The Half-faced Moon

May 11

In the morning when I arrived at the library Justin was waiting beneath a tree. He told me about his day before while we waited for the doors to the library to open at ten. Cars were gathering around with everyone relaxing in their car seats amid the cool morning air. When doors opened we went in and I worked a while on photographs, Justin looking through books or logging details into his journal.

We set off down the road again returning to the flowing uneven land and the swelling afternoon heat. What we had done the day before we did again, me going on ahead to Cleveland, GA where I began to scout for food, then hauling up a drastic hilltop library to read. A few hours had passed since I'd arrived in town when Justin bustled into the library with a slight look of shock draped over his face. He sat down “No I was not riding that long...” and went into his story.

While I had sat and read about the Hopis he had been riding, had taken a break at the crest of a hill and soon an ambulance rolled up top-lights twisting, followed by a police car caravan with all hubbub abounding. The whole procession had thought he'd been hit. He was in fact resting because he was feeling a little sick, so they went ahead and checked him out, giving the diagnosis: too little real foods plus heat-and-hills-on-a-bicycle disease (as christened by me) and then he was back on his way.

As I had rode those hills I had noticed a couple people sitting outside on the porch of a house. I'd passed by with a wave, but Justin had had the fortune to talk with them. Eventually after we departed and rode out from the town back into hills a red truck honked and pulled off into a parking lot beside us. We went on and saw it again later, pulled over on the side of the road stopped with a person leaning out the driving window. Two of the people he had met on that porch were inside and stopped us, both having wanted to see how far we'd got and how far we'd get before day's end. They introduced themselves to me as Lisa and Ed and told us they'd decided they'd be going into Dahlonega (duh-lawn-egg-uh) which we were also headed to. Mercifully and graciously they offered us the most welcome opportunity for a truck bed ride. Justin was beat and willing and I was a little confused and we accepted, all things coming together at once. We both hopped in, all things packed in around us, and westward-ho! we were, skipping out on miles of the up-down so tiresome on two wheels.

Trees and cars and distance flew by, us wind-in-face and all out content. As the slew of forest and hills slipped by I looked up into the fixed half-face moon, white against bright blue above. Everything went by so quick below the moon – seemingly monumental but in truth just a little cosmic body sitting utterly insignificant in the scope of all things beyond, and here it seemed to us as we sat in the back of that red truck that we ourselves were the point where all things came together, the historical path of every action in the universe converging here and now to get us a bit farther on under that insignificant moon.

The road went on and on and Lisa asked us if we wanted a ride a bit farther than Dahlonega. In fact if we wanted they'd be able to give us a ride into Ellijay. O mercy and grace! So the road went on a little more and suddenly we peaked a hill barren of trees and looked out on the expanse of hills behind and valleys ahead and the green carpet stretching out and rolling on like the vast ocean rippling up and weathering down through the span of the earth, the crest and trough of every age visible in its bending lines.

And at length and with great thanks we arrived in Ellijay at once feeding on the setting sun, impelled by the beauty of the town under the sun's orange gaze. We passed through it after Lisa and Ed had departed with biddings of bottomless gratitude and goodbyes. We meandered around its streets and stopped to peruse the intersecting Ellijay River as the sun reflected from its flowing surface.

After finding some food and packing it out (for eating after finding the spot for the tents) we headed into the hills for climbing. Night was coming and the woods lining every road was thick so I decided to change methods. Knocked on a door to a house in town where two tents were pitched in the yard and there wasn't an answer. So we went on. Two more homes tried and a number of vacant houses passed and no camp made. At the top of a hill on the right hand side I saw a van and a car in the drive way of a home, so I placed my bike at the foot of the driveway and went up to and rang its doorbell.

A man answered and stepped out asking, “What can I do for you?” I told him the general plans for the trip and he said he'd be happy to accommodate us with the side of his home proving a viable camping spot. We were both welcomed inside and we were introduced to his wife. We talked for a bit about our travels and they offered us cooling water as they told us a bit about theirs. His name was Jabez and hers was Susan. They had five cats walking the house, some of who had been taken on as strays and recuperated. Outside there was a rooster, who had come upon them a few weeks ago, battered and torn up when tornadoes ran through the area. He was at that time randomly dispensed on their home and they fed and took him also under their wing. During our talk they had offered us the opportunity to shower, and with our minds already befuddled from the day's surplus of kindness, we were taken completely aback.

We soon discovered also that they were more familiar with Alaska than either me or Justin as they had both traveled to Anchorage with a church group. Jabez showed us photographs he'd captured of the landscapes on a train ride through the invigorating wilderness, vats of ocean seeping away from land revealing the vein strewn mudflats beneath, mountains shrouded in a thick misty sky with white surrounding peaks and glaciers, elk and seal and wonders resplendent.

Just after showering, as I was going outside Jabez told me what he'd already told Justin. The way ahead on the road we had chosen was twenty miles uphill and would not be a wise path. This the way into the next town which was where he worked and he instead always took the road around as, at times, the road ahead was difficult even vehicles to maneuver. He then told me he'd already told Justin he could give us a ride into that town in the morning when he left for work. So we'd wake up with the caw of the rooster at five for coffee and departure.

The night closed with us setting up tents in their side-yard and eating our long awaited dinner. Night had fallen and each star above poked its little light through the dark canopy. With all of these things on my mind I set in my sleeping bag underneath my mesh tent roof and stared up into the sky. And that same moon, half-faced and insignificant stared back at me.

More pictures to view on my facebook.