Bike Trip - Settling in to nowhere
I knew the trip would not be an easy one, but the amount of unforseen obstacles threw even me. Saddlesoarness was becoming unbearable. My legs and back were fine. Who would have thunk it'd be my nether regions to take the majority of the blow? "Gladys will be out of commission for some time" I thought. a sacrifice I was willing to make, though it didn't stop me from screaming out in pain as I pedaled.
Sleeping outside became a little less strange every night. I would lay out under the stars and share my thoughts with the sky. There was one day where I woke up at dawn and bathed in a nearby lake as the sun came up. These were the moments I pictured would be the entire make up of the bike trip, unfortunately in reality they were few and far between, but that they were starting to happen at all was making the trip worth it and raising my spirits a little bit. Though I've never been so bipolar in my life, as I would be biking for 12 hours a day. In a given day I'd go through every spectrum of emotion and back again.
I was starting to figure things out, like if you walk into a hotel's continental breakfast or pool like you belong there, no one will question you. Usually it was just cereal and coffee, but those two things seemed like a godsent after a few hours of early morning biking. I wasn't sure if when I jumped in a pool the pool was cleaning me, or in all my filthiness I was more just tainting the pool, but my god water has never felt so good.
In the deep south what seems to constitute a town seems to be a having a farm, a church, and a gas station with a name like "seymore's gas". Seymore, that clever lad. I still had my exceptionally tired emotional days. It was on such a day when I was out of water, hadn't seen a town in thirty miles, and I had such bad crotch pain I was certain for the rest of my life I'd have to decline any woman's advances regardless of my interest level, making my love life even more of a living hell than it already was.
I biked on exhausted, jaded, thirsty, and in pain. I started to wonder what ditch water would taste like when a farm came into view on the horizon. I imagined an old man named henry riding is tractor and singing to country music as he obliviously rammed into me. "Edna, I damn just hit some little homeless feller with muh tractor!" I pictured old sweet Edna in her darling little country dress made of curtains running out with an ice pack and lemonade, them demanding I stay until my injuries heal, and feeding me corn bread and mashed potatoes for dinner. Maybe I'd fall in love with their daughter Ellouise? I imagined my wounds healing and Ellouise and I holding hands in the fields of daisies. "Elloise what's wrong my love, you seem somber?" I'd query. She'd respond "Your knee is all better now, you'll be leaving soon." I'd take a hammer and crack it into my knee with all my might. To ellouise it'd seem a gesture a romance, the action of true love. It'd really just be so I could keep getting homemade pancakes in the morning and biscuits for supper after tending to the cows. I'd never be hungry or thirsty again, and with no one within a hundred miles who could Ellouise possibly cheat on me with?
I approached the farm and eagerly waited to be run down with the tractor. There was only silence. No tractor. No Henry. No Edna. No Ellouise. Nothing, just barking charging rottweilers. Barking charging rottweilers?!
Having very angry disconcerted dogs snapping at one's pedaling feet, I've learned, is even more effective a performance enhancer than caffeine and thinking you're going to have two days of pure lust with a beautiful woman once you cross the finish line put together. After a half mile they laid off and I somehow was still in tact. I don't know if anyone in the history of time has ever biked with greater velocity.
Sleeping outside became a little less strange every night. I would lay out under the stars and share my thoughts with the sky. There was one day where I woke up at dawn and bathed in a nearby lake as the sun came up. These were the moments I pictured would be the entire make up of the bike trip, unfortunately in reality they were few and far between, but that they were starting to happen at all was making the trip worth it and raising my spirits a little bit. Though I've never been so bipolar in my life, as I would be biking for 12 hours a day. In a given day I'd go through every spectrum of emotion and back again.
I was starting to figure things out, like if you walk into a hotel's continental breakfast or pool like you belong there, no one will question you. Usually it was just cereal and coffee, but those two things seemed like a godsent after a few hours of early morning biking. I wasn't sure if when I jumped in a pool the pool was cleaning me, or in all my filthiness I was more just tainting the pool, but my god water has never felt so good.
In the deep south what seems to constitute a town seems to be a having a farm, a church, and a gas station with a name like "seymore's gas". Seymore, that clever lad. I still had my exceptionally tired emotional days. It was on such a day when I was out of water, hadn't seen a town in thirty miles, and I had such bad crotch pain I was certain for the rest of my life I'd have to decline any woman's advances regardless of my interest level, making my love life even more of a living hell than it already was.
I biked on exhausted, jaded, thirsty, and in pain. I started to wonder what ditch water would taste like when a farm came into view on the horizon. I imagined an old man named henry riding is tractor and singing to country music as he obliviously rammed into me. "Edna, I damn just hit some little homeless feller with muh tractor!" I pictured old sweet Edna in her darling little country dress made of curtains running out with an ice pack and lemonade, them demanding I stay until my injuries heal, and feeding me corn bread and mashed potatoes for dinner. Maybe I'd fall in love with their daughter Ellouise? I imagined my wounds healing and Ellouise and I holding hands in the fields of daisies. "Elloise what's wrong my love, you seem somber?" I'd query. She'd respond "Your knee is all better now, you'll be leaving soon." I'd take a hammer and crack it into my knee with all my might. To ellouise it'd seem a gesture a romance, the action of true love. It'd really just be so I could keep getting homemade pancakes in the morning and biscuits for supper after tending to the cows. I'd never be hungry or thirsty again, and with no one within a hundred miles who could Ellouise possibly cheat on me with?
I approached the farm and eagerly waited to be run down with the tractor. There was only silence. No tractor. No Henry. No Edna. No Ellouise. Nothing, just barking charging rottweilers. Barking charging rottweilers?!
Having very angry disconcerted dogs snapping at one's pedaling feet, I've learned, is even more effective a performance enhancer than caffeine and thinking you're going to have two days of pure lust with a beautiful woman once you cross the finish line put together. After a half mile they laid off and I somehow was still in tact. I don't know if anyone in the history of time has ever biked with greater velocity.