With apologies to Robert Pirsig and the Chautauqua Institute
Debilitation
The campground I stayed in last night turned out to be a disaster. If you happen across Oakland Valley Campground in Cuddebackville, NY, and plan to get a night’s sleep, forget about it. The campground swears it has quiet hours from 10PM to 6AM, and then proceeds to violate them by having karaoke at the camp store until midnight. They also don’t enforce them with the campers. Adding insult to injury was the group who pulled into my campsite with their high beams shining on my tent at 11:30PM, demanding to know who was camping there. They had mis-read the campsite numbers and assumed my site was the one they had booked. They then proceeded to set up in the campsite next door and talk loudly until 2AM. I don’t think I slept more than an hour or two, tops. I finally gave up at 6AM and got up. I showered, broke camp, and got out of there as fast as I could. I snagged some fuel at the local gas station and went to find coffee and breakfast, which I did just across the border in Matamoras, PA at a joint called Stewie’s, which was packed with locals. I sat outside and had an omelet the size of my thigh with two slices of wheat toast and home fries, all for $10. If you’re in northern PA, I highly recommend Stewie’s.
The rest of today was without much fanfare. I rode. I stopped to eat. I booked a campsite. I rode some more. I found my campground and set up camp. I went to dinner. Now I’m here writing. This is how it should be.
A quick note on tonight’s campground, the Greenville Farm Family Campground in Haymarket, VA. It’s super quiet here tonight, mainly because it’s mostly empty. The front half of the property is a working farm. At the entry is corn as high as an elephant’s eye. As you pull into the campground area, there are cows at the feed trough. I stopped and patted a couple on the head on the way by. The owner assured me that if things got noisy to just call her, and she’d come take care of it right away. All this for the same price as Oakland Valley, where I got no sleep. I guess tonight we’ll discover if they stand by the quiet.
Realization
The campground was as quiet as advertised. I slept like the dead with the aid of some melatonin and Nyquil. (I wasn’t leaving anything to chance.) I also didn’t set an alarm, as I’ve been waking up between 5:30 and 6:30AM every morning on my own as the sunrise shone into my tent, or just out of sheer frustration in one case. I didn’t consider that last night’s campsite was heavily wooded, so sunrise didn’t wake me up. Nothing really woke me up. I awoke on my own at 8:30AM.
This sets a different tenor for the day. At first, I was concerned that I wasn’t going to make many miles today. Then I decided it didn’t matter. I was already far further along than I was on the northbound leg. If today was a short day, then tomorrow, the final day, would be a little longer. Since there’s no need to find shelter at the end of the day, I can ride a little longer. I just looked at Google Maps as I write this, and apparently, I put in just about the normal 300 miles today as I have just over 300 miles to cover tomorrow.
Letting go of the need to make a lot of miles was very relaxing. I showered, broke camp, and searched out breakfast. By the time I truly was on the road, it was after 10AM. On the other side of that, I ate a large breakfast late, so lunch, if it happened at all, would be light and brief.
A quick note on the showers – did you ever seen in old movies where there’s a chain hanging from the ceiling that you pull to get water for your shower? Well, that was the system that the Greenville Farm Family Campground had in the bath house. I’d never seen one like it. Not great from the guest perspective, but I got a hot shower and they saved some water.
It turned out that today’s route had a lot of long stretches of road with high speed limits, so I moved along quickly anyway. Around 2:30PM, I started calling campgrounds to find shelter for the night. I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the campground where I’ve landed tonight, Beechnut Family Campground in Mount Airy, NC.
“Hey, I was wondering if you have any availability for tonight?”
“How big’s your rig?”
“I’m in a tent. All I need is a flat place and preferably some power.”
“Just one night? You just passing through?”
“Yeah, I’m on a long motorcycle trip and just need a place for the night. It’s just me. No kids, no pets.”
“You know this is a family-focused campground, right? That means no drugs or alcohol are allowed on premises.”
“That’s fine. I bet it’s real quiet at night, too.”
Guess they had concerns about a lone biker just passing through. But they booked me a tent site. Great thing is that I’m the only tent camper tonight, and all the tent sites are in one long row away from everyone else. I have fourteen tent sites to myself, and I’m an easy 200 yards from the nearest other camper. I walked the property, and it’s beautiful – lots of green grassy hills surrounded by mountains. There are a couple ponds on site, too.
The only fly in the ointment today was that the bike seems to be developing a problem. I noticed yesterday afternoon that it sounded slightly different at low revs and on acceleration. Nothing crazy, but after spending as much time as I have on this motorcycle, it was noticeable to me. Over time today, it’s proceeded to get worse. It doesn’t seem to affect the performance of the bike, but I don’t like it. It seems like I have a misfire at low revs. It’s not consistent, and it’s weirdly specific to a short rev range. It also seems to be worse until the bike warms up. Hoping it doesn’t turn out to be a real problem on the way home tomorrow.