Riding the Adirondacks



Once I got the bike back up to the top I began to get the tent set up. This is the first time I’m using this tent and so it took a bit of fooling to get things straight but before long I was set. And of course AFTER the tent was set up it happened. The family I was told about returned to their cabin not far from me. I’m all set up and now I discover I have a family with four kids and two dogs in the cabin up the road! The owner tried to warn me in a nice way, I didn’t listen.

I didn’t know what was worse, the kids, the mom yelling at the kids and the dogs, or the two dogs whining endlessly. At one point in the darkness one dog suddenly went silent and I hear the mom in a most santanic voice say “shut…the…hell…up!” I pictured her hand wrapped tightly around the poor animal’s snout as she spoke. So now what’s the dog supposed to think? “Oh, well since you used the “H” word I’ll shut up now”? At this point I remembered I packed my little Radioshack am/fm radio complete with loud family blocking headphones! And if that wasn’t good enough, WCBS Newsradio 880 out of NYC is reaching Cold Brook NY with the Yankee game! I’m not sure how I became a Yankee fan. I think it had to do with my grandfather, a man I admired, who was a Yankee fan back when Babe Ruth was on the field. He took me to my first baseball game in New York, I’m pretty sure it was 1964. Legends like Whitey Ford, Roger Maris, and Mickey Mantle were on that team. I didn’t understand the game completely back then and after some time I wanted to go home. I wish I would have gone back there again with him in later years but that opportunity has been gone for decades now. It’s a lesson in how things can slip by in life and so when I watch a game I think of him as I did tonight with my headphones blaring John Sterling’s voice over that family’s racket from up the road.

I start unpacking my propane stove and cookware and grab the cans of Dinty Moore stew. Dinty Moore was Sunday dinners for 4 years in college since the Cafeteria did not serve dinner on Sundays. I don’t think I’ve had this stuff since then, I was surprised to find it on the shelves today.



Just about done!



The bar is open too!



A few sips of this stuff after riding 200 miles hits the spot with dinner but the added benefit is I swear it keeps the bugs away! Keep a sweat shirt on and after enough of this you break into a small sweat and the mosquitoes take a hike! After dinner I cleaned up and wrote some notes down about the day so I wouldn’t forget. It was time to hit the tent but the radio had to come as well, it was extra innings in the game with a score of zero. Where a one man tent takes up little space on the bike, it is meant for getting in and sleeping only. No room to sit up or hardly move at all. I crawl in, it seems the sleeping bag is upside down but no problem…wait, it is a problem. The part that loops around your head like a hood is now looped over my face. Gotta get this thing right side up which is quite a stunt inside this tiny tent. I’m drifting off to sleep but once in awhile I wake to hear the game. What’s that? 15th inning?!? Can someone please score so I can get some sleep! I nod off, out cold, and then I wake to John Sterling with his famous scream…”It is high…it is far…it..is..GONE! An A-bomb from A-Rod!!”

They did it, there’s another one for grandpa, the family up the road is asleep, I’m done for today.

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