birdman of whitehall, going blind, the best road, anything you need

September 13, 2022

As I was packing my things, I came across this chip sitting on one of the picnic tables. I think I startled it.

While I was eating breakfast this morning Keith, the caretaker for the city property, came over to chat. He let me know it’s fine to camp here, and that people do it all the time. In fact, a woman on a bike was here the night before me. There’s even a free shower in the Visitor's Center, which is about fifty yards away. I wish I’d known that last night.

Keith has lived in Whitehall all of his life, and has been at this part-time job for the past ten years. The last guy, who was full time, injured himself on the job, and Keith was befuddled as to how a person could injure himself doing what he does. He also noted that the guy now has a new house and boat.

Ideally, he'd like a job at the Washington State Prison, the one I passed yesterday, because it’s full time and comes with benefits.

“I’ll work ‘til I die,” he acknowledged, “'cuz I like the money.”

He’d really like to go to Hawaii, having only ever taken two vacations: one was a trip to Dallas to see South Fork (where the 1978-1991 series Dallas was filmed), and the second to Las Vegas (where he went with his brother).

Just like he does every day, he fed the seagulls. Today it was pieces of bread.

“Sometimes I feed them pizza. They’ll eat anything.”

We talked for 30 minutes while I ate, then he left to do some kind of work-related activity. He came back and we chatted for another 45 minutes while I slowly packed my panniers and loaded my bike. He was curious about the dynamo hub and the headlight, as well as my cleated sandals, and was adequately impressed about the overall trip.

I left at 10:00, right after he alerted me that, “You’ve got some climbing ahead of you.” When I asked how much he said, interestingly, “about 30 minutes,” then thoughtfully reconsidered, “…or 20.” I wasn’t sure how he knew how fast I’d be going, or even how fast anyone on a loaded bicycle could ride.

I’m trying to eat a protein bar every hour today, even if I’m not hungry, and was mostly successful. Unsurprisingly, it did make a difference by the end of the day.

In spite of the forecast, I had a solid hour of no rain, after which it rained off and on for the rest of the day. Nearing Ticonderoga it started coming down harder and I thought, “There’s no reason to put on my rain jacket because I can’t get more wet than I already am.” When it started raining more heavily, I learned that, yes, I could indeed get "more wet." And then wetter yet. My socks were now squishy.

In spite of the rain, and possibly because of it, the scenery remained spectacular. Here's a prime example of beautiful scenery completely uncaptured by a camera, remaining elusive to all but the naked eye.

My glasses started fogging up, but worse that that was having to stop twice today when I went completely blind. The blindness would've resolved if only I had opened my eyes. The problem was that I couldn't.

This happened during a heavy rain on my 2020 trip, resulting in me having to pull over eight or nine times, and it took me half a day to figure out why. Today I only stopped twice. The cause: after months of training, none of which was in the rain, my helmet had a hefty collection of salt deposited in the pads. When today's downpour started, it rinsed all of that salt straight into my eyes. The burning was so severe that I was literally unable to open my eyes and had to stop riding (and it even burned with them closed). It finally improved after I used some of my drinking water to squish the pads clean. After the initial episode in 2020, I started washing my helmet on a regular basis, but hadn't managed to do it in my pre-trip flurry.

there were some nice shoulders today, and not much traffic

I love the colors, textures, and details of the rocks

nothing screams "patriotism" like an eagle on a motorcycle holding two American flags

Jeez, I guess I'm not on the Best road after all

I tried finding out how a place got schizophrenically named "Streetroad," but was unsuccessful. I originally thought it was named after a person whose last name was Street, but could never verify it.... so I just rode away on my velobicycle sitting on my seatsaddle down the streetroad.

The route skirts around Ticonderoga, and at the north end of town I stopped for about thirty minutes under a small overhang out of the rain at a Savings and Loan to eat a peanut butter/nutella tortilla wrap. I wasn’t sure whether the S&L was open or closed, but there weren’t any cars in the parking lot and no one ever went in or out during the entire time I was there.

It was a little cool when I stopped so I put on my rain jacket, but took it off shortly after I started riding again and never got cold in spite of the intermittently very heavy rain.

My new phone, the first in almost a decade, is supposed to be waterproof. It has an IP68 rating, which means my iPhone 13 can be immersed in up to 6 meters (about 20 feet) of water for 30 minutes without damage. So why am I feeling some anxiety about a little bit of rain hitting it?

Maybe because of the peculiar phone-related events while I was riding today.

Although it didn't die, maybe it was responding to being waterboarded, because the touchscreen didn't work and it started doing weird things: opening random programs on my home screen when I hadn’t even touched it, for example, and pausing my RideWithGPS program for 7-8 minutes.

I was curious about why, so I did some research later (that would be after it was dry and no longer looking up "how to select a nursing home" and opening the SoundHound app for me). Apparently, there’s a charge between two panels of the screen. Touching the screen at particular points, or even getting close enough to the screen, changes the capacitance at that point because your finger absorbs some of the charge. Raindrops can also change the charge (i.e. alter the capacitance) of the outer screen panel and tell the phone to do something.

Or maybe I was just a little too close to the School of Wizardry.

typical road during this part of the day

I briefly stopped at Gene’s Hot Dog Stand in Port Henry for a protein bar and part of a Dr. Pepper. Around that time the shoulder narrowed, then disappeared. In some locations, there were blind curves.

...then disappeared. Note the blind curve ahead, which was also going uphill

Toward the end of the day, there were some very steep, but very short, climbs and descents.

When I arrived in the pouring rain, soaked, at the Westport Lakeside Hotel, Jean, the owner, came out and appeared to take pity on me. When I asked about pizza delivery she told me there weren’t any places in town and offered to make me a meal.

“I've got some food in here. How about I whip something up for you? I can also dry those clothes for you… anything you need. Do you want a Diet Pepsi? Beer? Wine?”

I must've looked really pathetic to have elicited the offer of a meal. Not wanting to take advantage of her hospitality, I declined, especially knowing I'd lighten my load if I eat my own food.

“No, thanks. I’m just looking forward to getting into that jetted bathtub.”

She looked at me as if I’d just grown a third eye and it was at that moment I remembered that THAT hotel was for tomorrow night. My explanation and my awkward laugh briefly floated up, then came crashing down with the surrounding rain. I accepted a Diet Pepsi and slinked back to my room.

I showered, an unnecessary task after today’s ride, and put my soggy clothes in front of the box fan which came with the room; however, even after a couple of hours, nothing was drying.

Then I remembered Jean’s offer of drying my clothes so I decided to see if I could throw a few items into her dryer. At 8:15 I knocked on her door but didn’t get a response, then after waiting an appropriate amount of time I knocked again. It took a while for her to answer, and when she did she was wearing a bathrobe.

“I was in bed,” she explained.

Assuming the dryer wasn't in her room, I meekly asked, "You... said... you had a dryer?" and told her about my wet clothing.

There was an awkward moment’s pause, like after a fart on a first date, then she explained to me again as if I hadn’t heard,

“I was in bed.”

Then, just in case I was actually as dumb as I felt at the moment, she added,

“Maybe tomorrow.”

The door squeaked closed.

I didn’t realize that when she said “anything you need,” it meant “anything you need before 8 PM.”

one in which you can't open the bathroom door all of the way because it hits the sink

For dinner I set up my stove in the walkway just outside my front door and cooked a Three Cheese Lasagna, then ate a large chocolate pudding.

I saw this guy just outside my front door, nibbling on the grass

I spent an hour writing in my journal then, like an old hobo going through his possessions, did some re-rearranging of the things in my panniers. In doing so, I noticed that my right front bag had water in the bottom of it. When I get back home I’ll fill it with water to see whether it’s the bag leaking or something inside the bag that leaked. However, unless my protein bars or dehydrated meals have started dripping water, I suspect it’s the former.

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distance: 51.7 miles
total time:   6:32:22
moving time:   4:00:39
max speed:   39.4 mph
average moving speed:   12.9 mph
calories:   2819
average heart rate:   108 bpm
max heart rate:   141 bpm
elevation:    2849 feet

Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 502 miles (808 km)

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