Most people have a story about someone they’ve met who has gone on a terribly long trip. When I tell such people what I’m doing, they say, "Oh, I know a guy who … ."

I’ve heard of many other trans-American cyclists. But perhaps more interesting is the story I heard from the owner of the Blu-In Store and Café somewhere between Julian and Ocotillo Wells, Calif. "I saw a guy stroll by years ago who was walking across the country in cowboy boots," he said. "That’s insane," I said. He said, "Yeah, I guess he was from around here. He walked to New York and back, didn’t come back for another year and a half, and when he did, he came to our high school and told the story."

Which one? I thought.

The Blu-In is in the middle of California desert. Unlike the neighboring mountains, where, if you climb them, the horizon is a hundred yards in front of you and always changing, when you reach a spot that was once as far as you could see in the desert, the new horizon looks exactly the same. Everything might be a mirage if stared at from far enough away. Which is why I was not surprised when I saw hang-gliders on an electrical line, but skeptical when I passed over a hill and the Blu-In appeared on the descent.

When it and the people in it turned out to be real, I went in and asked, "Is it days at a time before you see anyone around here?" "No," one replied. "People come through here all the time. There’s a guy out there with a four-wheeler who’s been here for the last week, brought it in his truck." I looked to where he pointed down the road at the man, alone and wildly maneuvering the ATV on a patch of desert in 105-degree heat.

"So you’re going to Florida, huh?" one said after I explained the reason for the fully loaded bike I rode up on. "What route are you taking?" "Through Arizona and New Mexico, down south to Texas and over," I said.

Laughing with sadistic pleasure, he replied, "You think this is bad! It only gets worse in Arizona."

The comment stayed with me as I nearly lost my mind for the rest of the 35 miles to Brawley, finding it impossible to stay hydrated, talking to birds.

There aren’t rivers or creeks in the desert, but instead dried-out ditches, or washes, as they’re often called. They still require bridges and have the feel of rivers, just without the water. California has lovingly named them as though they were rivers; the Willow Wash, the Inspection Wash, and the Alfalfa Ditch are a few of them. But crossing them, observing their surfaces, which are so dry as to resemble reptilian scales, it only intensifies the feelings of heat and despair that strike a traveler during a lengthy jaunt through the desert.

If it only gets worse, I thought, I’m in for a rough couple of weeks.

Darkness fell precipitously Tuesday as I continued to climb toward Julian, Calif., on 78 East, which I had followed as suggested by an aging hippie in Encinitas, one of many in California who wear clothing marketed to people 20 years younger. The phrase "You’re only as old as you feel" is not completely true. You have to also be as old as you dress, speak and act.

78 East was not the idyllic route that he had promoted. Starting as a manic highway frenzying toward Escondido, it soon became an abominable hill, ascending to 4,500 feet by its crest.

Fearing I would have to pitch my tent in a field, I beseeched an old farmer for information on any campgrounds before Julian, which was still 15 miles away. "Wide spot in the road," he replied, waving his timeworn hand in dismissal as he walked away.

By the time I reached a small supermarket eight miles later, I was sure he was right. The cashier verified, suggesting I camp out in a field just up the hill.

I resolved to sit pitifully against the market’s brick wall and eat a sandwich and potato salad before trudging to find a suitable plot. Then a man with a makeshift white truck offered to drive me to a campground. I accepted.

Rick was his name, and he fell into the aforesaid aging hippie demographic, which comprises a whole lot of Californians, as far as I can tell. The group is varied, though, like California's landscape; they are beach bums, stereotypically, but Rick was an inland hippie.

He had driven seven miles down the hill to buy chocolate cake mix. "They don’t sell this stuff in Julian," he said. I can’t say I didn’t find it a little odd, but quickly I attributed it to his needing any human interaction, also a scarce resource in Julian.

In California, medical marijuana dispensaries sell pot and pot-infused goods to prescription holders, of whom, not surprisingly, there are a lot. The day after medical marijuana became legal, a glaucoma epidemic among aging hippies broke out.

Rick was not craving cake or conversation. He makes about $1,000 a week making pot baked goods – cookies, cakes, brownies – and selling them to dispensaries. He buys the pot he uses to make them illegally from Mexico. (He also crosses the border to receive dental work.) What that means is he has the potential to make about $52,000 a year, according to him, by enabling medical marijuana dispensaries to legally sell goods made with illegally purchased marijuana.

I laughed about the irony until he dropped me at a county park, where I was again alone, isolated as the only camper on the grounds.

"My address is 4135, if you wanna come by in the morning for coffee," Rick had said. As I passed the place the next morning, I broke briefly then proceeded, afraid of what kind of coffee he might be serving.

The Reason for Going

About three months ago, I began thinking about riding a bicycle across the country. The thought, a passing daydream at first, quickly became a serious consideration and, ultimately, a fully conceived trip (though those who are familiar with my history of planning can attest that "fully conceived" means remarkably undercooked). Many in the process have asked me the obvious question: Why?

In an excellent recounting of a man-and-dog-as-best-friend car trip throughout the U.S., "Travels With Charley in Search of America," John Steinbeck opens his collection of vignettes with what I think serves as a perfect answer. "When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This, to the practical bum, is not difficult."

I hesitate to label myself a "practical bum," but for my purposes here, it will have to do. To that most common question, which demands a sufficient reason for going, it is Steinbeck's philosophy that I think fits best, and the one by which I like to believe I guide myself. My response, however, changes depending on the source of inquiry. To an incredulous questioner, I would likely cite the noble purpose of my journey: to raise money for muscular dystrophy research. But to one who appreciates reckless exposure to the open road, uncertainty or even a kind of insanity, I typically say, "I felt like it." The latter response, also pandering to the many people who would compare me to Forrest Gump, is the more accurate one.

This blog, which I will try to update frequently during the two-month, 3,000-some mile trek across the South (and, if a success, during future travels), I hope will not be a venue for introspection or trite comments about the beauty of landscape. I expect to encounter a broad cultural mix -- a cornucopia of geography and the kind of diversity in people typically reserved for big cities and marketing departments -- and I intend to highlight that eclecticism. Indeed, I won't be able to avoid inserting a personal perspective (after all, everyone experiences travel differently), but I will avoid making myself the subject of this blog. I'm afraid I'm just not that interesting.

As I finish this first post, it's day three of the trip. I'm in a coffee shop in Encinitas, California, where yesterday a barista commended me on my journey, which seems to be a commonplace lifestyle choice here. Spencer (that's his name), saves money for a year or two at a time and then travels. His last trip was a backpacking expedition up the eastern coast of Australia, comparable in length to the Appalachian trail. The first of many locals here to give me free goods or services (wireless Internet access, coffee, a bike tune-up and a camp site), Spencer symbolizes, to me, a general belief around here that wealth is unimportant.

Such is not the case everywhere. At Camp Pendleton, a Marine base about 15 miles north, a hot-dog salesman outside of a commissary, struggling to grasp my reason for going, said, "Man, you must be rich to take two months out of your life to do that."

Maybe so. But he was wrong. I am not taking two months out of my life. I am putting two months in. And because of that, I am very rich.