Here are a few essential things I have learned/discovered so far:
1) people do weird things in public bathrooms like plucking all of their eyebrows and dyeing their hair.
2) it doesn't matter if you have a chest or junk in your trunk, so to speak, a six year old will still ask you if you are a boy, looking perplexed at your bald head.
3) bag balm (butt ointment) will become your best friend.
4) the boy on the trip will make fun of you for how much stuff you have brought along, but then he will use your pliers, tent repair tape, sunburn cream, leatherman, and stove.
5) you will become disturbingly comfortable with disturbing bugs.
6) you will he surprised when the day comes when your butt isn't the partook your anatomy that hurts the most at the end of the day.
7) shaving your head will become the best decision you have ever made.
8) "clean" is all relative.
9) you can burn your sunburn.
10) your new favorite thing will be to walk into the campground shower fully clothed, shower, and walk out again without drying. You will do this more times than is proper--probably depriving a whole third world country of their drinking water for at least the next ten years.
11) your biking partner will not appreciate your rather wonderful rendition of Janis Joplin's Merzedes Benz. He will not like it so much that he will slow down till he is fifty feet behind you--obviously a BIG indication of his bad taste.
My favorite was #4 -- isn't that just like a boy? My lady prefers 10 or 11 and can't decide which. She and the little one practiced #10 themselves earlier this week with the aid of a neighbor's sprinkler system after a walk around the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about #7. The scalp is a hell of a spot to get sunburned. Of course, if you're wearing helmets, that might not be a problem. My lady suggested that I ask if you were wearing helmets. I said no, because if you said no, then I'd worry. She said that now that I'd said that, she needs to know. She also asks if Ivan has needed to borrow your helmet as well.
Finally, in regards to #8 -- you're right. In this case, 'clean' consists mainly of those relatives who: (a) are not on a transcontinental bike voyage, and (b) don't have small children. Infants play hell with hygiene.