Andy Armstrong, second from left, is pictured with family members who went on his four long-distance bicycle trips. They are, from left, son Rob Armstrong, grandson Eric Armstrong and nephew Ashley Bailey.

Andy Armstrong wants to be remembered as a teacher first, so he admits it’s a bit irritating locals know him as the man who rode a bicycle from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

May will mark the 20th anniversary of Armstrong’s cross-country trip from Fernandina Beach, Florida, to Santa Monica Beach, California, a journey he took with his nephew Ashley Bailey across 39 days in 2000. The total distance traveled was more than 2,400 miles and included a stop in Meridian while on his way through Mississippi.

Armstrong gave daily reports to The Meridian Star’s Robbie Robertson, then the city editor, by phone each day of his journey, which helped build a local following. Two decades later, Armstrong is still getting asked about the trip, and despite wishing more people knew about his teaching career, Armstrong said he’s still grateful for sharing his journey with local readers.

“I thought I was a pretty darn good teacher, and I wanted that to be my legacy, and it seems like a lot of people who don’t know I was a teacher know about the bicycle ride,” Armstrong said. “I’m still excited I could provide entertainment for people. The experience was something I could share, and it didn’t cost me anything to share it. I’m amazed people still remember this bicycle trip and some of the specific things about it.”

Armstrong’s first long-distance trip came in 1984 when he and his son, Rob, traveled from Newton to Disney World and Jacksonville, Florida. A year later, they made the journey from Newton to Niagara Falls and Jamestown, N.Y., in order to meet up with some members of his church for a mission trip in Jamestown. After retiring from teaching in 1999, Armstrong developed a desire to ride a bike coast-to-coast. He got Bailey to agree to come on the journey, and they began their journey from Fernandina Beach.

Originally, the plan wasn’t to go through Meridian, but the two were advised by a highway patrolman in Montgomery, Alabama, that the road through Meridian would be an easier journey. They arrived in the city riding down North Hill Street, and when they got to Highway 39, Armstrong recalls numerous people honking and waving at the pair.

“I had been calling the Star and reporting everything, but that’s when it hit me that people knew about this,” Armstrong recalled. “From that point on it felt like I had a little wagon behind my bike. I realized then that when I called (the Star) there would be people following this.”

Robertson said recording Armstrong’s journey was incredibly rewarding.

“When we started it, I really didn’t know how this was going to go, but it grew seemingly every day,” Robertson said. “By the end I had people asking me before the paper came out where Andy was today and what Andy did. It sort of opened your eyes as far as how powerful serial stories are, stories that just keep going. I still believe it’s one of the best things I’ve done in 27 years of newspapers.”

The journey took Armstrong and Bailey through places like Texarkana, Texas, and the deserts of the Southwest, but Armstrong said the most difficult stretch was riding from Meridian to Philadelphia.

“There were a lot of log trucks and mobile homes being pulled and no shoulder on the road,” Armstrong explained. “We went up through the north part of Texas, and it was wonderful. There was a wide shoulder, so we had a place to ride.”

With cell phones and GPS being in their infancy back in 2000, Armstrong and Bailey had to plan their journey with maps, but they were always willing to make an adjustment if people they met along the way knew of a better route.

“It was difficult to plot your way, but that was part of the fun,” Armstrong said. “The philosophy I preached to my nephew was, ‘This is the way we want to go, but when we get to places, there will be people there that know the terrain better than we do, so we won’t be fixed on the route.’”

Probably the most difficult part of calling the Star daily wasn’t so much finding a phone to use as it was knowing which details to share.

“I would call Robbie at 3 in the afternoon and there were still four to five hours more that we were going to ride, so I was telling him about the day, but there was more day ahead,” Armstrong said. “I kind of got mixed up sometimes, so that was difficult. There were times I didn’t want to stop and call, but I felt like once I started that I had a responsibility to continue. It was fun, and people were living a vicarious experience through what I was doing.”

One day, Armstrong called Robertson from a beef jerky store in Texas, and Robertson said he made a quick comment about how he loved beef jerky before beginning to interview Armstrong.

“Three or four days later I had a package of beef jerky from that store show up, so I thought that was really cool,” Robertson said.

He also saw it as a way to continue his teaching career by sharing lessons he picked up along the way. Those lessons still stand out in Armstrong’s mind 20 years later.

“First of all, dreams come true, but you have to work for it and be willing to accept the failure and pick yourself back up,” Armstrong said. “There were many days I didn’t want to go on or feel like I could go on.”

Strong in his Christian faith, Armstrong said he feels like God protected him and his nephew as they rode across the U.S. He recalled one time riding through the desert when most of their water was gone, and a car pulled up with a big container of ice water to share with them. Those people told Armstrong they had passed him and Bailey and noticed how hot they looked, so they went one town up, got some water, came back and found them.

“I believe God had His hand on us, especially with the traffic (we encountered),” Armstrong said. “When you think of the 18-wheelers that were 2 feet away from you trying to suck you in, there had to be some divine help there.”

After going coast-to-coast, Armstrong did one more long-distance ride, this time with his grandson, Eric. They traveled from Paris to Budapest, Hungary, a total of 1,526 miles in 26 days. If there are any other lessons he wants people to take away from his journey, Armstrong said it’s the importance of spending time with your children, nephews and grandchildren. It doesn’t have to be on a bike ride, either.

“I went with my son twice and my nephew and grandson, and not only did I contribute to their lives, but they contributed to mine,” Armstrong said.