i got a room at the Best Western by the State Fairgrounds. i knew i'd be too tired to meet up with my folks tonight. I biked ~60 miles yesterday, and 56 today, and 30 of those miles were in cold rain. 55F/13C
My rain pants then go over the bag to keep the rain out.
here's what the sleep chart normally looks like.
roll it up like a burrito and then stomp on it. Just stand right on top of it and keep shuffling your feet the width of the burrito, putting your whole weight down on the rolled up towel. Jacqui taught me that trick.
I didn't take many photos today. Wasn't that scenic, thankfully about 20 miles on good road with wide shoulders instead of the gravel path. The weather didn't start to clear up until the last hour of my ride. All my photos would have just been a foggy lens.
I was able to stop using the Ziploc bags over my hands and feet, for the last 2 hours of the ride. So I did get to dry out some before showing up at the hotel.
Lunch was really good too, just a small town Diner. I pigged out and had a large bowl of chili and a buffalo chicken wrap.
As far as not seeing my folks tonight , I didn't sleep well last night. It was a noisy site, there was a house nearby playing thumping music. It was probably a party somewhere; it was Friday night after all. Something with a heavy bass. i also biked too late into the day. I didn't get to the 28b lock until 7:30 p.m. and it took me 30 minutes to set up camp, give myself a sponge bath, change, and kill all the mosquitos that got into the tent when i wasn't paying attention. My body needs more time to wind down before I can fall asleep. Lesson learned. I try to keep to a 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. sleep schedule when camping. It's just easier to sleep during those hours; things are quieter between those times.
I normally get 8 and 1/2 hours sleep, and a lot more of the dark pink REM sleep. Usually two hours of REM sleep. And I normally get at least an hour or two of deep sleep. Which is darker blue but not even in the graph below.
anyhoo, jumping back to this evening , and back at the hotel room, i've got all the clothes in the bathtub. I've changed the water a few times now. first time was just me showering with the tub drain blocked. I used my feet as the agitator. The water was super brown the first time, and i'm hoping it was more due to the clothes than my shower. If it was me, yuck!
i'll wring the wet clothes by hand first, and then use the dry towels to further squeeze the water out.
i also gave the bike a good washing with a hose around the back of the hotel. It was way too dirty to bring inside . To dry it off I rode a mile back to the byrne dairy. just got a salad and some snacks for the ride tomorrow. by the time i got back the bike was dry enough to wheel it into my hotel room. i should re-lube the chain at some point, but I won't do that in the hotel room. The chain lube would stain the carpet, and I don't want to get built for a new one.
I'll be meeting my parents for lunch at Five Guys around 11:30. I'm going to eat breakfast here at the hotel, pack up, and bike to meet them. I'll text them when I leave, so we all get there at about the same time. Fully loaded up I only do about 10 miles an hour, and I think Five Guys is about 12 miles away.
After lunch, I'll keep biking East. I'll probably camp at the Lock near New London, West of Rome. It's only another 20 mi , but I'll be starting later in the day . The rest of the trip I plan on doing about 40 miles a day. So I'll probably arrive at Jacqui's parents on Thursday.
Unless the plan changes, I'll probably camp in my tent at Rotterdam and then have my last overnight camp on Plum Island in Waterford New York.
So hopefully, my last day of biking will only be 25 miles, from Waterford to Glenmont. I don't want to end on a marathon day, biking all the way from Rotterdam would be way too long.