Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
17
Time and Distance
Friday, October 14, Cumberland, Maryland
S
o if you can be said to be hurrying on a cross-country bicycle trip, from Chicago I hur-
ried to Pittsburgh. I had to push through some dreary weather in Michigan and Ohio,
climb the roller-coaster foothills of the Appalachians and battle traffic and chewed-up
roads as I entered the city. But I was meeting a deadline.
From there, though, with the end of a ride that began almost three months ago loom-
ing, I slowed down and started on an oblique route home.
For three days, instead of plunging ahead eastward toward Manhattan Jan and I
veered to the south, eventually crossing the Mason-Dixon line (there's a sign!), the wrong
way for someone in a hurry, though of course it was the right way for us. In retrospect
our ride along the GAP, with the scenic wild rivers alongside it—the Casselman picks up
where the Youghiogheny leaves off—was pure avoidance, my subconscious (or maybe
not so sub-) informing me that I'm not quite ready to be home with my feet up on the
coffee table and my knees swaddled in ice.
The temptation is to race to the finish, especially now that I'm alone out here again
and feeling my aloneness rather acutely, and to imagine it even before I get there. That's
certainly how my previous continental crossing ended eighteen years ago; I was thirty-
nine, a young man eager to feel a conqueror of the country and to accept the plaudits of
friends and colleagues. This time, while I won't say that I won't be ready for the trip to
end when it does, I'm feeling the different pleasures of delayed gratification.
I'm feeling the pleasures of contrariness, too. Why is everyone trying to rush me?
People have been telling me that the tough part of my cross-country bicycle journey
was behind me, or that I was almost finished, or that the rest would be easy—or some
related sentiment—ever since I crossed the Continental Divide, and several friends and
