Finally!

So here I am in Maryville, TN, with a library at last, and hopefully enough time to write about all that has happened, do my affordable housing curriculum, and write a cover letter for a job, and buy a plane ticket. Sigh. I think everyone has left me to go to the bluegrass festival.

I'm not sure where to start. Maybe I'll work backwards. Last night we went to a bar in Maryville called the "Bullpen." It was kind of sketchy, but a lot of fun since we were all together. The bartender was nice enough to give the under-21s an X on their hands (in dry erase marker, so that it would wipe off easily) so that they would be allowed in to join our redneck dance party. Is that rude to use the word redneck? Maybe. There were a lot of ladies with big hair. And a lot of lecherous older men eyeing the ladies with big hair. We get some interesting views of America on this trip, like in Gatlinburg (is it Calicoe or Risa who called it Gatlin-Vegas? complete with Smoky Mtn. Wedding Chapel, fudge shoppes and "old time photo" places on every corner, in addition to a fake space needle, and multiple ripley's believe it or not type illusion places with creepy moving figures) It's really hard to even do it justice with the few pictures I took. We also passed through Cherokee, NC that day, where the Cherokee Indian Reservation is, and a huge casino owned by the tribe. In the town, all of the roadsigns are in both English and Cherokee. One of my pictures is of the high school, whose name is written on the side in Cherokee. Also, many of the roads were named for people. And instead of campaign signs for mayor, there were campaign signs for chief and vice-chief. Interesting huh? But then I was wondering a lot about how the Cherokee felt about the pretty crass commercialization of their culture. I rode through without taking a lot of pictures, but there were stores selling "Indian" stuff everywhere, and some places where there were Indians dressed in neon feathers and robes to do some kind of dances for tourists to watch (I mean, neon feathers?? how unauthentic can you get?) Also there were HUGE statues of Indians in front of some of the stores which just looked really stereotyping and fakey. Andrew got like four flats that day, so we were stopped at this little store place right before the reservation. Sometimes I am so disappointed in men, especially old men and their lechery, as stated above in the Bullpen bar section. The very old man in the store (the owner) started talking to me about our trip or something when I asked where the bathroom was, and somehow he mentioned how much he loves women, and did I ever meet a man who didn't love women?
So then of course I pushed the button, saying well, gay men don't love women.
"They should be shot."
That is what he said. And I was like all right well see you later!

We had so many hard days before this break, and I mean
HARD
like don't think you can do it, riding your bike uphill when it's hot as hell from 8 AM to 7 PM
HARD

The mountains. How do I even describe the crazy rides I somehow completed through the mountains? I'm completely mystified when I look back at them from Maryville (We can still see them in the distance.) I am pretty sure from the talks we've had that no other trip will ever have to do rides as hard as ours. Because this is the first time for this trip, we are the sad guinea pigs who didn't realize that riding 80 miles UPHILL is TOO FAR for ONE DAY and also TOO MUCH to do for THREE DAYS IN A ROW.
But then somehow I did, which makes the accomplishment even greater. And I feel stronger now when I ride. Yesterday coming to Maryville I was not happy about the hill we encountered after only a few miles which also seemed to stretch up and up. I thought Ohhhh NO. not again. not again. But I did know that I could do anything after what I just did, and that all the hills from here until the Rockies will never be as hard or as long as what I already did. And the hill ended up being (comparatively) short and then downhill for miles and miles and miles, but the kind of gentle downhill that makes you love the world because you don't need to brake, and you don't need to pedal, you just coast without going too fast as you follow the course of the beautiful mountains stream. Other downhills have not been so nice. They have been steeper, longer, and bumpier, so that your feet go numb from being still, hands get numb and cramped from breaking, and my right shoulder gets spasms from shifting and breaking almost every day which are only exacerabated by those scarier downhills. And then of course you are trying to avoid cars that get pissed off that you are only going 25 mph (this is about my personal safety limit on a downhill) and try to pass you (this is so dumb when you are on a curvy downhill mountain road), and making sure that you don't run over gravel or a hole in the road that could throw you off your bike. I mean the whole endeavor is somewhat fraught with peril and I wonder if I am the only one who feels this way, and I don't mean to scare parents! I am really glad that I am going with a group and I have made a personal pact to never ride by myself because it's just too scary with traffic and directions and stuff, and also to try to get ready earlier in the morning so I do not ever get left behind as sometimes has happened to me.

I saw some awesome things on this trip: I saw mules for the first time I can remember. I saw a fox that walked right out in front of my bike (I was going very slow because I was going uphill), made eye contact with me, and then calmly walked back into the woods. In one day I bike from basically the bottom of a mountain range to its highest point at Mt. Mitchell, and climbed total I think about 8,000 feet in elevation (this is the sum of all the uphills we climbed, highest elevation I saw a sign for was about 5,900 feet.) It was so cool to realize that I was now at eye level with the tops of all the mountains around me, instead of looking up at them as I had been that morning, and that I had gotten there of my own locomotion. Also, that I didn't walk my bike at all.

And then the next day, making it to the North Carolina-Tennessee state line (also at the top of ANOTHER mountain), and I really didn't know if I could make it up another one. And then after lunch it was like a "last chance to get in the van" before Gatlinburg scenario, so I had to decide if I could make it all the way to Gatlinburg or not! But I did. Even though it was the third day in a row that I spent 11 or 12 hours on my bike. Which is why it has been so good to have a week of not bike riding, though my appetite has not decreased.

I mean personally, it's has been pretty frustrating to feel like I have been working really hard to continue going when I am exhausted, and not walk as I said before, but it still takes me 11 hours to finish a ride when we're supposed to be able to finish by 4 PM with detours. There have been so many things I wanted to stop and look at or take pictures of, and I feel like I can't stop because I will either get left behind by the group I'm with or we're on a downhill and it's hard to stop, or I simply can't stop if I want to have any hope of getting there before dark. That is one of the reasons why being sweep with Ryan was so great - because I knew we had to take a long time and stay in the back, so we could take lots of pictures and stop all the time with no pressure to hurry. I actually made fun of him a lot because I kept asking him if he noticed all of these things that I saw along the way and he hadn't seen any of them! Why bike across America if you're not going to look around all the time? It was funny.

Alan came to visit me in Chapel Hill, and it was so great to see him, and hard watching him leave. It is very easy to feel lonely when you are doing something like this because it's inherently emotional to push like this every day, at least for me. I was definitely one of the people (whose names wouldn't be mentioned in Eric's journal entry?) who pulled into Winston Salem and started sobbing because I didn't ever think that I was ever going to get there. Plus there are three other couples on the trip, and when you see how much they rely on each other for emotional support it makes you feel worse that one of your main emotional support structures isn't there to help you, but also more self reliant I guess, that you really are on your own to do this.

I think that's all I have to say for right now. Hopefully I will be coming back to the library again as I still have quite a bit to do and catch up on. Thanks for all of your comments and phone calls!