In The Wake of Another Sandy

The internet. A place of wonder and evil. The Wayward Home lives there but so does madness.

I wrote on my Facebook page after I'd seen more than enough of the latter for one day:

Pro or con. Every last one of you. Respect. Stop raving about guns and lunatic politics. Argue and hate in another hour. For just one brief, shining moment.   Stop it. 

Be silent.

Grieve for innocence and children. 

Grieve for us.

Down and Away

It actually looked pretty nice outside from my kitchen table this morning.  I had resolved yesterday to ride somewhere today as long as the weather held out so I watched as the frost slowly melted off the pool cover over the top of my coffee mug.  The sunshine peeking around the clouds bore promise of temperatures above freezing so there was hope.  I needed a ride.  It's been dark and cold inside and out lately and saddle time is good therapy.

Eventually, I decided the thermometer was about as high as it was going to get and started rummaging around in the closet for cold-weather riding stuff.  A few layers later, I moved to the garage for a bike.  The 2.1 roadie is long overdue for a chain and a tire so I elected to leave her home this time and exercise my faithful mountain bike a bit.  I often have a tendency to get too far from home on the street bike anyway.  I figured I'd hit some steep old dirt roads that I haven't seen in a while on one with some suspension instead of the stiff-legged, skinny-tired weapon.  Besides, as cold as it is, slow is good.

I wanted to get out in the woods proper but bow season is open and rattling around in the leaves and pushing the deer about tends to aggravate the guys frozen in tree stands.  They seem unhappy sometimes after sitting all day waiting for something with horns, not something with tires.  I find it's usually a good idea to just forget about single-track trails until after the last gasp of the season unless your heartfelt desire is to bug somebody who's holding a compound bow that could easily take your head off.  There's something about knowing how many eyes are watching every clearing and deer path that makes it a little unsettling out there right about now anyway.  It's not as bad as shotgun and rifle season when the hills sound like a firefight and your epitaph could read, "Well, I thought it was a deer..." but why tempt fate?  I actually like the bow hunters so I try not to ride around in their shooting lanes.  They tend to be quieter, more disciplined people who rarely take a less-than-sure shot and I appreciate that.  So today would be dirt roads and well traveled byways where nobody in camo paint will be irritated.  Westward we go.

The climb into the hills was nice.  Colder than I anticipated but steep enough to require a low gear which kept the body heat on simmer while I cranked up out of the valley.  I wish I could go on about Zen-like peacefulness or re-affirming my faith in humanity or some such when I'm riding but I'm just too damn old to be a hipster and my karma is pretty well used up.  I just like to go out and look at the countryside and stretch my legs.  It was chilly enough to hurt on the first pitch and I realized I should have grabbed that day-glow yellow windbreaker but it was now miles behind me in the closet so I just chugged along and wondered how cold it would be when I turned back for home.

I live in a valley so no matter where I go, it's mostly uphill at first.  This has advantages as you can usually run downhill to get home unless you venture a valley or two away; trust me, I know this.  I've bonked a time or two trying to clear that last hump when I've gone too far for my own good (see above).  But today I had a plan.  Climb out, fool around on the ridge top and then cruise back to the garage.  It actually worked for once.  I got down in creeper-low and made the climb.

You can see a lot from up top now that the leaves are off but the color has already drained out of everything.  It's mostly gray with a few patches of rusty, die-hard oak leaves and dark green pines.  The gaudy fall color party is over and the hills feel like they're pulling up the covers and settling in to sleep it off.  I sort of feel the same way.

The cold air lets you see all the way to wherever once you get up high but it's like looking at the world through those old midnight black Wayfarers I had years ago.  The horizon is shades of blue right out to the sky but everything else is flat.  By March, I'll be crazy for scenery that isn't gray and muddy but for now, it seems right.  There was even a little snow sticking under the hedges way up on the very tops of the hills where the wind was the worst and the sun couldn't reach.  I had my camera with me but for some reason, didn't feel like taking pictures.  Just rode.

Up and around a few times and then that last big drop for home.  Falling into the gullies on the way down put the sun behind the trees and the ground suddenly wasn't the only thing dropping.  The temperature went into a tailspin as fast as I was losing altitude.  Note to self...it's now November you idiot.  Bring the windbreaker. I lost touch with my finger tips on the brake levers but I figured that as long as I could still see them and I wasn't completely out of control, they must still be working.  My toes complained because I was wearing my everyday, well ventilated shoes and my knees picked up the tune once I stopped cranking for a while.  Why do I do this to myself?  Repeatedly?  The valley floor was completely in shade and just a tad below freezing judging by the ice on the puddles so the road around the base of the hill was downright frigid.  Eventually it turned east and came out into what little sunshine there was and all my assorted parts defrosted enough to regain some feeling.

From there it was just a cruise in the cool.  Hopefully, the snow will hold off a while yet and I'll get a few more miles in before the salt crews wreck the roads for the duration.  I have a trainer to ride in the winter but it just ain't the same.  There's no hills and no view.  No cold and no heat.  Just miles and it's just not the same.  Not like today or so many other days.

Down and away for home, a warm kitchen, a burger and a beer.  Thanks...I needed that.

Song of the Day

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley "Music at Night", 1931

Yeah...it's like that sometimes.  Too many cloudy days.  Too many rainy nights.  Too much cold and damp.  A body needs sunshine and springtimes.  Fast approaching winter is never good, never easy.  Always hard.

I love this song but I wish I'd never heard it.  I listen to it often but wish I could forget it.  I hear it but I wish it meant nothing.  I hate it because it does.

Music is where your heart is.  And sometimes, just sometimes your heart hears music far better than your ears.



Yeah...sometimes it's like that.

Sandy Baby

Here's me...waiting for Sandy (as in hurricane) to arrive and smack us around.  It's an unwelcome visit from one of the creatures more typically seen in Tim Joe's neck of the woods.  We have snow and floods according to season up here but Florida and the Gulf coast is supposed to be home to tropical storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes etc.; not upstate New York.  That's one reason I like it here most times...lack of exciting weather beyond summer T-storms and the occasional Alberta Clipper.  We did get an actual F1 tornado in the area last summer which was absolutely unacceptable.  But as long as they don't become too common, I can almost accept something that short-lived and short-tracked.  A full-blown (no pun intended) hurricane however is just over the top.

One of those southern phenomena (a miserable prick named Lee) passed through last year and I didn't work for a week.  30 miles of track went under water, whole chunks of hillside disappeared and I sat home while they dug the railroad out from under the downed trees, mudslides and debris and then filled in the washouts.  The damage was awesome and there's still areas that have not and probably will not ever recover.  Whole city blocks just disappeared under water before it was over.  I thought the '72 flood was something but this made that one look like a cow pissing on a flat rock.  It just plain sucked.

So now here we go again.  It's raining a little as I look out the back door but the real festivities aren't slated to get underway until Monday and Tuesday.  We're far enough inland that we probably won't get the really big wind but the rain is supposed to be intense and slow in passing.  Seems like we just got through that '500 year flood' or some other zillion year flood last year.  I'm not too concerned with high water or high wind right here but it could get interesting if the juice is off for days.  The trees are still leafy and heavy in places and the ground is wet to begin with.  I suspect the power lines are in for a butt-kicking from falling firewood.  If this keeps up, the news people are going to run out of colorful, dangerous sounding metaphors to run in the headlines.  Let's just say I'm a little weary of 'epic' weather these days.

And of course, the railroad won't commit to a shutdown until the water is over the ties and the trees are dropping like dominoes.  The commuter roads are closing up shop for the duration and Amtrak is calling it a day shortly but not us.  They hate to surrender too soon and I get that but this thing is almost 700 miles across already and she's courting a mid-west low for a little dance around the east coast that promises to set records from Norfolk to Nova Scotia.  It's hard for them to admit but sometimes even the railroad hasn't got the biggest brass ones around.

I've seen the results when you try to keep going.  I sat on a train almost 20 hours staring out the windshield at downed trees waiting for rescue once before and that was just from a thunderstorm.  I also backed a pair of  brand-new CN engines away from a moving washout while I watched the ballast disappear out of sight into the river about 10 yards in front of me.  I brought the last train into our terminal before a hill turned to mud behind me, dropped out from under the track and left rail and ties hanging like a big necklace over empty air.  Oh yeah, the weather can kick us around when it gets ugly.

Besides the destruction, I know what'll happen even if it's just the power out for too long on our friendly CP main...no radio bases, signals go out, control points go into code fail, street crossing gates stay down...been there, done that too.  Sometimes, you just gotta cut your losses and go home until the crap lets up and then regroup.

So I'll be watching the computer until the power goes and I lose my router but for now, nobody knows for sure what's going to transpire and if they do, they're not saying.  Shhhh...It's a secret.

See you all after Sandy moves north to pester Canadians.

The 2012 Tour Part II

So now it's on to the ride.  I know at the very least, Tim Joe is itching to find out how the actual Century went so let us begin at the beginning.  The very early beginning.

After the calamity of Friday, I finally got to sleep sometime before midnight with my clock set to go off at 0300.  Now if that sounds ridiculously early, believe me, it was.  The plan was to head out with my (previously loaded) truck to the site, get unpacked, set up and ready to go without the mad rush of last year.  Nice thought anyway but as usual, it didn't quite work out that way.

Although the alarm went off as intended, it took a while to roust  my younger son and his buddy; (one of the neighborhood strays that hangs at my house and keeps my 'fridge running on empty) out of their racks and into semi-consciousness.  I told them I'd hit the door early...

Breakfast, riding kit, last minute checks and more coffee were done and at last, it was time to hit the road.  Just as we were about to start engines and taxi out, said stray announced calmly that he didn't have his signed parental waiver form, even after I had asked about oh...four or five hundred times the day before if he had all his stuff together.  He may never know how close he came to a near-death experience.  His answer to my unbelieving stare was that I could just sign one for him.  I was forced to explain that although I feed and house him on a regular basis, I am not a legal or biological substitute for one of his real parents and hence cannot sign any kind of document in that capacity.  He'd have to wake up his Dad and get it on the way.  The fidgets began in earnest.

Fortunately, the father's house was on the way so we made the stop for the missing paperwork with only a minor detour and then hauled off through the early morning fog for the Tour site.  It was just about getting light when we rolled in the parking lot to unload.  The plan went a little better for a while in that we got the pop-up tent put together, tables set up, assorted boxes of team stuff spread around and the truck parked before the rush of sign-ups began.  I got myself registered and tried to look 'captain-ish' while at least pretending I knew what I was doing.

People started showing up pretty early for the Century since that was the first group set to launch at 7:00 am. I ran around talking in twelve directions at once and probably making absolutely no sense to anyone.  Sort of like my normal day.  We made a valiant effort to get everyone together for a team photo and then most wheeled off to the starting line.  My sister was manning the team tent and had all under complete control so I had time to locate my helmet and shoes which had vanished in the rush.  By sheer dumb luck, my phone was in my jersey pocket as intended but true to tradition, I couldn't find my truck keys.

The sun was burning off the fog as the 100 milers got set for takeoff.  And at last, after all the months and hours, the Tour was off and running.  Things were looking up.  There's a whole bunch more photos on our Fb page over here.

On three of our Tour routes, the cool, flat streets of Watkins Glen quickly turn into a long climb out of town that puts the burn in less-than-warmed-up riders early in the game.  That first incline is great for some as it gives the young and better conditioned an opportunity to show off their big-ring abilities for those of us who are old and ride triples.  I just settle into a low gear and spin along while the ambitious jump off the saddle and mash the pedals up the hill.  The sight of many high-zoot exotic bikes disappearing into the distance is depressing or inspiring depending on how you look at it.  Depressing because I can't climb like that; inspiring because having done this before, I knew I'd catch some of those same hammerheads in about 60 or 70 miles when their legs gave out.

It stayed cool all the way up the hill so the climb seemed easy even if it was a little slow.  I took it easy and sort of floated back and forth in the pack just chatting with different folks as the first miles fell behind and the sun got higher and warmer in the east.  My cell phone stayed quiet so I assumed everything was falling together somewhat as it should and began to hope we'd make it through the day without major crisis.  Memories of last year when Penn Yan closed the main road through town just as the Century riders arrived were in the back of my mind but so far, so good.  An ever-more insistent burning sensation reminded me that I'd neglected chamois butter.  I hate it when that happens.

Rest stops came and went until suddenly, I was halfway around.  I'd eaten enough peanut butter sandwiches and Stinger Waffles so I actually felt pretty strong for running with a couple of teammates that were averaging about 17 mph for the last 15 miles.

I'm too old for that kind of pace however and I knew I couldn't keep it up and have a hope of making it back so I switched off to another set of riding companions and just cruised along into another rest tent on the east shore of the lake.  I'm pretty fond of this spot because it's in the middle of Samson State Park which used to be a Navy base back in the 40's but now it's miles of old roads weaving around the campgrounds and boat launch.  How a major naval installation came to be so far from the ocean makes a lot of people wonder but I guess water is water.  I guess there probably wasn't any U-boats in Seneca Lake to worry about either.  I always try to picture how it must have looked when it was all groomed and busy back then so it appeals to my history-nut side.  I'm easily amused.

The legs were starting to feel it but apparently something was going right because "The Man with the Hammer" was still quite a ways behind me and it was looking like I might make it all the way around without him surprising me somewhere.  I did however know the guy who built the route so I knew what was coming...a couple more good climbs and a steady uphill run until the road reaches the top of the ridge.  I nearly bonked along this section when I first rode the loop to check it out so I'm leery of over-achieving.

Leaving the stop at the park, you ride a couple of miles along a bike path in the woods.  It's a little rough but it gives you a break from watching over your shoulder for vehicles so it's a relaxing jaunt through the trees.  I was almost to the gate that lets you back out on the road when I spotted a familiar giant strolling up the trail.  Here was my original riding partner, the legendary Doc Annabel; now afoot and nursing a banged-up elbow but Doc nonetheless.  He drove up from VA to ride regardless of the fact that he couldn't make a Century this time and I had yet to see him until he came striding along.  Some things never change and running into the madman was like we'd been out riding last week instead of last year.  My companions left me there shooting the breeze with Doc and by the time I saddled back up for the climb away from the lake, I felt like I could go all the way around again.  Good friends will do that for you.

So now I was riding alone and so my attack on the ascent was at my typical little-ring rate; which may not look as cool as standing up, stomping the pedals and snorting like a bull at full charge but saves my weary legs to fight on for the last 30 miles or so.  The wind was quartering off my stern which gave a nice break anytime the road leveled out a bit and the anticipated false-flats fell behind until the last stiff climb appeared in my sights.  It's really not a big deal unless you've been up since 3 am and have 75 miles under you already but it looks evil and nearly did in the Good Doctor last year.  I got down in the old-guy rings again and chewed my way up the grade.  I know that the top of this one is pretty much the top of a ski slope on the run for home.  There's a couple of little rollers but the trend is downhill and downwind from here with one last rest-stop to refuel and load the water bottles one more time.

It happens that that last stop is at a winery that also happens to make my favorite wine so a pause there is always a temptation.  Prudence won out again though since I know what would happen with one sip of a wine tasting at this stage of the game.  Complete and utter collapse would ensue if I ever put wine on top of about 15 PBJs, 6 tubes of Shot-bloks, a pocket full of Stinger waffles and 90-something miles.  Oh yeah, it'd be ugly.
Besides, who wants a bad-smelling, sunburned, windblown, pony-tailed F.O.G. (Fat Old Guy) with funny shoes tottering up to the tasting table?  I deemed it best to pour down some plain old water at the tent and get out of there before my self-control went on ahead without me.  I hooked up with another teammate and settled into the drops for the run to the finish.

The last blast is always a ball.  It's downhill with one pitch at the end that you can make almost 50 on if you tuck in and let gravity have it's way.  Then it's busy streets and traffic again for the home stretch.  A confused looking guy nearly did me in on the last left turn when he couldn't make up his mind whether to stop in the crosswalk ahead of me or bolt for the far side.  We danced a little dance that could have ended badly but between my fizzled-out reflexes and his desire to avoid skinny tire marks across his grubby T-shirt, we avoided each other somehow.  With no further adventures, we rolled under the balloons to a couple of cowbells and that was another one done.  The massage people were loading up their tables.  Someday, I'm going to get one of those...a massage, not a table.  You know what I meant.

I wobbled over to our team tent and started checking to see who was yet to come in.  There was a group of 65 milers and a couple of Century riders still out so I pestered the HAM radio guys to check on their progress, trying to decide who we'd ride back out to meet.  In short order though, the last 65s cruised in and that left only the 100s.

True to form, a bunch of us put stiff legs back over bikes and got back on those ass-hatchet saddles one more time to go bring 'em home.  We met our tail-enders just coming into town and swung the pack around to give them an escort.  Also as usual, we managed to block traffic and take up the whole road for the last mile, whooping it up and jostling Charlie to the front to lead us across the line.  He'd just made his first-ever Century despite being our oldest teammate and he deserved the honor.  We cheered like kids.

And so it was over once again.  We had the best weather you could ask for, the best people to ride with and one of the greatest events around.  I was worn out but I think I managed to be semi-coherent while we packed up the truck (I even found my keys) and headed home.  A bunch of us lolled around on the deck and told stories over burgers till it got dark and nobody could keep their eyes open.  I couldn't even unstrap the bikes off the truck.

Now that I'm posting this (a month later), I'm already planning on next year and another team.  We'll do it again, bigger and better.  But for now, the leaves are turning and it's pretty cool at night.  The Tour is both in the past and in the future and I'm just grateful for everyone who rode and helped.  They're quite a bunch of people I've found in this little adventure.  Yeah, it's worth it...and more than anything, so are they.

The 2012 Tour Part I

This one is going to be a little tough.  It's already taken two or three days so just come along for the ride.  Well see where it goes...This may take a while, hence the Part I.

After months and months of planning sessions, phone calls, meetings, emails and anguish, this year's Tour de Cure is in the books for my team and I.  It's been a long haul, especially at the end as you'll see, but a good ride nonetheless.  We ended up with the biggest team we've ever had, made more money than ever for the American Diabetes Association and all in all, just done good.  Where do I even start to describe it?

Well, here's a link to the map anyway...that might be a good place to begin.  We'll just wander along from there.


In case anyone noticed, I've pretty much dropped off the blog world for the last month and a half because for a while, I quite honestly couldn't keep up with it all.  Beyond my wildest expectations, the team just kept growing and growing.  People came from the most unlikely places to sign up and be part of this thing.  People from far-away states and right next door.  I'm still dazzled.  Fifty seven in all finally ended up on the roster including a couple who signed up at the last minute, rode and left without me ever even meeting them which is great in one way, less so in another.

I very much miss being there to see everyone at our team tent before they ride out but since I do the Century, I leave early and get back late.  Many of the team come and go while I'm lost in the Amish country somewhere.  I've debated even not riding at all so I could be at the starting line when each loop blasts off but that 100 miles is sort of my one reward to myself.  To actually see it work and make it all the way around puts the icing on the cake that we've been baking all year.  My first-ever Century was on a Tour de Cure and it's become kind of a tradition with me.  Simple things...

I do really wish I could put all of the team in a single room for a few hours though so we could all get to know each other.  That's one thing about the big team that I have a hard time with...I don't get to meet everyone.  If this keeps up, we'll need a convention.  Something else in my to-do basket someday.  Not that I'm complaining!

But on to the ride itself.  It actually begins right after last August but the run-up kicks into high gear about Wednesday before the event.  I burned up all my remaining vacation days and a couple of personals to paint red arrows on roads all over upstate NY, grocery shop for the team cookout and try to get my truck loaded on Friday night.  Success on the paint, fail on the truck but things were moving along fairly well until my cell rang about mid-afternoon on Friday.  Suddenly, all was not so right with the world.

Some of our troops went out that morning volunteering for the Tour by putting up direction signs along the routes.  It's another sort of informal tradition that the NS team comes out of the woodwork to help set up the ride so five of them; Angie, Charlie, Seana, Chris and John were roaming in a couple of cars signing the 65 and 100 mile loops.  While they were still in a caravan together, out of nowhere John suddenly collapsed in the seat.  Chris started CPR and kept him going until the paramedics arrived but Angie called me from the hospital to break the news that despite all efforts, one of our own had passed away in the emergency room.  I just fell into a chair in shock.  Of all the things we do to get ready, nothing got us ready for this.

I'd only met John a week ago.  He and his wife Lori came to my place for our last pre-Tour team ride on Sunday.  A big, tower of a man laughing as he tried to wiggle into a team jersey and she promising to come pick him up afterwards like he was a kid at soccer practice.  He rode in the lead third of the group all day and ate 45 miles for lunch.  I liked him already.

But then he was gone and I didn't know what to do.  There just wasn't enough time to process it.  I didn't even dare let the team know lest some stray email find it's way to someone in John's family who hadn't heard yet.  It was awful...and yet out of it came inspiration.

After all that, the signing crew went back out and finished.  They did first-aid, figured out a 911 call to get the ambulance to a place they didn't know,  rode with John to the ER and stayed with him, waited for Lori and the family to arrive, did all they could to help her, pulled it all together and then after all of it, went back out and finished.  The routes got marked and Saturday was a success because of them and again, I didn't know what to say.

How do you tell people how much what they've done means?  They could have packed up and headed home and no one could say they weren't justified after what had happened.  But they didn't.  They grabbed some lunch to recharge and worked the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.  They said John would have wanted them to.  I wish everyone who rode out Saturday morning knew what went into those simple road signs stuck in the grass along the way.

What do you say to people who just do what needs to be done in spite of it all?  They'd be mad if I called them heroes but in truth, they fit the definition.  So it's not a battlefield or a natural disaster that will be remembered for years?  Does it have to be big to be good?  Maybe it was a small thing in the grand scheme of the world.  Maybe it wasn't even a blip in the local news.  But people do wonderful things in ways that never make CNN and it still matters.  In our little corner of the world, it matters very much.

In my book anyway, they deserve the title of heroes but I know they'll yell like they just hit their thumb with a hammer if I ever call them that.  So how about I call them my friends?  I think that might just work.

And how about I call John and Lori my friends too?  For inspiring us and spending a little time with us, the team and I will always be grateful.  That's what friend do.  Something good will come of this.  I don't know much, but I do know that.

We lost a teammate last Friday but I think a little of the soul in what we do came back.  That's the inspiration John gave us.  We started doing this thing for people.  Not donations, not numbers, not ADA or NS, but for people.  John didn't have diabetes but he was out doing for other people anyway.  At the end of the day, that's really all that matters.  Real heroes know that.

Wherefore Art Thou Wayward?

I've been around.  And around. And around.  It's summer (finally) and the laptop on my kitchen table hasn't seen a post in quite some time due to the weather...good weather.  Hot like I waited for all winter.  I live for days like this but it's not too conducive to blogging.

So where have I been?  Well, here on one day...loafing along in the sunshine.

Here on another day...at the top of a 2 mile climb that topped out at 12%.  My legs were on fire but the view was worth it.

And here...at a spot where old was parked next to new.

Then I found this...

Around and around...being chased by the storm moving in from the west.

And so it goes.  I'm trying to ride whenever I can but my mileage is way down and after my misadventure with the dreaded BONK, I'm trying to go a little easier.  It took a while but I think I finally got the memo about running headfirst into the Man with the Hammer when your desire exceeds your ability.

You have to realize that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and sometimes it takes a real pounding to get something through my thick skull.  This I proved by my failure to learn a lesson from my first total collapse while trying to do long miles without enough prep.  I didn't heed the warning, overdid it again a couple of weeks later and wound up in the hurling position by the roadside for bonk version 2.0.  It wasn't any more fun the second time so I decided I'd better cool it and build my endurance back up a tad before I hurt myself again.  The plan seems to be working as I've now got a couple of rides under the Trek that didn't involve rescue calls to the home front or digestive reverses.  After two unhappy events though, I don't think I'll be able to use Gatorade or Clif bars ever again no matter what.

In between my infrequent rides, I'm still struggling to keep ahead of my team for the Tour de Cure.  I'll have to do a post on that one all by itself pretty soon.  Let's just say that for now, it's become almost a full time job all on its own.  There's 52 people on it so far and I'm in awe every time I open up the web page and find someone new on the roster.  I never would have believed it...

Oh yeah...then there's work.  Gainful employment still has a place in my schedule.  I can't seem to figure out how I can survive without it.  Especially since my dollar-and-a-dream from Mega Millions keeps coming up empty.  If only I could get paid for all the extra-curricular stuff, I wouldn't have to run trains for a living but I can't get anybody to go along with that particular plan for some reason.  There's gotta be a way but the nuts and bolts of it so far escape me.  I guess I have to answer the phone and take another train.

Speaking of running trains; I just got back from my usual round trip this morning sometime before dawn.  We had a pretty good start but ran flat out of daylight somewhere in Pennsylvania and then rolled along under the full moon after the sun went down.  Usually when it gets dark down on the south end of the Sunbury Sub, there's nothing much to see beyond the headlights except crossing gates and dim window lights in the occasional little towns.  Places with tongue-twister names; Moconaqua, Catawissa, Nescopeck and Wapwallopen that are just a couple of whistle pulls and a blur to me.

In some spots down there, the trees grow right up to the windows and you risk losing fingers if you hang your hand out too far.  Then for miles along the way, you're riding between rock cuts on one side and river bank on the other and all you can see is stone and leaves beside you and rail and ties going under the nose.  You know the Susquehanna is right there but you hardly ever get a look at it.  Sometimes it's just a green tunnel with bats and owls zooming along in the glare.  On certain summer nights, it's a lot less when the fog rolls in off the water.  Then everything is grey or dazzling white in the headlights and it feels like your eyes are being dragged out of their sockets after the first half hour.  The lower end is all flat until you get to Wilkes-Barre so all you do is watch the speedo and flick the throttle up one and down one for about fifty miles.  It's a struggle sometimes.

Last night though, the moon gave us a view that we rarely see.  There was enough light getting down in the valleys to throw shadows and all those small towns looked like old black and white photos.  I glanced in the mirror on my right when we got out in the open as is my habit and could see the outline of the train following along in the curves almost like daytime.  At first I thought I saw a wheel sparking in the dark back there but then realized all I was seeing was a million fireflies that couldn't compete with the headlights out front swirling around in the wind behind as we passed.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and only a few stars were holding their own against the moon.  It looked like a movie.

There didn't seem to be much to talk about after we got settled in and rolling and the usual cross-cab chatter kind of died out without notice.  Some guys go crazy if they aren't gabbing all the way but I'm content sometimes to go for miles on end without saying a word.  Even my conductor, who I usually call Wild-Man, fell quiet and just toyed with paperwork on his desk with the light down low.  The quiet from his side isn't uncomfortable as it is with some.  There's a few who don't say anything because they seem to hate what they do and can't talk at all without bitching about the railroad.  Some simply don't have much in common with the old guy and some are just unaccountably hostile.  I avoid such men as often as possible as the long, tense silences make for very unpleasant trips and I've been doing this too long to be mad about it all the time.

The Wild-Man however, often goes for an hour or two without much more vocalization than a couple of off-key verses from some old song that popped into his head and found a way to escape through his vocal chords.  I've accused him of nodding off but I know better; when the DS calls and wants a head-end location or a complete-by, he can usually peel it off before me, take a new track warrant and then disappear into the dark on his side without missing a beat.

Then after a while and out of nowhere, we'll start back in on a conversation like we just left off five minutes ago instead of an hour and a half.  The quiet is easy with him and his kind because they're capable of thinking without talking.  Besides, sometimes being quiet for fifteen minutes says as much as three hours of mindless chatter.  So I was happy to say no more than we had to and let the evening roll along with the moon for company.  Even the radio held its piece and didn't offer to intrude until we were almost to Scranton.  For a little while anyway, it was enough to watch the land go by in the dim light and not think of much except our small world inside the windshield.  Sometimes, that's enough.

There are reasons I work the road after all these years and last night was one of them.  It was just another train; number 98 for the year but somehow, in some small way, it made up for a lot of the tough ones.  It was just another good trip under the moon.  I said earlier that I live for summer days but there's a lot to be said for these summer nights too.

And since its now night again, that's it for Wayward for this one.  Tomorrow is the 4th of July holiday but I'm not planning anything too outrageous.  I might get in a ride or maybe not...I'll let tomorrow figure that out.  Right now, I've run out of steam.  I only slept a few hours this morning and the crash when I hit the pillow is going to be epic.

A ride sounds good for tomorrow.  Slow and easy for a while is the name of the game for now...looking for that century still but maybe not quite so soon as I planned.  I'll get there eventually and I'll keep you posted.