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We remain awed by the richness of the experience. Few of us ever
really link up in such a way for such a sustained period, with
what's out there.
We miss it.
We miss the routine - making and breaking camp, cooking on the one
burner stove, shopping and snacking, keeping the panniers organized,
even doing the occasional repair.
We miss the people - the exuberant, unbridled admiration and wonder,
the generosity, the faces and handshakes and hugs, the touching of
hearts.
We miss the scenery, the elements and the sounds.
But most of all we miss the road.
It has given us strength and health, it has expanded our senses and
stretched our sense of the possible.
We miss seeing it pass beneath us, as a river appears from atop a
bridge, every patch and joint coming in its own time, every meter of
its length inspected for hazards.
We miss the sounds of the tires contacting the pavement, a different
one for each surface, the most pleasing just following a rain.
We miss the feel, the resistance, the spinning of the pedals and
crank arms, five thousand times an hour, and each revolution's small
victory over distance.
We miss that strange illusion of pedaling hard but remaining
stationary against the sometime featureless, flat plains, without
markers to gauge forward progress, and the lonely sight of that
straight, unbroken ribbon of asphalt, infinite.
We miss the road... and one in particular.
The one that leads from our home to the next adventure.
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