1st casualty!

A squirrel tried to eat my b.o.b. bag-- below is a picture of some of the remaining pieces. Ok he really just ate a hole through the side in order to eat a squeeze tube of peanut butter and chocolate whey protein. So if hard waterproof plastic isn't safe to leave food in what do we do with it? Ivan is being gallant and sleeping with my b.o.b bag in his tent. My tent is a one woman tent while Ivan's can hold two people (or one human and all our gear). So four days into the trip and we have suffered our first gear casualty. Luckily the squirrel was considerate and chewed through at the best place possible: the bag is still fully water proof, with the help of a little duct tape, and is still fully functional.

I would like to take a moment and make a list of the people who we have encountered out here that have been willing to help us. Our first night in the wild we stopped at a fish and wildlife station to ask how much further it was to a camp ground. They told us that the camp ground we were looking for did not exist. I think the two ladies at the counter saw that I was done in and offered to let us to camp on the forest service's property. Then in the morning they let us take showers, fill up all our water containers, and gave us each a bag of lavender cookies (mine were delicious and a squirrel thought Ivan's were too).

The night before last we stayed at a camp ground along a river I can neither say nor spell. While we were there I ran into a woman in the bathroom. She was wearing a floral print top, reminiscent of Hawaii, and dyeing her hair. She told me that she came to this camp ground every year with her family, though now she lived most of the time in Hawaii. She then invited me and Ivan over for a cook out she was having. After watching three or four cars drive towards her camping spot we decided to meandering on down ourselves where we were greated with beer, hot dogs, burgers, and key lime cheese cake. We also met what felt like her whole family.

Everyone was so nice and welcoming. We were offered a place to stay in Richmond when we head back that way. I sat and talked with Maria (whose full name I think was Rose Maria?). She is going into her senior year of high school; she has started looking at colleges. She is so passionate and has such great ideas. It was interesting to think back five years to what I was like then, and see where I am now. As for Maria, she is a girl--young woman--who is going to go far...I flatter myself in thinking that I see some of myself in her.

We are currently staying near Yorktown; today was a rest day and then tomorrow we will turn around and officially start the Transamerican bike route. Ivan keeps insisting that we haven't started yet, but the hundred miles on my cyclometer and my sore butt say otherwise. We are hoping to make it back to Richmond in two days and then on to new territory after that. I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that this is what we will be doing all summer, and I am happy about it. We have met the neatest people, seen some beautiful country and history, and if anything it was worth coming out here for the fireflies. They start lighting up around 7 or 8, and it is magical. They make you think about fairies and magical flying dust. They are an emblem of the quintessential American childhood--the rosey-cheeked boy who can't stop smiling into his mason jar that glows with captured insects. I guess that is part of the reason I am doing this: to experience the America I don't know. I am hoping as I go along more pieces to the "nikki's reasons for doing insane things puzzle" will fall into place. 

I shalt not kill...

Ivan. I promise--because his last post seems to indicate that he might not live very long after deleting my first, and thus far, only post. To tell the truth I am too endorphined-up to care.

That's the best thing about this trip--the endorphins. I may be exhausted, my butt hurts, my hands hurt, my shoulders hurt, my knees hurt, and I have one hell of a sunburn, but truth be told I am happy about it. But then again this is only the end of day two, and the soreness is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Day two and about 56 miles into it. Virginia is beautiful; everything is so green. All the corn fields are about as tall as I am, and the wheat has turned its lovely golden color. With all this green there are bugs abound. The ground crawls, but I think because I am outside, I know I will be outside for the next couple months, and I know I will have to deal with them I can handle it. It's the intruders in the home, the many legged trespassers that bother me. But out here they don't bother me that much--I even picked up a spider, who was in my tent, and put him outside...without screaming.

The weather--is insane. Don't get me wrong it is beautiful here, but it is so hot and so humid. I am sweating more than I ever have. I can't keep sunscreen on. As soon as I lather myself up, I sweat it off. If I stopped biking to put on sunscreen every time I actually needed to, I would still be sitting outside the train station in Richmond. And it brings up this question: what is worse, getting skin cancer from the sun or putting on heavy metal enriched cream all over your body, which by the way is also carcinogenous?

It is hard to think about this trip in its entirety: three months, 4200 miles, biking practically everyday. It is daunting; it makes each pedal stroke and each breath of air feel like a trap that I am drowning in. It is too much. So I have to think about all of this one day at a time--one mile at a time. I may not have the mental strength for this, to push myself mile after mile, but I am stubborn enough. I said I would do this, so I will. But I am learning that strength and stubbornness are not the same thing.