Day 10

Tuesday, August 3rd: Nowhere again! More rest!

Back into Wellsville town, I spend much of the day hanging out in the library again. Read a 300 page novel from Orson Scott Card's "Empire" series - it's delightful to spend some time reading so much again - very reminescent of the family summer vacations I grew up with where my brother and I would grouchily emerge from the couch of the van, putting aside our books, once we had  reached our destination.

In the evening there is a National Breastfeeding Week family event on the lawn, little people hulla-hooping and running about, when an adult brings out a box of sidewalk chalk the excitement really begins. There is a two-person band playing that I find to be one of the most frustrating types of muscial sets: they spend 3-4 minutes re-tuning their guitar and bass between EVERY song, thereby lengthening their 45 minutes of actual music into a two hour set? Grrr.

I sit on the library steps during all of this and eat a bag of pre-washed salad greens by the fistful, squirting little dabs of dressing onto the clumps of spinach. I forgot my cook-bag back at the tent - whoops! While sitting there I witnessed a sad example of busy-body parenting:

Mother sitting on bottom stair, 2 year-old daughter exploring around, climbing-crawling up three steps higher than her mother:

"Caitlyn, No!
Get down here right now!"

Child looks at mother, perplexed. Caitlyn beings to climb stairs again, holding onto the railing.

"Caitlyn, don't you DARE! Get down here this instant!"

Caitlyn hops down off the dangerous, 12 inch tall precipice.

Mother to other adults nearby: "I ain't havin' her crack her head open 'n takin' her to Jones where they dunno nuthin'."

-&-

The Bleu Cheese dressing I had tonight on my fistfuls of salad was: Soybean Oil, Water, Cheese [!!], Corn Syrup, Xanthan Gum, Flavorings. Looking around at this Nat'l Breastfeeding Week children's festival I see folks and families of all different sizes, with the median definitely falling towards the large side of the spectrum. Our culture really has lost any valuation-perspective of what nourishing food is.

Wheat, soybean oil, corn, dairy, meats. The "five flavours" of Americana - hell, the dairy and meat are just digested corn & soy. I see this all the more vividly that I am traveling and out of my comfortable sphere of knowing where in town I can find Whole, Nourishing foods.

I ride back out to my tent site beyond the lake, tonight passing by their is a migratory flock of geese who are sharing the waters with me, muttering and honking throughout the night. As I am hiding away my bike a Great Blue Heron unfolds itself from the marshy shore and flies off. When I unzip the rain fly over the tent door a big toad hops out!

What I look up at each night while I sleep (or while it rains outside and I become idly bored!)

Self portraits are good once you've exhausted photos of the tent.