Journey of Self Discovery: Odd Logistic Edition

Many of my friends know that I had planned a few days away in Utah for some reflection time, and those who follow my tweets know that god hath smote Newark airport with lightning, hail and frogs (frogs not included) preventing me from getting across the coast, but still allowing my luggage to travel there. (I'm still not exactly sure where it is.)

So instead I decided to pick out a book on my bookshelf of driveable places to bike ride, and just go there. I found a book on the Berkshires and picked out the town with the longest rides possible. Looked it up on Google, found a Holiday Inn, and off I went.

I picked up a new TomTom GPS, which has filled my heart with such love for electronics devices it's hard to express. There was a "minor" quirk with it, as it first planned me a 5.5 hour route to travel the 3.5 hours to the town in the Berkshires. Being a tech savvy kind of guy, I pulled into a rest stop on the Thruway, hopped on the WiFi and updated the firmware and the maps. Bingo, 2.6 hour route. It's got everything I wanted the Garmin to have, including a status display that tells you duration of trip and arrival time, 3D display of exits (where available) and much better route planning features. It even saved me when I ran into a bridge out, it allows you to pick a road block ahead by distance, 100 yards ahead, 600 yards, 1 mile, etc. Awesome.

Got to the Holiday Inn, got unpacked and finished off some work I had to do for PDN, which kept me up until about 3am. Decided to sleep in and got up about 11am, did more work then off to explore scenic North Adams, Ma.

Turns out I'm in the center of the artistic world of the Berkshires, about 20 feet from Mass MoCA and right near several art schools. I spent the morning at a lovely coffee shop, did some thinking while eating nice food. At the counter I asked for a latte, and the woman working there said "we only have one size, large."

"If you only have one size then it's just 'size'" I said, "as you need a small to compare a large to." She laughed, and gave me the latte. I should have said "I wanted a small." Damn.

Bike riding got underway around 2:30pm, and included a brief stop for a snack. I have not eaten enough recently and shortly after the snack I realized that not only didn't I get enough to eat, but that I would likely not run into food for some time. As I was starting to shake from a bit of a blood sugar drop and from withdrawl of some medicine that's on its way to Utah, I spied an apple orchard. Now, I gotta tell you, I was fully aware that it was not my apple orchard when I took and ate one of the sour apples from a low hanging branch, but I sat there pouring sweat off my face, thanking god for the appley goodness.

Which is when a car pulled up with a teen and his grandfather, who proceeded to chastise me for taking the apple that didn't belong to me, leading off with "I saw you take that apple!" Now, my head is not really in the space to be admonished for stealing an apple, regardless of biblical undertones, and what I wanted to say was "thanks for being a good Christian for stopping to call a hungry man a thief" but instead I offered them a nickel for the apple, and they told me it wasn't their farm.

That's when I reached into the car grabbed the teen's head and bashed it against the dashboard until the airbag deployed.

Not really.

The were "nice" enough to tell me where I could go buy food when I told them how very hungry I was, and it was a farm stand down the road. Tired and feeling grumbly about the encounter I sat on a bench forcing myself to eat when the world's sweetest farm cat came up and sat with me on the bench, rolling over so I could pet him, which sort of reset the universe.

I started to pick up speed and strength from the forced calories and headed up a climb and then over to the town of Hanover, where I ran smack into the fucking Pedro's New England Mountain Bike Festival (now the Kenda festival, but I went to the very first Pedro's and so shall call it that). I'm not entirely sure how I managed to pick the town next to the biggest mtb festival on the east coast, one of my favorite bike events, and even managed to bring my bike, but I'm seeing some sort of divine intervention here. I shall go tomorrow.

While I sat on the side of the road to make a phone call before a contact at Calumet left for the weekend, a car stopped to ask if I was okay. That was terribly nice, and after having my faith in cats restored, it restored my faith in humanity. (Who the fuck stops a car to tell someone not to eat an apple? Fuck man.)

My bike's been making a creaking noise I haven't been able to diagnose, but I got closer today and narrowed it own to probably being my rear hub. I stopped at a local bike store to ask if I could try one of their wheels to eliminate , and the guy told me that he knew what my problem was, it's a loose floating ring that holds the seal in. Awesome! Someone knows that it's a factory defect!

Then the guy (Paul) told me to come by the Mavic tent at the festival the next day, and he'd see if they had the fix kit there, as he would be working at the booth. How awesome is that? I'm not a customer, he's never seen me before, he offers to help me out via a free fix from the company instead of having to send it back. Faith restoreder.

Lots of thinking while riding tonight, and I actually spent a good few miles talking to myself out loud, (which I hope looks like I'm singing) and that often helps me frame issues mentally. Or maybe I'm just nuts, I'm not sure.

I'll post some pictures shortly, my card reader is actually in Utah right now, getting some time to get its head together.

Comments

[rita]

Okay. That's alot. If you're inclined, Saturday's Bang On A Can Marathon at MassMoCA has a great lineup with some fave musicians and some great pieces- it should be awesome. It's announced for 4pm to 10pm I think. You should definitely check it out if you're in the mood. It'll put "cute NE town edition" in a diff light.