Epilogue for 2008 Ride For Fatherhood

From: gene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: rff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 08:39:54 -0700
When we called off the ride, we were in Keystone, South Dakota with
barely enough money for Greyhound tickets home. Bonnie had been laid off
her job with the FL Parole Commission (shortly after they had contacted
her and specifically asked her to leave Dept of Health and come back to
them), we had been sending money home to help pay some of the bills and
things were getting pretty desperate all over. Bonnie's emails were more
about her struggle to survive and I felt guilty as hell being on the
road while she dealt with these issues alone at home. I don't look down
on us for quitting, we still made it over 2,000 miles; my family
responsibilities simply took priority over a bicycle ride.

We rode from Keystone back into Rapid City where we stayed with a couple
of Couchsurfers who were also neighbors of each other. As usual in the
Midwest, the beer was good and the pub across the street also offered a
local delicacy that we had not tried before: Prairie Oysters. Stefan had
gone for a walk, so I had an order of them and thought they were quite
tasty. I ordered him a box when he came back and he wanted to know if he
could have seconds. We also met with 2 other guests of our hosts who
were in Rapid City for the rock climbing.

That night as we walked around downtown, they and Stefan were climbing
everything in sight....walls, fire escapes; the guy from New Zealand
even climbed all the way over and under a picnic table without touching
the ground. While we had planned to stay just one night, learning that
they were planning to go rock climbing the next day changed that as
Stefan had been dying to climb all the way across the country. They
rented him shoes and spent the day hanging off cliffs behind Mount
Rushmore

Needless to say, Stefan had a  blast. I spent my day walking 4 miles
round-trip to the nearest bike shop for boxes. Finding them closed (I
think it was Labor Day), I dove headfirst into their dumpster,
liberating two flattened bike boxes. I tried hitchhiking back to the
apartment, but none of the drivers passing me struggling with two large
sheets of cardboard in the ever-present SD wind seemed interested in
cooperating; neither did hte boxes for that matter. I finally made it
back and re-assembled the boxes with copious amounts of packing tape to
make sure they held up. We tied our panniers into bags so we could check
them under the bus along with our bikes and used our handlebar bags as
carry-on.

We were given a ride to the Greyhound the next morning where we boarded
for a 2-day trip through America's heartland. After taking 2 months to
see as much as we had, the ride home was all too short and we saw very
little except what flew by our windows at 70MPH.
 
A lot has happened in the 7 months or so since the ride ended. Until a
week or so ago, I was driving a taxi cab here in Tallahassee. It is
definitely a tough job and a hard way to make a living, especially for
someone with a family, but at least I had a job. The job market for IT
people has been very tight and every position that I applied to had
several hundred other applicants as well;to top that off, a lot more IT
folks were just laid off in the latest round of budget cuts as Florida
struggles with it's budget problems caused by tax shortfalls. I have
been putting off writing this final entry because I did not want to be
too detailed or specific with my plans for a repeat attempt as long as a
potential employer might be reading this. I just recently went back to
work for the state of Florida in an OPS position as a helpdesk
technician with Agency for Persons with Disabilities and I have a
pending offer with the state Emergency Operations Center as a Disaster
Housing Coordinator. This second job would be a huge plus to me as I
have always done volunteer disaster work in the past (see
http://www.tallahasseecap.org/pdfs/charley-aar.pdf and
http://www.tallahasseecap.org/pdfs/2005aar.pdf for details) and have
always been in and out of disaster zones before the lights are even back
on. It would be great to have a job where not only am I being paid
(quite well actually....about $10,000.00 more than my current job) to do
what I love, but can actually stick around long enough to see signs of
recovery.

I have thought about a re-attempt and while it is tempting to try for
next Summer once Joshua has graduated high school, I simply do not know
if we will be recovered enough financially for the effort. Time will
tell. Bonnie and I are talking about trying it on our own with a Bilenky
Viewpoint, but I do not see that happening until retirement without
major corporate sponsorship.

Gene, Stefan, and Joshua Floyd
70 days on the road for dads and kids
Daily blog and 3500+ photos at
http://www.rideforfatherhood.org
850.284.3677
Epilogue for 2008 Ride For Fatherhood

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