Heh. Not really a fake post, but I’ve started some sort of post-trip post a bunch of times now, and what always happens is this:
- I write a little
- I try to pick some sweet pictures
- I look back at what I’ve written and I hate it
- I get annoyed because it’s late at night and I don’t want to be looking at a screen anymore, especially not when I’m writing useless drivel on it that no one will read anyway
- I give up and leave whatever I’ve written as a draft, to be looked at later, and the process starts over, until the end of time so far.
So, I’ve gone through those steps a lot of times now and have nothing to show for it. So instead of actually writing anything, here is a video of our very last day biking (which, let’s face it, I have to post mostly because of James’ amazing beard which I kinda miss these days, although I don’t miss the walrus mustache as much:)
So, I don’t know why I can’t write anything anymore, but I guess I will publish this before I can delete it? Enjoy!
I still want to read your post, fake or not!
Blogging about bike tours, at least those over a week or so, is hard. I blogged my 2011 bike tour while on tour. This was before I had a smartphone (just wi-fi enabled iPod Touch and a netbook), so I could only post when I was near wi-fi (and usually near power.) We had enough “off” days during tour to use the off day to recap the week or so, but even then I got behind.
I’m amazed at those who can blog daily on a tour. But often those posts become “I got up at x time, rode y miles, saw a thing, rode z miles more, and camped here.” At least with my weekly-ish posts I left much (but not all) of it out. I can understand why Instagram has become the most used app/platform for posting about tours: a pretty picture or several and a short blurb. That’s a lot easier to do on the fly.
But if you haven’t blogged much while on the road, it’s hard to come home and somehow recap three months of travel. The best you can do is capture the highlights, feelings, and high/lowlights. Even then, it sometimes takes a few months of distance to process those thoughts. I don’t think I effectively wrote about the tour until way afterwards.
Be strong, Stasia!
Aw, thanks for this, friend <3. I thought I would actually blog more from the road, actually, but I spent most of my library time keeping our map updated (which I still think was the right decision, cuz I love my map now:) But it is very super hard, as you said, to recap three months of travel.
Oddly enough, even if I’m not trying to recap the whole three months, even if I’m just trying to write one random thing about a particular incidence, I’m having a really hard time, which I think I decided last night was because my relationship to writing something for public consumption feels complicated right now for some reason (I suppose I go through this sort of blogging existential crisis every so often).
Anyway. Thanks for the support <3 :)
(Also, this reminded me that I was going to try to fix my comments when I got home so that you got notified of responses. Soooo, I will put that back on the radar!)