With apologies to Robert Pirsig and the Chautauqua Institute
Destination
I broke camp at 5:30 in the morning, and went to the camp store to get a breakfast sandwich, some coffee, and to pay the 2nd half of my campsite tab. After some shenanigans at the desk because they didn’t have internet, I managed to get out of there. One note about KOA campgrounds – they will nickel and dime you to death. In addition to the two-night minimum (which isn’t universal in all KOAs), they’ll sell you about anything you want. I think the thing that struck me was that if you wanted to have a visitor, which they defined as anyone who entered the campground who wasn’t staying the night, it was $5 if they walked in, $8 if they drove in. They made certain to specify this included anyone who was just dropping stuff off.
The riding that day was glorious – exactly what I had hoped for. Bright and sunny, though a bit on the cool side. When I stopped to pick up my next wire, I threw on my only sweatshirt. It wasn’t cold, but merely uncomfortable, and Google told me I only had about 300 miles to go.
That 300 miles took me 12 hours.
That 12 hours included my wire pickup and lunch, but it still took far longer than I thought it would. Apparently, people in the Poconos and Berkshires don’t believe in speeding. As the sun started falling, it got unseasonably cold. I was in summer-weight riding gear, and the only warm thing I had was the aforementioned sweatshirt, which I was already wearing.
Of course, I managed to get slightly lost trying to find my parents’ place, too, which took me a few more minutes out of the way. By the time I pulled in the driveway at 8PM, I was shivering so hard I could hardly get off the bike. I found out later the temperature had dropped to 56 degrees.
The look on my mom’s face when she came into the kitchen and saw me leaning against the counter was worth it.
Though at that moment, I decided to take four days to get back rather than three. I’d had two really long days in a row, and I was feeling every bit of it.