Day Fifty-Eight: Amory - Jasper, AL

I woke up to the smell of sausage. How’s that for an intro? Well, actually, it was sausage, biscuits and gravy, fried eggs, and sliced tomatoes. Just enough to send my stomach into utter chaos for a day full of riding, but totally worth it. Jim and Alana showed us around their garden that morning, explaining the differences between butter beans and green beans, green beans and string beans, and so on. We visited with Harvey some more, and during the conversation, I found myself itching and scratching all over my legs and arms, and I looked down to see hundreds of tiny bites covering my body. Alana diagnosed me with chigger bites—and if you’ve never had them, you’re in luck. They’re smaller than mosquito bites, but they pack a punch; they can last for weeks or months, and scratching yields no relief—the itch only worsens. According to some, the chigger actually buries itself into the skin and remains there as long as possible. Others call this an old wives tale, but I wasn’t willing to risk it, so I laid on the ground and had Slater cover every last bite in clear nail polish, which apparently does the trick to suffocate the bug (or just relieve the itch, depending on if you believe the tale). Once that was all dealt with, we mustered up the strength to leave the house and ride on. Jim and Alana drove us down the highway to the section where it became a four-lane, rather than a two-lane, so that we would have a wider shoulder to ride on, and then we took our time saying goodbyes and promising to keep in contact. They told us they felt as if they were saying goodbye to their children, and that truly stuck with us.

We grabbed snacks at Piggly Wiggly and finally started riding, but the weather was miserable. Just like the days before, it was in the triple-digits, and the heat index was even higher. About 15 miles in, we took a break at a gas station, where we met an outgoing young woman named Pebble. She hates her name, she said, but we found it unique and suitable for a girl who was anything but ordinary. She was quick to open up to us, and shared a story that we wouldn’t forget: Pebble is a lesbian, and on top of that, she is in an interracial relationship—nothing new to us, but she explained, “Here in Alabama, it’s not easy being me.” Within seconds, she was brought to tears, and we were surprised at how willing she was to share her feelings. She was caught in a vicious circle, she said; wanting to leave, but being forced to stay due to her job, her family, and other factors, even though her small town surroundings made her feel like an outlier. We could feel her heaviness and sympathized for her immensely, and though we were at a loss for words to soothe her, we did have one piece of advice: move to Portland.

We talked about that conversation with Pebble for quite some time while we rolled away on our bikes and further down our route. We noticed it had gotten substantially hotter since we first took a break in the gas station, and within a few minutes we were both feeling as if we had vertigo: we were dizzy, loopy and all the rest. We stopped again and vowed not to continue riding until it cooled down. Just as we pulled up to a Pure gas station, a man in a lifted pickup pulled up alongside us and rolled down the window. We were wary at first, wondering if we should have kept our mace in a more convenient place, until he waved his arm out the window, dangling two frosty bottles of water. Aaaaaahhhhh. He chatted with us for a few minutes and wished us well, then drove off slowly, having done a good deed for the day. Inside we went to a crisp, air-conditioned store, where we shared an entire box of lemon crème cookies over mindless conversation. We became chummy with the store clerks, who got up close and personal with me to examine the chigger bites, and they warned us about the weather, which was turning sour.

When we walked outside and looked up at the sky, we knew we were screwed. The clouds were monstrous, pewter-grey, and prepared to dump. Not only would there be rain, but also the possibility of a tornado—but thanks to our new friends at the gas station, we found a ride to our stopping point. The store clerk’s boyfriend drove us to Jasper in his tattered pickup, and during the trip, we learned that he was quite the storm expert. He answered our questions about warning signs and cloud formations, and by the end of it, I’m not sure if we felt more comforted or paranoid, considering every day since then has involved asking each other, “Do you think that’s a tornado cloud?!” We rode to Jasper, AL in the truck with the windows down, rain spattering across our faces, and our driver was thrilled by the excitement of the store. He dropped us off at the Quality Inn, which sat atop a hill on the main strip of town, and it was one of the only buildings on the east side of the city that still had power. The only room available was a smoking room, but it was better than a tent in a tornado… so we took it.

We wrapped up the night by spending hours watching the storm, repeating, “WHOAH, did you see that one?!” over and over in reference to the lightning, and even FaceTimed our parents so that they could catch a glimpse of the craziness. We called Domino’s for delivery, which must have been the other building in town with power (there is a God!!!) and ate dinner near 11 p.m., then finally forced ourselves to fall into a peaceful food coma, and slept heavily in our musty, smoky room.