A long day of two pretty distinct parts. I spent all the morning and the early part of the afternoon trying to escape the clutches of Raleigh, a big and fast growing metropolitan area that I thought I had left more then once. Then, from early afternoon until I entered Virginia, my fifth state of this trip, the cycling was a most enjoyable experience along empty country roads that wound and gently undulated their way to the Roanoke River Valley, just over the state line. My final destination, Bracey, is a nothing sort of place. It’s the first junction up Interstate 95 from North Carolina, but the small road that it sits on seems inconsequential and the whole place is quiet. There are a couple of motels and gas stations, but only a fraction of the usual gaggle of tall signs, truck stops, fast food and so on. It’s quite a backwater.
Downtown Raleigh was easily reached from last night’s stop, and it turned out to be rather pleasing. I had forgotten that this is also the state capital of North Carolina, and the Capitol building sits proudly to the north side of the main downtown area, surrounded by a park with statues of presidents who came from these parts (James Knox Polk, 1845-49, who “enlarged the nation’s boundaries”, Andrew Jackson, 1829-37, who “revitalised American democracy”, and Andrew Johnson, 1865-69, who “defended the constitution”). Given current political events and the upheaval that tarriffs were having on world stock markets at the very moment I was there, one wondered what words might appear by statues of today’s president – should there ever be any – in years to come.
Despite the chaos being reported on the TV, things out in the real world of peoples daily lives looked quite normal. I stopped for tea and a cinnamon roll at a bakery, and then pushed on, knowing I had a long day still to tackle. The weather, once again, was pretty much perfect, and I thought everything was going well until I checked the map. I can’t blame anyone but myself, but I must have turned right when I should have turned left. Anyway, I managed to add on quite a few extra miles that I could have done without. It did give me the chance to use a fine looking bike trail up a pretty valley until, after a couple of miles, it turned into an unfinished construction zone and the trail turned to deep sand. My on the spot reroute required me to drag my bike across the grassy central median of a large divided Highway, but I got away with it.
It felt like wherever I went for the next couple of hours I was surrounded by recently built homes or large building sites for more. It was all around. Presumably there is demand for these suburban homes. They looked quite nice on the whole. It will add a lot more traffic on already quite busy roads, if this morning’s experience was anything to go by. But development seems to know no bounds here, and there is so much available land that they just keep on clearing trees and building.
Conscious of time and distance and the work still required of me to reach Bracey in daylight, I restricted my stops hereafter to a Publix supermarket, whose layout and freshly edible wares I have come to know quite well, and a couple of gas stations for drinks and ice cream. The rest of the time I basically just cycled. And just when I thought that every road would be busy like this all day, it all suddenly changed.
I took a side road out of the Main Street of a small town and found myself on the quietest of roads that basically stayed that way until I reached Virginia. I’m not sure why the transformation was so sudden and complete; but I was ready for it. The last forty miles or so were a delight. I passed a Cowboy Church, and a large lady who was trying to fasten her wheelie bin to the tow bar of her pickup truck. Otherwise things were unremarkable, in a good way. The blossom and flowers I had been enjoying these past days were still much in evidence. I even managed not to get lost again.
I reached Bracey around sunset. The state boundary on my small road was at a place that offered no obvious geographical barrier, unlike the broad Roanoke River that I crossed twenty minutes later. That is a much more obvious geographical dividing line. Who knows what they were thinking.
And so I have moved to within three days cycling of the nation’s capital, and the way things are going there may be no one left in a government job when I arrive. These are bizarre times indeed, especially here in this country. Today I passed a couple of very frayed and tattered US flags flying outside people’s homes, which is unusual in this patriotic land where the flag is such a potent symbol. You can’t help wondering whether it is a metaphor of some kind. Of course the flags can be replaced for newer, better ones. We live in hope.
I think the answer to your state boundary question is that someone just wanted to draw a straight line. The northern border of NC is the straightest of straight lines and therefore makes no sense at all geographically.