1.25

I locked my bike outside the library in who-knows-whereville. I don't remember now. But there was a millpond where the local dam locked up the stream through town, and the only place I could find to eat was a pizzaria that doubled as an inexplicable burrito joint. I walked inside the library, but it was a bigger building than a library. I think perhaps it was the only government building in town, and despite its venerable facade and imposing size, the single floor of books contained fewer volumes, perhaps, than Brooke and I own privately between us. When you and your sister-in-law outbook a library, perhaps the only thing the place is good for is what I used it for. I locked myself into the only restroom and stripped off my riding bib (faithful companion) and dunked it in the stream of hot water from the faucet.
I washed my only pair of cycling underwear in a library sink until the water no longer ran gray.
I think people assume that just because they've never conceived of a thing that it is difficult. There is nothing difficult about doing your laundry in a public sink. There's certainly something shameful about coming out and finding a five-year old waiting with his dad, trying to hold his pee. There's certainly something illicit about standing, naked, in a public place. There's certainly something liberating about having so few articles of clothing that washing your shirt and underpants in a sink is enough for another few days because you just don't have enough laundry to warrant a washing machine. But I couldn't begin to tell you what town I was in or why I chose the library over the ice cream shop. You couldn't force me to explain the intricacies of what I felt at that moment. Some people hear the bare facts and the spartan explanation and assume it's inexplicable and monumental, but I have the exact opposite feeling.
Sometimes, the things we least understand are just so. The way they are and no more.

I think anyone could bicycle across the country.