Well, I got out a little later on day one than I wanted to, my initial plan was to leave between 8 and 9 in the morning, but I was realistic in my expectations to leave between 8 and 11 in the morning, however, in my traditional family style, I left about 11:30. Why be on time?
So things didn’t go as quickly as I had hoped. First, I had to stop in Shrewsbury at my baseball team’s manager’s house to drop him off an iPad and charger that we use for scoring the games. While we keep a book, the iPad just makes the stats easier to see and thus easier for him to not have to calculate them, and he can get them uploaded to the website a little quicker. Plus, while I am gone I think one of my teammate’s 8 year old son is going to be doing a lot of the score keeping, and he is much better on the ipad than he is with the actual book keeping score.
So, got that dropped but it wasn’t a stop totally out of the way, only added about 15-20 minutes to the trip, the real problem was the traffic on the mass pike. It was brutal, way worse than I was expecting for a Saturday, if it had been Friday I could have understood, but was rather annoying, although it did help me get used to managing the weight of the bike with all the gear at slower speeds. Much easier to manage when traveling quickly and you have the help of the bike to keep things on the level.
Then, a little over halfway through CT the rain started, it was light at first but I pulled over under a bridge and suited up. My raincoat, my bright orange rain pants, and my full face helmet. Fortunately, I chose not to attach the full face to the spot under the seat because I would have had to completely unpack almost everything to get it off the bike, and that would be no fun on the side of the highway.
Boy did it really start to rain though, I charged on though, pushed and pushed, got wetter and wetter. I actually ended up stopping a little bit early in the rain because I realized it wasn’t going to let up, and my gear wasn’t actually waterproofed, so I spent $20 at a truck stop to buy a 4’x8′ tarp that I then folded in half and bungy cord tied it around my gear, there was a small opening on the top of the back, but I figured physics would help me out given that it wouldn’t be able to have much water fall into it with me traveling at speed, which is the same reason why even though my GPS is not technically covered, it’s within an inch or two of the windshield which means any water that falls behind it will end up hitting my tank instead because the GPS moves too far horizontally while the water is falling vertically, so there is a small triangle of space that never gets hit with water.
So, after a total of 6 hours or traffic, stops and rain I realized it was time to stop for the night, sadly I had only gone about 250 miles, a tad off from the 400-450 I was hoping to make the first day. So I vowed to make it into PA and then to just stop at the first Hilton brand hotel I came across since I could use points an it wouldn’t cost me anything.
There it was, Hampton Inn, my savior, but on top of being hard to get to because there were no signs and the roads were annoying, I had another problem. While I was pretty sure I knew the answer, I asked the front desk anyway; “Can I book with points through you, or do I need to do it online?” She responds, “you need to either call Hilton or o it online.” “No problem” I say as I pull out my phone and start to look for my Hilton app, which I apparently don’t have on my new phone, and then she interrupts me and says “but that won’t do you any good, we are completely booked up for the night.”
Say WHAT?!?!?
I was truly shocked that a Hampton Inn in this area would be sold out, any Hampton Inn really, but apparently there were 2 large weddings in the area, and many of the people going were staying there. Well shoot… alright… internet save me now!
I went to Priceline and did a local search to see what I could find for a place to stay, found a place that looked a little sketchy, but the price was a little higher than I wanted, but given the scarcity of rooms in the area, I just took the opportunity to get a place to sleep and dry out for the night.
Got there, got myself unloaded and then instead of using my bike cover, I just used the tarp I had to cover the bike and tied it down with those tiny little bungees with the ball on them I never think I would use, but can’t not put in my bag of stuff because they are so small they aren’t a hassle.
Then came the drying out of everything.
I cranked the heat and put the ironing board at a low level to help dry out my jeans while I hung out in shorts, and then I put the hair dryer into my boot to get that all dried out.
Then I just laid down for awhile to dry out my brain and my body.
Then I decided to repack everything to alter where things were based on what I would need to access during the trip and what I would need at night.
Then I slept… I slept really well!