Dreaming of Bike and Build

In my dream this morning, we drove Danny (our van) around a colorful mountaintop village, and then walked around its hilly streets to find a good place to eat for dinner. There were lots of colors: yellow, blue, red, green, pink, azure. The girls were wearing dresses, the way we did when we were sick of spandex and athletic clothing.

And then I woke up to find myself in my own bed in Chicago, which was almost as dreamlike as my dream. What is reality now, Bike and Build, or that I'm graduated and searching for a job?

I miss always being with 31 people already: how we take over restaurants, bike shops, roads. We all sleep together in a confusing pile of thermarests and random objects taken out of the bags we lived out of for the entire summer. I miss it, even though I'd wake up at nights with my entire legs stiff from lack of potassium.

However, life goes on. I got to sleep for 10 solid hours without being disturbed, and soon my bike will be here, and I will be able to ride once again on the Lakefront Path. I wonder if it'll feel paltry compared to the mountain passes I have done, but I have a feeling it won't. It's the path I began to ride on, and it's my home. And there's always the skyline.

It was really quite amazing to see the patchwork corn and soy fields along the MidWest from the airplane after having crossed through them on bike. And then to see the concentrations of towns grow larger until there was finally the recognizable Sears Tower amidst the gleaming towers of Chicago. I think it's true what Red said of Chicago, that it lacks a certain sense of intimate scale, especially as compared to Seattle for instance, or Paris. I guess I like the fact that Chicago isn't so perfectly designed though. There's something organic and unintentional in the way it has grown.