March 8, 2017 – Reaching the Southern Goalpost

          What is it about man, who sets tasks for himself and then pushes beyond reason or comfort to achieve arbitrary goals?  This trip started as an idea, to motorcycle across the country visiting colleges.  Today, with sprained ankle, porous finances, dripping wet in the middle of a tropical rainstorm, I reached the southernmost tip of the continental united states.  To go any further I would need a boat (and some community colleges in Cuba to visit!).  To get this far was only possible because some railroad baron decided to set a goal to put a train out here in the first place.  The train itself never survived except in derelict remnants sections, which now serve as fishing peers for the locals.  A massive hurricane in 1935, and the Cuban government, which took a different tact on US trade, doomed it to failure, the current US highway 1 being its legacy.   The Rockefeller contemporary who built the rail also died one year after its completion…   Sometimes we do things because they make sense or out of necessity, and sometimes man is just stubborn and driven to do what he sets out to do.             Others can judge which of these categories I fall in.  All I know is that I reached my goal and will now turn north again.  The second goal of making it up to Main I will not be holding as steadfast as was the achievement of this point.  For the rest of the trip I strive to think more prudently in terms of time, resources and weather.  It is currently snowing in Maine and I may not have the economic fortitude to wait for the road to thaw, as much as I would like to.

            For now I am headed back to the everglades to stop and camp for a few nights in the National Park there.  The longer I wait here in the warm winds of Florida the better the weather will be in New England as I head north…