... after a nice, if too brief, visit with philip and his family, i hit the road for the next-to-last leg of my little wander-about ... as i reached northern new jersey i decided to take the verazanno bridge, a route i last traveled well over twenty years ago ...
... i'd say my choice of roads was a mistake, but, of course, per the whole "two roads diverged," i can't because there's no way i can know what the outcome what would have been had i taken the gw bridge or gone all the way up to the tappan zee crossing ...
... no ... no, it was a mistake ... a really, really big mistake ...
... immediately after i turned onto i278 and paid the exorbitant toll, traffic slowed to a crawl ... for those of you who've never driven a motorcycle, this has a dramatically different meaning than it does when you're in a car ... it took me almost 45 minutes to travel the six miles or so to the approach to the verazanno bridge ... as i passed the final exit before the bridge i dismissed the fleeting thought that perhaps it would make sense to ditch the interstate and instead negotiate city streets in staten island back to back to ny440 and then i78 ... instead, i drove onto the great bridge ...
... ohhhhhhhhh ...
... it took exactly one hour and fifteen minutes to drive from the cable anchor to just past the bridge's eastern tower ... adding the western side of the bridge to the longest span, which is by itself 4,260 feet, and the total is almost exactly one mile ... the math is easy to do, that comes to approximately .85 miles-per-hour, a rather interesting figure when you consider that the normal walking speed for a human being is 2.5-3 miles-per-hour ... on a motorcycle, of cours, .85 miles-per-hour translates out to a cramp in the clutch hand ...
... to make matters even more interesting, despite a weather forecast that had promised a moderation in the temperature, it was over 90°f on the bridge ... i spent a lot of time cursing my obviously flawed judgement, my motorcycle, new york city, traffic, and ... well, i got really close to the last one ... then a guy on a fancy harley-davidson pulled up alongside me ... i asked, "is your ass burning up" ...
... "nah," he replied, "but my legs are cooked to the bone" ... i guess under circumstances like we were in there are probably few motorcycles that're going to be anything but uncomfortable ...
... all-in-all, adding in the emergency pour-a-gallon-of-water-on-my-head stop and the two other traffic jams, it took me almost three hours to go from the new jersey border to connecticut, with my navigation mistakes a distance of 71 miles ... (odd, something i would've never realized, the "normal" george washingon bridge route is only two miles shorter) ...
... later it was very merciful of the connecticut trooper who instead of giving me a citation for "i clocked you at 85 miles-per-hour coming out of that rest area" to instead have a nice conversation with me about motorcycle driving (which he agreed that it if not legal, it probably made sense how fast i accelerated to merge with the congested flow of traffic which he admitted was itself moving at over 80 miles-per-hour), law enforcement (he told me some horror stories involving texting-while-driving), and, of course, my military service (hey, i'm not that proud i don't appreciate a "thank you for your service") ... truthfully, i would've accepted the ticket without complaint ... he was a very nice man, and i most liked it when at parting he said, "my jobs to keep you save, sir, and if you help me out a bit i'll appreciate it" ... nice ...
... got to rhode island exhausted ... tried to take a picture of beth's flowers, was way too windy and i was way too tired ...
... mike provided first aid ...
... i gave beth a new rule, she is to not tell me what i'm eating ... the green stuff looked horrible, kind of like what you clean from the lawn mower grass chute, but it tasted pretty good ...
... now, i'm resting ...