Last Post of 2019

“We're leaving together, but still it's farewell."

These were the lyrics on our mind as my mom, dad, sister and I made our way onto Delta Flight 1277 bound for the great Pacific Northwest. It was the day after Christmas, and we hardly had time to digest the sensory overload of this major holiday. The plan was to spend a few quality days of rest and relaxation before parting ways for the next few months.

But before the departure we were hard at work. Pushing up against Christmas day itself, we did our best to make our arrangements, assemble my gear, and prepare for a year away from home. A year away from home. Hmm, a year away from home. That’s some heavy stuff. I was keenly aware of the slew of “lasts.” The last night in my bed for a year, the last time in my car, the last time snuggling my dogs, the last time hanging with my grandparents and extended family, the last time in my hometown. I’m about to know the true meaning of a year’s length.

But clashing with this sentimentality and sadness was another feeling, vaguely familiar and recently supressed. It’s a feeling of exhilaration, of travel and the unknown. This spark of freedom was having a profound effect at a dire time. A firestorm of possibility was opening the gates to my future, which have increasingly felt more and more sealed. After getting out of school, I’ve had this sensation of forboding, like reaching the tapering end of a cave system and knowing that my fate was defined and decided. The future was becoming more and more of a sentence and less of a gift. But out of the peripheies appeared this vision: the promise of potential.

So, with these thoughts in mind, I set about assembling the essentials. First and foremost was the need to modify the unicycle a tad to carry a bit of gear (and also to provide an answer for the ubiquitous “where will you put your gear” question). After an unecessarily long snafu involving a damaged shipment from Unicycle.com, I finally recieved a functioning t-bar touring handle set that my dad and I could transform into a long-distance luggage rack. My dad, with this enviable sense of mechanics and creativity, decided that mounting a small board on the back bar would be the best solution. Our materials? An old skim board, some bolts, a saw, and a drill. Here’s how it went down:

Surfin’ USA

Yin and Yang

Zen and the Art of Unicycle Maintenance

Final Measurements

And when we put it together, it looked a little something like this:

Who needs another wheel?

So now we had our machine. For those nerdy enough to be curious, here are the specs of my uni, The Battlestar:

-36” Nimbus Nightrider Tires
-Nimbus Stealth Wheel
-Kris Holm Moment Cranks
-Odyssey Pedals
-Magura tomac caliper break
-Nimbus Stadium Saddle
-Nimbus Shadow Handleset

The rig is a bit of a frankenstein, and I bought it used, so I am unsure about the source of the fork/frame and hub.

And here comes the obligatory gear list:

Equipment

-Osprey Exos 48 liter pack with waterproof Osprey cover
-Two Dry Bags
-Bontrager Solstice MIPS helmet in a visual assault neon yellow
-Padded Scope Case (waterproofed with Scotchguard)
-Vortex Viper 15-45X65 Angled Spotting Scope
-Vortex Summit SS-P lightweight tripod
-Phoneskope adapter
-Nikon Monarch 5 8X42 Binoculars with harness
-Crosstour 1080p action camera with several mounts
-iPad Mini with case
-iPhone X
-Geyes foldable bluetooth keyboard (which I am using now)
-Two pairs of headphones
-Two Apple charging cables with blocks
-Two Micro USB charging cables
-Spot Gen3 GPS Tracker
-Three liter Camelbak water bladder with cleaning tabs
-Iodine water tablets
-Black Diamond Revolt Headlamp
-Two Bontrager rechargeable daytime bike lights
-Bike Flashlight
-NEBO rechargeable flashlight
-Ink Pen
-Tiny Pink Pencil
-Rite in the Rain Birder’s Journal
-ABA Trip List
-Wallet
-Two tubes of chapstick
-Aleve
-Lightweight Medical Kit
-Bungee Cords
-Mitre Lightweight Pump
-Two 36’’ tubes
-Patch Kit
-Two Park Tool Alan Wrench sets
-Park Tool Tire Remover Tools
-Glucose Gel
-Microfiber Cloth
-Lens Pen
-Spare nuts, washers, and bolts
-Extra Velcro
-DIY mirror wristband
-Toiletry Bag with Assorted Toiletries
-One rock that my sister wanted me to take

Clothing

-One Pair of Boots
-One Pair of Crocs
-One snap-back hat
-One beanie
-One pair of pajama pants
-Two pairs of underwear
-Two pairs of compression shorts
-Longjohns
-Two pairs of Columbia socks
-One pair of Sealskinz All-weather gloves
-Ear-warmers
-One Bandana
-Three T-shirts
-Two long-sleeved shirts (one a turtleneck)
-Two pairs of lightweight shorts
-One pair of workout shorts
-One pair of lightweight pants
-One pair of heavy pants
-One cycling bib
-Two cycling leg sleeves
-One lightweight jacket
-One midweight jacket
-One heavy jacket
-One lined raincoat
-One rain shell

It’s really not as much stuff as it sounds like. In fact, it’s all that I need to survive, apart from shelter, food, water, and, most importantly, BIRDS.

In terms of spending, I really lucked out. I’ll keep a running expense list going to be totaled at the end of the year. I think that my backpack will be my new best friend. My buddy John Mark conveniently works for an outfitters store, and he got me a killer deal on that thing, so thanks, John Mark!

Also, you may have seen that in my before photo I was wearing my cycling outfit. Before this gig, I have never worn a cycling bib, and I do not tend to wear tight clothes in general. It is such an odd sensation! I’m not sure if it prepares me as much to ride a unicycle as it would prepare me to take a high dive or play polo.

Just as any programming goes, there is always a time for advertisements. I recently added another charity to my charity page. It’s called People for Bikes, and it’s an organization that promotes biking infrastructure in the US. I realized that my design for a Big Year really ought to highlight the need for safe biking space, and these guys are the foremost experts on that kind of thing:

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/2020-the-vision-biking

Here’s a cool anecdote to conclude this post. I became so enchanted by Ed Pratt’s unicycling across the USA series that I paid up and became a patron. This enabled me to see an episode in advance, and, more importantly, reach out to Ed personally. You know fate is trying to tell you something when your inbox looks like mine did on December 20th.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas season, and I look forward to reuniting with Augusta and all of its special inhabitants next Christmas! Happy Joe Stevenson Day Augustans!

Christmas in the Rearview

On my next post I’ll glaze over my first few days in Washington and share my feelings as this rocket prepares to launch.

I hope that everyone has a Happy New Year and may 2020 be a special and blessed year for you! If you have been touched in some way by my undertaking, please do consider giving to one of my charities. It may change someone’s life!

Preparations: November and December

Man it's getting close to the departure day. I feel a strange mix of angst to begin and hesitance to commence. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed when I am confronted with the immensity of the project, but I have to quickly remind myself that when viewed on a day-by-day basis, this Big Year will be a manageable reality. But still, I cannot help but feel the onset of nerves when I see a dealer tag on a new car with a January 2020 date. While that person is ripping their hair out at a DMV to avoid getting pulled over for a DIY "tag applied for" placeholder, I'll be making huge strategic moves or even undertaking this thing. Am I ready??

This pendulum of emotions is easier to neutralize when I am conscious. Sleeping is another story. With each passing December day, hours of sleep come less easily. Night after night I find myself in a dream state, only to be jolted to reality by the sudden awareness of some piece of equipment that I have yet to secure. Curse you phonescope adapters and fingernail clippers. Just let me sleep in peace!

Alright alright. Let's get back to the reality of the moment with an announcement about dollas. I have finally arranged for donations to be made to either the Nature Conservancy or the American Birding Association (or both if you're feeling really generous in this season of giving). I'm posting links below to both of these options but have also added a portal through a tab on the blog.

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/2020-the-vision-conservation

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/2020-the-vision-birding

So give your hearts out. These are two seriously legit organizations. The Nature Conservancy promotes the conservation of healthy natural systems through protection and wise management, and the American Birding Association represents the face of birding the the United States. Both are worthy of whatever money you can spare, and I honestly appreciate donations to both equally. In their essence, both groups are nature-centric, and they want to see the appreciation of nature encouraged and popularized.

So what am I getting down to in crunch time? Making arrangements, making purchases, and making memories. I'm scrambling to get all of my gear. Oh, I also got some cards made to be especially official. I've also discovered that Ed Platt, that British cat that just unicycled around the world, is releasing video episodes of his travels through the United States. This guy is quickly becoming a personal hero. I mean just check out his travel through the Mojave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLgKfYPlN08

What a cool series. I'm amazed that it is self-shot.

In my next blog, I will post photos of my final rig and my full equipment spread (with an accompanying list). Catch you then.

Me Before a 500+ Species Year (Photo by Traci Moss)

Preparations: September and October

This one will be short and sweet! September and October were pretty slow months in terms of preparation. The single greatest action taken for the Big Year was purchasing tickets to fly out to Seattle the day after Christmas. I am so lucky to have my mom, dad, and sister joining me on the way out. They are sacrificing their post-Christmas decompression time and opting for stress-inducing air travel to be with me for a few more days of togetherness before my official start.

So if you thought that I was just dreaming out loud all of this time, think again. It's real, it's official, and it's set in stone. I look forward to what this year brings, and I hope that you do too.

Getting my sea legs (Photo by Traci Moss)

In the meantime, check out this sweet video that I was lucky to be a part of. It helps to explain one of modern life's greatest mysteries: what exactly is birding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luJ49BwQ2u4


Whenever the subject of my adventure comes up in conversation, one of the main questions that I get is will I set a world record for unicycling. I could never answer this question accurately because I had never taken the time to look it up. Record-breaking just isn't one of my motivations. In fact, I had hardly looked up distance unicycling in general, partly because I was afraid that it would somehow dissuade me from my dream. I was grasping to faith in the idea through ignorance, but I eventually did break down to do some skimming on the subject.

So glad that I'm not looking for counseling on this subject

In all fairness, I cannot truly be surprised that the top hit is long-distance relationships and not long-distance unicycling. Still not sure how long-distance lamps rank above long-distance unicycling or really even what that is, but maybe, just maybe, this whole thing will shift Googles engines to favor one-wheeled nonsense. 

But back to what I really set out to find. It turns out that the Guinness Book of World Records website lists Lars Clausen's 2002 transcontinental American journey as the record holder. He traveled 9,125 miles over the course of eightish months. 

Still, this seems like an outdated record. According to Cary Gray's blog, his unicycle journey of 9,126 miles through North and Central America broke the Guinness World Record in 2014.

But wait, from 2015 to 2018 a British youngster named Ed Pratt circumnavigated the Earth on his 36-inch touring unicycle. I'm no mathematician, but a route circling the Earth must have exceeded 10,000 miles. Surely he owns the title that Guinness has the power to bestow.

So as you can see, I am in good company. I'm comforted by the fact that others have pedaled before me and that my own undertaking is nowhere near as daunting as theirs temporally, spatially, and conceptually. Yeah, I like unicycling, but I also like the prospect of returning home in good time. 

See you on the next post.

Preparations: August

"I'm traveling from coast to coast

My theory isn't perfect but it's close."

~Red Hot Chili Peppers

Actually my theory is not all that close, and I am coming to realize that every day as 1/1/2020 approaches. As you all may know, this endeavor is pretty wild, and the planning process ain't straightforward. Needless to say I have never had to promote myself to any significant extent. Applying for college and jobs has pretty much been telling it like it is. But in order to get some support for this project, I kind of have to push it to the next level.

Just hopping on my uni and traversing states sounds way too easy when put in that manner. Although I want to be as self-reliant as possible, the reality of the situation is that I need some real support, and people are supportive! So aside from snowballing ideas in my head and casually mentioning the idea to people here and there, I have taken some concrete steps in the months of July and August.

In late July, I had the pleasure of talking with the famed Dorian Anderson on the phone for a bit. I emailed him, and he reached out to me very quickly. I guess he took an interest to the idea and was happy to share some thoughts. I don't think that it's a stretch to say that it was the most influential call of my life. In addition to offering encouragement and personal perspectives, Dorian suggested that I look into some of the biggest challenges of the project, like incline and gradation, lodging, surface roads vs. interstates, and the timing of my planned birding stops. I was comforted to know that my designed route will take advantage of northern and western tradewinds but harrowed by his emphasis on gears as a key to his success in 2014. Recall that the unicycle has no gears but instead has a fixed hub.

More recently, I was interviewed by Ed Pullen on The Bird Banter Podcast. Ed was one of the first people to reach out to me following my post to Washington's ABA page, Washington Tweeters. He advised me on some Washington-specific questions, and extended the invitation to be featured on his podcast. What an honor and an experience! Thanks for believing in me, Ed! Check out the podcast below.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-6d7rs-be1033?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share

Also note that Ed has posted a link to his and Dorian's podcast earlier this year. It is 100% worth a listen.

Mental Prep (Photo courtesy Traci Moss)

As mentioned in my first post, I am trying hard to reinforce Dorian's open-minded mentality. Although I have this framework and some concrete goals over the course of the year, I need to be open to possibility. So if my year does not go as planned, it will not be a complete failure!!!

One silver lining to living in this digital age is the power of the electronic record. If you're inclined to getting tweaked up on blow in front of camera-wielding partygoers, this may not bode well for you. But if you publicize your intents and plans online, it creates a sort of track-record and holds you accountable for your statements. A big component of this blog is anchoring me to the idea. I have made a point of spreading the word, slowly but surely. The process has advanced from casual mentions to listserv posts, phone calls, and RFI's. Little by little, I'm locking this plan down so that it actually comes to fruition.

P.S. Here's an old promo video from college:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSeRiNwESKk&t=7s

We'll see what action September brings...

Taking a Deeper Dive

In the words of my logistical star of a sister, "Let's take a deeper dive."

Why on Earth am I doing this trip?

Because I don't have the means to do it on another planet.

Without a doubt this trip is motivated by some selfish pursuits. Among them are the following:

1. I need a chance to process, reflect, reckon, and come to terms with things. 
2. I want my decisions (at least for the course of a year) to be meditated. College has converted my certainties to conundrums. But not in a bad way.
3. I want to slow down to a pace that actually involves thought. That's the only way to be. 
4. I am growing tired of my hand on that synthetic syphon and obsessed about the wonder of birds.
5. I want those things that I take for granted: a cold drink, a good meal, shade, to feel like the luxuries that they really are. 

Besides, I never make good New Year's Resolutions.

So yeah, there are many I's involved in my thinking. But I do hope that some lessons can be shared from my adventures. Among these projected ideas are:

• The potential of the human body
• The beauty of birds
• A decently paced life

To expound upon these points: Is it not amazing how changeable and capable our bodies are? I want to accomplish something amazing by simply relying upon the work of art that is the human body. I'm not saying that we shouldn't indulge in the creations of our race (like our transportation innovations), I'm just saying that relying on those mechanisms blinds us to our potential and imparts a false sense of need. 

Birds. Birds are freaking amazing. We've been obsessed with them forever because there's so much to learn from them. Our winged friends offer lessons in love, struggle, strength, humility, and pride. They also please visually and auditorily. And the best part about it? Appreciating them is free and accessible to all. I mean, birds are freaking everywhere! You can't say that about a lot of things that occupy the time of the human race, like WiFi, electricity, and Starbucks. But birds always have your back. When you're not gelling with people, birds don't care. While they won't listen to your troubles and look for solutions with you, their bliss and their detached behavior may remind you to reflect on the importance of your concerns. 

Why rush, humanity? What's the big rush for progress? What clock is humanity racing against? In our frenzy to live a fulfilled life with no wasted time, we are speeding up and degrading our decision-making. As our decision-making degrades, the place that we call home degrades. All in the name of progress. But a more thoughtful examination of these so-called achievements reveals that we are compromising the existence of our fellow inhabitants of the Earth and our collective future generations in an effort to quickly check all of our boxes.

In this year I will be checking many boxes. Hopefully they are the ones that are next to names like Hook-billed Kite, Emperor Goose, and Sprague's Pipit. But these aren't the kind of boxes that have the tip-of-the-iceberg effect that I was describing above. They're not boxes that promise success and contentment at the surface and impart destruction and negative side effects outside of the practitioner's view. The boxes that I will be checking are ones that offer a lifelong sense of love and satisfaction and offer absolutely no harm to third parties.

Is this reading as vague as I pictured that it would? Good deal.

Now onto my reading list...

The Titles

A big part of the preparation for the year is cashing in on my cultural education. I have to stay in the zone and stay focused in the face of doubts and concerns. What follow are some titles that are keeping me on heels in chasing this dream.

Desert Solitaire. This is a good one because there is a bird name in the title.

To Shake the Sleeping Self. A chronicle of independence and adventure that is a must for those undertaking self-propelled long-distance pilgrimages. 

Diarios de Motocicleta. Okay, I didn't actually read this one. But I watched the movie! It was one of those reassuring moments leading up to this undertaking, like a blessing from the enigmatic Ché. I watched during my semester in Perú. Speaking of, I blogged about that to get in a little practice in writing and to muster up an even littler following. But hey, it's quality, not quantity that counts.

Kingbird Highway. I mean reading this book is inspiration to shoot for the stars. I am no Kenn Kaufman, but you've got to have role models.

A Season on the Wind. I have yet to dig into this one, but the idea is to unlock the qualities of great birders.

The Big Year. A killer movie that could easily serve as the best introduction of birding to a layperson ever. I also gotta read this.

There are and will be others, but this represents a great motivational starter-pack for me.

The Charities

I've gotta get this in place. That's kind of the idea with this blog anyway. I must have something to point at when I ask the American Birding Association and the Nature Conservancy if I can have donation links to their organizations on my site.

The next few posts leading up to the big year will follow the planning process. It may be dry reading, but it will help me think out loud and may be valuable to another fanatical person like me that feels very strongly about doing something like this.

Who What When Where Why

Well thank you for joining me on my journey. I hope that you readers can share in this sense of discovery that I hope to be feeling soon. While there is some background info that I feel the need to share, I cannot exactly describe my motivation for this trip. It has just been something that I have wanted to do for several years now. I think that many things have lead up to this moment, like my random desire to ride my bike 3 miles to school in lower school (although I was thoughtfully discouraged by my mom). And there have been influential birding trips along the way, like trips to Colorado in 2014, Arizona in 2017, and Perú in 2018. The sense of adventure has just been compounded, and now is the time to unleash. I picked up the two niche hobbies of unicycling and birding from my "cool uncle," Dr. Chris Skelton. Oddly enough these two interests have become intertwined and have culminated in this formidable adventure that lies before me.

Who?

My name is John Patten Moss. I am a 22-year old dude from Georgia's rich coastal plain. I recently graduated from a very prestigious circus school where I majored in Unicycle Systems. Just kidding. In May 2019, I graduated from the small liberal arts college known as Berry College. While there, I developed my environmental science and Spanish skills in a nice, Ridge and Valley setting. Berry was the perfect place to cultivate my sense of adventure, and I spent many hours biking, unicycling, and birding all over the campus' 27,000 acres.

Me at Berry (photo cred Jared Crain)

What?

What I am getting myself into here is what they call a Big Year: a quest to see as many bird species as possible within a declared geographic area over the course of a year. But I want to do it on a unicycle- a 36in touring unicycle. And I want to embark on a year's worth of self-propelled travel, free from the constraints of fossil fuels. Who needs rotten plants and animals from the past when you are an individual of the most powerful and influential species in the history of this wonderful planet? Some of you readers may remember Dorian Anderson's biking Big Year. This man definitely inspired me in my 2020 Big Year, although it must be known that I am in no way after his ridiculous record of 618 species (see his blog here: http://bikingforbirds.blogspot.com). Nor will I travel 18,000 miles! With half a wheel, I'd be lucky to travel half of that distance.

When?

When? That's easy. 2020. It had to be a year with some sort of meaning. And it just worked out that way. January to December, baby.

Where?

Well, we're going to see where exactly. But I know that I want to see both coasts and maximize my birding potential. What follows here is a map containing what I believe will be my general trajectory.

A Walk in the Park

So there you have it, a rough trajectory totaling about 4,000 miles through 11 states. Although I have planned a general timeframe for the year and have included some key destinations that I believe will make it a success, I am very open to the possibility of change. There are so many variables going into these travels, from birds to weather to unexpected issues. So I think that I'll follow the sage advice of Dorian, perhaps the only person who knows so much about this type of adventure. I must be flexible and yielding to the year. As he put it: "you have to respond to what the road gives you and relinquish control." I'm sure Dorian's words will pass through my conscience more than a few times over the course of 2020.

So now that the disclaimer is out of the way, here are some concrete goals of mine:

1. Have an awesome adventure and see this magnificent country from the ground.

2. Unicycle from coast to coast. I would like to start in Olympia, Washington on January 1 and finish the year around Christmastime at my home in Augusta, GA. Aside from travel to Washington, all movement will be JPM-powered.

3. Break 500 species on the year. I have calculated a total of 523 likely species and would be absolutely thrilled if I were to break 500.

And some more abstract, learning/growing goals:

1. Share the wonder of birds along the way, proclaim their importance, and preach their lessons.

2. Demonstrate a more intimate connection with the land.

3. Make people smile.

4. I'd also like to have some avenues for fundraising to certain conservation organizations. I've realized that it's hard to look at the birds when we forget to protect them.

And finally, as a supplement to my crude map, I'm including a breakdown of where I would like to be over the course of the year. Some of these potential forays could run my milage up, which I wouldn't really be opposed to. 

January-Mid February: 

Coastal Washington and Oregon

Late February-March:

California

Late March-April-Early May

Arizona, mostly Southeast Arizona. Depending upon my progress at this point, I may consider a venture up into northern Arizona or Colorado.

May-June

Texas, with key stops in the Hill Country and the coast. If time allows, I may consider heading down to the Rio Grande Valley.

July-August

Gulf Coast

September-October

Florida Gulf Coast coast and trip to Keys?

November

Northward on Florida's Atlantic coast up to the Georgia coast.

December

Georgia coast and inland towards home. 

Why?

My next post will explore some of my personal motivations. I don't want to subject readers who only want to know the basics to my personal philosophies.

So those are the basics then. Thank you for your support and interest as you  follow along on this "half-baked" adventure, as my buddy Mac McCall put it.

My next few posts will explore the planning process leading up to January 1st.