Finally the rest day I was waiting for. Not surprisingly I slept in on Lipsitz's couch, which felt great after three days of hard riding. I hope I never get to a point in my life that I'm unwilling to crash on a friend's couch.
After a breakfast of overnight oats, a cyclist's best friend, I headed up to campus. Funny story, Denison is at the top of a giant hill and part of me wants to say that walking up that hill took more effort than biking the 400 miles to Denison from Chicago.
I went to the Denison library and used my elite hacking abilities the login credentials Lipsitz gave me to get into the Denison computers for internet. I worked on some random stuff, including writing a post for this blog - yes I do actually do that once in awhile. Overall it was nice to not have to worry about biking for one day, even if I knew that three more long days were to follow.
After a quick stop at the Denison bookstore for obligatory stickers, I met up with Lipsitz and we headed into Granville, the town that Denison is located in. To be honest that afternoon is a bit of a blur, but I do remember getting a hot dog and probably eating more than is necessary for a normal person.
Oh yeah, and this happened at some point back at Lipsitz's apartment. The napchatting never stops. Also, I'M the one who just biked 400 miles to get here and you fall asleep?!
What I do remember is that eventually I somehow ended up at Lipsitz's sorority house, where she gave a presentation on the 4K and what it was like to spend 70 days riding a bicycle. In one sense the whole experience was comical - this short big haired extremely tan Asian guy, out of place in a well decorated sorority house filled with a bunch of Denison students who despite the brief introduction by Lipsitz was wondering who the hell I was.
In a different sense however it wasn't silly at all. As she told me prior to her presentation, Lipsitz wasn't sure how to bring up Jamie and her death this summer. In fact I think our entire team often struggles with how to bring Jamie up. I struggle with knowing if and when to bring it up - because I feel that if I don't tell someone about Jamie I am leaving out a huge chunk of what this summer was like. At the same time I feel that if I bring it up too quickly or at the wrong time I'll be giving the wrong impression of the trip - that it was only dark and filled with grief. Of course the truth is that the trip was all of those things, the best and worst times of my life, filled with grief and joy all at the same time, depressing but also inspirational.
Miss you
Sometimes I'm forced awkwardly to reveal the story of Jamie Roberts. Once during my TEFL certification course I was asked in jest whether anyone hadn't made it the entire trip on the 4K. I didn't want to lie so I told them about Jamie, which as you can imagine elicited some seriously awkward apologies. Maybe Lipsitz felt like she was in a similar situation, having to give a quick and brief presentation about a summer that is possibly the most meaningful in her life in so many ways.
After the presentation, we met up with our 4K teammate Dan who at the time attended Kenyon University, about 30 miles away (he just graduated from Kenyon, so congratulations to him). The bastard Dan had the audacity to suggest that Lipsitz and I drive over to Kenyon, after I biked all the way from Chicago. Actually in retrospect that could have been cool, as I would have had a chance to visit Kenyon, but oh well.
If you don't pay attention to the fact that Lipsitz is obviously hunching over, I look almost as tall as she is...
I ate yet another giant burger, and we reminisced about the 4K, how crazy our team is, and more. I confess it's also a blur, but I remember feeling content and happy that I had managed to bike all the way to Denison from Chicago (with a quick shuttle in the middle). No matter that I had the entire ride back left...
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