Everyone Gets a Nap - The Great Unwind - CycleBlaze

May 17, 2017

Everyone Gets a Nap

No one at Firehouse Number Two in Berea much cares that we leave our tent pitched out in the back all day as we try to build back up what the Appalachians took out of us over the last couple of weeks. Breakfast sandwiches and multiple loads of laundry to clean every piece of clothing and towel we own make for a fine start.

Kristen runs into Jerry and Vicki at the laundromat. They're about to drive over to a nearby city to find Jerry a new tent. When they offer to let us shower and rest in their air conditioned cool of their motel room while they're gone, we don't hesitate to say yes.

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The dogs stay with us in the room. From Sidney to Lunchbox to Kristen to me, everyone gets a nap.

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We head back into town with Jerry and Vicki in the evening, where they treat us to dinner at the same Italian restaurant from last night. Without twenty college students peppering us with questions, this time I can enjoy the chicken parm and the crispy piece of garlic bread that arrives on the table sitting in a little metal tray with a pool a butter lining the bottom.

It feels good to spend time with two people whose lives are going so well. They have each other, their children, their grandchildren, their dogs, their farm, and their hobbies, all of which they love. And they have the time and space and health in which to enjoy them. They are the embodiment of the American Dream, flavored with a charming Northern Michigan accent. They are the kind of people you just want to be friends with. After the heartache and hopelessness of Appalachia, it helps to see the other side of the coin.

And so once again, just as with yesterday and just as with six years ago, Berea is a bearer of good feelings, a generator of good memories. It will always have a special place in my heart.

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But even Berea can't make me feel un-tired. It's been like that every day for at least a week. And even after a full day off the bike, all I want to do is curl up in top of my air mattress and sleep for the next fourteen hours. Kristen feels the same. We don't know if it's all the hills, the fact that we're still working our way into shape, that we're not eating enough of the right food, some combination of the three, or something else altogether. Whatever it is, I can't remember ever having felt such fatigue for so long. I can only hope that the answer to the problem lies somewhere out in the gentle rolling hills and small country towns of middle Kentucky.

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