Joel Perlish; USA/MEXICO/CANADA DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY & THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY -- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008 by Joel Perlish
July 1, 2008 - Tuesday - Day 1
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - 277 - Total Miles - 277
10:15am-5:15pm - 7 hours
Cherry Hill, NJ to Charlottesville,VA
(-staying at Mike Shane's home -)
(NJ-DE-DC-VA)
-FIRST BIKING DAY - WONDERFUL SENDOFF - GREAT FIRST DAY
-- A trip, like life itself, has its beginnings and endings, its middle parts, it's ecstasies and agonies, its responsibilities, and its rewards. --
Awake a little early, I lay there considering what was ahead. Filled with excitement for the around-the-block journey ahead, my mind was filled with all the last minute details and wondering if preparation was complete. A number of folks on the journal list had replied about the “What To Bring List”. About three folks caught that I hadn't put 'passport' there. I had it just neglected to put it on the list… and friend Ivan wrote: You can never travel without a small roll of duct tape. Take the cardboard center out and the roll becomes more compact. Never leave home without it. Also I did not see a large heavy duty (3 mil) trash bag or two for laundry, wet stuff, etc.
He is sure right about all that. Again, had all that stuff, but didn't write it on the listing. The other major thing - in fact, The Most Important Item for such a list was safely packed but neglected to write on the list - and that was a small roll of toilet paper!!! Anyway, all these things and many others were roiling through my head, but with the day pressing onward, had to get moving. One can't keep thinking of all the little things at the last minute… it's at this time that everything from before has to count. All the preparation, all the forward thinking, has to approach that center point of…. Being Ready.
Had shaved last night, so that obligation was out of the way. Then there was what COULD have been a major setback. Amongst all the pockets and bags I couldn't find my set of contact lenses. I was relatively calm, but I could feel my blood pressure rising at this little stupid and unnecessary problem. (I ought to count how many pockets there are in my gear! Probably more than 50!!)
After a half hour - at least I got to go through the bags again familiarizing myself with where everything was - I found them in a bag I had especially set aside for contact lens stuff. Ugh! By-the-way, for most all things, including the contacts, I have spares.
Ellie and I ran and bicycled, then went over to the local ShopRite for the bagel tray and fruit tray that were ordered yesterday. When back I showered and got went down and began packing a few of the bags into and onto the motorcycle. (Which, by-the-way, is a 1600cc Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad.) My sis, Lil, and friend (and apprentice) Tom came from Pennsylvania for the send off, and it was sure good seeing them. Other folks came shortly, Jim from next door, and other of Ellie's neighbors. There were about seven in all, and they seemed to enjoy the food and conversation. Tom took pictures.
I enjoyed that little send-off, and was appreciative of the folks there. I tried to stand outside myself, and catch that little blur of time, to hold it, and to remember it. With the building excitement, that was difficult to do…
As planned, at ten, we all went out to the driveway and first we had the big mock sendoff. (The one for the cameras - and I tooled around the block and came back for the card in Tom's camera so I could have the images, and for the video camera.) THEN, with my heart pounding, my sister tearing up, and folks waving, I really DID leave, and headed for the big highway, I-295 south.
I never have a problem with that road, and didn't today for a few score miles….. and it was glorious cool-air tooling along….. UNTIL hitting Baltimore area. There, I found out later - MUCH later after sitting in what must have been a 10-mile line of cars - two huge 18-wheelers had overturned - stopping traffic on both sides of the super slab. Hmmm… there had been some discussion at the send-off about whether I would be ever slinking down the shoulder of a highway. I've done that before on other trips in backups… But this morning I waited with the same growing impatience of the other drivers in the morning heat. And waited. And trickled along occasionally. And waited more.
At one point I was JUST ABOUT to take that shoulder, and I looked into the rearview for clearance, and there, not 10 feet behind me, rolling up the shoulder was a police cruiser. I decided not to do it….. WHEW! So I waited more. At one point a really impatient lady in an old little car surprised me and whipped past on my left on the shoulder narrowly missing the waiting cars - and me - by little more than a few inches. The driver behind me rolled up to the right, and said to me, “You should have given her a piece of your mind.” And I replied with a smile, “Yeah, but I always try to think charitable thoughts - like maybe she was about to give birth and had to get to the hospital….” We both laughed.
I didn't think charitable thoughts as a guy in front of me threw a candy bar wrapper out the window. My initial thought was to pick it up and hand it to him and say something like, “Oh, you dropped this…” But just in case he was a nut job with a gun on the seat beside him, I thought better of it. After about half an hour of this snailing along under the blue sky, a couple from Ohio on a Honda Goldwing (a high end touring motorcycle) came sailing down that shoulder and popped into the waiting line - which now stretched miles and endless miles in front and back of me. They were both wearing half helmets - and both had the mainly funny (and profane) stickers that many motorcyclists affix to helmets. I got some chuckles. She was blond and smiley and was enjoying the ride, I could tell. They were heading back to Ohio they said.
After a bit I decided to go for the shoulder and the Goldwing followed as I led the way. We putted along for miles and miles past the sitting cars and what seemed like football field length mastodon trucks.
Eventually we rolled past the cause of the monster backup - it appeared that two of the monster trucks had overturned on the highway, and lay there like old dinosaurs flopped out on the earth.
From there it was smooth sailing. And I tailed mostly behind my Goldwing friends as the breezes cooled and comforted.
Hit the 100-mile mark at 1:45pm. And stopped for lunch at 130 miles.
North of C
One of my mistakes this first day was not putting water where I could reach it - or filling up the camelbak bladder in my front bag so I could just suck from the tube while riding. I got pretty thirsty. This was corrected at the Subway lunch stop. I filled that bladder from the soda machine water and ice machine. For the rest of the day I was able to drink at will and happily. At the Subway I was very happy trying my Verizon plug-in to get on line for the first time. I had hoped to Skype with Ellie or Tom but neither was on-line when I was. I answered a few emails and deleted the spam. I disappointedly kept getting bounced off, but was on enough to get things done.
Got gas and then got back on the highway.
It was smooth sailing today as the Nomad crossed over it's 1000th mile at some point mid-day. There were a few dark clouds - huge and high and black - but not very threatening in their small percentage of azure sky with the many white nimbus giants around them. Had my first view of the Appalachians just north of Charlottesville - the mountains were rimming wonderfully and inspiringly across the horizon.
A few times after lunch, a weariness came over me. A little of that nodding one does when in a car for too long. One has much less chance to recover from that on a motorcycle than in an automobile, of course, and it didn't last long. Must have been the blood sugar, or the earlier thirstiness I'm guessing. I am smart enough to pull off the highway when that happens, and was about to, when I had a resurgence of energy.
Finally got to Mike Shane's place after a little tour lost in the surrounding little streets. The GPS was only somewhat helpful - once sending me down a dead-end. But arrived around 5:15pm and it was good seeing him, and even again seeing his dog and pal, Moochie the little friendly schnauzer. After a little decompression from the road, we unpacked and went into the little townhouse. (I remember from one of my bicycle trips though the Appalachians in the mid 1980's - after a torturously fun day of mountain after mountain for about 60 miles - I came into a little campsite, rolled off the bike, and was going to begin immediately set up my tent. But a wise man there saw the exhausted state I was in - and how the road was still pumping under my legs…. and he advised me with something like, “Son, you have to just rest bit, and let your spirit catch up to your body.” It was good advice and I have tried to follow it.)
Mike, friendly smile smacked on a whitely bewhiskered face, shares the cute little place with Nell. Nell's sister arrived shortly and began making dinner - those huge mushroom caps and a few other things. Shirley is slim, shorthaired and cute. She lives in what sounds like a Waldron-ish place in the woods - grows much of her own food and is heavily involved in worldly helpful projects - even on a global scale. She has sparkly eyes with simmering intelligence behind each one. Nell, who has a PhD in chemistry is also a masseuse. I can't tell how her chemist abilities are, but I hope to find out tomorrow about her masseuse skills. She has a grand smile and kindly ways. She and Mike will be moving to her place in a matter of weeks, and they both allowed that they better get cracking on the moving out of here process really soon.
Mike and I chatted a bit. He mentioned how good it was to see me again. We had been neighbors back in Havertown for a bit. He mentioned some health and other problems he had been having lately, and said it would do him a world of good if I stayed an extra day, and not just leave early in the morning as planned. I asked if he thought it would REALLY do him a 'world of good'. He said it would, so I contacted the next day's folks, changed things around, and decided to stay. (Ironically, it was Tom, his son, who also helped in that decision. Tom and I had been chatting before I left, and he was saying how great it was to be just off and traveling with no deadlines or the such. And I said I did have some deadlines of people to meet and so on. And he said how it shouldn't be that way. And I got to thinking about how right he was!! Odd how I'm his mentor in photography and a few other ways, but I get to learn so much from him!)
My eyes were drooping. And I could feel my end-of-a-travel day tiredness creeping in…
The back bedroom where I was tucked into my sleeping bag shell on a mattress was as comfy as all get out. A forest of trees looked into the room through huge windows. I answered a few emails and began to write these journal notes. And I tried mightily, but sleep overcame me. My eyes drifted shut several times, and finally, with a smile on my face, I fell into a deep, seemingly dreamless, peaceful, and restful slumbering.
