Day 18
By now you're not surprised that we rose before dawn, but 2 AM was a bit much. After a few hours of sleep I was awake and already anticipating the ride, and if the adjacent rustling was any indication I could tell that Jim was too. We did a decent job of pretending to sleep until 5-something, which is still stupid o'clock in the morning, and then rose to perform the routine. We've got it down pat now, ironically, on the last day of the tour. It was 49 degrees and had already rained hard, but thankfully wasn't actively raining at the moment. The road spray would be bad, but at least we wouldn't be getting drenched each time we stopped. We'd be warmer and wetter, which beats drier and upside down due to icing. We got on the road at 6:45 to blustery winds and a heavy, leaden sky. The clouds in the east turned a beautiful rose orange, reminiscent of the morning we left on the 2018 Prefrontal Tour, now 18 days past, but this time the clouds were so dense we didn't even see the disc of the sun for another hour, and then only briefly. It was a welcome absence, though, considering how difficult it is to ride into a rising or setting sun. The morning traffic into Buffalo had already dried the lanes somewhat, so there wasn't any standing water, but the spray was omnipresent and coated the windshield, visor, and anything else you wanted to see through. All across the country I observed that semi trucks are like sharks, and they try to travel alone or in trains of three or four. Cars are like the little fish that follow sharks around, and there's inevitably a small swarm of cars just in front, alongside, and behind each tractor trailer, but for what reason I can't surmise. One other benefit of the cloud cover was it kept thermal radiation to a minimum and it was a balmy 55 degrees before they broke somewhere west of Syracuse, and we lost 10 degrees just like that. The rest of the ride was damp and bone chilling - the Tour was not going down easy. Passing Herkimer, on that long high stretch of roadway that descends into the town, we encountered some of the craziest gusts of the trip, pushing the bike over what felt like 30 degrees from- and to- the left. Thankfully it was only for that few miles, and at our next stop we exchanged remarks about "What The Gust"? I'll probably get a bunch of bills from different toll authorities, because even in NY the E-Z Pass doesn't work if it's in your jacket pocket. I just kept going, because I'm not jeopardizing my safety for what basically amounts to a government confiscation mechanism. Sticking it in the vent of my windshield seemed to work for the last two gates we traversed. It was still overcast when we rolled onto local roads, with ghosts and goblins everywhere behind a screen of falling leaves. We apparently didn't miss the color after all, because the trees across the mirror-smooth lake were a sight to behold. I made a quick stop at Fuller's Store where we started the whole shebang, for a top up and a photo to memorialize the Tour, then I rolled up the driveway and into the garage at 12:24 PM. Exactly 30 minutes later it downpoured for a good 10 minutes, as if to drive home the point that we *were* prefrontal, but only just. I'd like to thank you all for dragging your eyes through this dense prose day after day, for tolerating my limited bag of literary tricks, for following our journey and providing weather and routing suggestions, and most of all your words of encouragement. The Tour was a last-minute arrangement, intended to cast off the pigeonhole that people construct for you over the years as they're wont to do. And it did that in spades - there is nothing better than getting around to build new perspectives - America is vast and full of opportunity, and one can create and add value in so many ways. Onward and upward!
