Friday, August 24, 2012

Arkansas

Mary and I are in Arkansas, somewhere. We are about 200 miles from the Natchez trace, a route that will take us to New Orleans. The Ozarks were beautiful, with a lot of rolling hills and some kind of plant that smells like bad tequila. We are going into Memphis, Tennessee tomorrow. We've mostly abandoned the Trans-American bike route, and are planning our itinerary one day at a time.
From lake to lake.
It's gotten pretty quiet with the heat, and I think we're both ready to be done riding bikes. I don't regret the trip at all, but sitting my ass on that little guy and pedaling through beautiful shit, it has started to feel like endless hours that just blur into each other. I hardly remember where I woke up at, or if something happened today or this week.
It will feel strange to live inside again, to have a place to go that is the same place I went yesterday with a refrigerator and air conditioning. I feel like I could spend a week watching tv and drinking things with ice in them. I guess it's good to feel worn out towards the end of the trip, but it's hard to believe we've already gone probably three thousand miles and the last five hundred feel so far away.
The hardest part has been the questions. I've had the same conversation twenty times a day about where we're going, where were from and if we're twins. It would be engaging once or twice a day, but when I am trying to put my chain back on or fix a flat or ride along a narrow shoulder without a frito-lay truck ripping my arm off, I don't want to pull over and talk to a construction worker about my life choices while he looks everywhere but my face.
It still feels like I'm about try to ride across the country on a 300-dollar bike with my sister; not like I am doing it or can do it. I still feels like I'm just leaving. But less emotional and more mechanical. I miss the emotional part. I just feel sort of numb.
And speaking of numb, both of us are loosing feeling in our hands. I dropped a glass bottle of juice that broke all over the floor in a gas station and Mary looks like she has Parkinson's when she tries to smoke a cigarette. Hopefully that goes away.
I can't wait to get to New Orleans, but I think it will be hard to adjust to a routine besides waking up, packing up, finding a gas station to sit outside of and drink coffee before it gets too hot to want coffee, googling a new destination and riding. Again and again.
This was a pretty negative entry, but we haven't updated in a while so, there's why.
Less than two weeks left!

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