Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Car Ride

So we are in Wauconda spending a rest day at Clancy’s Aunt and Uncle’s beautiful log home. All of his family (Grandmother, and both Aunts and Uncles) have done a terrific job spoiling us rotten with delicious food and great conversation on three different occasions now. Did I mention that we are thankful to have such hospitality on our route? Anyhoo, we needed to make a trip to the town of Republic just 15 miles down the way since the “town” of Wauconda consists solely of a restaurant and mini-mart. We jump into the car with Clancy’s Aunt behind the wheel and start buzzing down the road.

Almost instantly we both become very uncomfortable - road signs seem to fly by like jet aircraft, deer on the side of the road morph into streaks of brown light as we work our way closer to the sound barrier. *Whoosh Whoosh* what the hell was that on the side of the road? Did we already miss our turn off? Are we driving to a fire? In retrospect, the whole event left us with a mild case of post traumatic stress disorder. OK, so perhaps I exaggerate slightly (our driver was cruising only moderately fast given the conditions), but the real shocker is how acclimated we have become to the speed of bicycle travel in such a short period of time. Returning to “normal” life might be a harsher adjustment than expected.

1 comment:

  1. I remember having those exact thoughts on my long hikes. Food, daydreams, weird re-entry feelings. That's why trips like this are so worthwhile--we're stretched to find "new" normals. Adversity? No problem. The way you made it up Rainy Pass totally amazed me. Good Going!

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