Distance: 75: avg:12.1
For some reason I am super tired, and pretty much collapsed into my tent. I took a small nap and I’ll probably go directly to bed after this.
Today’s riding had some nice relaxing downhills, but first I had to go uphill most of the time. 🙂 after it stopped raining it became more fun. I dried off quickly and I was zooming along. I’m pretty (over?)confident on my bike now. I zoom through the rain, and take some pretty gnarly corners that I wouldn’t have at the beginning of the trip.
I went shopping in some small-town antique shops. I think Paola would love looking at all this stuff more than me. But I wanted to find a tile and a postcard. No luck.
My destination tonight was Mallard Duck campground/trailer park. It’s a nice little place but i quickly found out the inhabitants are pretty odd. Alan runs the place and his friend Eric lives there. Alan lit up a cigarette while I was eating and sat down to chat. Eric joined him shortly thereafter. Apparently Eric went to court today for his first offense using and selling meth. I guess this is normal talk at a trailer park picnic table. “they’re going to make you pay a shitload a’ money, just you wait,” advised Alan. Alan then proceeded to tell me about his brain tumor, which he’s had since birth. While Alan mentions this, i think Eric is either going through withdrawals or on meth. A car drives by and people scream and bark loudly, distracting us. “that’s my daughter, she hates me. She says that I had sex with her when she was a kid but it’s all lies. I need to get her to sign a court order to get her to stay away from me.”
Writing it now it’s pretty crazy to read. Alan and Eric talked a lot about other things, I joined in, but really I just wished they’d go smoke somewhere else and leave me to my camp. It’s sad to think some people’s lives are like this. They don’t seem unhappy, but they seem to have grown up in a very emotionally immature culture where being tough and beligerent is the norm. So they insult each other for fun. The fat guy next door is someone to laugh at. The ugly lady who lives in a van is some piece of ass that neither wants.
I wonder how hard it must be to have no education, or to have no emotional education. I could feel in a sense that their tension was just misguided hatred because they had no understanding of the world around them, and no way to connect with it. Very tragic.
On a completely different note: tomorrow is the hardest climb of the trip. Getting up extra early to beat the traffic and heat so that I can get my miles in despite the mountainous terrain. Thankfully alan and eric left me be. Night!