October 8

My sense of illegitimacy partially arises from sneaking into the woods and making a cold camp. I wish I’d asked that park ranger his name. And my depression about this venture partially arises from my sense of illegitimacy. Illegitimacy carries with it the fear of getting caught and punished. Yelled at, beaten up, shot and killed.

Again, I'm in a peaceful, idyllic place. A woods road that hasn't been used much, no ATV tracks, no deep ruts from trucks or tree farmers. Young pine growing here, maybe loblolly, and younger maple. Could be an exercise in sylvaculture. The rain stopped last night and the skies cleared this afternoon. I left the motel at 8:00, had breakfast in Anne's Diner where I met other patrons of the motel, a woman getting a divorce and her boyfriend. They gave me directions to a supermarket, and on the way there I stopped and did my laundry and dried my tent in the parking lot next door while the machines churned. By the time I got groceries and got back on the route it was noon. I rode about 30 miles and stopped at 3:45.

There are happy sights: four black kids, ages six to thirteen, chasing each other gleefully around a house stop their game to wave and say "Hi". A pretty blonde woman in a white blouse and black shorts in her yard with her clone daughters comes to the end of her driveway to watch me ride by. "Don't see many of these," I said, "Do ya?"
"I sure don't," she said, with a big grin.

On these narrow roads cars will often hang back until I wave them around, and then, often, if they are middle-aged and middle-class women (you can tell by the Camrys) they look in their rearview mirrors and give me a wave.

The sun is setting and it's getting colder.