September 30

I left the campground at 9:00, and rode for half an hour in the cool morning on backroads Pennsylvania. Deer season opened recently. Pennsylvania must be crowded with deer. I heard a shot at least every thirty seconds in the woods where hunting is allowed. Or maybe the hunters are shooting at each other. I was
glad to be wearing my orange polo shirt.

I stopped at a crossroads to check my map, have a drink of gatorade, and eat a bag of trail mix for breakfast. There was a ten acre field on the corner where I had parked the bike, fenced with two strands of wire, unbarbed, and the fence was very close to the road. About fifteen head of cattle were grazing in the field, and 0ne, which I thought might be a young bull because he had a ring in his nose, came up to the fence to investigate me. He was soon joined by all rest, several of which also had rings in their noses, and I didn't see any bullish behavior so I relaxed, a little. They put their noses within a foot of the fence, but wouldn't touch it. It could have been an electric fence, but I doubt it. An electric fence for a field that size would be expensive to operate and maintain.

A couple of pickup trucks and an SUV came by, their drivers taking an interest in our little gathering. It might have seemed I was preaching to the cattle, or trying to lure them over the fence with my trail mix. Finished with my breakfast, I rode on.

I rode on hilly back roads, but the weather stayed cool, and there was no head wind. Roads with names like Pine Swamp, Cold Run, and Buck Hollow. After I passed through a little settlement named Plowville on Buck Hollow Road the traffic started getting heavy, all going my way. For the next 3 ½ miles there was a constant stream of pickups, cars, SUVs and Harleys passing me on a narrow, curvy, hilly road with no shoulders. It turned out that they were going to a major dragstrip: big grandstands, big crowd, I would have loved to take it in, had I been eighteen.

I stopped at 11:22, just under the wire, for a real breakfast at a diner in Amish country. I had SOS, which in the Air Force stood for something on a shingle, and is known otherwise as chipped beef on toast, for the first time since 1961.

The depression, loneliness, fear and loathing, have eased. Still there but not as bad. A new title by Elmore Leonard, The Hot Kid, helps.

September 29

I'm in the French Creek State Park, in PA. It's a nice place, and the campers are quiet. It's getting cooler: I'm wearing jeans, t shirt, sweatshirt and jacket - all the layers that I have. It was a day of killer hills and headwinds. Thirty miles in six hours.
I met a guy in a diner, where I had breakfast before I left Norristown this morning. He was in his late fifties, and he took a seat at the counter across the aisle from my booth. He asked if I owned the bike outside, and said that I should be careful in this neighborhood, it could get stolen. I said that it would be hard to steal with all the gear on it. He wanted to know about the trip, and especially about how the bike and trailer were working out for me. He rides a bike himself, he said, but he doesn't much like the one he has now. The one he had before was much better, but it was stolen. It had been lent to him by a friend, who was in the hospital at the time, and who wanted the bike back when he got out. He didn't get out; he died in the hospital.

When I paid my tab he came outside with me, and looked the bike over, admiring the suspension and the comfort seat. He said he might get one. He gave me a clap on the shoulder, wished me well, and went back in to finish his breakfast. I wish him well.

September 28

A 48-mile day. Crossed the Delaware for the third and final time. Sorry to leave it. I love that river. I'm in the Budget Inn in Norristown, PA, where it took me an hour and a half to find a grocery store and my evening beer. They are weird about beer in Pennsylvania. Won't sell less than a case of it in liquor stores. I finally had to buy a six-pack in a bar, for $10 dollars. Damn the eyes of any that tries to rob a poor man of his beer. The room cost $60, and was well worth it: there is a thunderstorm in progress. My foot still feels good, and I've got air in my tires. Erin won't let me quit without talking to her first.

I start tomorrow on what I think will be the most difficult section, if map reading can predict difficulty. I skirt around Philadelphia, ride through Washington, D. C., and on to Richmond. Campgrounds, and even towns with motels, are scarce on this portion of the route.

September 27, 6:00 PM

Fear, self-pity, remorse to the point of wanting life to end - that was last night. The injury to my ankle (or foot) got me down and those emotions took over. The injury, after a flash of intense pain as I was limping across a parking lot, healed up. The fear and remorse remain. Fear of traffic, of being alone in the woods at night, of being caught camping illegally, of thieves and thugs. Not so great a fear that I will stop, but there, constantly. The self-pity and remorse were related to the injury, and abated with its healing.

I covered only 70 miles in the last two days, and I'm not feeling bad about it. I must learn to lay back.

I rode beside the Delaware all day, in New Jersey again. I'm camped beside it now, about five miles south of Frenchtown, a few feet off the D & R Canal bike path, which is smooth and flat and runs through a bosque on the east bank of the river. The river flows over a shoal here about 200 meters wide, and sounds like a fresh mountain brook. Supper tonight: ½ cup of yogurt, ½ pound of shrimp salad, a bagel, a banana, and two 650ml cans of Sapporo, which partially accounts for my lifted spirits. The sun has set, and I left my flashlight in the bed-and-breakfast in Winstead.

September 27, 6:30 AM

It might be a little better. I haven't tried to walk any distance on it. I'll ride to Phillipsburg PA, 15 miles down the road, and if the leg isn't any better I'll ship the bike, trailer, and as much of the other gear as necessary back to Nova Scotia, and buy passage home. I am not enjoying this trip. I have seen far too much roadkill.

September 26

It breaks my heart that I now want to end it. So many good people have been so very supportive. When I got up this morning my right ankle hurt as though I had sprained it. I hadn't. I thought it might be a cramp and would go away. It didn't. I packed up and was ready to go at 8:00, as I had promised the ranger. I could ride, but the uphills were very slow. It 2 3/4 hours to go 22 miles, 2/3 of it downhill. I think that walking the bike up the killer hills has caused this injury. I kept riding until 2:30 and stopped at the Riverton Hotel, in PA. I would have preferred Washington's method of crossing the Delaware. The hotel is a dump, managed by a very friendly and accommodating Greek lady. My hope is that the leg will get better overnight.

September 25

Had to stop after 45 miles to set up a stealth camp. Excuses, excuses. I am simply not racking up the miles that I should. The weather remains perfect, except for headwinds,
and only one killer hill today.

A couple of miles into the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, which is a gem of a place and a major credit to the National Park Service, a crazy guy in an '83 Dodge van drove up beside me. "What you gonna do if it rains?" he shouted.
He is driving my speed, about 12 mph, on the wrong side of the road and just a little behind me so I have to look backwards to see him We are on the Old Mine Road, just south of Montague, NJ. His is the second vehicle to overtake me in ten minutes. The forest on either side of the road is mostly hardwood, oaks and maples thirty to forty years old, about eight inches in diameter at chest height, but very tall, twenty to twenty-five feet. And stands of pine that are ten feet taller. A walk in those woods would be effortless: there is no entangling undergrowth. This road roughly parallels the
Appalachian Trail. "I've got rain gear," I tell him.

"Where you going?"

"Mexico"

"Mexico? All the Mexicans are comin' up here. Why'd you want to go to Mexico?"

"Pull up here beside me," I said. "So we can talk."

He pulls up. "Where you coming from?" he asks.

"Halifax." I often say that, and then correct it if the person has any grasp of geography. A few don't.

"Where's at?" He is about thirty-five, missing some teeth, has a manic look and well muscled arms.

"It's in Nova Scotia."

"Oh yeah. I know about that. I wanted to go up there to hunt. I hunt all around here. Season opens in a few days."

"Bow season?" I ask. Glancing behind I see a white vehicle approaching.

"Yeah, yeah, bow season."

"There's something coming," I said.

He looked back. "Well, good luck. And have a good trip," he said, and drove away.

I continued through the DWGNRA, stopping at Layton for supper supplies (but neglecting breakfast: I carry oatmeal, and I had an extra orange, which would get me to the next store). I passed a commercial campground that had taken down its signs, so I continued, looking for a campsite that wouldn't be noticed from the road. I found such a place, or at least so I thought. I didn't want to make a fire, so I ate my supper cold, crawled into the sleeping bag and was attempting to meditate. I heard a vehicle on the highway slow down and stop. A car door slammed and a male voice said, "Hello the camp. National Park Service ranger."

I pulled on my jeans and came out of the tent. The ranger was standing with a tree partially covering him from my sight, his hand resting on his pistol butt. "There is no camping allowed on this site," he said as he approached. I told him that I had been riding all day and hadn't seen any campgrounds. He questioned me further, and further, until I was explaining why I wanted to ride a bike to Mexico and talking about my wife and kids. Having heard my story, he asked for ID, and said that if I wasn't wanted for anything I could stay, but he was adamant that I would make no fire or flame of any sort, and would leave no trash behind. He called my name into his headquarters for them to check me out, and we talked some more while we waited for their response. He came from Alabama, and had been working in New Jersey for fifteen years. After ten minutes he called headquarters again (with a radio clipped to his collar) and asked if they had any results from their query. "Still waiting," they said.

He didn't think the results would be waiting for. He again emphasized that I keep a cold camp, and when he left he shook my hand and said, "George, you have a good trip."

September 24

A hot day, at least since 4:30, when I stopped to pitch my tent, next to a Catepillar equipment yard.

While I was waiting outside a supermarket for the rain to let up in New Paltz at noon, a guy came up and introduced himself as the manager of a hostel, a clean, sociable place, he said, where I would be most welcome. Too late, or too early, but I appreciated the gesture.

About an hour and a half later I was riding through what was once Hawthorne and Cooper country, and is now horse farms and exurbia, on the edge of low mountains shrouded in mist, following my map as best I could. I thought I had taken a wrong turn at Shawangunk and was studying the map just past an intersection when a guy came up behind me and stopped in the middle of the road. He had a dismantled bike in the back of his car, and he wanted to congratulate me taking a tour. He told me I was on the right road, and we talked for about thirty seconds before another car came along and he had to dive away. In less than a minute he passed me again, waving, going the other way, and I wondered if he had gone out of his way to have that conversation.
Fear, grief, sorrow, self-pity: these are the components of homesickness and my hindrances.

September 23

Hevelius Classic, from Poland. A very good beer. I'm in the 87 Motel in New Paltz, NY. Caught up with my email, which contained a very funny parody by Ray Amiro of the mass mailing I did yesterday. And a note from Em!

It was raining this morning. I was riding on a narrow back road, with a very narrow paved shoulder, and from time to time I would have to cross the white line onto the regular lane. In one such place there was a crack in the pavement running down the white line, with grass growing out of it, and when the front wheel hit the grass it skidded and I dropped the bike and slid down the road a few feet. No structural damage to me, the bike or any of the gear, just a few abrasions on all of us. I rode another 30 miles, cold and wet, then hot and wet, then cold again. My ride took me through Hyde Park, and past FDR's estate. I remember the day he died. There is a photo of him in a '36 Ford Phaeton, riding in Hyde Park, looking as happy as a man could be. A Vanderbilt estate was nearby; I don't remember Schlessinger mentioning that.

Poughkeepsie is no more that an extension of the Bronx.

September 22

Two weeks into the journey. They say if you can hack two weeks you can hack the trip. I walked up two very long, steep hills today, killer hills, on the Winchell Mountain Road between Millerton CT and Pine Plains NY. Good views from the top. I stopped at a library in Salsbury CT to do some emailing. A solid, granite building in which they played church music, choral, maybe Gregorian. It was a tremendous contrast to the highways I've been living on. They are stressful, Dantesque places. They contain all that is wrong with our world. They, along with the coal, steel, petroleum, automobile, and construction industries, are the cause and symptom of urban sprawl, global warming, and the degradation and globalization of Western culture. But along them are nice people and places, like the pristine Hartford water supply, and Moody's diner in Maine, and the guy on a Honda 750cc V twin who travels the back roads and pitches a lean-to in a field or meadow for shelter. We met outside of Kingston VT. He was stopped, looking at a map, and when I rode up I asked if I could help. He didn't need any, but we talked for about ten minutes, and when I left he said, "God bless you."

September 21

The autumnal equinox. I'm in a bed-and-breakfast, a nice clean place between a gas station and a rundown liquor store in Winstead CT. The ride this morning was as good as it gets, even into a headwind. Backroads in farming country, tobacco harvested and drying in the sheds, pumpkins and corn still in the fields, the sky clear and the sun warm. Farmworkers harvesting wave as I ride by.

September 20

I quit riding at 3:45 - hit a town, Stafford Springs, CT, with a good co-op grocery and cold beer, and there were darkening clouds in the west. It was uphill into a headwind all day; I had to walk the bike on at least three hills. But I'm feeling good, and I'm camped off the highway in a secluded spot with a patch of oregano growing in it.

September 19, 2006

The well-to-do hobo buys his supper of a ½ lb of seafood salad, a whole wheat bagel, a nectarine and a banana at a huge supermarket, does his laundry at a laundromat in the same mall, buys a 24oz bottle of Heineken's in the well-stocked liquor store and pitches his tent on the lawn at the side of the supermarket just as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

September 18, 2006

An embarrassing moment. Tenting back in the woods in the late afternoon, and while I was changing clothes I was taken short, still nude. If you don't know what that means ask Judy Parsons. And two friendly dogs come bounding up, barking and wagging tails. I dove for the tent, and was struggling into my underwear when one of the owners of the dogs, a woman, came to the tent to retrieve the annoying little beasts, apologizing for them. Balls out, I lamely said I was changing clothes. She and her husband came past a little later on their way home, again very apologetic The woods I was camped in were part of a municipal park.

Only about 40 miles today. The hindrances were headwinds, laundry and conversations. Everybody wants to do it. I'm not being mistaken for a hobo, at least not often.
I'm in Massachusetts, stealth camping for the second night in a row.

September 18, 2006

A woman once said of grief that you don't get over it, you get used to it. The same holds for homesickness, at least in my present case. And it isn't just the absence of those I love (just!), it is also being sick of cold food eaten straight from the can, of using a latrine I dug myself the night before on cold wet mornings, of having to eat a greasy breakfast in a diner so I can have a hot coffee, the brief friendliness of a waitress, and a place to wash my hands. I look forward to seeing panhandlers, for their conversation, bought for fifty cents. There have been mornings that I get on the rig (of which the bicycle is a small part) and resume my crawl sout because I simply don't have the strength to turn around.

What compensates this and keeps me gong? I meet friendly people every day who take great interest in this venture and wish me well. I see incredible beauty on the back roads. I have the opportunity to write and meditate. And I have Erin's wholehearted support.

September 17, 2006

Nine days, 430 miles. I'm using Ammurrican 'til I get to Mexico. The riding is getting easier: my ass doesn't hurt near as much as it did 3 0r 4 days ago. Yesterday's plan was to hole up in Exeter, VT, for a day and catch up on e-spondence. I got to Exeter and both campgrounds were closed for the season, but there was Kingston up the road, with a library and a campground. Called the campground: they had space available, but no laundry facilities, and they wanted thirty dollars. I decided that I had no other choice.

On the third hill out of Exeter (the first two were killers) an older Volvo passed me, slowly, and stopped at the top, at an intersection. I thought, as I struggled up the hill, the driver might be, like me, an old guy who wasn't sure where he was. But when I got up to him, panting and drenched with sweat, I found a kid in his early twenties. He wanted to talk about my ride. He said that he had ridden from Seattle to here a year ago, with a BOB trailer and 70lbs of gear, same as me. We talked about daily distances and camping. He said that he put up in a motel once a week, and used campgrounds as little as possible. Said he pitched his tent at baseball diamonds whenever possible, and never got hassled.

He also said that he started in Seattle, California, and went through Colorado to get to Vermont. Maybe he is as bad with geography as I am with numbers. Or maybe he's full of shit. No matter. He gave me courage and he wanted no more from me than a few moments of recognition.

With my new courage I pedaled into Kingston, a strange place, with no one moving afoot or in cars and with a large school, a large and well-kept town hall, a museum, a tidy park and one store. There was one car parked in front, which could have been a client of the dentist's next to the store, which seemed to be closed. I rode further, but when I realized I was riding out of town I went back. The store was open. I bought a can of beans and a bottle of Heineken's and asked about campsites. The clerk and another customer (who must have owned the car) didn't know of any, so I despondently started back towards the one I had called, along a busy highway. I was riding past a track of woods that pretty good, so I investigated. I took the bike and the BOB into the woods, pitched my tent, ate my beans, drank my beer, and wrote this.

September 16, 2006

A good day's ride. I got lost twice, once seriously, which depressed me, and raised my greed for comfort and security, so I busted my ass to Kennebunk and checked into the over-priced under-equipped Kennebunk Inn. A big bed and breakfast, essentially, but the breakfast was coffee and a muffin. Kennebunk was established about fifty years after Santa Fe, and might have an old town somewhere. The Inn is downtown, I think, in a neighborhood that looks the way downtown Davenport, Iowa looked fifty years ago, with perhaps a few more 3 or 4 story brick buildings. My point is that nothing seemed more than a hundred and fifty years old.

Freeport is a yuppy feeding frenzy. Stores, fancy factory outlets really, for brand names like Jockey. I was tempted by a Ben and Jerry's because it is good ice cream and a good outfit (compared to Jockey) and the day was warm. And I rode past a BBQ food stand that looked interesting. Everything else, including the people, even clean cut teenagers, repelled me.

Straight pipe hogs. Maine either has no helmet law or Harley owners feel obliged to ignore it. Loud bikes and unfriendly riders. But stop at a crossroads store back in the woods and you can spend an hour talking to folk who are interested in, and supportive of, what you are doing. Or get on your bike outside a health-food store in Kennebunk and engage an 89-year-old lady from the Merrimachi who visited her relatives in Chester in the '40s (they owned the Sword and Anchor). She had her car door open, and my bike would have been in the way of her getting out, but she didn't want out, she was just getting a little cooler air. We admired each other for a few minutes.

September 15, 2006

A beautiful day. Made up the time I lost yesterday, rode mostly on back roads, and was pitching my tent at 5:00. I rested and ate well along the way. Put on plenty of sun screen. Drank 1.5l of Gatorade. Made up a batch of bulgur/TVP and threw in a can of Hormel's chili. Ate it with 2 bottles of excellent beer: Gritty's of Portland.

I hear crickets. I had not heard a cricket, though they abound in our yard, for years. Maybe American crickets, though no bigger, are louder than Canadian crickets. American squirrels are much bigger.

September 13, 2006

Today is a good day. Rode 67 miles, from Bar Harbor to Searsport. Heavy traffic for a lot of it, but there were wide paved shoulders to ride on, so that the only danger was in being worn out by all the cars, trucks, straight-pipe hogs and SUVs in a hurry to get something. The other half was on narrow roads with no shoulders and no traffic. It was warm, even hot at times, but cold in the morning.

September 11, 2006

I'm in Tusket, 5 kilometers from Yarmouth. Rode 95 kilometers yesterday, with the wind at my back for the first 40k, calm for 25k, and headwinds for the last 30k. I was more than fatigued, riding very slowly at the end. A promised campground in Argyle must have removed their sign, so I rode another 15k to find one.

My route took me through Birchtown, where Black "loyalist" refugees from the American Revolution settled in the late 1700's - down the road from Shelburne, where white traitors to the American Revolution settled. Birchtown is a nice place. The museum was closed, which was good because I had decided to try for Yarmouth.

September 10, 2006

Erin's birthday. Yesterday I learned to eat and drink. Headwinds slowed me to a crawl, and I didn't pass a store between Risser's and Liverpool. I ran out of water, and about ten miles from Liverpool I stopped next to a lawn at a corner that sloped down to the road, parked the bike and lay down on the grass for a rest. I had closed my eyes, and was regaining some strength, when a woman's voice said, "Would you mind if I took your picture?"

She was a lady in her seventies, dressed in work clothes. She had been painting the back of her house. She said she had often seen cyle-tourists come by, but I was the first to have a nap on her lawn. She took a few photos, and said she would mail copies to Erin, and filled up my water bottles. That was a big help, but the SW headwinds that had been building all day were now about 12 knots, and I quit my ride at Lane's Motel.

Today I left the motel at 7:30, got lost, got straightened out and on the right road at 8:00 (I even asked directions, of another guy on a bike, a local, who also had a milk crate on the rear rack. His face was scarred as though by fire, he had a slight speech impediment, and there was some tacit status exchange between us.) I rode steadily on the 103, swearing to stop at least for water by noon. I charged up with 3/4 liter of Powerade and 3 granola bars at the Irving station in Sable River (which I frequented 16 years ago, when I worked at Allendale Electronics in Lockeport) at 11:30. I got to Shelburne at 1:15 - and the Islands Provincial Park is closed for the season. The bastards. I"m here anyway. Stealth camping. Found a place hardly visible to the many people walking their dogs. Just cooked my supper on the paint can stove.

The last two mornings have been all that I could have hoped for. Cool weather, but still warm enough for shorts and a T shirt. Cloudy, but not raining, and the sun coming out at noon. I rode yesterday through rural communities where the only signs of urban sprawl are paved roads and closed country stores. Old cape style houses, freshly restored and painted, many owned by the descendants of those who built them, if names on mailboxes are an indicator of that. I think I was greeted by everyone who wasn't in a car - and many of those gave me a wave as they passed me by.

September 8, 2006

An insane venture. I'm in a quiet campsite at Risser's Beach, about 60km from home.