I made great time getting out of Connecticut, crossing the New York border just 2 hours after leaving the house. I intended to circumvent NYC and avoid the Cross Bronx Expressway, but somewhere around Yonkers my GPS unit led me astray and I ended up cutting through the Bronx and crossing the Hudson on the GW anyway. Once in New Jersey though I was able to get back up to cruising highway speeds and breezed by the miles of oderous landfills marking the New York border side of the state - New York's dumping ground.
At a rest stop in Jersey I ran into a guy who was riding a 650 dirt bike to florida, and he paid for my water at the rest stop. That was very cool, and I would have offered to ride with him for a bit but he was wearing a bicycle helmet instead of a motorcycle helmet which just screamed "special needs" to me so I foraged ahead on my own. We ran into each other at two other stops later in the day (fortunately I saw him before he saw me both times). Weird that we would stop at the same places.
Just after crossing into Delaware I ran out of gas. This is a terrifying thing on a motorcycle; one minute you're screaming along in the left lane, the other you are coasting to the shoulder, playing Frogger to avoid the cars you passed not minutes before. My onboard computer said I had a quarter tank left and could go another 138 miles, but the engine wasn't starting. I've run out of gas before, so I recognized the symptoms immediately and didn't panic. I called AAA and as soon as I hung up the phone a Delware Roadside Assistance truck pulled up and gave me some free gas. FREE GAS. I rode on fumes up to the next rest stop some 4 miles away and filled the tank. It took 5 gallons - which means that either 2 gallons are going unused somehow, or both I and my onboard computer were misinformed when we were told that it had a 7 gallon tank. I'll look into that when I get home, but for now I won't let the tank get below the halfway mark which means refueling more than I had planned.
I finally got to Richmond about two hours later than I had intended (running out of gas cost me about an hour, and I got going about an hour later than I had planned) and pulled off the highway to find the Days Inn I was planning on staying at only to be greeted by desolation. Apparently, all of Richmond (except the historic district, I would later find out) is a giant, empty ghetto. I drove around for an hour looking for a suitable hotel to stay at and found none (the Mariott, despite being in the heart of the ghetto was nice, but they wanted 250$ a night!) so I got back on the highway and headed further south.
I ended up about 4 miles south of the Phillip Morris tobacco company headquarters in a little town called... oh, who cares what it's called - It's a strip mall, basically, anchored by a Hooters on one side and an Applebees on the other. I'm staying at a Country Inn and Suites which cost about twice as much as I wanted to spend but I figured I deserved it after the day I put in.
I walked out to a Pizzeria Uno, hoping to find beer, food, and a cute southern Belle who wanted to rub my sore back, and found only the first two. Culture shock: around here not only can you smoke in bars and restaurants, but EVERYONE smokes. EVERYONE. It's like they never got the memo.
I enjoyed my burger (despite the stale bread and overcooked meat) and Guiness and headed back to the hotel. I bought a Smirnoff Ice at a gas station (love that feature) and am going to sneak outside and smoke a cigar, because in a weird twist of fate, I'm staying at the only non-smoking hotel in the county.
Here's what I learned today:
- Sunblock must be applied more than just once at the start of your day, otherwise you WILL end up with a sunburned nose.
- According to my GPS system, driving really fast doesn't even begin to make up for time lost in bumper to bumper traffic.
- I love Southern girls. They are just like Midwestern girls except skinny with wonderful hair, and when they talk it sounds like molasses being poured into honey.
- People in the South use the word "ain't" without the slightest hint of irony.
- I'm glad I didn't decide to stay at the Days Inn which is next door to the Country Inn, because there are a group of Good Ole Boys outside whooping and hollerin', which would be prohibitive to sleeping.
That's it for today. Cigar then bed and tomorrow I strike out for somewhere on the Atlantic coast about 400 miles south of here (I'd be more specific but I'm too tired to look at a map).
