A Monadnock

Sugarloaf Mountain is a Monadnock: a hill or knob that rises up abruptly from an almost level surrounding plain, that plain sometimes being described as "flat as a pancake."

The mountain is always there, peeking out between trees, coming up suddenly behind a barn or appearing all at once at the crest of a hill as we ride familiar roads around Poolesville, Maryland. Today, Jose and I had to agree, the mountain has lost some of its mystique as our climbing skills have increased and the weight of our bikes has decreased (the latter thanks to our good friend carbon).

People are mountains, with families stretching gracefully across the broad plains of ordinary life. We are children of parents and then parents of children and yet always children ourselves, pulling each other up and over the summit into tomorrow.

Here are the peach pickers, friends are mountains.