I am a worrier

I am a worrier. I am not “easy going” or “laid back”. I am, however, my own boss. I run an organic urban farm called in Tallahassee, Fl, and my boyfriend Travis does the same thing in Gainesville, FL. So when we started thinking about our off season (mid-July through mid-August; too hot and humid, too many bugs and disease) we decided to do a bike tour. And of all the places in North America that are more climatically pleasant than Florida in July, I picked to go to the desert of Utah and the mountains of Colorado. When Travis tells his guy friends that this was my idea, he says they freak out and say they need to get a girlfriend like me. But I am a worrier. When I think about riding bikes through an inhospitable desert up through the 14,000 ft elevation of the Rocky Mountains, I think, “Holy shit why did I choose to go here??” And I freak out a little. But I know why I made that decision- it’s because I wanted to leave the live oaks and red clay of North Florida and see something I’ve never seen before. The Southeast is beautiful but there are parts of this country with mindblowing landscapes that I’ve just never experienced. In short, I wanted to see some epic shit. I get one month out of the year when I’m not bending over harvesting salad greens, delivering tomatoes to ten restaurants a week, or slinging produce at our farm stand— I want some epic shit! So what if I just stated my own business six months ago? So what if I haven’t actually spent more than a week at a time with my boyfriend and I don’t really know what it’s like to be with him for an entire month? So what if I haven’t ridden my bike regularly since I was a commuter in Chicago three years ago and haven’t trained at all?? Shut up, worrying voice inside my head— let’s pack up and fly to Utah!