Saturday, April 2, 2011

Gonga’s Spring Break


It was spring break, and Gonga had absolutely nothing to do. No work. No school. No friends to hang out with. No-where fun to go. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Any other week of the year, and Gonga had plenty of friends. But this week they had all decided to abandon him. Bye. See you later. I’ll bring a T-shirt back for you.

Oh yes, they were friendly. But remote. No one offered to let him tag along on their crazy adventures to Pensacola, or Denver, or Boston, or Europe…

So here he was, stuck in Columbia, Missouri. Good ol’ CoMo.

He spent the first morning buried in the library, pouring over old vacation magazines, and pulling down every picture atlas he could find. He even read half a dozen travel guides to various destinations both in and outside the U.S. By the end of the day he had enough travel ideas and plans to fill an entire month. But still nothing to do the next six days of break.

The second morning he decided that he had his fill of just sitting around Columbia.

So he rented a bicycle at Walt’s Bike Shop and struck out on the MKT trail. By mid-morning, he had reach the KT trail proper and was riding along the Missouri river.

It was peaceful. Wind in his face, and no one else around for miles. In the afternoon, he began passing small knots of people walking on the trail, enjoying an evening outdoors.

Gonga stopped for water at several towns along the way. It was getting dark when he suddenly realized that he would need a place to spend the night. He kept riding for a few minutes, wondering if there were any more towns this direction. Then a solution popped into sight. The looming shape on the horizon which Gonga had subconsciously identified as a cloud turned out to be a bridge.

He spent the night under the bridge, tucked up in the tightest crack he could find, with his arms wrapped around his bike.

The next three days were sheer bliss. Gonga rode all day long, stopping for water frequently and bartering odd jobs for dinner in the various town scattered along the trail.

It wasn’t till the morning of the last day of spring break that Gonga suddenly realized he had failed to account for something. How was he going to get home?

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