North Carolina.

North Carolina is where the tribal visits that define the rest of the ride begin. Coming south from Raleigh toward Benson, Marissa spends a Thanksgiving at an Airbnb with people she had just met, then heads into a run of days built entirely around meeting the tribes along her route: the Coharie in Clinton, the Lumbee in Pembroke, and the Waccamaw Siouan near Lake Waccamaw.

Each stop has its own story. The Coharie, sometimes called the Driftwood Tribe, are named for the river they settled beside after being pushed out of the coast by warring tribes. They showed her a 600 year old dugout canoe pulled from that same river during a cleanup. The Lumbee, headquartered in Pembroke and numbering around 63,000 registered members, trace a different history: rather than being removed from their land, a number of smaller tribes in the area came together over time into one recognized nation, and now anchor a university, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, that started as a school for Native students. The Waccamaw Siouan, the smallest of the three at around 1,600 to 2,000 members, trace their name to a Catawba word connected to a falling star, and run a self funded daycare after state funding for it was pulled years ago. The ride to reach them was also, by her count, the longest single day of the trip so far, 46 miles.