Friday, April 4th, 2008.
Ride to work. At work, bored all day. Ride home. Eat dinner, wait for things to cool off. Check tire pressure, oil level, coolant level. Begin hunting for light riding gloves, tail bag, workout clothes, handwraps, long underwear, etc. Get on the computer and
while searching a suitably roundabout route to State College. Crash about 12am.
Saturday April 5th, 2008.
Beginning 8:30-ish am.
Wake up later than expected because no way was I using an alarm on the weekend. Continue hunt for things I want to take. Find map pocket. Begin packing tail bag. Double check weather forecast: Cloudy, with a chance of morning showers. Blech!
Hot Shower! Put on long underwear and Mod pants and long sleeve shirt. Finish packing tailbag. Pretty full, since i don't feel like wearing a backpack. Lay out riding jacket, helmet, winter gloves, neck gaiter, and spare shield carrier on couch. Eat breakfast. Put on riding jacket, pull bike off stands and out of the garage to warm up. Mount tailbag and map pocket. Put on neck gaiter, helmet, and winter gloves, then realize I don't have a wallet or cell phone
Remove said winter gloves, helmet, and neck gaiter. Run inside house and upstairs for the wallet and phone. Regear, double check that tailbag won't move. FINALLY LEAVE HOUSE!
Beginning 10:30-ish am.
Freaking brrr! Sure is foggy out. Away from the house, across the fun bit of 219 nice and slow since I'm loaded down and the tires are cold. Across 30 to Bedford/Everett. Yawn. Up 26 after I reach Everett. Traffic isn't bad so far. On the watch for gravel and tractor clods all the way up 26. Some pretty scenery up this way, but not overly technical road. Couple tighter turns, and some nice views across Raystown lake. Up through Huntingdon, through McAlevy's Fort. Hit State College, and it's past time to be at the tournament. Good thing I'm not competing.
Beginning 1 pm
Into Bellefonte, and end up on 144 north out of town. Turn around and hunt for the high school where the tournament is being held. Don't see anyone I know until one new black belt walks straight up the stairs at me. Meet up with the rest of the group. Ended up holding for the breaking competition
One guy does a spinning hook kick into my fistful of boards and sends shrapnel flying over my shoulder into the crowd. Sweet! Another guy breaks a board on a string
Yellow Belt from my school wins his division! Way to go! New Black Belt gets second in hers!! While another guy disqualifies himself for using "excessive force"- we all knew someone had to. Our school has somewhat of a reputation...
About 6pm
Ride back into State College. Hit up Champs for food with the winners. Turns out I'm the fifth wheel sitting with two couples. Damnit! Still cool, till talk turns to my girl...ex. Still a sticky subject. I got there late, so I order about 5 minutes before everyone else gets their food. Fucking worthless waitress waits forever to check on us but finally brings the other food, and my question about my pizza is greeted with: "Iunno, I put it in. We're busy." Second request when she finally checks again after 15 minutes got the same answer.
I FINALLY! get my pizza and proceed to dump the first slice on the table. While I'm eating, someone happens to ask "How are you going to carry that?" Well shit! I was just thinking about eating and now realize the pizza is gigantic! Welp, that's why I brought bungy cords. Waitress brings the checks, and I say "Hell yes I want change!" No tip for you!
Yes, tip no.
Go outside and start working on a means of strapping the pizze down, and realize my spare shield is still in the bar and it's now dark out. Run in, get that, swap shields. Remove tailbag, pull straps out, place pizza under bag, tighten straps. Danger! Engineer at work! Go to the first hotel I see- Motel 6, real nice looking one: no rooms available. Across the street to a non-chain place: only smoking rooms, but one might be ok. Nope- it's upstairs, behind a divider with no window on the parking lot. Not going to work for me. Down the road to another local place: only smoking rooms and an Indian guy at the desk. Back up the road to the expensive hotels. Eeny, meeny, meiny.. HIE, Courtyard, Marriot, etc... All over $100 a night. HIE it is, and yes they do have a AAA benefit and non smoking room on the ground floor. We have a winner! Good God, it's been a long ass day!
Must be getting close to that character limit by now...
Sunday April 6th, 2008
Wake up, shower, eat pizza for breakfast. Checkout, fuel up, and go for a nice ride on all the back roads I never knew existed. Pizza for lunch at a Harley dealer that has free food. Didn't know there were Amish up here? Back to campus to work out, both couples are there and one or two other people. Get a good workout for the first time in months. Grab a shower in the locker room- something I never did when I could walk to my dorm. Head out of town with a stop at a gas station and the liquor store. No good beer at home, so I'll pick up a six pack of Rogue Dead Guy. Good luck fitting that in the tail bag, but I did! I may not be a frat boy, but Iim an engineer damnit!
I think I win the award for most crap in a single tail bag: Clean pants, clean t-shirt, workout pants, workout shirt, winter gloves, wallet, cell phone charger, hoody, socks, underwear, maps, dvd, cd case, neck gaiter, and newspaper. Highway tested that load up to 100mph on the slab on the way home. By the end of that slab shit, I would have gladly taken the long way home. Never realized how tiring constant 80 mph winds coupled with a loaded tailbag shoving you forward could be.
This accounts for approximately 500 of the 1060 miles on my bike this season. The rest has been short trips around home and to the mall.