October 17

The Econolodge, in Wilmington, is managed by folks from the Subcontinent. The lady who checked me in called the room after I got out of the shower, to suggest that I bring the bicycle into the room, I told her it was dirty, and that I could lock it up outside. She said she would give a rag to clean it with, and that she would feel better if I kept it inside. It is a quiet place, the room is well back from the street, so I think she's overly cautious. For her peace of mind I wiped the bike down and brought it in. Such exchanges have been rare. In fact this is the only such compromise I've made since I left home. I miss them, a little. I feel good about being here. I feel legitimate, almost normal.

On the 13th I kept running across a white van with a luggage container and a bike on the roof and a bike rack on the rear. Sometimes it would overtake me, and others it would pass me going the opposite direction. I waved several times, but never got a visible response from the driver. Because the van and its occupants were obviously following the Adventure Cycling route, I fantasized that they worked for Adventure Cycling, checking out the route, and wouldn't respond because they didn't want to hear my opinion of their product.

I didn't see them the next day, but on the fifteenth the van pulled up as I was waiting for the ferry across the Pamlico river between Bath and Aroura, N.C. I didn't bother to wave this time; I figured after five or six attempts without a response the other day, they weren't interested. But just as I changed my mind, thinking that I didn't need to be a jerk just because they were, a woman, about 50 years old, got out and said, "So, where you headed?"

I turned out that she and her husband are supporting a tour of middle-aged women, from Bar Harbor to somewhere. The women, and the husband of the lady driving the van, showed up on their bikes in a few minutes.

What I learned from them is that I’m doing alright. He calls them killer hills too, and he's ten years younger and on an unloaded bike. I'm moving better than 270 pounds, compared to their 175, and keeping up with them. Not that I would make invidious comparisons.

Wilmington is warm. And pretty, along Market Street from downtown to the motel, near 29th St. Big old brick houses with white columns out front, dating from the mid 1800's, and verdant lawns, trees, and shrubbery. The town has the feel that Austin, Texas, had in the spring of 1969. It smells good too. The digital thermometer outside the Food Lion supermarket read 71F at 2:00 PM. (Food Lion is better, if yuppier is better, than Piggly Wiggly. But the working class, black and white, in North Carolina are loyal to their Piggly Wiggly.)

Things have changed, at least on the surface, if this is the Deep South. In a small café in a small town yesterday two old black ladies having lunch were treated just the same as everyone else, by staff and patrons alike. That's an improvement from 1961.