By: Delia Stephens
Kindness is fresh strawberries.
This is what I’ve decided, sitting on the side of the road at the top of today’s mountain. We’ve just finished a brutal, 700-foot climb, and, at the top, like a beacon of hope, is a roadside strawberry stand. We pulled over and asked to buy a bucket, but the kind women running the stand gave us an entire bucket of strawberries for free. I ate so many strawberries someone asked me if I had fallen on my face, and I had to tell them that I just had strawberry juice running down my chin.
Meghan and Faye, like so many others on this journey, were immensely kind to us. The hospitality we have seen on the road has been genuinely incredible--this morning, our hosts Patty and John cooked us a delicious breakfast of eggs, toast, and sausages--and I’m honored to say that I’ve met some incredibly kind people.
After we consumed enough strawberries to feed a hungry elephant that only eats strawberries or something, we pushed on. Normally, Google is kind to us, but today she was feeling kind of rude, so we ended up walking our bikes nearly 4 miles down a gravel pathway. We saw some dogs and we were scared (having been warned about wild dogs by every person who has stopped to talk to us), but they were good bois. One of them actually ended up following us until we chased it off. We stopped at a spring and took some fresh water at the suggestion of some locals and continued on our way.
The group I was in arrived at lunch at 1pm only to learn that the second group was being held hostage by m u r d e r o u s b o v i n e s. Thankfully, they rallied, and we all made it to lunch in one piece. Due to the disastrous weather, only one group was able to make it to our final destination at a lovely roadside campground, where we met the fascinating Larry. He showed us around and explained some of the location’s history, and we hung out, napped, and debriefed after a long day.
We only made it through today because of the kindness of the people around us--the men who told us which way to go, the lovely family that invited the second group into their vehicle after a torrential downpour, Meghan and Faye who gave us fuel for the journey, and John and Patty who gave us warm beds and lovely conversations.
I’m going to bed now. I’m tired.