Philly should drop the P

Monday, 29 September: Ugh. This morning, after no warm-up time, I had a miserable, painful, pathetically slow ride out of Philly. Once I got a little ways out of the city, the hills got a bit more mellow, but then the headwind picked up, so it wasn't much better. After a phone call to the birthday girl, (I heart you!) I felt cheered up and a bit energized for a while, and traffic got lighter, and people got friendlier. But then the hills got worse again and I barely made it to my destination before dark. The guy working at the campground was super grumpy, and didn't explain things to me very well. He was like "do you need to go to the bathroom?" and I was all "well, not just now..." It turns out that what he meant to say was "there is a primitive camping area that has no bathrooms and is closer than the other camping area and probably much much cheaper." But I figured that out way too late. I think I showed up during the calling of the lotto numbers, so he was planning to hold me responsible if he had won, but didn't realize it. Cuz you can only get those numbers from the TV, not from tomorrow's paper...

It turned out to be all for the best, as their showers were fantastic, and I had a good time hanging out by the fire for a couple of hours with my camp neighbor-- I'm not kidding-- Cletus, originally from West Virginia. I know this is a super left coasty thing to say, but I never thought I would meet an actual flesh-and-blood person named Cletus. He was not a slack-jawed yokel; he was a very nice guy who gave me a burger, some beer and some good conversation.