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DAY
ONE COMMENTARY
On the “Prologue”
page, I said that I might be “not a
little sad” about the prospect of leaving Surfside Beach.
Folks, make that read
“very sad”.
In the actual event,
it just wasn’t easy to
do.
In the weeks leading
up to the big day, I had been so busy
with preparations -- itinerary planning, campground & lodging
arrangements,
equipment purchases, ongoing modifications to the bike and trailer,
etc. -- I suppose
I wasn’t fully aware of what the true impact of leaving would be. As
the moment
approached, however, that impact began to loom large, and it was very
emotional.
Departure was a reminder of the downward spiral of my previous life,
which had
once featured a wife, stepchildren, home and career. And leaving the
Myrtle
Beach area itself, where I had been able to re-connect with my mother,
aunts
and uncles, cousins, and many of their friends, and to enjoy some
wonderful social
gatherings and get-togethers associated with them, had its own
significant elements
of disappointment.
I awoke
at 8 AM (after
going to “sleep” at 5 AM) with the
goal of being underway by about noon or so. DID NOT HAPPEN. I mean, it
seemed
like I had the trailer about 90% packed in the first hour…but then the
little
things started to take over…things that defy easy placement or safe
storage…or
things that require other things to be located and readied before being
loaded
themselves...or…well, you get the picture. After all the shouting,
crying and teeth-gnashing,
I didn’t pull out of
there until nearly four o’clock in the PM! Listen,
pal, next
time you put together a six-week,
7,000 mile cross-country motorcycle camping trip, let me in on your
secret for
being more efficient about your departure.
The
trailer had been
jam-packed
– I don’t want to think
about how badly its weight might be torturing the bike's
newly-installed
clutch plates
-- but it seemed to be riding well, and it was to further
improve with subsequent
inflation of the tires later on. The next issue was the route that the
Garmin C320 GPS had selected
for me, which saw me battling my way through not one, but two town centers on the way to the
highway I needed. I knew there
had to be a better, practically parallel route nearby, but not having
fully
researched it on-line, I was stuck with the route I was on because I
had little
leeway in terms of travel time. So after first being sad, then excited,
and
then annoyed (with the route), it didn’t help when I became tired and
started
to yawn almost uncontrollably with two
hundred miles left to go. What
do you do
then? Start singing aloud, doing random math problems, taking pictures
of
clouds
at
a refueling stop. Y’know, the usual.
Another
thing that had
contributed to the annoyance and
tiredness was probably the fact that I was going relatively slow. The
trailer manufacturer’s
guidelines suggested a limit of 55 MPH for the thing, possibly
because
of the tires but most likely because of the hub bearing size. Having
checked
around with Local Experts (my tire guy, a trailer guy), we had
concluded that
65 was probably OK, as long as I was to check the bearing lubrication
periodically, which I had planned on doing anyway. People, let me say
this: if
you’ve read this far, then you know that 65 MPH just does not get it
done for
The Chief (tm). I had little old ladies, tractor trailers and even a
few
RV’s
zooming by me…each an additional reminder that the situation was not to
change
for the next 1.5 months…
Fortunately,
on the
back roads, the bike/trailer combo
handled about as well as the bike alone, so I was able to make up some
time
once I got off the highway. And the back roads in this area were
gorgeous,
snaking around Lake Lure and its seemingly
never-ending assortment of
fingers
and inlets into the hilly terrain.
Night #1
was to see me
stay at the Hickory Nut Falls
Campground, a cute little place, well-run by very friendly
folks,
perfectly
located right on
the Rocky Broad River and just up the road from the
entrance
to Chimney
Rock Park. In fact, the view
from my tent was of the Rock
itself! TRUTH
IN WEBSITING: the
pictures
from atop the
Rock
were taken during my last visit here three years back; because of
my late
departure, I didn’t arrive
here until about 9 PM, which naturally meant I would not have time to
visit the
park at all.
It also
meant that you
could open the file with the
label, “How NOT To Set Up Your First-Ever Campsite”. Point is, I was
doing said
set-up in the dark. My LED headlamp
came
up big as I was shuttling crap I’d never use back and forth into the
tent,
trying to keep the bugs out (while the screen’s zipper was undone) by
turning
the headlamp off and hoping the critters would flock over to the
lantern I left
burning on the picnic table a few yards away.
I managed
to get the
tent erected – and it managed to
stay upright all night long – in very reasonable fashion, considering.
It may
not have looked like
much, but for me it was home! Having followed sage
advice
to transport the bedding inside a laundry bag containing a Bounce
fabric
softening insert, I am convinced that I had the cleanest-smelling
sheets in the
entire joint.
Because I
had only
slept for about eight hours in the
previous sixty, it was a treat to prepare to turn in at only 11 PM
(after the previous
two “nights” of 5 AM and 3 AM). If, for whatever reason my body was not
ready
to slumber, it was a situation to be easily remedied by a
newly-discovered
favorite,
the Crown Royal Cask
No. 16, aged in cognac barrels for smoothness.
Good
night!
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