Themes or questions run through my head when I am bicycling for so many hours out in the blazing sun. I don’t know if it is heat stroke or my imagination getting the best of me. Sometimes, at a distance, I think I am seeing a cow, but at closer inspection, it is merely a rock formation in the shape of one. I saw a dried up tree branch turned upside down on the side of a hill that looked like a gray octopus with its tentacles pointing out at me as I glanced up the hill at such a strange sight.
Back to reality….I did see a shoe tree in Oregon in the middle of nowhere. The tree was literally littered with shoes! As soon as I whizzed by, I wished I had stopped for a picture. But stopping a 60-pound load is not easy to do. Another time I saw an empty corral with four stalls right next to the road. Each stall had a stuffed animal’s head poking out of the top, looking like they wanted me to take them with me on our cross-country adventure. I really did see a purple bulldozer that caught my fancy too. What a blast that would be to go dig up a few ditches.
Life on the road gives me lots of time to think and imagine. What I don’t like to imagine is getting plowed down by the logging trucks that speed by with their heavy loads, or an RV careening by with little visibility of a lowly bicyclist. Those thoughts from the road take some discipline to manage. If I give in to those fears, I would never have left Marlborough for a summer of fundraising and adventure. And can you imagine how much I would have missed?