… is not to arrive. Anything can happen. – N. Peart
And I assure you, it did. What an incredibly fun ride.
4 bridge closures in my way… all after #5… well, #1… the one in Minneapolis. I had just flown over it a few hours before. After that, 3 in Utah and one in… PA? WV? Not sure exactly, but it was blocking I-70. I crossed that stateline back and forth a couple times.
Oddly, told Garmin fastest route, and the fastest route happened to be Interesting. I 67? 79? I’ll have to dig it up, but from Eastern Ohio on was high speed, full lean, fast running all the way down through the western appalachia. Fun :=) Then from Frsotburg, MD, it routed me down WV 28 to pick up 50… Nice 🙂 Yep, I just said it: Garmin got that one -right-. I’m not saying I would or wouldn’t have gotten there any faster any other way… it was just a beautiful ride hands down.
Yesterday… Well, I left North Platt, NB in Mountain Time at 7:22 am (9:22 Eastern), drove for 17 hours and 6 minutes, and arrived in London, Ohio at in Eastern time at 2:28 am, 1022 miles on the gps. 59.76 mph average speed :=) No signed reciepts and all that stuff, so I’m s.o.l. on the plate, but so what 🙂
Only one more oops… another right side drop. Yep, trying to get another picture of the bike. Yep, got some help. Yep, I was embarassed, but no damage done. 5 whole mph. The ground on the sides of the welcome signs at zion? The unpaved part? May look like dirt, but I plowed an 8 inch deep furrow with the front tire. Be warned.
And I noticed one of the warnings signs of a culture that cannot save itself from extinction… in Rocky Mountain National Park, I was driving out the NE towards Estes Park… there’s a long straight stretch. There was a rock laying in the middle of the road, traffic was reasonably light, and just ducking around it. It was a good sized rock, maybe 8-9″ across two dimensions, and 6″ or so in the third… and there was plenty of room on the right. Watched a couple bikes ride by it. Huge area to pull over though… I pulled over and picked it up, and moved it to the side of the road and off the path of traffic. So I get back on the bike, and I see a ranger/scientist type over in the meadows just down the road… other cars driving by… I hae to ask myself… how long had that been there? It was a pretty gentle slope. Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? How many drove by without stopping for 2 seconds to remove that hazard? They just drove around it and kept going. Intelligent mammals remove hazards to the community/pack. We don’t.
Well, I could go on, but for the moment, the bike is unpacked, I think… no, I -know- I need a shower… and some pictures will have to come fairly soon I suppose :=)
Best,
Mark
