Day 6
I’m writing this from day 8 actually, we had 2 really busy days, 2 of which also had no internet connection. So it’s a little hard to remember what happened and what I wanted to say exactly.
I brought a Hebrew book to this trip, the rides are all very quite, Just the motorcycle engine sound and the wind. The evenings and stops are also very quite, Ned and I are tired and overwhelmed by all the views and the ride, we mostly sit quietly staring into nothing, just glad to see a view that isn’t moving.
In the book, I found a line today that takes about remembering:
You can think of the “speed of time” and the “speed of memory” like the “speed of sound” and the “speed of light”. Measure the space between a memory and the sensation it invoke like you measure the space between thunder and lightning.
Meir Shalev, Pontanela
It’s hard to write about things that happened, after the sensation already turned to memory. I’m looking at the photos from that day and they look foreign, like they were taken by someone else, I remember the words of what happened but not the feeling, or maybe it’s the other way around.
Nature
We were still in the Blue Ridge parkway when we got up that morning, waking up to a beautiful view if the lake and a really great breakfast in a dining room full of old people and also escaped from the cold group of bikers. It’s early and still chilly outside, but it looks like a beautiful day. It’s strange to think of that place, that was so cold and scary the night before are beautiful and peaceful just a couple of hours later.
We leave the Peak of Otters lodge and ride slowly through the mountain, it’s very peaceful, we stop a couple of times to see birds of prey flying above us, eagles or falcons or hawks. It’s all very quiet and there are very few cars or people around.
We pass a dear that I finally manage to capture in a photo before it gets frightened by the motorcycle noise and run into the woods. Going through a narrow path under a canopy of leafs, Ned points on the road, where I see a strange black shadow that looks, for a second, like a strange black chicken, I think it’s a wild turkey or something, but then it lifts its head and tears a bloody piece of meat of some unidentified road kill. It turns to us, and then flies into one of the trees, I still see him on the branch before it flap great wings and fly away.
Living in the city, my most frequent encounter with nature is reading about global warming, destruction of natural habitat by men, species extinctions and how all this nature thing is going to disappear soon. I guess in my mind, I just assumed it’s all already gone, that there are no animals outside zoos and that nature is all taken over by condos.
Seeing that vulture, and realizing that though, yes, this is a state park and all, but basically, that was an animal in nature, and that probably, though not as much as a 100 years ago, but most of the world is still made of nature habitats and not of buildings and roads.
It’s strange to think of the world in those terms, it’s also strange for me, to think of the world at all. Usually the size of my world is about half the size of Williamsburg with a few outposts in Manhattan and Tel Aviv.
North Carolina
We cross into North Carolina in that magical hour right before the sun sets, everything looks golden. The many cow farms are becoming more and more spars replaced by heels covered with miniature Christmas trees – it’s very surreal, all those tiny forests. I look on one of the still remaining cow farms and they looks very strange, something in the shape and hair looks odd, then I notice that those are bison, not cows! It’s one of Ned’s favorite animal and I manage to take one picture for him before we ride away.
Daniel Boone
We plan to stay at Boone, which is point number 8 I think, on our map, without quite knowing what’s there, but the next place after that would be on the parkway again and it’s getting late. Following the GPS instructions leads us on a chase for a couple of non existing hotels and eventually we spend a dismal night at the “Scottish Inn” which we think is the only non chain hotel in the area and are proven wrong by the “guide to Scottish Inn” in the room.
After we unpack, we go out looking for an open restaurant, it’s only about 8:00, but the only things that are open are the drive throw Taco Bell, the Drive through McDonalds and the Drive through Wendy’s. Also, as we discover from trying to cross the street, there are no crosses for people, it’s a car town and people don’t seem to get out of their cars, well, ever.
Eventually we dare a game or reality Frogger and cross into the gas station’s convenience store and get some ice cream and candy. The two policeman huddle in the coffee machine area, look at us and stop talking. It might be the biker jackets or the fact that we are actually on foot. When they see us looking for the right flavor ice cream they go back to their conversation.
