Today I am moving North at a fantastic rate.

Nicole has been staying with me for the last few days, between her ousting from campus housing and her departure towards soltice celebrations. She has graciously volunteered to drive essentially 4 hours out of her way to help Stephanie and I reach the starting point for our bicycle tour back to Gainesville, FL.

But the adventure has already begun and this is the next leg! Flat Floridian plains transform into undulating North Carolina mountains so quickly that I hardly have time to absorb the change. Jacksonville, Savannah and Columbia pass us by with only a few blinks while I-26 efficiently escorts us Northward to Asheville. But perhaps this will provide by stark contrast some perception of the mode we have chosen to move our bodies back home.

We arrive and check in to The ArtHaus Hostel and after securing our bicycles, set out on foot to see a moonlit version of Asheville. We find dinner at Rosetta’s Vegetarian Kitchen. Asheville seems young, moving and progressive–sharing some qualities with Gainesville, but with more hills and less college. I think I might care to live here a while. I am feeling generous and it is raining so we share various flavours of vegan cakes and cookies until the droplets stop hailing from unseen clouds, affording us a dry walk home.

My energy is anticipatory. While I have spent plenty of time on my bicycle, commuting to work and delivering myself to points of interest all over Gainesville, this is my first long distance tour. I recognize that Stephanie is taking a big chance on me–she and I haven’t so much as ridden the Hawthorne Trail together. I don’t know how I will perform, but I am here, now–this is where I want to be and I am doing what I want to be doing. Our individual paths are now intertwined and we will make of this what we will.

Returning to ArtHaus we settle in for an early night; our respective journeys demand an early start tomorrow. I use Nicole’s computer to jot a few notes about the next few geographic turns and close my eyes, alarm set for 0700.

About 500 miles today…