Saturday morning started with a sinking feeling. The previous day some maintenance had resulted in the demise of one of the servers I manage at work. I went to bed at midnight-thirty completely fed up and with no ideas on how to fix this server. Saturday morning was lovely, the sun and a cool breeze streaming in the bedroom window. I was lying in bed thinking about servers.
Coming up with an idea, I practically jumped out of bed, much to the surprise of the cats sleeping on my legs. Oops. A few more hours of work came to naught. Having no leads and my email pleas going unanswered, I decided to continue with my original plan for Saturday: ride to Binghamton, NY to visit friends.
By time I got on the road, it was a nearly perfect day for a ride. Full-coverage mesh was pleasantly chilly; the sun was overhead in a nearly unblemished sky. The only problem was the late start had put me hopelessly behind schedule.
This is where I made my first mistake of the weekend. Thinking that I needed to make up time, I decided to take the Pennsylvania Turnpike's North East Extention (I-476). It's a very quick route, but it is one of the most soul-sucking roads I've ever ridden. The first twenty-five miles seem to run completely straight. The thing I've never understood is how narrow the turnpike is. It runs through some fairly rural areas, and yet there's only a 3-ft shoulder on the left before a concrete barrier, and perhaps a 6ft shoulder and guard-rail on the right. The only good thing to come out of the ride is I calculated that my speedometer is only 3% optimistic. That's how bored I was.
Coming to the toll barrier, I weighed my options. Again the fast route, or so I figured, was to continue on the interstate. The fun route was some combination of US11, US6, and a few back roads.
I took the first exit to I-81 North. It seems like after you start making time on the interstate, it becomes an obsession. It's not enjoyable, it's not comfortable, but man do you cover miles. This was the second mistake I made. I figured that the construction on I-81 wouldn't be an issue at 2PM on a Saturday. I was wrong. PennDOT has turned I-81 on the way out of Scranton into a single-lane highway not once, but twice in a 20 mile stretch. In typical PennDOT fashion, they've torn up several segments of road, but a road crew was nowhere to be found.
Nonetheless, I managed to cover the 185 miles in 3 hours flat. Success so far...
