I am of the opinion that it's largely unreasonable to invent time travel before figuring out teleportation, faster-than-light travel, or other related sci-fi systems. Hear me out for a minute or two. Though sources vary, I haven't found a single one, reputable or otherwise, that didn't estimate the absolute speed of our beloved planet through space at less than 350 kps, or 220 miles a second. A time traveler who wanted to travel a single second into the past would find himself 350 kilometers away from (or into, should incompetence be at all involved in the process) the planet. If we were to believe the law of conservation of momentum to be true, we'd have to put a lot of Joules very fast into getting this poor soul back into the surface of the planet, preferably in a safe manner. By the time we managed to get the chrononaut back, if they hadn't asphyxiated in the vacuum of space, that is, we would've all but lost the time we had hoped to travel. Extrapolate to any useful amount of time travel and you could now find yourself at the edge of the solar system or beyond with nowhere really useful to go.

I have to confess, halfway through writing this article I had a moment of weakness. I thought that maybe all wasn't lost and there were perhaps still applications for time travel, even before teleporters and FTL drives. You see, the figure I quoted earlier, 350 kilometers, rang rather familiar; it's not much further to the International Space Station. So I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, one could time travel a second and some extra copper into the future to find themselves within the safety of the ISS. Except they'd get immediately pancaked on the back end of the station. So now you need either inertial dampeners to accelerate our chrononaut really really fast or a long long vacuum tube in which to accelerate him with magnets to the 27,580 kph at which the station travels at a tolerable G.

I have another confession to make. This post was just an excuse to post that photo I took about a month ago in what I want to keep as an undisclosed location in the Black Hills of South Dakota. A heartbeat of sorts. I'm still alive, just kind of busy 🙂.

Someone asked for my opinion on purchasing carbon offsets to account for travel mileage recently. This topic is interesting to me because there is more than meets the eye; it's a little more nuanced than it seems at first glance. The problem of emissions seems easy to solve: take as much carbon out of the atmosphere as you put into it. And, honestly, we already know how to do this; all you need to do is plant some trees somewhere and voilà! The average North American 2000 mile flight will pump out a little over 1000 pounds of carbon dioxide per sardine can packed class passenger [1]. Sadly, there is no such thing as the average tree, but you can still find data on tree growth rate and carbon content for individual species out there. Solve for time and you'll get how many years it would take a single newly planted tree to sequester as much carbon as you released.

This sounds like it should work, right? Well, yes... but no. My main problem with this style of emissions offsetting is one of accountability. If we're doing everything right, trees should only be planted in their native ranges. That is, avoiding planting eucalypti in California or any kind of tree for this purpose in the western side of the Plains. The implication here is that we're planting a tree where there used to be one in times past. My generation is inheriting a world with dwindling forests, which makes this a good problem to solve, alas it's an entirely different one from the emissions problem. For whatever now unimportant reason, someone else in the past chopped a tree in close proximity to the spot where the carbon offset purchaser is now given the opportunity to plant their emission offsetting tree. At the end of the day, though, whenever the tree is done growing there will still be less carbon underground and more carbon in the biosphere. The only way to truly offset fossil fuel emissions is to pump carbon back into the ground. To be fair, we also know how to do this [2], but this technology seems to be in its infancy and the capture rate given the number of operational facilities and the current levels of emissions within the United States [3] seems insufficient. To top all of this off, there is a limited amount of space where we could be planting trees, so the solution won't scale forever. Planting some trees has the side effect of being an okay stopgap solution to atmospheric carbon emissions until we get our act together, but it is by no means a panacea.

My second problem with consumer carbon offsets is just as important as the first. They encourage behaviors that are noxious in the long run. One might find himself entitled to, for instance, fly far more often than they otherwise would if the opportunity presents itself to plant some trees or fund some landfill methane capture initiatives or any other climate change mitigation effort. But again, accountability; these are things we should be doing anyway. I'm not an idealist either. I know first hand how important RnR and vacation time away form home are and what their lack does to people, but we should always strive to reduce our environmental impact whenever possible, even if that means a wee bit of time loss in the process. Some of the things we can do to meet this goal include carpooling, using rail (have you ever heard of Amtrak? It's awesome, give it a whirl some time and see for yourself 😉), or choosing destinations that are somewhat local to you; I'm sure there's plenty of unexplored beauty within your state.

The truth of the matter is that the only viable way to reduce emissions right now, carbon or otherwise, is to consume less until the energy or products we use come from renewable or virtually renewable sources. Fossil fuels have had more than a 200 year lead for engineers to improve processes ranging from discovery and extraction to delivery and storage. Plus, the infrastructure to get energy from the ground to the consumer already exists. This and other logistic considerations make it really hard for renewables to be competitive in today's economy. The environment is one of the very few areas of policy in which I advocate for strong government regulation, although I'm of the opinion that we're approaching the problem from the wrong angle. Current policy revolves around providing tax credits for investing in or using renewable energy [4], most notably for installing solar panels in your roof. This is a well intentioned policy, but it hasn't been enough to decisively tip the balance in favor of environmentally friendly sources of energy [5].

In my opinion, the solution to the energy problem is a very steep and preferably progressive commercial carbon tax. Clear yearly guidance on the nature of the curve would help businesses to adjust prices accordingly and provide a good incentive to source the energy they use from carbon tax free sources to stay competitive. This tax would spike the prices of worse offending means of transportation, like air travel, which would make travel by rail more competitive, increasing ridership and driving down the cost in the medium run if properly managed (but this is an entirely different topic). Businesses managing to stay competitive without switching or businesses incapable of switching due to current logistic issues would provide an alternate stream of revenue for the government to invest in the infrastructure necessary to make non-fossil energy sources even more competitive, fund DoE research projects, or clean up some of our worst environmental messes as, contrary to what Billy Joel might want to tell you, some fires we did start ourselves.

Sources

[1] https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/Pages/default.aspx

[2] https://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/carbon-storage/faqs/carbon-storage-faqs

[3] https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/

[4] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/renewable-sources/incentives.php

[5] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

Up until things got extra hairy over at Pitt, I used to take up every last chance I got to hop onto my bike to ride away into the horizon, even when that involved putting the rest of my life on hold for a bit. One such time, I was performing my favorite kind of cycling activity: the one where you fuck off to far away lands only to return... well, whenever, really. Specifically, I was riding up the Allegheny Passage somewhere close to Whitsett, PA when a strange thought crossed my mind. What if what I was really doing when I pedaled was pushing the Earth beneath my wheels instead of my bike itself?

The implication here is that instead of running away from my problems, I'm pushing them behind me. That instead of going somewhere, I'm bringing that place to me. It emphasizes that things are where they are because I am the one who wants them there, not because of externalities. It provides me with a sense of control I seem to be unable to get otherwise due to a temporary combination of circumstance and goals.

At the end of the day, this is just a thought experiment and the outcome is just the same; I go some place else that doesn't stink of jail cell, I ignore all stressors for a few days, I reset at the cost of compressing my schedule some. However, I found reversing the frame of reference like that to be a helpful tool to identify non-superficial reasons why I do things. Finding out why something feels good seems more important to me now than just doing things because they feel good. Often times, I find those reasons to be a good lead to discover an underlying problem and perhaps a possible solution.

Anyways... jokes aside, I push the Earth beneath my feet 💪

Enter what's possibly the most isolated part of the trail. There is almost nothing in Appalachian Maryland. The remnants of what old canal towns used to be, for the most part. It's lovely, but do forget about contact with the outside world. The fifth day started great; a little cold, but the forecast was in the mid 60s so it was easy to forget about that. Had a peanut butter sandwich, my trail staple, and rode my 7 miles to actual breakfast. Stopped in this town named Oldtown where there was a restaurant, Schoolhouse Kitchen. In retrospect, the food wasn't all that great, but it was plenty good enough for an empty stomach. I did have my first real sweet tea since I last traveled back down south though, that was definitely a treat. This restaurant was actually located in the town's school. It had class portraits dating back to the 1920s. I spent some time looking at them; two things stood out to me: the same names coming back in cycles and the generational style changes, especially those from in between the 20s, 50s, 70s, and 90s. Some people at the restaurant told me I was the third cyclist of the season, only beaten by a day by some Virginia folks. Of course, my competitive alter ego had to come out and yell for a couple of seconds. In all reality it was reasonable since the previous day had been such a slow one.

I had my breakfast and set out to the next town. Not before long, I had the first eerie moment of the trip. There is a few tunnels in these two trails, but, of all those I crossed, worth noting is Paw-Paw tunnel. This one is a bit longer than half a mile. The light at the other side is dim and distant. It's damp and pitch black. The path is narrow. The walls are covered in brick and leak mountain juice, slowly dripping into puddles. It's not quite a scary place, but the perfect setting for a good prank. Just... eerie. I crossed it on foot; took about 10 minutes. Led to an in part man-carved valley that went for another mile before the canal crossed paths with the Potomac again.

Soon thereafter I had my trip's only flat. This was bad news at the time because, in my experience, when the flats start coming they don't stop coming. Luckily for me, this was not the case. I did my due diligence though; inspected the tire, removed all embedded sharps, and was careful enough to place the tube the way it was before patching it. Most cyclists I know usually swap tubes when they have flats, using patches as a temporary solution until they can get something better. I found over the years that patches act as a great buffer between the tire at the tear and the tube, protecting the latter against further objects lodging in if they are lined up properly. Alas, I didn't have a pressure gauge on me and I'm pretty sure my hand pump is only 60 PSI rated. Ideally, I would have liked to fall in the 80 to 90 range. I had a couple of CO2 cartridges, but figured an under-pressured tire was better than a blown up tire, so I just took it and continued biking. The takeout here is to carry a small gauge with me the next time.

I eventually made it to this town named Little Orleans. Stopped at a bar, Bill's Place. Pretty cool place. Hoping to get me a second taste of the south, I ordered some cole slaw. Unfortunately, the server got back to me with an "oh, honey, you ain't getting any cole slaw, I didn't make any today." JACKPOT! I thought. The server is the cook and makes the food daily. This is the kind of place I like, and I gotta say, the food didn't disappoint. I totally recommend this place to anyone doing this trail. Hope rebel flags and Trump signs don't bother ya though 😂

I managed to log another 15 miles before it got dark enough. I got to a campsite, but I was looking at my maps to figure out whether I wanted to attempt to make it to the next site. There were some people in this campsite already, and one of them must have thought I was hesitant because of it because she said it'd be fine if I wanted to stay. I did decide on staying... and also on starting a conversation after I had set up my tent. The weather was beautiful in this particular night. I didn't feel the need to go back in. I joined these peeps for dinner... they were ready for war... had cooking supplies, tons of food, the water supply figured out... I was getting my sad jar of PB out when they offered some food. They had cooked chili and I hadn't had any in a long time, so this I was definitely not hesitant to accept 😁. They even provided a bowl and everything! After talking for a bit, they told me they were from VCU in Richmond. "Huh, interesting..." I said. "I just met two lads from Virginia close to Pittsburgh a few of days back..." They all kind of stopped for a hot second in disbelief. "Victor and (jeez, and I still can't remember her name...)!" So yeah, small world. They confirmed they managed to pull off the century they were talking about; they crossed paths at Paw-Paw when they were headed to Cumberland (this group was doing a there and back from DC). They were seven out of which I can only remember three names: Kristen (Kristin?), Brenner, and Ava. They were in a leadership training program, so they were doing all sorts of funky exercises I thought were pretty funny. We all shot the shit for a bit and went to sleep.

Day five's breakfast was closer. I stopped in Hancock after the first three miles and after that enjoyed the first 10 miles of pavement. See, right along the C&O runs the Western Maryland Rail Trail for about 20 miles. I didn't know this at the time, but I happened to see it when I stopped and decided that I was going to enjoy smooth for a little bit before hitting the gravel again. Yeah, that might be cheating, but bear in mind that the goal was getting to DC by bike, and that I did. Trail was still pretty natural, but I started to see more and more history information signs as I got closer to DC, typically about the canal or the Civil War. One particularly caught my attention: the dam lieutenant general Stonewall Jackson tried to blow up to cut off the coal supply to DC.

I eventually made it to Williamsport for dinner. I walked into an Italian restaurant as the words "I declare a state of emergency" came out of President Trump's mouth. By this point I knew about class cancellations at Pitt, but I hadn't really been plugged in closely enough to know things had gotten this bad over the last few days. Before data started taking shape, I thought this... well, plague... wouldn't be a big deal outside of China after all. I actually didn't want to believe it, as I had summer travel plans to Japan and around half of the continent. Plans that are very likely going to have to be cancelled. At any rate, I was wrong. But life goes on. Had my dinner and hit the trail. I saw last night's folks one more time. They had run out of time and were making it back to one of the road accesses to meet their instructors to go back to Richmond. Talked to them for a few minutes before we said our farewells and continued on to what I thought was the next campsite.

It got cold that night. It took me a hot minute to get out of the sac in the morning of day six. At some point I did and, as I was packing up my tent, this cop showed up to tell me that I wasn't supposed to camp there, that it was actually a day use. I had actually got there pretty late, so I didn't pay all that much attention. The guy was nice enough to just let me know. It's funny though; there was no reason whatsoever for this guy to be there, in a day use in the middle of Nowhere, MD at that particular time. I'll leave it at that. This is the day I wanted to see the Antietam battlefield, but couldn't because I prioritized getting past it to get breakfast. This is the day I wanted to go see Harpers Ferry but couldn't because a derailed cargo train wrecked the foot bridge across the Potomac a couple of months prior. But, this is the day I got to ride on the Appalachian Trail for a bit (which I'm totally intending to walk all the way from Georgia to Maine one day). That counts for something, I'm sure.

Day seven started cold too. I had decided to camp at a place about a mile past Point of Rocks just because I had seen a small shop by the trail the night before. I backtracked a bit but learned that the place wouldn't open until 11. Waited though because there was almost nothing else in between Point of rocks and DC. Had a lot of food, some more to go after having a few conversations with the owner. I made it to Potomac (the town) at some point in the evening and camped close by. Nothing eventful happened in this day. I was planning to take an Amtrak Back to the Burgh™ the next day, so I tried to book an Airbnb to take a shower or otherwise get cleaned up before boarding, but I couldn't. Apparently everyone was freaking out about the sick down in DC, which added to the weirdness.

Day eight was a relatively short one. There is this thing people say some place I once belonged to. When something good is brief, it's twice as good. I can be okay with short, especially because the day didn't disappoint. I still had some leftover sandwich from the day prior, so I munched on that and got going. I did see something I set out to see in this leg, Great Falls. Great Falls is a section of the Potomac having rapids and waterfalls in short succession, much like the Yough does in Ohiopyle, but outside of Appalachia. This is what got me. There is some geography in this part of the country, but nothing other than what Denverites would call mounds at best. Nothing in the way of big ridges, monster hills, or gorgeous valleys like you would find in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. I learned this park sits on top of the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line, the place where the Piedmont meets the coastal plain. The former is made up of bedrock and the latter of sedimentary rock, which is significantly softer. Over the years, the river eroded the sedimentary rock away, carving a lower course right outside of the fall line. Cool stuff. Olmsted island was an interesting ecosystem as well, worth spending an hour or two looking around.

In this last leg, no longer than 18 miles, is where I started seeing more people on trail. Puts things into perspective, as I never really though about DC as being in the middle of nowhere, but it definitely feels like that when you burn your own fuel to get there. Most people in this section where almost cheerleading my effort, as I visibly came from (at least) as far as Cumberland, given all the gear I was carrying. A few peeps engaged in conversation on my sandwich breaks. I was brought up to speed on the state of affairs in DC, learning that this was my last day to potentially eat at a restaurant. The city was shutting down because of Coronavirus outbreaks, much like most of the country would follow. I got to the Lincoln memorial right around noon. There was some people there, but not nearly as many as I would have expected to see under normal circumstances, bringing about the trip's second and final eerie moment. Being in the capital and it being empty surely feels like the apocalypse had happened in the eight days I was removed from civilization. Again, life goes on; I did a limited amount of tourism, lost my helmet, and caught my Amtrak, concluding my own personal Odyssey.

I know, I know… I promised posts about my trips to Memphis and Seattle I never actually delivered. I’m sorry; life got busy, an asteroid fell on my yard, my leg fell off, yada yada yada. Back to business though! At this point most of y’all will know I now live in Pittsburgh. Well, sometime last week my tolerance bucket for cities, people, and civilization in general overflowed. I decided that I was gonna do something challenging I had never done or attempted before. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but soon thereafter I remembered a couple of people had told me about this trail (two trails, in fact) that goes all the way from my doorstep to DC. These are the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) and the Chesapeake & Ohio Towpath (C&O). I gathered supplies throughout the remainder of the week and stepped out the door with my bike and some stuff. Kiiind of a lot of sh...tuff in hindsight.

I headed to Point State Park... cause let's face it, I like posing as much as the next guy: I wanted my picture in front of the city before I headed out. But also cause I didn’t want to go up Squirrel Hill; I ain’t about that life. As soon as I got to the Point, I caught a couple of cyclists’ attentions. They asked where I was headed and I, proud as I was, didn’t hesitate to enthusiastically get a “DC!” out of my mouth. They insisted I should take a picture here and another one there. “Sure!” I said (mission accomplished + zero effort: 😏). We talked about the trail and their experience, which was good because, as an honorary Memphian, I am rather terrified of positive elevation when it comes to bicycles. They were very encouraging people; made me feel at ease. Anywho, I set out and had a few other encounters with people who asked if DC and wished good luck, particularly worth mentioning was this one guy who was on a casual 20 miler. We did about 7 or 8 miles along the GAP together and talked about his experience as well, which happened to be a trainwreck, the funny kind of trainwreck. Everyone seemed so excited about this trail that it all added to my very own.

About 20 miles into day one, I came across these other two kids, Victor and (I actually can’t remember her name; soory, eh?), who were also doing the thing. There wasn’t much of an interaction, just a “see you there” type thing. Confession time; since I broke my scaphoid back in May I had done but a couple of long rides, so I was pretty much pulling this trip off without any conditioning. My butt was sore, my legs were stiff, and my knees were giving up, but I made it to the campsite. Interestingly enough, these two kids were there. I set up my tent and went to sleep immediately, as I was just wore slap out. No food or nothing, which unfortunately turned out to be a trend I should have avoided. You live and you learn.

I did talk to them the next morning though. They were crazy enough to try to attempt a century… I headed out with barely any breakfast in and did my 20 miles to Connellsville. My legs felt weak, but once I got lunch I did the remaining 30 miles to Confluence with almost no problem. Almost because the grade was getting larger as I rode up the Yough. Rode through Ohiopyle, which is one of the most beautiful state parks I’ve ever been to. There are tons and tons of waterfalls (yes, sis, they are waterfalls too 😡), which are one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. I would have liked to stop in town, but it was getting late and dark. Turned out I had to ride in the dark for about an hour before I got to Confluence. Got a beer in one of the bars (the only thing that was still open, closing at 9) and set up camp.

The third day broke me. It rained pretty much all day. I left late because of it, among other reasons. I don’t know what it is about crushed limestone, but I could swear it turns non-Newtonian when it gets wet. Add that to the fact that the grade was really getting steep for my standards, and that 6 hours later was dark, and there you go. I was soaked, cold, totally sapped out of energy, and still 10 miles away from my target. I was pushing my bike up to Big Savage when my host (I figured I’d want to take a shower after this day, so I booked an Airbnb in Frostburg, MD), concerned, messaged me to ask where I was. I explained the situation and told her that it’d be a while before I could get there. She offered to come pick my sorry ass up at the eastern continental divide and I accepted. This is a good thing, because shortly thereafter I learned Big Savage was closed for the winter and would have had to ride the rollercoaster to get past the ridge. Yea, PA kinda sucks like that sometimes. We talked for a bit and dropped me at the house. I took a really hot shower and went to bed immediately. Again, no dinner. Day 3 was a bad day, but it was exactly what I needed. I know it sounds weird, but a big part of this trip was to put myself through hell and overcome it, to be able to see the light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel, to learn to keep positive.

The fourth day was pretty much uneventful. Again, I left Frostburg pretty late, but the ride to Cumberland was the most enjoyable thing in the universe at the time. An actual constant downhill through Appalachian Maryland, nice weather, a finale in a good looking town. After the third day I was totally stoked. I came to find out two things though. 1) What I think of bumpy is not bumpy enough for the people who turned the C&O towpath into a trail, and 2) the C&O isn't really downhill. It's just about as flat as it can get with 10 to 15 feet drops in elevation where the locks are. That broke my hope for a pretty much downhill ride to DC, but that's okay. It's just as enjoyable. Oh! I realized I had left my tent's transversal beam in Confluence...

This is gonna be a short one. I've been thinking about this for a bit now. So here it is; my very own blog! 🎉

The idea is to write about things that I find interesting, my travels, photography, experiences, etc; past, present, and future. I'm currently putting myself through grad school (on top of other stuff), so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to dedicate to this thing. On the other hand, Christmas break and the holidays are right around the corner and I have quite a few plans. More on that later ;)

Anyway, I am glad you're here. Stay tuned!