Nine Days to Atlanta

It was the summer of 1967; I was seventeen years old, and decided to test myself by riding a bicycle 860 miles from Houston, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia, alone. It was a crazy idea I had cooked up back in seventh grade. I carried only: a hammock, a thin blanket, a rain coat, a canteen, a knife, a map, forty five dollars, and a few changes of clothes. I discovered that my imagined adventure would be a journey filled with discovery, surprises, pain, misery, loneliness and self-determination. In the end, it proved to be a lesson of what could be accomplished if one didn't give up.