for some reason. Anyway, here we go.

In this episode, we talk about what this trip has been like so far. From waking up in a panic not sure where I am or, more importantly, where the motorcycle is, to the difference between yesterday's expectations and today's reality, to the strange feeling of the rapidly changing world I exist within as I travel by motorcycle further and further south. Oh, and also this is the start of season 2 as we are officially back on the bike traveling in South America with Central America in our rear view mirror(s).

In this episode, I sit down and open up about the dark place I've been in for the last 3 weeks. There is no easy way to talk about the days when I want nothing more than to curl into a ball and disappear from the world, people's memories, and the shame of whatever twisted thought I'm brooding over pertaining to the meaninglessness of my life as compared to how it *should* be. Welcome to Colombia on the bike.

In this episode, we talk about the day I crossed into Panama and the terrible set of events that took place no more than 10km after crossing legally, happily, joyously into Panama.

In this episode, we talk about being robbed, reusing dirty underwear, and the reality of the dangerous yet beautiful countries between America and Panama. p.s. if anyone knows the answer to the mystery right blinker... please let me know.

In this episode, we sit down to talk about some of the stories I've collected over the course of 8,000 kilometers of road, hostels, hotels, military checkpoints, and random gas station encounters.

In this episode, we sit in a tiny open-air loft in a sold-out, noisy hostel in northern Guatemala and talk about some of the things I am learning about myself and about life on this trip. For the longest time I wanted to be someone else. I spent days, weeks, years waiting and hoping for my magical transformation into the better person I always wished I could have been born to be... the smarter, more handsome, competent, courageous, social stranger I somehow thought was the man I SHOULD be. I am now realizing it is ok to be... who you are. To improve, grow, become a better version of yourself, these are all wonderful things in which I still believe wholeheartedly. But to wish to be and to suffer as a product of not being someone you just are not... that hurts and it is counterproductive to a life well lived.

In this episode, I talk about the questions I ask myself nearly every day in order to take just one step further. The questions and thought experiments I force myself to answer each time I find myself questioning myself. Questioning why I am here, why I am doing this trip, why I continue to create even without a large audience, why I live the way I do. If it weren't for these questions and the consistent answers I give myself each time I force myself to run through them one more time... I wouldn't be where I am today and I would never arrive to wherever I will be in the future either.

In this episode, we talk about the people of my trip so far. My mom told me to be careful. "Be careful, Jeremiah, before you know it, all these amazing people you are meeting and encountering along your way will begin to fade into distant, vague memory. Hay que cuidarlas ahora cuando la memoria todavia esta nueva" (you need to capture your memories now while they are still new in your mind). Ok, she didn't speak Spanish, but you get the idea. As I look back over the last few weeks of travel marking the start of this journey, I see the faces of the people who I have had the pleasure of standing beside for a moment in this life.

In this episode, I talk about my life in Mexico so far. Beginning with the preexisting thoughts, fears, and warnings around travel in Mexico and ending with tacos... this is life in Baja, Mexico. I am slowly working out a routine. From how far and long I will ride each day to what I must get done each night when I arrive in a new town to survive and take care of myself for the sake of the entirety of the trip. Gasoline, pesos, groceries, a beer, and tacos! Here we go.

In this episode, I admit how I wanted to quit this journey on day 1. There's no way of sugar-coating it, I arrived at my first hostel of this journey just south of the Mexican/American border and wanted nothing other than to forget entirely about this trip, wipe it from the minds of everyone aware of it, and teleport back to the safety of family and friends and familiar life. After my first day in Mexico, I have slowly settled down and started to look at everything in terms of daily battles. Day by day figuring out each new thing I have to learn in order to survive and continue traveling; where and how to get gas, pesos, food, lodging and the list goes on. And so the journey lives on.

In this episode, we sit on a hotel bed and talk about the first 24-hours on the bike, my intense mental struggle with this crazy journey I've set before myself, and talk about the benefit of baby steps... Don't Think. Just Do. Baby steps. There are more people in my life continually reminding me of how foolish, dangerous, and absolutely perilous this journey is than those encouraging me on my way. That is burdensome. To have so many people I love and respect spending time and energy to show me every way I am messing up... it bears down on me. I wish wash back and forth between stable confidence in why I am attempting this journey, why I am making decisions in my life the way I am and utter fear over all of the unknowns and very real dangers that could lay around every literal bend in the many, many miles of road I will travel. Oh boy. What have we gotten ourselves into?

In this episode, I take you back to the bloody sands of the beach I should have died on; the cliff under which my life should have ended. As the day I get back on my motorcycle draws nearer, I am overwhelmed by self-doubt, fear, and lack of purpose. As each wave of anxiety and second-guessing washes over me, I have to fight to re-orient myself around the reasons why I make decisions the way I do, the reasons why I continue to push myself down this unknown, uncomfortable, anxiety-ridden path. The story of my brush with death is my go-to reminder of why I keep on living the way I do. After all, everyone will die, but not everyone will have lived.

In this episode, I invite you to sit next to me in the trunk of my 4Runner in a dimly-lit Cracker Barrel parking lot in our underwear as we attempt to stay warm and sleep through the night in the back of a car. "Doing strange things" has been a major theme of my life for the last 4-years. It has been my way of pushing beyond what is expected of me, what society implicitly and explicitly directs me to do, say, and think, into the unknown in order to find out if there is anything else to this life beyond the normal... Sleeping in the back of my car outside Nashville in a Cracker Barrel parking lot pretty much perfectly captures this life-altering sentiment.

In this episode, I walk through how awful... truly awful the first 2,000 miles of my motorcycle journey to Patagonia were. Seriously. It was bad.

This episode: from star student to depressed failure. From career-life to van life. From comfortable in life to the first grueling 2,000 miles on the motorcycle from Colorado to California...and away we go. I am about to set out on a crazy journey... traveling by motorcycle from San Francisco to Patagonia. I plan to capture the stories, troubles, thoughts, and experiences along the way through this podcast. Episode one takes us through a little bit of my story that has led me to this point. In about one month I will be back on my motorcycle and heading south one country at a time. I want to bring you along on this crazy ride as I take the time and space to capture the good and the bad, the highs and the very lows. Stay tuned for ep. 2: The First 2,000 Miles.