A Fool's Progress: Welcome to the East Coast Here's Your Snorkel Part 2

I arose in the morning and hit the road early. The midwestern states continued to be a long run of turnpike and rest areas. Drivers remained courteous and alert. Illinois was knocked down quickly.

The cludy and very humid air changed in Ohio to Rain. That is Rain with a capital R. The whole of Ohio was spent dashing from wave of frog drowner to a set of turd floaters. No sooner than my gloves would dry out but I would hit a new set and suddenly be struggling for road view and pelted by the million stings of fat rain drops. It was too warm to wear anything but light hiking pants and a t shirt under my jacket and riding pants so the rain was a bit painful.

In Ohio, people became decidedly unfriendly. Even the lady at the tourist station was a grouch. No even my friendliest, toothiest grin did more than elicit Froglike grunt. Fine. Screw Ohio then.

Once past Youngstown, Pennsylvania was a joy. I hit the gorgrously curvaceous (though small) Alleghany and Appalachian mountains. The roads were marked at 65 and 55 (in construction zones) and everyone went 75. In fact if you didnt do 75, you were in danger of getting ass-ended by a minivan or semi

By early evening I was nearing Harrisburg and my wife encouraged me to just get to where she and the boy were staying at her parents southeast of Lancaster.

So I pressed on. The cluds began to occasionally bring some rain. But nothing too bad. I was more frightened of the deer. But I hadnt seen those either.

Just outside of Lancaster I ran into my first prick trucker. Some hay hauling asshole. He was high-balling on my six and I moved over to let him pass. Well he decides that not only was my courtesy not worthy of thanks but he dumps the loading lights in my face. That is an indicator that your highbeams are irritating him. The only problem is that the lights on the Quota suck. I mean truly suck. Calling the Q's headlights "dim" would be a kindness and a generous benefit of doubt. My high beams were like the low beams onb most other vehicles. No one has complained about the brightness via flashing or anything else in 5 years of riding that bike. So, being tired and wet, the trucker pissed me off. I suspected the only reason he flashed me was because he saw the indicator on my dash. Sure enough, I dropped way back for a few miles and then caught up and settled in right on his 7 which would put any irritating light right in his mirror. Nothing. He was just being a jerk necause of the dash
light. I wanted to follow him to a stop light and beat the tar out of him. Fortunately I recognized that I was being over sensitive, just like he was and it was a factor of fatigue. So I chilled and concentrated on making the last few miles

Finally I made it to Lancaster and it opened up. I had 25 miles to go on back roads and a short stretch of highway and the sky opened up like god had just flushed His Heavenly Toilet. In moments I could not see more than 20' in front of me. The sides of the country highway were not marked at all, so I had no hope of following the road. And I had to constantly wipe the inside of the face shield so I could see at all. Fortunately I had a rig in front of me to follow for all but the last 10 miles. Then I had to do it alone. My speed dropped all the way to 20 mph and I was navigating practically by braille. Fortunately the GPS guided me to the front door of my in-laws. Without that, I would have had spend a lot of time getting off he bike to find streeet signs..which more often than not were simply not present.

I arrived at 11 PM soaked to the bone and drooping.

I found out later that the area had gotten on the order of 5 inches of rain that night. The next morning I went out to discover my front tire completely flat. It wasnt when I arrived. So whatever hope had been holding the tube together had been washed away by the rain.

Now I am waiting on a new set of tires and spending a couple days with my family. I have missed them. Me and Max got to chase lightning bugs last night. A first for the both of us.