May 6, 2017
If Only She Knew
After the finest breakfast we've had in months, we load up the bikes and say our goodbyes and take to the streets of Blacksburg. It feels like we've pedaled into the inside of a closed refrigerator; forty-three degrees and windy. Heading toward campus, the bike lane we're riding in becomes a turn lane. Most cars give us room. One does not. It's a big Ram pickup truck and it hovers right behind us. I'm able to cross over to the next lane and continue on, but as soon as I do the driver of the truck hits the gas and cuts Kristen off, stuffing the truck through the narrow gap between us and forcing her to grab a handful of brakes and stop.
Annoyed and frozen, we head through Virginia Tech, with the buildings all faced with stone in a way that's unlike any campus I've seen. Kristen wants a pair of gloves, so we stop at the student bookstore along the way. While she's inside, the truck that cut her off a few miles back pulls into the parking lot and stops ten feet from where I stand. The woman who drives it gets out, closes the door, and walks toward some far-off building.
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For just a moment, I think about letting the air out of one of the truck's tires. That's not the kind of person I want to be, but man, I could do it. It's right there. Screw her for almost running into my wife, and screw her stupid Pittsburgh Steelers bumper sticker and her stupid Pittsburgh Steelers vanity license plate and her stupid Pittsburgh Steelers umbrella and her stupid giant truck that she can't even park within the lines of a single parking space. A flat tire would slow her down.
But I don't. I wouldn't. That's a microcosm what's most wrong with this country — the selfishness, the need to be the winner, the need to be proven right. When Kristen returns, we ride away. Where there could have been two angry people, instead there are none. Five minutes later I've forgotten about the whole thing.
We're cold and tired and decide that all we want to do is spend the rest of the day in a motel room. It's too early to check in, so we ride to the library. It's the most diverse groups of ages, races, cultures, dress, and facial hair we're going to see until — well, maybe until we're back in Portland or Seattle. Then Darth Vader walks by. Then a couple of storm troopers. Even the dark side is welcome at the Blacksburg public library.
We end up at a cheap motel, of the kind where the pool has been covered up with tar paper and shingles, so it looks like there's a huge section of roof a foot off the ground at the center of the place. As we roll our bikes into the room, a woman with an Indian accent with a stern look on her face rushes over and tells us in broken English how we can't do that. Next week is graduation; they're renting these rooms for $200 a night, she says. Somehow our bikes will mess that up, not the threadbare carpet and or that weird roof-pool we're all looking at. If only she knew that the real danger is what's stored inside our bags and our intestines.
It's a day away from the road filled with eating burritos, drinking good coffee and cheap beer, and the unrestrained joy of wearing normal underpants. Just as it should be.
Today's ride: 5 miles (8 km)
Total: 372 miles (599 km)
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