Every Cloud (USA Day 162)

Cycle touring is not all fun and games. In fact, very little of it is. It’s hard grind, often for very little reward, through unknown, disinterested places that have nothing to prove to you. You do it for the people you meet the peaceful moments in the wilderness, the time spent alone with your brain. It’s worth it, though the days don’t balance. Some are pure pleasure from the moment you wake up to when you fall asleep. Some are just grind. Today was grind.

Eighty-nine miles of highway, often dead straight, always flat. Barely a bridge or an intersection to concern us. The road barely turned. We passed no towns. One gas station in the first eighty miles. The same wooded view, again and again. Log trucks and log trucks and great long gaps and surprise log trucks. Tired snack stops by brown standing sludge, ducking mosquitos, chomping tasteless carbs. Dying daylight, counting remaining miles against remaining hours. Sore, numb bottoms. Dry lips.

Today was neither fun nor games. There was nothing particularly bad about it, either. We didn’t even really have anything to complain about. If today was a colour, I would hate that colour. If today was an animal, it would be roadkill.

We arrived at the workshop of a friend of a man who couldn’t host us on WarmShowers, who let us camp on his land. He called himself Scott, so I called him Colin for some time and he never corrected me. A man with the tattered top half of a pair of jeans told us that he camped in his van right by where we were about to pitch our tent. Don’t be alarmed, he told us, if we heard gunshots overnight. He’d been appointed to kill any roving armadillos on the lawn. Hmm. Scolin’s dog, Bella, saw me sitting down tying a shoelace and wrestled me to the ground, lying legs-up on top of me for guaranteed belly rubs. I guess every cloud has a silver lining.

The sun set, the lake bubbled with snakes and a fog of mosquitos unleashed itself on our poor, sticky skin, so we dived inside our tent and wondered why on earth we bother with any of this. We couldn’t even be bothered to eat our dinner. We just lay there and watched the millions of bitey boys swarm the outer section of our tent, desperate for a second taste. Their evil, patient, almost choral hum is harrowing. They have us trapped. It’s just been a day, I know, but days can seem weeks long when there’s nothing but hard shoulder and dead branches to dodge.

Now we come to sleep, I realise that we left the pillows outside. There’s absolutely no way I’m going out there. On the upside…no. I can’t think of one. Not every mosquito cloud has a silver lining.