Adventure stories with Jeff Bullock and Casey Zmich

This year, I had the opportunity to interview Casey Zmich, who lives just outside of Buffalo, and Jeff Bullock, a graduate of Grand Island High School, who now lives in North Carolina. Both of them told me about their adventures. Casey, who describes himself as “66 years young,” rode 16,000 miles on his bicycle between July of 2016 and September of 2017. Jeff Bullock, 32, started hiking the Appalachian Trail in March 2017. He completed the hike in October. The Appalachian Trail is approximately 2,100 miles. Neither Casey nor Jeff is finished with having big adventures. Casey said that he would like to ride his bicycle south, through the United States, Mexico, Central America, and to the southern tip of South America. Jeff said that his next goal is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, from the U.S. border with Mexico to the U.S. border with Canada. It goes through three states: California, Oregon, and Washington.

Here are some of the stories that Jeff and Casey shared with me:

photograph provided courtesy of Jeff Bullock

Jeff: In Virginia, there’s this place called MacAffee Knob, and the closest city is Salem, Virginia. It’s like the rock formation in The Lion King. You can sit on the edge. I was there for a couple of hours to watch the sun rise. When I left there, about five miles down the trail, is a cliff called Tinker Cliff. I was eating lunch, sitting on the cliff. To my left about twenty feet away was a huge diamond back rattlesnake. I froze. My only options were to go to the right slowly or jump off the cliff that I was sitting on. I went to the right. I got away from the rattlesnake.

I would often see five rattlesnakes a day through Virginia and Pennsylvania. Also, in Pennsylvania, there is a section called the Roller Coaster. You go up and you go down for fourteen miles. It was exhausting. I actually remember the day. June 21st, the longest day of the year. It was when the weather alerts warned that you should not be outside because of the humidity. We were outside, and I was drenched in sweat. It was horrible. At the end of the day, me and a guy I was hiking with ended up at the oldest hostel on the trail. For thirty dollars, you got a bunk, a pint of ice cream, a large pizza, and they did your laundry. I showered, too.

Casey (on interesting places that he visited): Winwood in Miami. It’s part of the town that was graffitied. Artists came in and painting the buildings with beautiful art. Businesses began to open up again, and it’s a revived community. Art was the key to reviving the community.

It was a strange way that I was seeing it. I was at an avocado farm for four days in Homestead, twenty miles south of Miami. Gabriela, a warm shower host, needed my assistance to put up a display at a convention hall in Miami for AirBnB, and she showed me Winwood and treated to a dinner for my assistance in helping her set up the display.

I made Key West for their fantasy fest party during the last ten days of October. It’s like a Key West Mardi Gras. The main costume is body paint. There are certain people who don’t mind running around the streets, wearing nothing but body paint. Some of them were very nice designs. Some of the people were very good, and they were nice to look at. It was a crazy time. After being entertained, I headed north to Homestead, where I stayed at the avocado farm for four days and helped Gabriela when she was doing the exhibit on Saturday morning in Miami. I was tending to her AirBnB guests, giving them breakfast and cleaning up. Also showing them the farm and letting them have some avocados.  People wanted avocados, and I gave them four apiece.

Jeff: I got off trail in New York to spend a couple of days in my aunt and uncle’s house. They are actually in New Jersey. I saw a couple of bears in Pennsylvania and a couple of bears in New York. One was thirty feet away, the other was ten to twenty yards away. Then there is this one shelter (a lean to) that I stayed at. On a clear day, and it was a clear day, off in the distance, you could see the whole New York City skyline. It was quite a sight. It was nice. Then I got back on the trail in New Jersey. The trail actually goes through Bear Mountain Zoo. It’s not a huge zoo. It was nice to slow down and look at the animals. Connecticut was really muddy. There was a boardwalk that you walk on. You go through marshes and swampy areas. Then, in Massachusetts, I met back up with one of the buddies I was with in New York because he had to get off the trail to meet with family.

Casey, talking about the ride to San Diego:  …where I had to climb my highest pass, the Emery Pass, in New Mexico, which was 8,220 feet. It was absolutely gorgeous. So it took me about twenty more days to enter into San Diego, where I stayed a few days at a warm showers host and went around sightseeing in San Diego. Then I rode with a deaf gentleman named Tony Bruno. When I registered us both to ride through a military base called Camp Pendleton, I noticed his birthday and that he is a day older than me. He detoured to Las Vegas, and I continued north on the Pacific Coast Highway. Snuck through Los Angeles and got to see the beautiful coastline of the Pacific Ocean. Highway 1 out there is beautiful. Unfortunately, the area that I wanted to see, Big Sur, had a landslide so I couldn’t go over there. So me and a young gentleman named Daniel from England, who rode with me had to ride up to highway 101 and go that way around Big Sur. Daniel was in a hurry, went ahead and went to Vancouver where he caught a plane to Australia.

There is a town of Venice, and it has not changed from the 1960s; it is still an old hippie town. All of the artistry and everything is from the ‘60s and the people are from the ‘60s, too.

Jeff: Vermont was nice. It was the green mountain state. It was still hot in Vermont, so we came across a lot of ponds. We pretty much swam in every single one of them. I ended up meeting up with some other people from my group. We went to Killington, the highest peak in Vermont, and it is one of the best ski resort. We went right by there and if you want you can do a side trail to Killington Peak. It’s not right on the trail. We took a picture f the ski lift and the lodge. There were a lot of suspension bridges in Vermont. We crossed them. They were on the trail. 

In Shrewsbury, Vt., there was a post mark sign that said you have 500 miles to the end. It was crazy and insane that we had just 500 miles left. I was in Vermont for July 29th to August 13th, about two weeks. The people in Vermont call it Vermud. It was really, really muddy. Some people got caught in a mud pool. It came halfway up their bodies. They were stuck halfway in the mud. It didn’t happen to me, luckily. It was fun and entertaining. I wasn’t with them at the time. I saw them afterwards, and that’s exactly what happened.

Casey: I ventured into Portland, where immediately I saw a marijuana store. I never thought that I would see the day when they were selling marijuana outright like that. Then the Tidal Pool areas of Oregon were absolutely gorgeous. Portland is very bicycle-friendly and all-around friendly type of a city. Washington was a very nice state. Mount St. Helen's, Rainier, Mount Adam, and Mount Hood. That’s where I caught my ferry ride from Los Angeles to Vancouver Island, the city of Victoria in British Columbia. There’s where I began my ride through British Columbia to Prince George onward to White Horse. And the Yukon. And venturing over to Anchorage, Alaska.

Alaska is great. Make sure you have rain gear because it is a large north American rain forest. You never know when it will be warm and when it will be cold; the temperatures change during the night. I like the mountains and the landscape. I was in Alaska during two weeks of June and two weeks of July. I enjoyed riding in the twilight of the night because it was never actually dark. You get to see most of the animals eating along the side of the road. I saw several grizzly bears eating with cubs along the side of the road. Moose wandering around. It was less traffic because everyone was asleep. Several times, I rode until four in the morning. They say it’s the last of the wilderness. Just have to be careful where you put your food because the bears will smell it out. There were some nice steep descents into Anchorage. 

Question: What sort of adventure would you like to have? Think big and talk abut your dream adventure in the comments section. I will share your comments in a future post.