Riding my bike too much is making me dumb

Seriously. And even less coordinated than I was before.

Tuesday, 30 September: I was miserable and hating life all day. I made it to Maryland, and the hills got smaller, but the headwind got stronger and the shoulders virtually disappeared in the afternoon. I called and cried to Newscat, whose house I am headed toward, but she was unable to rescue me today. She promised to rescue me tomorrow, however, so I would not have to deal with actually riding into the city, so that lifted my mood considerably.

I headed to the next town and inquired about camping, since I was no longer concerned with making it to my intended ending point, which I was totally not going to reach anyway. Someone at the grocery store suggested an empty field that he doubted I would get rousted from. I didn't quite find it, but I found a smallish field or park looking area that I thought I might be able to hide in, although it was pretty close to a house, so I wasn't sure. Then I noticed the people from the house were eating in their backyard, so I (stupidly) wandered in and tried to explain myself. They were (rightly) freaked out by my presence, but they settled down after a few minutes, and even gave me some dinner. The woman remarked that she was reminded of how her mother used to feed hobos. I joked that I had been near a lot of train tracks on this trip. After dinner and some chatting, I started setting up my tent in their backyard just as some thunder rolled in. I finished and hopped inside just as the sky opened up and dumped. It was a pretty terrific storm, quite electrically active. At one point I heard a siren and thought it might be a tornado warning siren (or maybe hurricane?) but I am still on solid ground inside my tent, so I guess things will be okay.

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.

Here's to thunderstorms

Sunday, 28 September: Sleeping in, ice cream, oatmeal fudge bars, and red curry. Mmm.

The weather was occasionally very bad today, with much rain and some thunder, so I'm glad I was able to take the day off indoors. It's kinda funny-- if it hadn't been for a thunderstorm that passed over when I was in Hingham, MT, I wouldn't have met the touring cyclist I'm staying with right now, when he and his riding partners ducked into the bar for shelter. Because in Montana, the only thing that is always open in every small town is a bar...

From state/province nineteen back to number eleven

So tired.

Saturday, 26 September: Today I had a fairly uneventful ride through the drizzle, mist and sprinkles. New Jersey was fairly flat. Pennsylvania is pretty and hilly. There were several detours on my route as I neared Philly, and people were helpful in an extremely unhelpful way. I would ask a question about how far the road was blocked, because I wanted to return to that road, as it was the most direct route to where I was going. Instead of giving me a useful answer, people would ask me where I was going, like they were going to give me a whole new route or something. I couldn't even answer that question, because I was on my way to see another touring cyclist I met on the road, and I just had his address. I would be like "Um, Philadelphia..." because I didn't know the name of the neighborhood or anything.

I made it to his place before dark, and he took me out to Pat's in South Philly for a cheesesteak. I wish I had brought my camera. It is right across the street from Gino's, another famous old cheesesteak place, which has a ridiculous amount of neon on the premises. A game had just ended, so the sportsfans were out in full force, and the lines for sandwiches were long, although the business is quite efficient, so things moved quickly. It was fun being down there at the height of the mania.

When does the hurting stop?

Friday, 26 September: Today was rainy, as was last night. Every time I pack up my tent in the rain, it rains harder just as I'm starting to pack up, then slows down once I've shoved the whole sodden mess into the bag. Nature thinks it's hiLARious.

My Garmin spit out a route that probably would have worked fine, but I was all "Oh no, I can make a shorter route that has less hills!" I'm not sure I did either. I just made today worse, I think. Part of my proposed route was on a divided highway-- not my favorite to ride on, but they generally have big shoulders, and things go pretty quickly. Not so today. This was practically a freeway, and the shoulder came and went at random. I got off of that pretty quickly, and had to meander through the sprawling Jersey suburbs to get back on track. At least the roads are all labeled, and the drivers are much more careful with my life than NY drivers.

Hey MSN: next time could you work out all the bugs BEFORE you roll out a new product? And make sure it works with your OS and browser? I'm just sayin'.

$4 mocha. $3 tiny cup of fruit. $6 sandwich. $2 muffin. Paying for the whole shebang with a Starbucks gift card then scarfing like a pig while you drip all over their nice clean "café" and charge your phone: priceless.

A woman drove up next to me for a mobile chat, and offered to let me stay at her place, but it was only 3 PM, and I wanted to go a lot further today. I'm set on making it to Philly tomorrow, and I needed to reach a reasonable halfway point. Tomorrow I'm following Garmin's instructions to the letter.

I made it through the day by promising myself a motel stay tonight, to make up for all the rain. And there was no way I was going to camp in *that* tent. So for some reason I decided there would be hotels and motels in the direction I was headed, but that was dumb. When I got around to checking, the one I was headed for was not actually a hotel (thanks Garmin!) and I had to switch directions at 6 PM and head to the only other hotel I could even hope to reach. Night fell like an anvil on the way there, and my wet glasses made it impossible to see when there were headlights coming at me. Also, I broke my headlight. So I took off my glasses (and the rear-view mirror attached to them), put on my tiny headlamp, and rode (blind) to the hotel. I was getting pretty panicky, but I made it in one piece. Then, after getting literally soaked today, I got figuratively soaked by the hotel. Yeesh, is it pricey! And I called around-- nothing is cheap in this area of friggin' nowheresville New Jersey. Blurg. I guess that's the price I pay for poor planning. I don't even want to type how much it cost, but I will say it approaches the total amount of money I spent on camping for the previous 44 days. And no free breakfast! And a twin bed in a tiny room. Although the bathroom is big enough to pitch a tent in, so I did just that. And I'm on the third floor, so a porter had to help me carry my bike and stuff up the stairs, and I felt obligated to tip. But with all of the free camping and kind hospitality I've received lately, I have no right to bitch.

After spreading all my stuff out to dry and lubing my bike chain, I hopped in the tub for a soak. Then I realized I was totally wasting my time! One should always take full advantage of a tub one doesn't have to clean, especially when one has paid dearly for the privilege of using said tub, so I got out the weedwacker and went to work. Who's a lady? Me! (Do I have to leave a tip for the cleaning person, too?)

New York pushes, and I push back

Thursday, 25 September: It was kind of a tough ride today. There was no direct route through the part of Connecticut I was in to the bridge over the Hudson that I needed to cross in New York. I spent the morning working my way through a bunch of quiet, lovely, but ridiculously hilly roads in a wooded part of southwestern Connecticut to get to a main road. Once I got there, it was both a relief and a bummer.

It was interesting to note how much the courtesy afforded me by the other vehicles on the road plummeted once I had rolled across the border into New York. There was a fairly clear demarcation.

Once again, I underestimated the distance to my intended camping spot, as well as my stamina on the hills. And the hills themselves. I saw a good spot to stealth camp, but I hadn't filled up my water, because I thought there would be more, you know, anything other than residences on this side of the Hudson. I rolled on until I reached a town that pretty much had nothing in it but a bunch of houses and a really big library that was open until nine! I went in and inquired about camping, and the nice girls who worked there couldn't think of anywhere close I could go. Since they were young and hip, I got a bit more assertive-- NY drivers are rubbing off on me!-- and asked if I could camp at the library. They said it was fine to set up behind the library, since I was planning to leave well before it opens again tomorrow. I thanked them, filled up my water in the bathroom, and set up. I even discovered an outlet on the backside of the building, so I was able to charge up my phone, since there was no sun today. Yup, I stole power from a library where I was allowed to camp for free. Take that, New York!

Connecticut has a couple of hills

But so far, it's nothing like Rhode Island. And it doesn't even approach Wisconsin.

Wednesday, 24 September: Today was beautiful, and Allan rode with me for about thirty miles before heading back home. It was kinda nice riding with someone else, even though we weren't really chatting much or anything. We got to point out things we thought were funny or neat or wacky, and we made many jokes about the surfeit of Dunkin' Donuts.

Most of the time I had good shoulders, thanks to the Connecticut bicycle map and route planning assistance from Allan.

I continued westward into a part of Connecticut that has no legit camping options, but does have a large greenbelt area near some power lines, perfect for a little stealth camping. I slipped down into the trees and waited until it was almost dark to set up my tent. Here's hoping I don't get caught, or trampled by that deer I just saw.

There's an odd noise that sounds a bit like a drum circle, so there may be hippies in these woods, but I'm guessing I have more to fear from raccoons than from hippies. Although, with their opposable thumbs, hippies do have a better chance of getting my food out of that tree. But they'll be giggling the whole time, so I'll totally hear them.