Life On Long Island

So its been a couple of weeks now since vanessa and I have finished riding our bicycles an average of 50-55 miles a day. The transition of traveling into a normal day to day life is a strange, Exciting, fun, not so fun, boring, new, cool, up and down roller coaster kind of thing.
We made it a point to not jump straight back into the rat race of jobs and responsibilities, but sooner or later you gotta make some money if plan to keep doing fun things. I was offered a position working at a bicycle shop in the town of riverhead. I have never worked on other bikes besides vanessas and mine, so to be able to score a job doing that with no experience, i jumped on it. two out of the four days that i work each week are with my friend Devin, so we car pool together and its fun, we usually get breakfast and eat outside before heading in. My boss is a workaholic cool dude. Its nice working with only two other people when the two people you work with are fun and nice and easy to get along with. So I'm thankful to be doing what I'm doing. But the whole idea of having to travel by car and not bicycle ever day kinda gets me down.
Vanessa has landed a Gig cleaning houses. This is also something that came up through a friend. She seems to like it, its good cash money, she hangs out with her friend Lianne all day and scrubs the toilets of rich Hampton summer houses. Sounds not so awesome to some, but its really a pretty cool job. They are a different place everyday, meet new people, snoop around huge houses, and just do their thing. Its long hours but that means just a few days of work a week and you are set.
We kinds just flopped around the first few weeks, but still made it a point to ride our bicycles whenever possible. We've made some new friends since being home who are also into riding bikes, so them combined with the friends we've always had makes for a pretty good crew, we've got this thing going where we meet up for a big group ride on Wednesday nights. but we hang out on bikes almost daily in smaller groups.
Honestly, as good as things have been, I still feel as if I have fallen into a slight state of depression over the past week or so. For over two months we woke up daily with a big mission, and worked all day and completed it giving us excitement for the next day. now on my days off i find myself sitting around trying to find things to keep myself busy. For two months we met new people every day, and they changed our perspective on life and I like to think that them meeting us changed them in small ways as well. I truly miss those interactions.
Our planet is full of so much bad stuff right now, i feel this way now more then ever. All over the world bad stuff is going on. But for a short period of time we were doing something different. something that made us feel good, something that left little to no negative impact on the world around us. And we were able to explore and see more beauty then I ever knew existed within our very own country.
I expected to feel this way eventually so I try not to let myself stay down. This is a transition period and it's just effecting me a little more then i believed it would.

besides the down feelings I've been dealing with. There has absolutely been a lot of good going on.
I have some really awesome friends who I see often and enjoy doing fun stuff anytime of day.
I have been to an amazing rope swing over a lake, Two times already.
I have started growing food in my back yard with my mother.
I get paid to work on bicycles
I have an amazing girlfriend who shares the passions that I have, with out her I would have a lot less to talk about for our bicycle journey would have never happened and I wouldn't be who I am today!
It Is SUMMER.
I've been listening to new great music a lot, and I recently scored some really good older albums from selden thrift.
I am aware of the fact that our future is unwritten and I am here today but anything is still possible. This is an exciting Idea.

I picked a jalapeno pepper straight from my back yard and used it to spice up my egg/potato breakfast. LIFE IS GOOD.

as far as pictures go, vanessa and I have recently developed 4 of the 7 rolls of film i have from our trip. and i am very happy with what we have seen. We plan to get a flicker or some other photo hosting site to post everything on. far to troublesome to post pictures on this blog.

Although our journey across the country by bicycle is over, our journey through life isn't and I plan to continue my Life As Usual, trying my hardest to have No Bad Days. So keep reading and I'll try my best to keep writing.