Accelerated Adolescence

What a (bike) trip

Last Friday, Kristen's parents, step-mother, and grandmother flew into oxford. We had a hectic weekend entertaining them and Andrew who also arrived Friday night. Andrew really helped me to keep my sanity while I was trying to keep the proverbial tent from blowing away in the wind. Sunday morning received an injection of relatives with the arrival of my parents and more of kristen's family. In the afternoon, Kristen gave her senior recital, an excellent live performance, I must say. I hope to stream it from this site, I'll post about it if it ever comes to pass.

On Monday morning many of us went out to brunch before departing. By about noon, we were down to just my Mother-in-law. And, at four we dropped her off at the Dayton Airport on our way to Columbus to enjoy a Seder dinner with our friends, the Farrars. Where, again, I won the praise of Rebekah's mother, this time with the phrase, "Zach, I believe that your mother is informing you of the situation rather than having a discussion," when he was complaining that it was too early to stop playing video games.

The next day, we arose at 6 A.M. to drive home from Columbus. Kristen dropped me off at the Dayton airport and I waited through obnoxious CNN reporting for what felt like an eternity (in my opinion, the weather man gets 20 sec to say, "it's going to x here but not here."). Finally, my delayed flight took off and a half-hour of half-sleep later, I was landing in Cleveland for a brief layover. I bought a double cheeseburger at Burger King and proceeded to unpleasantly burp the fake "char broiled" flavor for the rest of the afternoon. Gross.

I arrived at BWI and Rae was pretty much already waiting for me. What a luxury, to get picked up from BWI, it might be the first time, ever. This time, I didn't have lice. Pretty much as soon as we got home we left for our biking journey. Total, we put in about 35 miles yesterday and today.

Rachael was a star. Or really, the knowledgable biker. She helped me prep my bike and gear and put the heavy saddlebags on her own bike (recalling that maman had told her to "go easy on Mendon.") half way through the first day, I get a call from Mara. She's going to be induced. Craziness. We hit camp with sore backsides, sore everythings. Rae pitched the tent while I gathered brush and twigs and logs and built a fire. It was my first decent fire since I went camping with Jamal and Bill and Andrew years ago. We enjoyed a Quinoa salad that Rae had prepared earlier in the day and roasted marshmallows which we ate in a sandwich of cappuccino gingerbread cookies.(Hey, just because we're roughing it on the road doesn't mean that we have to give up our yuppie status!)

Unfortunately, we were plagued by a group of noisy highschool students (you could tell, they were the 'cool' ones). They sat around their campfire for hours being generally loud. To be fair, Rae and I went to bed at about tenish and then spent the rest of the night tossing and turning to their sounds. Rae tells me that they finally left at about three in the morning when it started raining.

Rae was up before me and began preparing for us to break camp, which we did at about 10:00. Sure, our backsides were sore, but we made good time and were in Georgetown by 12:00. We were going to bike home but a pedal on my bike broke when I went over a paved hill. So we walked to the Metro and caught that back to Alexandria. We were home at about 1:30 where Rae was a star again in cleaining up the gear and getting everything away. I had more energy for a higher pace, but Rae was able to just keep going better after each trip. Though, we're both pretty exhausted.

Those are the specifics of the trip. It was so beautiful. Yesterday was bright and shining and everything was gorgeous. The Potomac, along the canal, has no industry or homes on it. It's mostly just nature (though there are towns further on and roads that run parallel here in town). Enormous basalt pillars stood out from the water, withstanding it's great fury (for now). Little islands of trees and muck sprung up all about us. We passed the Great Falls and its beautiful ravine. I can't communicate the beauty to you. We didn't take the camera. Rae tells me she has some pictures somewhere. On the way home, everything was a different shade, colored by a light mist and an overcast day (it rained last night, remember?). What a wonderful adventure. Tomorrow, we learn to dance.

Posted by Mendon at April 4, 2007 4:11 PM