Day 3:Metaphors and Meaning

Day 3:  July 28th, 2016.  Near Luther MI to Lake George MI.  57.2 miles.

By Victoria Curran.

Today, we headed out from a restful sleep on our "live bed" of moss.  But what's that you say? Mosquitos are the state bird of Michigan?  You got that right!  I'm usually one to watch others scratch and slap away at mosquitos while I remain untouched.  Not this time.  Mosquitos made a banquet out of me. I have multiple bites all over my body.  Fortunately, they don't itch so much.  Unshowered and bitten up, we pedaled our way out of the campground, saying goodbye to our very kind host, and headed up to have breakfast, er, lunch since we arrived at 11:30 (okay, so I like to sleep in...). 

Now, for those of you keeping track, we've traveled 180 miles in 3 days.  Up until Tuesday, I hadn't been on my bike in weeks and had only taken 30-40 mile trips sporadically before that so, I'm not gonna lie, the past couple of days have been pretty punishing but they've also been invigorating!  

Today was mostly cruising through flat straightaways down country roads.  We made a quick stop in LeRoy to pick up some provisions (water, broccoli and SunChips) and made a detour for ice cream from a video/ice cream store (black cherry for me, MooseTrax for Judd) and continued our journey eastward.  

About 30 miles in, we decided to pull to the side of the road to make a few phone calls to get lodging taken care of for the evening.  Just up the hill from us was a flock of chickens cackling away (bak-bak-bakaw).  Judd made the reservations and, there it was, we were committed to another 30 miles of cycling for the day.  Suddenly, I heard the chickens laughing (bak-bak-bahaha); did they know something I didn't?  Just a few miles later, I learned that they may very well have been prescient chickens; the relatively flat terrain gave way to what I've come to learn are called "rollers" which are basically gently rolling hills.  I've come to accept "rollers" as an enjoyable challenge but these were different.  The road was 15 miles long, extremely straight, and each time we'd crest a hill,  as far as the eye could see, were more rollers.  Five miles in and I began to feel like Sysyphus, but rather than rolling my burden up a hill only to slide back down, I would push my burden up, roll down the other side, only to roll my burden up yet another hill, seemingly endlessly.  Riding a bicycle is all about momentum and when you're rolling down a hill, you have lots of it but when you go up hill, you quickly lose all of it.  Pedaling up hill gets exhausting so when you begin going downhill again, you have a couple of options; rest and enjoy the "free ride" down and have to struggle your way all the way back up, or cycle yourself silly to build enough momentum to get back up the hill with (relatively) little effort.  Space the rollers close enough together and you're pretty much constantly in motion at a fairly intense level of exertion.  

I'm learning that with extreme physical exertion, it becomes possible, even necessary, to untether my mind from the task at hand.  I found myself pondering questions such as, what might it be like to spend your life In a town with a population of 144 people?  Does one really "own" land, or anything else for that matter?  Is kettle corn considered a vegetable?  

As the day wound down, we came across a sign advertising eggs, carrots, zucchini, and other veggies.  Yahoo! 

 We pulled over and Judd selected a nice bunch of carrots and a dozen eggs and strapped them onto his bike.

A little while later, about 10 miles from our campground in Lake George, we saw this sign

And saw this family on their way to visit some other folks down the road.

I've ridden through poverty stricken villages and towns filled with homes that appeared to be suffering from decades of neglect, and people who just seemed somehow weathered and exhausted. I can only assume this to be a result of the brutal impact that our economic decline has had on these families.  But then I cycle past the homes of these Amish folks who refuse to participate in our modem ways (i.e., they don't hold traditional jobs) and their homes are immaculate and the several that I saw all looked healthy and content.  And I begin to wonder why.  I don't know a lot about them other than the fact that they tend to keep to themselves and don't use modern conveniences like telephones in the home or electricity.  So, what's the secret?  How can they live so well "off the grid" and away from capitalism?  Is it their sense of communality?  Their strict faith?  I'm not sure I want to give up ALL my modern conveniences (like electricity) but as I sit on my bike and contemplate how hard we who live a post-industrial life style walk upon this earth, and how overwhelming it can seem to have an "independent spirit" in a struggle for the "survival of the fittest," the Amish give me pause.