September 22

Two weeks into the journey. They say if you can hack two weeks you can hack the trip. I walked up two very long, steep hills today, killer hills, on the Winchell Mountain Road between Millerton CT and Pine Plains NY. Good views from the top. I stopped at a library in Salsbury CT to do some emailing. A solid, granite building in which they played church music, choral, maybe Gregorian. It was a tremendous contrast to the highways I've been living on. They are stressful, Dantesque places. They contain all that is wrong with our world. They, along with the coal, steel, petroleum, automobile, and construction industries, are the cause and symptom of urban sprawl, global warming, and the degradation and globalization of Western culture. But along them are nice people and places, like the pristine Hartford water supply, and Moody's diner in Maine, and the guy on a Honda 750cc V twin who travels the back roads and pitches a lean-to in a field or meadow for shelter. We met outside of Kingston VT. He was stopped, looking at a map, and when I rode up I asked if I could help. He didn't need any, but we talked for about ten minutes, and when I left he said, "God bless you."