Meeting new people along the Parkway to get new and same perspectives.

Spending time in the mountains  with plenty of solitude makes you appreciate coming back down to civilization. My definition of civilization may be very different to others in the sense that what I look forward to is having a meaningful conversation with someone. At times that is not going to be available and the danger of coming back from solitude is that because of lack of choice, the solitude is better than the interaction. At mile 231 my chain broke and as I was struggling to get it fixed this fellow cyclist ( not a fellow cycle tourist) decide to stop by and make sure I was okay; at least this is what I assumed. Well, he immediately decide it to tell me that my circumstances were beyond my mechanical abilities and so this statement took away two of the three chances people normally get with me. As I could feel the heat coming out of my body not only from the hot mountain sun but also my challenging circumstances: I knew the TNT was about to ignite. I asked him if he knew a bicycle shop close by and he gave me a guessing stipulation which made me beyond upset. I asked him to leave because he was irresponsible for giving someone directions 12 miles down the mountain with out confirmation that a bicycle shop existed.  My question is how can one human being have such a irresponsibility towards another human being a a bicyclist to boot, to be willing to act in such an irresponsible manner. This is one of the situations as to why I like to tour along. I have had many of my hosts from warm showers ask me how I can possibly be happy cycle touring along. Well, I hope the question is answer with this blog entry. In truth, I feel more vulnerable to the circumstances and the environment that surrounds me being along. It also makes me feel more in powered to control what I think are the greatest adds to overcome my adversities. Coming down the mountains is always easier than claiming up but the reward is not always on the bottom. To get to the top is always challenging, but it is a lot easier to get use to being on top.