Distance covered today: 131 miles
Distance covered total: 336 miles
Estimated mileage remaining: 3164 miles (90% left to go)
“The second hole was the hardest.”
-Stanley Yelnats, Holes
The difference a day makes. Specifically, a day spent almost entirely on a motor scooter. Whereas 24 hours ago I had left Boston brimming with confidence, optimism and clear skies, by the morning of Day Two, the reality had set in- I was in for a long haul. Previously, I had foolishly believed that after enduring the marathon process of finding, buying, registering, inspecting, and licensing my scooter while also planning a route and picking supplies to bring, hitting the road would be the easy part. Day One had proven how wrong I was and revealed that my butt and back would be taxed for all they were worth. I hoped that they would grow more accustomed to life on the Metro, but it was challenging to take that leap of faith knowing that my own home wouldn’t be my next destination as had been the case yesterday. Climbing back on the bike meant that the trip was for real, and California had never seemed farther away.
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| It's hard to leave a place like The 'Ville behind. |
As if the first day of travel hadn’t been physically demanding enough, I didn’t have a chance to process its emotional significance until I had reached home and was laying my weary bones to rest. Mostly I’m sad to leave my dog Terpsi behind. But it’s also tough to leave The ‘Ville itself. I had thought over the summer that I would be hard-pressed to find somewhere to live that had as much beauty and awesomeness per capita as Voorheesville. Cruising the country roads between Albany and home last night (I took 443 for those of you familiar with the area) had just reinforced how much I love the Helderberg Mountains and how much they’ll be missed.
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| The person I'll miss most of all. |
After loading up the scooter and saying goodbyes, I hit the road for Syracuse in what would be one of the shortest legs of my trip (though there’s no such thing as a short leg of a scooter journey). As if to remind me of the challenges ahead, I encountered rain before I had even reached the neighboring town of Altamont. Precipitation was one nemesis with which I had obviously expected to clash, but I hadn’t known the time would come so soon.
As I sped through the rain to the nearest overhead shelter, I was reminded of a past conversation about the physics of rainfall with a friend from college (yes you, Jake). We were discussing the validity of the old wives tale that someone running through rain actually becomes more wet than their badass counterpart who keeps his/her cool by just standing still and holding their ground against the storm’s fury. The reasoning behind this phenomenon is that someone speeding through rain will be struck by drops from above while also intercepting drops that would have spared them had they not gone charging into them. Jake and I had decided that this urban legend held water and in my almost instantly saturated condition I felt as though I could lend further support to our assertion.
I shouldn’t complain about a little water though, because only a few miles later I passed into Schoharie County, one of the places that had been hit hardest by Hurricane Irene a week earlier. It was one thing to see shots of the destruction on the news, but another to see it firsthand, especially so close to my own home. Homes hundreds of yards from the still swollen and brown Schoharie Creek had mountains of rubble in their yards, evidently gutted from their lower floors. There were road closures on numerous side streets. Mud and dirt still caked the main road that I was driving on. Tons of grass and foliage were also stained gray-brown from being immersed in flood water only days before. An unusually high percentage of people were outside, working on cleaning up their damaged homes and yards. Out of respect for the storm victims, I refrained from taking any pictures.
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| Toppled trees and destruction along the Schoharie Creek in Esperance, NY. This was a full week after Hurricane Irene passed through. |
Although my march through the celebrated Leatherstocking Region of New York began on that somber note, the mood brightened soon enough as I began to revel in the beautiful scenery of the Cherry Valley. Despite its proximity to Massachusetts, New York has a very different flavor and look about it. Driving past farms replete with big red barns and farm animals, you really can’t help but use words like “pastoral” and “idyllic” to describe the scenery. It’s too bad that when most people think of New York, some image of New York City probably comes to mind. In reality though, most of the state is covered by the rolling hills and farms that I would spend my day traversing.
Besides the scenery, I was grateful for Highway 20’s relative degree of scooter friendliness, especially after snaking my way along roads with narrow shoulders the day before. Route 20’s wide shoulders allowed me to give more comfortable berths to passing traffic, even though overall the road seemed refreshingly lightly traveled.
I eventually ate lunch on a jungle gym in the town park of quaint West Winfield, NY. While there I saw a devoted dog owner taking his old dog for a walk. The dog walked really, really slowly and evidently had creaky old joints and leg problems because its owner needed to carry it down the gentle slope of a hill. Not that Terpsi’s that old or anything, but watching this reminded me of how much I already missed my friend.
Driving on, I crested a hill to see dark clouds and a bolt of lightning awaiting me on the next hilltop. Eager to avoid my third deluge of the day, I darted off of 20 at the next rural intersection and then pulled off that road in a wooded area in anticipation of an extreme weather event. After waiting for a couple tense but uneventful minutes, I realized that somehow the storm clouds had missed me. I was a little disappointed honestly, as I had thoroughly enjoyed the hobbit-style “get off the road!” adrenaline rush and the desperate scramble for shelter. Furthermore, I was proud of the spot I had chosen. Nestled in a grove of tall trees, I felt like I wasn’t as easy of a target for lightning as if I had perched beneath a single, lonely tree somewhere else. Additionally, these trees were part of a state forest, so I wasn’t even trespassing on someone’s property.
Another perk of Highway 20 is how it makes seamless transitions from scenic country road to the main street of historic downtown sections of small towns all across the state. It’s a genuinely rewarding experience to get to cruise the strip of the Morrisvilles of the world as they provide a welcome change of pace from the rural stretches separating towns. This provides a flattering glimpse of towns that one is denied by taking the interstate only a few miles to the north.
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| Most of New York looks something like this. |
As 20 morphed into the main street of pleasant Cazenovia, NY, I received a slight ego boost upon discovering that the street was actually named Albany Street- presumably acknowledging the distant city to which the road extends. I felt quite proud to have traveled the length of “Albany Street” all the way from its namesake to Cazenovia, as people had probably done in olden times before I-90 was built and stole the show.
Not far after Cazenovia, I reached my destination in the student ghetto of Syracuse University, where Labor Day Weekend festivities were in full swing in rowdy apartments. I was proud to have completed another day of safe scooting and had renewed confidence about the feasibility of my trip and the ability of my body to adjust to the demands of scooting. I would just have to take things one day at a time, with stops thrown in on an as-needed basis to keep my body fresh. I no longer feared that I was going to have to adopt the Stanley Yelnats mentality and tell myself that “the second day is the hardest” and then the third, and the fourth, and so on.
As I went to park the scooter behind my hosts’ apartment, disaster struck when I least suspected it. In the process of locking it up, my forearm brushed against the sizzling-hot motor, resulting in a sizable second-degree burn. Great. So, that will be fun to keep an eye on as I hopefully stave off infection in the coming days. Oh well, it’s not like a festering wound ever hurt anyone. I suppose it’ll just add another exciting element to the trip, which is increasingly resembling the Oregon Trail computer game (one of Carleton’s most notable gifts to the world, might I add). The grueling pace. Bare-bones rations. And now the possibility of Pa succumbing to an infection. At least I’m looking forward to when my pixilated self gets to go hunting and slaughter 974 pounds of meat.
Shout-outs:
-A big thanks to the triumvirate of Voorheesville transplants, Jimbo, Laura, and Sarah for hosting me at their place for two nights
-Approximately 4-year-old girl who tickled my face with seagull feathers at a stop near the lake in Cazenovia
-Kind lady in West Winfield who asked if I needed anything while temporarily stranded in the rain (I didn’t ask about a ride to San Francisco)
-The pair of guys drunkenly riding a two-person bicycle through the student ghetto of Syracuse
Town(s) of the Day: Cazenovia, NY; West Winfield, NY
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