Day One: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

LA/XC-4 DAY ONE:  POSTING FROM STEPHENS CITY, VA

Today’s mileage:  359.3

Total LA/XC-4 mileage:  359.3

Road Music:  ESPN New York; Sirius Radio:  CNN, ESPN, The Highway — new country (going forward, these 3 stations, my on-the-road staples, will be known simply as the “Sirius Cycle” — just a little shorthand); Runaway Country playlist — based on my recent festival experience in Melbourne, FLA, and featuring Blake Shelton, Lee Brice, and Florida Georgia Line.  Good tunes, good mood . .

Weather leaving Westport:  45, cloudy, nasty, and yucky

Weather arriving Stephens City:  same temp, but not quite as yucky

Today’s state tally: 6 (Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia)

Gas money to date:  $40.79

Okay, a first: I was checking in at the Comfort Inn here in Stephens City (not really a city) behind a Polish-Iranian

motorcycle gang!  Well, they were definitely a motorcycle gang.  And they sounded Polish.  And they looked Iranian.  But I can’t say for sure.  It’s been a long day.  Twenty minutes longer, after that check-in.  (There were at least 20 of them.)

Also:  Not so sure at the moment about Kemba as a car dog.  He’d been doing absolutely fine on our weekend trips to Vermont — but he threw up twice today — the first time just an hour-and-a-quarter into our journey.  It was kind of bad news, good news.  The bad news was that he barfed his entire breakfast of kibble — undigested — on the center console.  The good news is that he re-ingested it so fastidiously that I didn’t even need to reach for the paper towels to clean up after him.  And, it would

seem, no nutritional value was lost.  He looked fine afterward, but I felt really bad for him.  Will have to watch that.

Yeah, yeah, so I didn’t leave Westport till 1:15.  Was aiming for 9:30.  That makes me four-for-four in being unable to leave on a cross-country road trip before noon.  I was freaking out while it was happening, but got over it quickly.  Let’s not make a big deal about it, okay?

One of the reasons for the slow start is I wanted to get Kemba some hard-core exercise before he’d have to sit in the car most of the day.  We went to Compo Beach, and everyone who is anyone in the dog

community — including his very best friend Lily — was there.  Kemba had a great time.   Humping, biting each other’s throats . . .   Fun!  His last day in Westport for a month.

I know I’ve observed this before, but when you use GPS instead of studying a map, it can be very disorienting.  I spent a long time on I-81 in Pennsylvania today.  When the sign said “state line,” I was expecting Virginia.  But no!  It was Maryland!  And then the next state line . . . West Virginia!  Who knew?  Really gotta start looking at my maps a little more closely.

Tomorrow’s game plan: the ultra-scenic Skyline Drive and then the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Gonna try to get a little earlier start than I did today.  One-fifteen is the time to beat.  Kemba’s already sleeping on the motel bed — quite adorably, I might add.  ‘Bout time for me to do the same.

I PLAN TO POST AS CLOSE TO DAILY AS POSSIBLE WHILE KEMBA AND I ARE ON THE ROAD.  BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY:  MAN PLANS, GOD LAUGHS.   OH, AND BTW, YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM.