Sunday was Jim Hedges’ first day off his bike in 18 days.
After 1,050 miles and that last nasty bout of rain and wind, he made it home to see his mother for Mother’s Day.
Wilma Hedges of Uniontown says her son Jim has “always been home on Mother’s Day,” but never like this.
“He was a pilot, see. He saw all this (land) from the air. I guess he wanted to see it from the ground too,” she said.
Wilma says there’s usually a card or a call on Mother’s Day, but the best gift is coming by. Mother of four, she likes having them home so she can cook. “I just gather them in as they come.”
Jim says he felt like the tornadoes followed him home. He started in Jacksonville, Florida on April 24 and made it to Uniontown by May 11. It is his plan to go cross-country, a once-in-a-lifetime trip. No, really, he’ll only do it once, he says.
He’s been biking for fitness and fun for some time, but got inspired by friends who cross-country bike, and by a website.
Some might say Jim’s a crazy guy on a bike for this 4,500 mile-trek, but there are many others who are as well. Jim ran across a website, www.crazyguyonabike.com, and was inspired by the stories there. “I figure, if they can do it, I can do it,” he said. But his wife, who often tandem bikes with Jim, decided she couldn’t.
“I think she was just happy she didn’t have to go too,” Jim joked. He and his wife Shirley of 35 years have rode tandem on three other trips, one week at a time, he says, “but nothing of this magnitude.”
Jim will travel from his start in Jacksonville to Astoria, Oregon in 93 days. This week he gets a break though, time with mom and family.
He leaves on Monday for his next stop in Pueblo, Colorado, another leg of the journey which will take him three weeks to make.
He’s camping some, staying with family along the way, and sometimes in a motel. At the end of the road, he says he’ll put his bike in a box, FedEx it back home, and put himself on an airplane.
“Sunday’s weather was horrendous,” he stated. “If I hadn’t been coming to Mother’s, I’d have stayed where I was another day.”
Jim is a 1963 graduate of Morganfield High School and retired US Marine. He and wife Shirley live in Orange Park, Fla. They have a son, Jason, and daughter, Jordan, and four grandkids.
Wilma is the mother of Jim, John, Janice, Peggy, and the late Mark Hedges.
Follow Jim on his journey as he “goes west” at www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/slick2008.
