I tend to take very long vacations. Coding gives me the flexibility to work from anywhere, so when I travel, I keep working by default and take days off when something special arises. Thus I usually take vacation in very short increments, but very occasionally I’ll be gone awhile. And when I’m gone awhile, I’m gone: no hacking, no work, just focused on the instant.

My last serious-length vacation was August-September last year. And since then, I’ve taken only a day and a half of vacation (although I’ve shifted a few more days or fractions thereof to evenings or weekends). It’s time for a truly long vacation.

For several years I’ve had a list of long trips I’ve decided I will take: the Appalachian Trail, the John Muir Trail, the Coast to Coast Walk in England, and the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve done the first two in 2008 and 2010 and the third last year. The fourth requires more than just a vacation, so I haven’t gotten to it yet. This leaves one last big trip: biking across the United States.

Tomorrow I take a much-needed break to recharge and recuperate (in a manner of speaking) by biking from the Pacific to the Atlantic. (Ironically, the first leg out of San Francisco is a ferry to Vallejo.) I have a commitment at the back end August 25 in San Francisco, and a less-critical one (more biking, believe it or not!) August 26. The 24th must be a day to fly back, so I have 37 days to bike the ~3784 miles of the Western Express Route (San Francisco, CA to Pueblo, CO) and part of the TransAmerica Trail (Pueblo to Yorktown, VA). This is an aggressive pace, to put it mildly; but I’ve biked enough hundred-mile days before, singly and seriatim, that I believe it’s doable with effort and focus.

Unlike in past trips, I won’t be incommunicado this time. I’ll pass through towns regularly, so I’ll have consistent ability to access the Internet. And I died a little, but I bought two months of cell/data service to cover the trip. So it goes. I won’t be regularly checking email (or bugmail, or doing reviews). But I’ll try to make a quick post from time to time with a picture and a few words.

I could say a little about gear — my twenty-five pound carrying capacity in panniers on a seatpost-mounted rack, the Kindle I purchased for reading end-of-day (which I’ve enjoyed considerably for the last week…as has my credit card), the 25-ounce sleeping bag I’ll carry, the tent I’ll use. I could also say a little about the hazards — the western isolation (you Europeans have no idea what that means), the western desert (one Utah day will be 50 miles without water, then 74 miles without water), the high summer climate, the other traffic, and simple exhaustion. But none of that’s important compared to the fact that 1) this is finally happening, and 2) it starts tomorrow.

“And now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey.” Let’s do this.

(Subtitle: “Banach-Tarski! Banach-Tarski! Why isn’t this thing working?”)

You might (and I think should) have a right to be stupid. That doesn’t mean you should use it. I repeat myself: wear a helmet. Don’t be an idiot.

Also amusing this long after the fact: this is what the police report describes as “moderate damage to the frame”.

Also relevant: this, although the mangled sound track makes me want to do violence to the current state of copyright law that doubtless makes it hard to find an unaltered copy.

* I don’t really know that it can’t be repaired. Although when I was walking back from retrieving the bike from the Palo Alto police, I stopped by Palo Alto Bicycles just for giggles to ask if it would need a new frame. I’ll give you one guess at the answer. I’m unsure exactly what I’m going to do with the bike, or to replace it, just yet.

I’ve purchased groceries and household supplies at Safeway #705 in Mountain View on Shoreline intermittently for four years (regularly since March 2009). It’s the closest grocery store to my apartment and carries nearly all the groceries I need, so I rarely go elsewhere.

I travel primarily by bike, and I usually walk my bike inside with me when I buy groceries at Safeway #705. This is much more efficient if I’m only getting a handful of items, and I don’t have to worry about a wheel or a seat walking off. At all times of all days of the week, no employee has ever looked askance. (There are no automated checkout lines, so I always walk by a few employees when I pay.) I’ve never been asked to leave my bike outside.

Not until today.

Today I was told Safeway #705 doesn’t allow bikes inside it. I replied that I’d walked my bike in regularly, to no avail. So I went and locked up the bike, then returned to finish my little bit of shopping. (I was fortunate to have a lock, since I usually carry it to Safeway only when buying an especially large amount of groceries.)

I understand why a store might wish to forbid awkward, bulky bikes. (Still, they’re less bulky and much more maneuverable than carts.) But this makes Safeway #705 quite unusual for the area: no other grocery store has forbidden my bike. I have no reason but convenience to particularly visit Safeway #705. Other grocery stores as little as half a mile further away (even other Safeway stores!) have no problem with me taking my bike inside. Safeway #705 can exclude me, but I can retaliate: I can stop shopping there, and I can use this bully pulpit to tell others.

So in the future, Safeway #705, expect to see far less of me, and my money, than you have in the past. I may rarely show up when I especially need convenience (only if I have my lock), but you won’t be my default stop for groceries. I can suffer minor inconvenience to make my preference for bicycle flexibility known. Who knows? Maybe you’ll see light here; I wouldn’t bet on it, but I’d love to be proven wrong.