It was high time I'd gotten out on a good long haul East Coast haul. 9:30am Friday morning, I'd parked my truck just after the designated no parking 8-9:30am street sweeping Tuesday/Friday times. (Preplanning: this would enabled me to take Sunday and Monday to travel back before I had to move the truck.) I walked the block back to my apartment, and made sure my bag and blanket were bungee corded and everything was secured to my bike. I rolled her out of the front porch and warmed her up in the street. I checked my initial "no toll" route again, memorizing the lefts and rights to get out of the city and into New Jersey. I got stuck in 10am traffic coming over the Brooklyn Bridge, with traffic not even hinting at a lane to split. I made some daring attempts at guiding my handlebars around car mirrors, and stopped in traffic to chat with my pal who was hollering at me from the delivery truck driver seat. Told him I was heading to NC, and as soon as a lane opened between the cars, I darted off.  |
| layin em out before saddling up again. |
I rode for 11 hours before I decided to take a nap on my bike in a truck stop under my bike shelter half. 30 minutes into not being able to really get any sleep, I decided that filling my belly at the diner, was my next best option. 
An overly-eager-to-get-my-attention trucker kept eyeing and trying to start conversation with me, and as soon as he mentioned the words "dangerous," I said "this conversation is over." My mind on the location, and ease of access of all my knives. He shut his mouth and walked out of the diner. (Maybe it was just the all day riding, and fatigue, but come on, I'm tired of people who don't ride, ever mentioning the words "fear" and "danger." I'm just gonna shut em down every time, or demand money for me having to put up with their nonsense.) After feeling like that truck stop wasn't the best to catch my Zzz's I plotted my direction to a small cheap lodge that I'd stayed at on my move to NYC. Quiet, out of the way, and 30 miles later I'd arrived a total of 555 miles from my doorstep in Brooklyn, to the room at that hotel. An elderly middle eastern couple woke to check me in, looking tired, and curiously at me, I let them know I'd stayed there before and was looking forward to it again. In a different room this time, the toilet had a slow leak, and every 15 minutes or so, I'd hear the water fill running. Also, my neighbor had their air conditioning on, and the thing kept whining up and down nonstop, in a squealing manner. I was able to close the bathroom door to the water running, but I had to just drown out the AC noise by sheer tiredness. Nonetheless, I woke the next morning after an epic sleep, and I was ready to hit my next 216 miles to the campsite.
An overly-eager-to-get-my-attention trucker kept eyeing and trying to start conversation with me, and as soon as he mentioned the words "dangerous," I said "this conversation is over." My mind on the location, and ease of access of all my knives. He shut his mouth and walked out of the diner. (Maybe it was just the all day riding, and fatigue, but come on, I'm tired of people who don't ride, ever mentioning the words "fear" and "danger." I'm just gonna shut em down every time, or demand money for me having to put up with their nonsense.) After feeling like that truck stop wasn't the best to catch my Zzz's I plotted my direction to a small cheap lodge that I'd stayed at on my move to NYC. Quiet, out of the way, and 30 miles later I'd arrived a total of 555 miles from my doorstep in Brooklyn, to the room at that hotel. An elderly middle eastern couple woke to check me in, looking tired, and curiously at me, I let them know I'd stayed there before and was looking forward to it again. In a different room this time, the toilet had a slow leak, and every 15 minutes or so, I'd hear the water fill running. Also, my neighbor had their air conditioning on, and the thing kept whining up and down nonstop, in a squealing manner. I was able to close the bathroom door to the water running, but I had to just drown out the AC noise by sheer tiredness. Nonetheless, I woke the next morning after an epic sleep, and I was ready to hit my next 216 miles to the campsite. 
The next morning I got up from a well rested snooze. Knowing I only had a few hundred more miles to trek, I kinda took my time getting around. I slowly rolled the long way through the small town, and broke my neck at all the scenic architecture, and crumbling buildings. I told myself, that I wanna live in a small town with a bunch of old people, history and good stories. Cause it ruled. Yesterday I'd ridden through New York, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and today I was going to breeze through Tennessee, and North Carolina. I mean the scenery was just gorgeous. From The Blue Ridge mountains, to winding through the Smokey's, what countryside. I took mainly the 81 down through the states, then hit the 23 off the main route south which pretty much ran the length toward Franklin. At Franklin I split a left down the 64 the 6 miles to the campsite. I found out that the small town we were in was a dry town, and I couldn't supply myself with whiskey or beer for my personal shortcomings. So not wanting to flip back to Franklin, I hurried to the campout for as much free beer as I could waste myself on.
I rolled up to this dirt road, and offered my party offerings of 5$ to the entry crew. Then I carefully maneuvered down the slippery wet muddy sloping shoot to the open field, where bikes were splattering the landscape, tents popping up, groups gathering, and wanderers wandering. All I wanted to know was where was the cheap beer. I heard it was in a red truck. Goal number one. Find red truck. I avoided any long conversations until I did. I even wrangled some folks into my find the red truck/free beer venture.
