Day 4

Today I am so far away from civilization, even the great AT&T has failed me. I am without service. In the background, the loud punctuation of rifle fire. I'm in the Mallard Duck campground, just down the road from the Blue Ridge Gun Club. I can't tell if the shootist is any good. Do you win points for quantity?

I only traveled 45ish miles as the speedometer flies. Vertically, I climbed 3000 feet then went down some, then back up, and finally back down in a thrilling, winding, 40 mile-an-hour descent that should be turned into a some kind of film starring Bruce Willis.

I started today biking on the narrow shoulder of byway 250 but finally got back on piste and up a tremendous climb that I only survived because I was promised cookies on arrival. The backroad winds left and right and then it opens up to a bridge and Ms. Curry's three houses.

Ms. Curry is, if you believe the maps and her doorbell, the Cookie Lady. She had just lost a tooth. I won't bore you with what we talked about -- suffice it to say, this is the 12th person of golden age who has pulled me aside to complain about the failings of medical care in this country -- but we talked a lot and when she finally gave me the keys to the bike house, I felt the need to sprint through it. In its bones, the bike house is a house of its time. There are lino floors, vinyl countertops, and an excess of rooms. Now, attached to every surface is a bit of bike memorabilia: postcards from Japan, a full sized tandem bicycle, jerseys, photos, more. In the middle, a plate of snacks.

I was feeling peckish and the need to get on the road. I made my mark, returned the keys to Ms. Curry and made my way up the hill.

A note on hills. If I could have one wish on this earth it would be for world peace. If I could have two wishes -- forget my second wish. My third wish would be that no hill ever go up. I don't care how They take care of it. Just. Please.

I rode up a the Blue Ridge, with very little pause, for five straight hours. The small descents stopped doing it for me. Wide vistas of the Shenandoah Valley below -- where I now sit -- stopped doing it for me. The lovely conversation I had with a woman about how I can't wait to hear America's most beautiful accent, the Shenandoah Valley regional accent, sort of took my mind off it. People are lovely here. The hills kept on.

Then, as Newton decreed when he invented gravity, all my up going must went downwards. Fast. I'm swerving from side to side, 60 pounds of trailmix strapped to my sides like dynamite, my ears blown out by the wind and the horrible smell of burnt rubber coming up from my untrustworthy brakes. It was horrifying. And it was over so fast.

Mono no aware is a Japanese aesthetic concept that believes the greatest beauty comes in fleetingness. I find no contentment in that. I want to come in and build a chairlift so that everyone I know can barrel down that pass. Although, perhaps, maybe what made it great was the hard slog beforehand.