I got my first look at the Pomona College campus from the passenger window of a jet, about 3,000 feet in the air, as the plane cleared Mt. Baldy and swooped down toward the airport in Ontario, California.

I had never visited the campus, but I would officially be a student there starting tomorrow. And I had a simple plan for getting to campus once the plane landed. I’d ride my bike. I had boxed it up and paid the extra ten bucks to have it loaded into the belly of the plane, and my plan was to unpack it, reassemble it, load all my stuff onto the rear fender rack, and pedal the 15 miles from the airport to my dorm on campus.

I quickly discovered a couple of flaws with that plan.

First, being a 17-year-old lunkhead, I had forgotten to bring any of the tools required to reassemble the bike. Once the bike box showed up at the baggage claim I had to ask around and borrow a set of wrenches and a screwdriver from a maintenance guy at the Delta depot.

The second problem was that I didn’t know how to get to campus. I had no map, and remember, this took place back when GPS stood for Gas Pressure Switch. I figured I’d simply head in the general direction of the school, which I knew was northwest of the airport.

But by far the biggest problem with my plan was… the things I carried. As a first-semester freshman, I had brought everything I thought I’d need for the next four months. Was it actually going to fit onto the rack on the back of my bike?

I carried a duffle bag stuffed with clothes, bed linens, a pillow, and extra running shoes.

I carried a backpack crammed with vital accessories such as a waffle iron, a desk lamp, a coffee mug with a cow on it, notebooks, pens and pencils, my bowling trophies, and, of course, an ample supply of O-Kee-Doke cheese popcorn, which I had correctly predicted would not be available in California grocery stores.

I carried a cardboard box containing a stereo, a turntable, two small speakers, assorted wires and cables, and a dozen of my favorite vinyl records.

I carried my butterfly net along with a modest collection of delicate specimens from Mexico and South America.

It added up to a mountain of chattel, and I had brought only a short bungee cord to secure it all.

It quickly became clear that the only option would be to ride with one hand on the handlebars, the other holding my heap of personal belongings tenuously in place. I gingerly wheeled my overburdened bicycle off the curb, swung my leg over the bar, waited for a break in the bustling traffic, pushed the pedals and set off on my journey toward campus.

I then realized that the Ontario airport had not been designed with bike riders in mind. Once I made it past the terminals and the rent-a-car stanchions and the private plane hangars on the outskirts of the airport I saw, to my horror, that the only road out was an on-ramp to the freeway.

Drivers have honked at me once or twice in Wisconsin—not surprising, since I’ve ridden my bike thousands of miles across those country roads. But at least 30-40 cars honked at me during my short stint on the I-10 freeway. I stayed as far to the right as I could, clutching my cargo with one hand, steering around fragments of tires and other debris with the other, but the drivers were unforgiving, blaring their horns and yelling nasty things at me as they whizzed by at 70 miles an hour.

Things settled down a little once I exited the freeway onto a broad-shouldered causeway heading toward Pomona. I pedaled slowly but steadily westward and kept an eye out for any helpful signs, or better yet someone who could tell me the best route.

There are no pedestrians in Southern California. This well-known fact was news to me on that hot and smoggy afternoon. I saw absolutely no one outside. The cars flew by, each carrying exactly one person. Nor did I see any telltale signs that I was getting closer to campus. At last I pedaled into a gas station. I spotted a guy about my age emptying a wastebasket near one of the pumps and approached him to ask directions.

“Dude! Where you going with all that?” he asked before I could say anything.

I told him I had just landed at the airport and was on my way to college. Could he tell me which way to Pomona?

I remember his exact words. “Whoa! You hurfed that load down the fucking freeway?! Maniacal, man!”

I nodded, thrilled to have heard genuine SoCal dialect for the first time.

He spent the next couple minutes offering up a convoluted, confusing suggestion for how to navigate the rest of the way, and told me it was about eight miles.

An hour minutes later I was still following the residential route he had recommended, not sure whether I was getting any closer, when suddenly I spotted the hazy image of the Smith Clock Tower up ahead, not even a mile away. Smith Tower was the most famous landmark of the Pomona campus!

And then it hit me. This was really happening. I was really about to start college. Start fresh, in a new state, with a new place to live, with new friends, new teachers, new experiences, new adventures. It would all begin in just a few minutes.

That realization was exciting, but it also triggered a moment of panic. Because I knew that the teetering tower of personal effects balanced on the back of my bike was only a small fraction of the freight I was hauling that day.

I carried the anxiety of knowing I was not prepared for college, regardless of having fooled the admissions committee into thinking I was.

I carried the emotional baggage of social ineptitude, which I had only amplified by spending my summers alone in third-world countries chasing butterflies rather than hanging out with friends.

I carried the gnawing angst of insecurity, suspecting I had nothing of interest to say to anyone about any subject.   

And I carried the unpleasant knowledge that overcoming my personal deficiencies was going to be difficult, filled with awkward, even humiliating moments. Of course I had no idea then what form these moments would take—because your ride is never what you thought it would be—but I knew I was in for trouble.

I stopped my bike and took a few breaths. I was jittery and my legs were tingling. And I made a decision.

Whatever baggage I was carrying, I was going to let one simple concept carry me forward.

Explore it all. 

I don’t remember a single thing about finishing the ride, how I found my dorm, where I parked my bike, how I unloaded all my junk, and so on. But I do know that during the last few minutes of that bike ride, I’ve never felt more full of life.