Day 69: Clarkston (unintentional rest day)

8/03

Israel Golden
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

I woke up in the tree house around 7. A cool breeze blew across my face. Unfortunately I knew I was waking up too late to take advantage of it. It would likely be 95 by 10 am. Another day in the oven.

Lila and I made breakfast inside Gregory’s house. I made oatmeal knowing that, with Lila’s stove stolen, it would probably be my last oatmeal of the trip. Gregory was at work so we were alone in the house.

Lila and I had been cooked the day before. It was honestly, probably the most challenging day of the trip. We decided we were only going to bike 30 miles to a town called Pomeroy and call it a day. Secretly, I wanted to just rest another day in Clarkston but I could tell Lila wanted to get a move on.

Before we would leave I desperately needed to go to the bike shop in town. My rear hub was extremely loose and Lila needed two new tubes because they were in the stolen bag. I went to the bike shop while Lila went grocery shopping.

The bike got fixed in no time and I found myself in an oppressively hot Lewiston with some time to kill while Lila shopped. I sought out a coffee shop to get an iced dirty chai latte. I sat in the air conditioned room upon a couch and sipped my espresso drink. I could barely move. I’m not sure how much time passed before I got a text from Lila saying she was sweating profusely just talking on the phone and that she wanted to stay in Clarkston another day (yes!).

I sat for another hour or two at the coffee shop writing blogs. These things take a lot of time. Lila floated the idea that we get dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Clarkston. Im not sure if I’ve ever said “no” to that suggestion and I definitely didn’t pick that day to start.

It was a lovely meal apart from Lila and the native Chinese waitress’ inability to comprehend each other’s accents. I had sesame chicken. Lila had some kind of platter. The important thing is that we finally found out what egg foo young is. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s basically a casserole.

After dinner we headed back to the house and Gregory arrived not long after. He told us that he was going to see some of his friends play at a bar and that we were invited. With the choice of drinking beer and seeing music or sweating in a treehouse, we chose the former.

Gregory is definitely a pillar of the Clarkston and Lewiston communities. He sat with people at almost every table in the venue. He ended up meeting a couple of women who work for NPR, one of whom had just finished a bicycle tour of Europe. She came over to talk to us.

She had bicycled from Spain to Sweden, taking a ferry from Denmark. Eventually her coworker, a Georgia native, joined us. They bought us drinks and we had a grand old time talking about all the adventures we’d had and all the people we’d met on our respective trips. We traded contact information and one of them sent us a really good Spotify playlist (if only I had Spotify).

Gregory drove us home, I brushed my teeth, and then I crawled into my sweaty treehouse to fall asleep. Tomorrow we would rise at 4 am to beat the heat.

    Israel Golden

    Written by

    Bicycling, Music, Science

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