White Clay again

Last night I chose an office bldg parking lot, adjacent was a medical office. The medical was opened today but the office was quiet. What luck.

Set up GPS last night. This AM I searched for grocery stores and it guided me to one just across the street. Hot damn. Figured out intersection of mansion TH and it navigated me right to it. Sold on it. Letting go of challenging thinking & reasoning is hard to give up to a device that does all the thinking. Will learn how to make it pick my roads.

Beautiful day and very warm. Ben & Greg from Hershey, PA drove into parking lot & we struck up a conversation, and true to form, I globbed onto their ride. They had the same better trail map that the Susans had making decision making more informed. Shorts but knee warmers for good measure.

Wandered around, great riding, trails are mostly smooth but twisty & lots of little ups & downs. trail construction created loose dirt so it was piled on trail to make small humps that I could launch off for some air. Regrowth forest of lots of beech. No pictures when ride with others and the trails look like other broadleaf forests.

Plan after ride was to score a shower and fill the propane. No GPS work here, just blind groping. Hit gas station to ask for phone book. Attendant told me of propane down the street. I wrote info on 2 XGs & headed down street. Passed fitness & racket club. Bought shower for $10. I am now enjoyably clean.

Roads here don’t permit left turns so the driver finds an intersection and U turn around. What a chore to drive into gas station w/ propane. 4.5 gallons in a week. Used heater all night several times. Cold weather refill every maybe 10 days.

Temp hit 71. Somewhat sweaty after shower.

Drove to Fair Hill Natural Area, Maryland where tomorrow’s ride will be. No camping. Drove a bit further down highway to newly opened bank building right alongside highway. parked under parking lot lights, just out in the open. May I have a peaceful night.

14.36 miles & 1400′. Liked the ride so much I did it a second time and still did not ride all trails. More people both riders & hikers today. Rode a section to trail that had the dirt mounds as a downhill. We passed a lesser skilled group of riders before the whoops. I know I had some launching and recovery fun. We stopped alongside trail after the whoops and listened to the hooting of those riders. You think they were celebrating 8 seconds on a bronco.

Oh, Postville, IA is in the news again, this time the son of the founder is in jail for harboring illegal aliens for financial gain. Something about it all. The author wrote about his knowledge of operation & published back in like ’06. Took till summer of ’08 for feds to move in.

Another wonderful day in Delaware

Uneventful sleep, traffic abated late at night & picked up for AM commute. Slept w/o heat, bit chilly. Suspect the down blanket doubled up will require heat for comfort. Need to buy propane soon to learn of consumption.

Found local bike shop about 5 blocks from where I slept. Waited until they opened and used their Pedros grease gun to lube bushings. Randy, 1 bushing wouldn’t take any and several others grudging accepted some. And you say that you are continually greasing the bushings? I will buy the gun from Turner.

Drove out to Brandywine Creek just a little ways away. In DE you are never far from something in state.

Beautiful day: short fingered gloves, short jersey and no knee warmers. Wandered around, Not many miles, leaves still are on and floor is still dark.

Last night I started researching auto GPS units. I have made some navigation errors and have been frustrated upon occasion trying to decipher small scale rand mcnally. Today on drive to somewhere I retraced my AM route to a Best Buy for hands on shopping. I spent maybe an hour learning & quizzing 2 knowledeable salesman. Finally bought a Garmin nuvi 205, their basic unit but it still speaks instructions in a pleasant female voice. I can shut her off, however.

Searched out an office complex just behind bike shop. Quieter off highway further & some partial bldg blockage.

No shower for day 2, didn’t try to find one.

Wed shower at Cal’s I noticed like a scab hanging from my belly. It moved and felt like it was an attached scab and if I pulled it loose I would have a good bleed. How a wound got there escaped my recall. And no further exam was performed. Today when I changed into riding clothes I looked w/ my glasses on and discovered it was a tick buried into my slack belly skin, probably not much blood supply. I had been a host to a tick for like 3 days. The site is red and worried, I hope all the mouth parts came out. Just small details.

Set up gps and loaded in a destination. Looks like it will work. Trick is to make it think like I do for driving back roads.

Halloween. No trick or treaters.

Made some log climb over moves and bested a small rock garden; Platform / clipless pedals would instill confidence to know i can bail with a foot down before a clipped in clipless fall smacks down.

The Wiss, dinner with Cal & the Phillies winning the World series

Quiet sleep. Fixed bfast. drove down road to parking lot to do computer work waiting out AM commute traffic as I am driving into Philly to the Wisahockon trail.

Heavy traffic and several road construction and detours that just put a plug in th traffic flow.

No nibbles on sharing ride. about 1 1/2 hr drive round about to TH at Pachella field. Trail along West side of river are mostly old parkway road bed. On E side made up w/ some technical ups & downs. Forced ride to meet cal at Embassy Suites at Philly airport. The drive to there was a lesson in surface street commute traffic. I noticed in PA pedestrians have no right ofway even in recognized cross walks. I also noticed that perdestrians in  cities ignore traffic regs and force themselves on drivers.

Met Cal, big shower at plush hotel, no freezing or dried insects hanging from the nozzle. He took me to dinner at a place he found in way downtown South Philly. We scored a bar seat w/ great view of TV. And then the game: last 3 innings from rained out game. Rapid Philly crowd. When Philly scored or made a great play the place rocked, the floorboards bounced up & down. The building is one of those ancient ones I was concened about watching the last of the game from the basement. When the pitcher struck out the last Ray the place exploded: cacophany, one older wacko guy shook beer in the air spraying me. We hung around for a little while. the place emptied out onto the street. Several small crowds gathered hooting & hollering. First time in my life that I was in a home town winning a home game for the championship.

I slept in the hotel parking lot. Another chilly night w/ heater on low.

Beautiful morning today.

Drove down to Delaware and White Clay State Forest ride. Short drive.

Globbed onto 2 racer chicks. What a ride. They were refreshing their memories of the trails and rode at a righteous pace. Wonderful trail system. 13.67 miles and 1493′. Worth riding again. Only stops were to figure map out. Great group ride.

More leaves remain on trees here than up North. Which has been snow dumped on. Jim Thorpe received snow. Made it out in time.

Tonight camped in a shopping center parking lot beside a bank. Main highway is  about 150′ unobstructed feet away. Mostly residential.

Going to ride 1 more ride in DE, brandywine Creek park befofre moving down to MD.

Received a jury summons for Spokane County. License tabs arrived at ECM, I shipped them to Slatyfork WVA, home of my next IMBA epic.