Pedal of Freedom, the Legacy Resurfaces.

I was the only person sitting in the front row of the class. The teacher had decided to have me start off the rounds of introducing yourself to everyone. As I explaining that my cousin was behind me and my niece was in the far corner of the room, I saw a face that I recognized; where could I have recognized this face from?

As the person by person explained who they were and why they were here, I kept looking over at the person, who is she? and then it came time for here to explain who she was. Her name did not ring any bells, which was odd because it was a unique name for someone from Maine. But then she said 'I work at China ___, I have worked there for four and a half years now.'

I was instantly through into memories from years ago.

The day before Mother's Day 2006 I took my bicycle and I rode it for 22 miles to the tourist attraction and I bought my mother two truffles from the best chocolate shop I have ever been to. I had made the trip to signify the end of my first relationship, but the story told to most is that I rode down to get my mother the perfect Mother's Day gift.

The Wednesday of the following week I talked my good friend, Thayne, into riding the trip with me. And that weekend we made the journey. My friend was making money at his first job and he had nothing that it needed to go for, so he would always buy tons of stuff and take me out for food.

The 22 mile bike ride called for a large amount of food, so we started to search for the best place to eat. After walking the whole of down town and finding nowhere that really struck us as the perfect place we went up on final street. Not far from where we stationed our bikes was a small Chinese restaurant. We sat down and eat, and my friend fell into a deep lust over the beautiful blond waitress. At the end of the dinner he wrote his number on a napkin and we left.

That next Wednesday we talked another friend into making the journey with us. It was the most exhilaratingly thing that we had done since the end of our Cross Country season. We talked up the journey that we had it all planned before we got on our bikes. Thayne had found out that a rode near his place of work cut out most of the worst hills on the way to the town.

It was a wonderful rode, with trees and fields of grass with horses. There was a stone house that looked like it was straight out of a fantasy book. We rode and rode, after we got to the town we decided to find a mountain to climb.

When we got back to the town it was time to eat. We entered the Chinese restaurant, there was a different waitress this time, this time I lusted over the waitress. What heaven had we found? This time I discussed the adventure that we had gone on, she told me that she no longer rode he bike around, it was too dangerous. She said that she had almost been hit on a one way street by a tourist going the wrong way. After the meal, I left my number on a napkin. I could not let Thayne show me up, and I was on the greatest adventure I had yet been on.

After the class, I made my way to her and said. 'I knew I recognized you, you waited on me once.'
she replayed 'yeah you looked familiar, I saw you walking in from the parking lot.'
'Huh, well three years ago my friend and I rode our bikes down to ___ and we eat at your restaurant.'
'Oh, that was you. I do remember you.'
'Yeah, you were the waitress that doesn't bike ride because of getting hit on a one way street.'
'Almost getting hit, yeah that was on State Street. You have a good memory.'

It was wonderful to see someone that only knew my from that one small adventure so many years ago. I could almost feel the burning pain in my legs, I could almost taste the Chinese food, and I could here her faint laughs echoing from the memories of three years ago.

-NK