bad judgement
Mark Twain said, “Good judgement is the result of experience, and experience the result of bad judgement.” Over the next several days we gained riding experience, usually at the cost of making mistakes. I learned how to prevent dehydration by getting dehydrated. Jerry learned how to avoid getting a sunburn on his lower back after getting blistered. Scott learned that moving his derailleur from the down tube to the seat tube enabled him to shift gears. I learned to keep my finger out of the way when I’m carving off a squeaky part of my tennis shoe, and to eat when I had the chance so I wouldn’t crash (metabolically, if not physically) later in the day.
One of the nicest places we camped on this trip was on the third or fourth day. It was a short distance off the road, and set on a small rise. The sunset was spectacular, and on this particular evening I could actually enjoy it because I wasn’t exhausted at the end of the day like I’d been after the first 2-3 days.
As I was writing in my journal, Jerry was gesticulating wildly as he read aloud from his Star Trek book, “I’m a DOCTOR, man, not a magician!”
Scott sighed, "It sure is a nice evening."
"What'd you say?" Jerry yelled back.
Scott replied, "It sure would be nice to have someone besides you riding with us."
We all just grinned at each other, happier than we’d been in four years.
We continued to gather experience as we lay in our tent that night, the lightning flashing and the thunder crashing all around us, our eyes wide and unblinking as one of us whispered between lightning strikes:
“Maybe pitching our tent on the only elevated ground for miles around next to something metal during a lightning storm wasn’t the best idea.”
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Looking forward to reading the rest of it!
Cheers,
LJ
2 years ago