Bicycle hiatus

(song of the day: Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah)

      I gave myself of reflective adventure, and voyaged to to the town in which I want to be buried. Duluth Minnesota, my elephant graveyard. Now if you know me at all, you know that I wholesale deny the possibility of death in the personal realm (I just ain't doin' it!) but I can't deny that there might be a small period where my body will lose all vitality, and I will have to go to lay in the ground like ancient egyptian gods. When and if that period of extreme ennui begins I want to be laid down by the rocks and the shore and the cold cold waves.
      Well now that the will is written; I reflectively adventured to Duluth, where I drank and smoked like I had a death wish, but was far from lacking in vitality. I climbed, I carried, I wrestled, I defended, I shook, I laffed, I tumbled. It was good to see how the world was living now, and how it bloomed and grew, and I have to say that, if I was scraping old earth, then I may have collected some young seeds in my palm.  I might for example go and bike across the nation to spend time amongst and political illustrators, and agitators.
     I stayed a few days carousing, visiting, and reflecting. Soon two vitally important people are going to join together in a new union, and I will journey back again to see them, but I had to return south to deal with money. I had many routes open to me, but the one that appealed most taxed me physically and mentally, and as a mighty surprise to myself I was up to the task physically, but not mentally. I guess it shouldn't be especially shocking, considering my total lack of street smarts, even the most basic pedestrian knowledge like: Bring a sleeping bag, or Bring sunscreen, or Bring a tarp with out mighty big holes in it. The task, if you were wondering, was peddling my bicycle southward from Distant Duluth to Savory St. Paul.
     I wrote a little on the way, but most of it was done in the early morning just after an ugly nights sleep, and it is hardly legible and uncomfortably negative. It can be hard to remember to make a record of the moments of ecstasy, like lying exhausted on the abandoned bike path, after pushing yourself too hard just to break the monotony. Or the odd scene you saw between two wild turkeys and a bloodied skunk. Or the early morning sights you saw when you couldn't sleep; five deer with in one mile, a rabbit that let you get so close you could have leapt from your bike and captured him. Or how you bedded down near the swamp and the frogs sung you to sleep. Or the mid day naps you took in hidden thickets just outside of small towns when the sun got too much to handle, and how you either dreamed the voices of children who found you in your slumber, or actually herd them talk about you as you dosed. (a vaguely remembered speculative conversation, about weather I was homeless or not, and a decision that it would be best to leave me to my nap.
     those moments slip through when you forget that the world isn't aching knees, blustering wind, and glaring sun.

Afterward: I did not make it all the way back. I ached and I burned, and the sky threatened rain, and I begrudgingly requested help from a friend who came and rescued me. I had met another bike traveler on the road that day, he had taken things a little easier than I had, and caught up to me late in the day looking in good health, his bike was breaking down on him, and his packs were disheveled and dirty. I wanted badly to offer him a ride, but I knew there wouldn't be room in the car for both bikes, so I sat stretching my muscles on a bench as he biked out of town under the dark clouds and the howling wind.