Escape from Del Boca Vista

So were back in New Jersey from Del Boca Vista.  It’s Monday morning and I get up early “before the hacking” and make my escape back to Work...not that I didn’t have a great time with my family listening to grinding teeth and wondering when my turn at the clinic would come… but let’s not forget, it IS all about me.

I get in my jeep, drive down the street and notice the engine light is on.  I pull over and read the manual.  Says if the light is on, drive to a dealership for immediate inspection…can be a number of things from bad gas to a new transmission.  It says if the light is blinking, to stop immediately and call Triple A…or the engine could explode.  

I’m thinking to myself, “YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!”  This is just not happening!  Time execute Plan B…I will NOT be deterred, “I am going to make it out!”  I drive back to my house dust off my 1978 Raleigh 10 speed, fill the tires with air, throw it in the back of the jeep.

This is the same bike I dusted off two summers ago when gas was about $4 a gallon and I decided…after a couple of adult beverages, that I was NOT going to, “Pay the Man” any longer.  Instead, I’d ride a bike to the train station and stand up for what was right.  I went out and bought myself a $75 knapsack that holds a laptop and I was ready for action.  There was only one problem: From my house, the dealership is about 4 miles almost completely down hill…like very downhill.  It was great in the morning…almost too chilly.  But coming home at 7PM in the dead of summer, it was a completely different story going up hill.  By the time I made it back to my house I came about as close to dialing 911 as I ever have.  I developed a bruised sternum which I earned as my heart was working overtime trying to blast itself out of my chest.

You’d be amazed how quickly you can forget these things.  My rationale for giving it another try was: It's cooler now and I don't have the laptop strapped to my back.  That and I have the sound of hacking ringing in my ears…my kids have the flu now too.  (I’m extremely sympathetic)  So I drop the car off and start pedaling back up the hill for home.  Funny thing was (actually not so funny) as much as it was cooler out…the incline was still at about 45 degrees, and not surprisingly, I’m still in terrible shape.  The only way I could distract myself from the pain was by cursing myself out.

It only gets better.

So now it’s about 7PM, I’m home, and I’m going to go pick up my car.  Turns out only a couple of hoses were cracked, so I figured I got off easy.  Sure... the mechanic informed me that it appears I’ve been driving for a couple of weeks without brakes, so now $700 later…I’m ready for the road.

I let my wife know that I’ll just drive the bike back down and drive the car back…no big deal.  She tells me I’m crazy and that she’ll drive me down.  Sir Valiant insists that she stay home and get well.  I explain that I’ve driven down in the early morning hours when it’s fairly dark and I’ll be just fine.  I should have updated my will.

I was wrong.  It’s much darker at night…much much darker.

I head out of my neighborhood and notice that it’s kind of difficult to pick up the wide speed bumps in the road.  And this is with all of the houses having their front porch lights on.  I head downhill into blackness.  No street lights, big trees everywhere…can’t see 5 feet in front of me...going Mach9.

Now I’m cursing TARP.  With all the infrastructure improvements going on I have to think that as much as these roads are narrow AND they don’t have streetlights, they must have been repaved recently.   Wrong again.

You’d be surprised how scary a pot hole is in the pitch black when you hit it going 70 miles an hour on a ten speed.  What’s even more fun is that when people see you coming in the opposite direction they all have the same reaction.  They put on their hi-beams.  This by itself is completely blinding, but then when they pass, your pupils are the size of a pinhead.  So if you think you couldn’t see anything before, now you might as well be opossum.

Got home, after I stopped shaking I informed my wife she was right and we won’t be trying that again.

So in the morning I almost had a heart attack from exhaustion and at night I managed to scare the crap out of myself. 

It’s sad when you look forward to a commute into the city.