May 16, 2017

May, 14 2017
Here's the latest play by play on my trip. I don't have internet where I'm staying tonight, so you won't see this post until I can find service.
I spent my first night in a little Methodist Church outside of Richmond.  About six that evening, another rider pulled in to spend the night. His name is Malcolm Foley from Florida, but is a grad student at Alabama. We've ridden together the last two days. We did seventy five miles yesterday and spent the night beside a barbecue pit in Mineral, Va. Today we did about seventy and ended up in Whitehall, Va. Today was very tough, lots of hills, a headwind, and it got pretty hot around Charlottesville. By far the worst part was around Monticello, where was  a steep winding grade on a narrow road with lots touristy type traffic.
We are lunch at Moose's cafe beside Moose's gun shop. There was a lot of Moose bling as well a good bit of pro-gun signage like "Guns welcome, please don't use them unless you need to." I had the pot roast, and no shots were fired.
 We  are camped at the Whitehall community center, no shower, a cold water hose pipe, and no toilet. Right across the street there is a little country store where I bought a six pack of Rolling Rock and two cans of Beanie Weanies. As you can see, cross country touring is not quite as glamorous as you might have expected.
Tomorrow we have a short mileage day, but very tough. We have a very steep 16 mile climb up to Rockfish Gap on the blue ridge parkway, then about 16 more tough miles on the parkway. We may stop there or take a hair on fire descent down to Vesuvius, Va.
May 15, 2017
Made it to a crossroads called "Love, Va. 34 miles, could not have gone an inch farther. Hours of grinding away at four to five miles an hour followed by mere minutes of heart stopping descents.  Pulled into this campground around 2:00, are lunch and rested. Had a good dinner tonight. Boiled a pound of macaroni, added the cheese powder and a can of Campbell's beef and vegetable soup. Um, um good.
Another rider pulled in about 3:00. He's from New Zealand. Jay is very fit, he did in 3 what took us four to ride. We will probably all leave together tomorrow, but he will soon a distant memory.
I don't have internet or cell service here, so Kathy, I hope you are not to worried about me. By the way, Jay took a picture of a bear in the woods on his ride to here today. Do you know what a bear calls the pepper spray I have to fend off dogs?  A condiment.

A sad note about Jay: We found out later that he was hit by a car in Colorado and badly injured. Saw a picture of him in the hospital, tubes coming out of him in all directions. Things can happen out here.

May 16, 2017
I'm in Lexington Va. Waiting on bike repair for my friend. More about that later. It's about 1:00 and we have 28 miles to go today. Hope I can post again tonight.

living it up in Whitehall

May 12th First day on bike

I
I left Yorktown about 7:15 this morning. I stopped at the monument to get a picture of me and my bike, but had to resort to a picture of only my bike. It seems that there are not many tourists out and about in the rain at 7:15 in the morning. I guess I could have taken a selfie, but selfies make my head look freakishly large. I had better luck down at the waterfront for the obligatory dipping of the back wheel in the water.

It rained on me the entire 65 miles I rode today. I had planned to go about 75 and camp, but lucky for me I checked the weather yesterday and arranged to stay at Willis Methodist church outside of Richmond. What great hospitality: the door was open when I got there, there is a nice shower with big thick towels,  a Keurig coffee maker, and food in the kitchen.

Speaking of Methodists' , I stopped at a church in Charles City (an apparent misnomer ) where they were selling barbecued chicken dinners. I ate half of a very large chicken for lunch.

The first 25 miles of the route today was on the Colonial Parkway. Like other pathways I have ridden on , it was nice,but a lot of people use it for a bypass in the mornings. The traffic thinned down to almost nothing after Williamsburg. One thing I didn't like about it was the paving. It was paved with small cobbles about the average size of a quarter to about a silver
dollar. They were embedded in concrete which had somewhat eroded away, making for a very bumpy ride.

The next 35 miles was on the Capital Trail, which is a very nice green way  from Jamestown to Richmond. I'm glad I rode it today, because there are 1500 riders signed up for a ride on it tomorrow. I learned this from Wayne who was helping set up the event at Charles City. Wayne looked to be about my age, and he told me he did the Trans-Am route in 2014. He said he had a great time and envied me for my trip.

My travel necessities

I'm almost ready to leave on my big adventure.  Here is a list of things I'm taking.
Sleeping bag
Tent
Air mattress
Sleeping bag liner
Jet boil stove
Fuel for above
Extra batteries
Maps
Fire tablet
Cell phone
Battery pack to recharge phone and tablets
Front and rear lights for bike
Various cords to charge all above
Cup
3 water bottles
2 extra water containers
Inflatable pillow
Tooth brush and toothpaste
Alleve claritin and tums
Misc. Baggies
Razor and shaving cream
Swiss army knife
Bike lube
Dental floss
Extra reading glasses
1 spork
Toilet paper
Handiwipes
Flashlight
25 feet of 3/16 rope
4 cloths pins
Soap and shampoo
Sun block
Bug spray
2 spray cans of Halt (pepper spray for dogs and people but perhaps only a condiment for bears)
Bandaids and ointment
Butt lube for long days in saddle
Baby powder for the same
Matches
Money
Credit card
ID
Pencil and pad
Sun glasses
3 pairs bike shorts
3 short sleeve jerseys
Light weight bike jacket
Rain jacket and pants
Fleece vest
4 pairs socks
Bike shoes
Light weight canvas shoes
2 pairs light weight shorts
2 tee shirts
Bathing suit
2 pairs underwater  That's underwear (damned auto-correct)
2 hats
Helmet and rain cover
1 small light weight towel
Coffee
Peanuts
Peanut butter
Crackers
Ramen noodles
Bike cable lock
Spare tire tubes bike tools and patch kit
CO2inflater
Sportscoat slacks tie and shirt  (not really)
That's about it. I think that all this with 3 full water bottles will weigh about forty pounds, and my bike with the empty panniers front and rear will also weigh about 40 pounds. Can't wait for the. Hills.

Thinking Big

Last night I watched a Nova  episode on PBS about the construction of a new railroad tunnel under the streets of London. The technical aspects of the undertaking were truly remarkable, and the cost was astronomical, but there were long term benefits to the people of London that will last for hundreds of years.

This morning I had to go to Huntersville give platelets. I left my house at 6:20 and arrived at the Red Cross at 7:10. The traffic was terrible all the way, and the view of I-77 as I crossed it was appalling.
But, this post is not a rant about traffic, instead it is a lament about our country's future.

I look around at the rest of the world, England, China, Dubai, Korea, Japan, you name them, they are moving forward, while we seem to be standing still, or even going backwards. While other countries build huge bridges, fast rail systems, modern bridges and highways, we debate how and if we should spend money simply to repair our aging infrastructure .

While almost every civilized country in the world recognizes the necessity of universal health care, our congress bends over backwards to destroy the meager program the Obama administration ushered in.

After World War Two, veterans were offered a free college education, in the sixties segregated schools were abolished. Today, students rack up huge debts for a college education to get a job that pays no better than high school education level jobs of the fifties and sixties. Segregation has been reestablished under the guise of neighborhood, private and charter schools.

It seems we can no longer think big. Our nation has become mired in the swamp of conservatism. The mantra of the conservatives is to cut taxes and deny benefits to the sick, poor, and uneducated, and to hold on to whatever assets and and advantages they have, and to hope that their advantages will endure. As long as they have a good job and employer paid health insurance, or are independently wealthy and can afford all the health care they need, what good does it do them to provide for others. After all, as I have quoted Voltaire often in the past, "the comfort of the rich requires an abundant supply of the poor".

The only area where we make big strides is in our military. It's not enough that we have, by far, the most advanced and expensive military in the world, we must increase our military might at the expense of the well being of our citizens. But what good is an axe if there are no trees to fell. Our military adventurism has burdened our country and the world with the casualties of war. In the end, our military will not protect us from ourselves.

Trans-America 2017

May 1, 2017

I'm almost ready for my first and last really big travel adventure. Home repairs and house painting will have to wait, birthdays, weddings, funerals, and my coffee klatch will have to go on without me.
I've got a new bike, sleeping bag, tent, and rain gear, and I'm soon to be headed west.

I plan to leave Yorktown Va. on May 12, and be in Astoria Oregon around mid-August. The route I am taking is the Trans-America route established around 1976. It is a well documented route with maps and information published by the Adventure Cycling Association. Here is a link to there web site: www.adventurecycling.org . Thousands of people have ridden this route, and I hope to be one of them. The route leaves Yorktown, winds it's way across Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and then into Colorado where it turns northwest through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and across Oregon to Astoria on the pacific coast. Here is a link to a route map on the adventure cycling web site. https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/interactive-network-map/ This is an interactive map that you can zoom in on to closely follow the route.

I am traveling alone and self-supported. I plan to mostly camp, or stay in shelters provided by civic organizations and churches along the way and occasionally sleep in a motel or hostel. Here is a link to the type of places where I hope to stop for the night. http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/pic/?pic_id=660923, and here is a link to the hospitality I hope to encounter on my trip. This is a sign outside the Elk Garden United Methodist Church near the Virginia/Kentucky border.http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/pic/?pic_id=658353

Fear

I want to think my friend, Steve, for recommending me for a carpentry job to one of his friends. Not  because I got the job, but it gave me something to think about while I was doing some tedious painting.

This fellow wanted me to install a new exterior door from his porch to his kitchen. The existing door was in good shape, but it was one of those doors that has a glass insert panel on the top half. He was concerned that someone could break the glass, reach in and unlock the single cylinder dead bolt, and thus break into the house. He wanted me to install a solid door without a window. The kitchen was pretty shaded and dark, and the solid door would have made it even darker, but, to me, the darkness that permeated the house was not from the lack of windows.

His was the personal darkness of fear that made him willing to shut out the light. He had lived in that same house with the same door for over 30 years, but suddenly he was fearful of a break-in. It's not a bad neighborhood, middle-class, not wealthy, but not Detroit or Chicago. I looked for some statistics on home break-ins and found a Bureau of Justice Statistics report from 2003 to 2007. Here's the link: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt. It turns out that the number of break-ins seems quite high; about 3.7 million/year, or one for every 33 households. But, 65% of those break-ins are committed by intruders known to the homeowners. About 7% (259,000) of break-ins result in assaults, but only about 90,000 of these assaults are by strangers. That makes the risk of being assaulted by a stranger in your own home about 1 in 3000. In all of the break-ins, there are only 430 homicides per year, so the risk of being killed in your own home during a break-in is about 1 in 700,000. According to the report, these risks diminish some what if you are white, married, and live in a single family home. And, I assume, that the part of the country you live in, your economic status, and other variables can increase or decrease your risk, but the report does not differentiate.

I won't call the man's fear irrational, after all, there is a small but real risk of being assaulted or even killed in you own home. But, you are 15 times more likely to die by falling in your own home, 10 times more likely to accidentally poison yourself, 7 times more likely to die in a home fire, twice as likely to die by choking to death, and almost twice as likely to die by drowning. There's even a higher risk of being shot and killed by a law enforcement officer.

This man's fear is an anecdotal example of our societal belief that danger seems to lurk at every corner. We are constantly reminded by the media that murder and mayhem exists. We are told by the NRA that we need guns to protect our homes. We are told by our Republican candidate for president that immigrants and and minorities are taking our jobs, cheating us of our tax dollars, spreading terrorism, and even threatening our religions. Some of our preachers allege that Christianity is under assault and that God will punish us for allowing abortions, or for tolerating LGBT people.

I'll admit that I'm cautiously fearful of certain things. I'm very fearful of some big picture items such as climate change or threats to our democracy, that might effect my child or grandchild, or our country, or even the world. I would bolt the door to protect future generations.

But here's the thing: I know that I, like everyone else is going to die, hopefully not tomorrow or next week, but someday. But until then, I am going to choose to live in the light.

Tape this to your refrigerator and check off the blocks.

I suspect Antonin Scalia was a decent man whose ideology prevented him from seeing the forest for the trees. I sorry for his death, but glad he's gone from the court.

So, whats going to happen now? Within hours of Scalia's death, Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate would not confirm a new justice under the current president, even though that will throw our legal system into chaos for at least a year. Here's how it will play out.

1. President Obama will know that picking a liberal will poke a stick in the Republican eye. He may try it once, just to win some political points.

2. He will soft ball over the plate a moderate middle of the road judge with good credentials but without a big track record.

3. The Republican political assassination team will immediately knock the nominee right out of the park with a combination of, character assassination, innuendo, right wing punditry, litmus tests, religious views, accusations of left handedness,  or anything else that will postpone an actual vote.

4. Under constant personal assault, the nominee will likely decline or withdraw his nomination before a vote can be cast.

5. Wash rinse and repeat, probably three of four times.

6. Even though the American public will, by this time be clambering for resolution, by selecting, a balanced nominee, and if he actually receives a vote in the Senate, he will lose. King Solomon could not be confirmed under the current conditions in the Senate, with the current President. It won't even be close. Adding to the slim majority the lockstep Republicans hold in the Senate there will be a number of Democratic Senators in swing states that will not risk their political future on a reasonable appointment.

Mitch McConnell as well as a number of Senators and congressmen have, over and over again, shown themselves to be traitors to the American Constitution, and the American public. This will be just one more in a long line of seditious acts.

Mitch McConnell

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

"Today our country lost an unwavering champion of a timeless document that unites each of us as Americans.

"Justice Scalia's fidelity to the Constitution was rivaled only by the love of his family: his wife Maureen his nine children, and his many grandchildren. Through the sheer force of his intellect and his legendary wit, this giant of American jurisprudence almost singlehandedly revived an approach to constitutional interpretation that prioritized the text and original meaning‎ of the Constitution.

"Elaine and I send our deepest condolences to the entire Scalia family.

"The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”