I've been lying to you

An admission from Key West

I was not forthcoming about what I was doing on this journey.

It was obvious to anyone I met that I was traveling. The backpack, canoe, or loaded-down bike gave it away. When they asked where I was going, I would answer with something that wasn’t technically a lie. On the Pacific Northwest Trail, I’d say I was walking to Glacier National Park. I was, but I wouldn’t offer up the information that I would continue walking once I got there. The same went for the Continental Divide Trail, except I’d say my hike would end at the Jefferson River without telling them I’d be paddling it to the Missouri. On the Missouri River, I’d say I was going to the next town or state and on the Mississippi, that I was going to the Gulf.

Dotti, who was with me for roughly a third of this trip, looks out over the Gulf of Mexico (America) on December 20, 2025.

My justification for the fib is that it took the spotlight off of me. My general rule is that whoever I am talking to knows something (or many things) that I don’t, and I ought to listen so I learn what it is.¹ I tend not to waste time talking about myself while they are still holding onto their lesson. I would offer the quick explanation of where I was going because people are usually just asking to be polite, and then we can get down to the business of exchanging insights about life or interesting lore.

Before I started telling the ‘just to the next town’ fib, folks had a habit of being overly helpful or needlessly terrified. If it was the latter, those worried folks would advise me of the dangers.

I learned to check their advice with a quick Google search later and to mostly ignore their well-intended cautions. It used to give me pause when someone warned against trekking into the mountains or paddling down the valley, but so many times the tales of woe just that—fiction. If it was true, the circumstances were suspect.

Maybe people stirred up fear in me to cover their conscience in the event that I turned up missing. It usually had the ‘I tried to warn that fool’ energy.

A fool ignoring advice

The Decker incident stands out as one where someone was eager to advise me not to continue on this journey.

“Is that your backpack?” The grocery clerk asked.

“By the —” I said, pointing to the tobacco counter where I had checked it so I could buy groceries in Republic, Washington. “Yeah, that’s mine.”

“You know, you shouldn’t go out hiking out there, ‘specially right now. There’s a serial killer. Guy took out his whole family! And they’re—he’s out there—and they’re looking for him.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yeah, they…”

“Nope. You’re talking about Travis Decker and they called off the search. He got away. Law enforcement spent all they were willing to on the search and called it off.” I said, reaching the brink of how much rumor I’d heard about this guy.

“No, I thought they…”

“Nope. Nope. Not looking for him. They stopped a while ago, it’s over. He got away.”

This was a big ‘I tried to warn that fool’ moment for the clerk, but I was in no particular mood to take seriously any advice from someone with no first-hand (or otherwise accurate) information. I took the threat seriously and had been tracking what I could of his movements from media reporting. Decker was also in Washington, but in a completely different mountain range, and if he was fleeing to Canada,² our paths wouldn’t cross. His three victims were all family members, and I wasn’t related to him, so I didn’t meet his motivation to kill. He was a skilled survivalist with military training, and either had all he needed and was caved up somewhere warm, or had died already. He had avoided contacts with people since the manhunt began, and that included big stinky hikers like me.

I weighed the risks and went into the mountains when I judged the Travis Decker risk to be less than the more pressing rattlesnake, black bear, and wildfire risks. I shut down the clerk because I wanted her to stop spreading misinformation, and also because I was tired of people who didn’t know me telling me what was best for me. I hadn’t even said how far I really planned to go! Imagine how many serial killers I barely slipped past in the 6,300-plus miles I was underway.

To avoid the overly-concerned and well-meaning warnings, I was brief in describing my plans. A lie if you will. If it was someone who got it, thought my trip was cool, and maybe had done some traveling of their own, I didn’t hide the truth. To those, I spelled out my route, timeline, and told them about this blog where they could read about my progress.

As the miles clicked down on the river, the Gulf wasn’t such a far-away goal after all, and I left the cover story upstream. In Louisiana, the bike shop owners had no doubts about Dotti’s and my ability to cover the 1,250-mile route. And as we progressed down the Florida peninsula, our plans seemed very doable, even leisurely, to the folks who asked where we were headed. Key West was, after all, just a few days’ ride down the road and the weather was decent.

If I wanted to impress them, I would have to tell them where I had been, not where I was going. But I didn’t. I’d never learn anything if I went around on parade. I’m blessed with curiosity, so operating with a listening rule comes mare naturally than bragging.

If they wanted to hear about it, I have a few stories that I know will usually get a laugh, or are interesting enough that it satisfies their need for a vicarious thrill. Wildlife encounters make good anecdotes, as do stories about preppers, hitchhikers, refugees, and other colorful characters I’ve met along the way. I process the not-so-thrilling stuff by writing about it. It’s how I make sense of the world and how I have documented (and made sense of) this trip.

The trip was ending, and words to describe the feeling evaded me. Largo, Plantation, Grassy, Marathon Key, and then the Seven-Mile Bridge all went by as we rode past bridge fishermen into a stiff breeze over turquoise water. On the dark green mile markers beside US-1, the numbers ticked toward zero with every mile we came closer to the end in Key West. It all seemed routine, a continuation of the eight months I had already been out there.

Fred the Tree, a resilient Australian Pine on the old Seven-Mile Bridge

Except for some woods on Big Pine Key, there was nowhere to stealth camp along the Overseas Highway, so we stayed in state parks. I would have attempted a few nights in the mangroves if I was alone, but Dotti was with me. We kept her visa status squeaky-clean and didn’t risk it over a county camping ordinance violation.

It was good to have my understanding girlfriend with me as I came into the homestretch, and even better that she didn’t press me when I got even quieter than I usually am. It was ending and I found myself wishing, not for more road, but that the time I had could have lasted longer.

We saw manatees, iguanas, gulls, pelicans, egrets, fishermen, RV-ers with a fondness for fat cigars and tiny dogs, and transient types who call themselves locals the minute they’ve established legal residence in the sunshine state. My favorite locals were the Key Deer, an endangered species of whitetail that adaptation shrunk into a dwarf suited to subtropical climes. I captured all I could as my days on the journey dwindled and the end came into sight.

I mused at it all. After everything the mountains, rivers, and roads had thrown at me, there would be no final challenge. This was it and it was all quite tame.

I pulled to a stop at the buoy marking the southernmost point of the United States on February 8. I stepped off my bike and saw the few yards between me and the buoy as the last few of a journey of more than 6,000 miles. And I couldn’t press on. I couldn’t bring myself to touch the steel hull and finish the trip. That would have been rude. There was a line of people queued up to take pictures with it and I didn’t want to cut.

Southernmost Point: Key West, Florida

We got our chance. It was the morning of February 8, 2026, when I stood with the landmark that had been my destination since 253 days ago, 6,370 miles behind me, on Cape Alava, Washington. If I subtract the 21 days I left the trail to go see family, that is a 27.46 miles per day average (including days I traveled zero miles due to weather or misfortune).

Twenty-seven and a half miles of ground day after day and week after week carved a deep groove of routine and purpose. Was it hard? Hell yeah it was. But you want to know something? I loved it. I need a purpose every morning and that’s exactly what crossing the country by my own strength gave me. And no, it wasn’t easy.

I have memories that still make me shudder and tear up about days I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Mountain passes in Washington, predators in Montana, winter in the north country, losing my canoe in North Dakota, and a particularly violent, tent-flattening storm in Mississippi are a few that come to mind. But on every one of those black days, I had blessings to count through and through. Many times, those blessings were people who helped me when I needed it most. They gave me a ride, a place to stay, a meal, shared their expertise, sent a message to encourage me, or provided gear to see me through. They are models of generosity I strive to emulate.

I prayed every day not for more blessings, but that I would accept God’s will. “Perfect resignation to the divine will” was my intention from the start and stayed in the front of my mind all the way to the red buoy here in Key West.

I wasn’t always honest about what I was doing to those that I met because I know God sometimes has other plans. I think part of me feared that if I went around blabbing my plans, they would never come true. I would say I was striving for the horizon just to get busted up and go home as the fool they tried to warn.

I guess I learned something about trust in all this. Maybe I would have gone home the busted up fool who never got to the end of his map. But that doesn’t matter. It’s not up to me if I make it a thousand miles or a single step. My place is to do what I can, and accept the rest. Count my blessings, and bless His name.³

On this day, there is a lot of blessing to go around. No bits of my story to withhold, and everything in the world to be grateful for.

I am very blessed indeed.

Boyd’s Campground. Last night in Key West

1. An adaptation of Rule #9 from Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, a book that should be mandatory reading regardless what critics say about the author.

2. Although plausible at the time, the assumption that he would flee to Canada was incorrect. Two months after this conversation, his remains were found near Leavenworth, Washington. It was just less than a mile from the crime scene and nearly 200 miles from Republic. I was never in any danger from Travis Decker.

3. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)