Harrisburg, PA to Waterville, ME... the Goose is Coming Home (Day 14)

The plan this morning was to get through New York as early as I could and beat the traffic... well, you know what they say about plans... it was a good one though!

I was moving by 5:45AM and it was looking like this was going to go according to plan... but the minute I crossed into New York things started to slow down!  The traffic!!  Oh my... and the tolls... they almost got the best of me!

I left Harrisburg with $20 in my pocket thinking I would get cash when I got gas... and then figured I
could wait until I got the second tank of gas... one toll after another and I arrived at the George Washington Bridge with $13 in my pocket.  The toll was $12.  I crossed over and by then I needed gas... and by now I knew that there would be another toll!  I almost didn't get off before I would have needed the toll!

I managed to get off the Interstate at New Rochelle and find an ATM and a gas station.  With the tank full and some cash in my pocket it was back on the road... but by now the traffic had picked up and the speed had dropped.

By now my stomach was grumbling as loud as the motorcycle... and the billboards kept telling me about the restaurant at Exit 41 that had the best breakfast... I turned off, I know now into Orange, CT... but I never did find the restaurant of which the billboards spoke!  Instead I filled my belly iHop.  It was ok - don't worry Anna - you didn't miss anything exciting!!

With my stomach sated I got back on the road... but by now half of New England had to be heading to
Maine!  Bumper to bumper and slow cars travelling in the left lane.  People to who do that should be banished to the hottest part of hell!!  Keep right except to pass!!

It was slow going - and I must confess that there was not much time to ponder life's big questions as I had to be constantly paying attention to the traffic around me!

I filled the tank for the third time and got back in the saddle.  I was tired - but I knew that I wanted to reach Maine today - and the last toll both!

I did it.

I stopped at the Welcome Centre in Kittery, ME and called home as I drank two bottles of water... and prayed that the traffic would thin out.  My prayer was answered.  Seems many of the travel
lers had stopped at the Outlet shops in Kittery!!

By 3PM I was getting pretty weary - about then I saw the sign for Waterville, ME.  This has been a stopping point for many trip for both me and for Mom and Dad... seemed like it would be fitting to do it again!

I turned off the bike at 4:25PM after 893KM of congested Interstate travel... I've no desire to do that again any time soon!  Give me a back road any day!!!

The fellow at the motel recommended Ming Lee's for supper - the next exit down the road... off I went and enjoyed a lovely supper and returned with a full tank of gas and a couple of beers to enjoy as I caught up on some work... by 9PM I was in bed... and I slept until 6AM... and that's all folks...

In a little while I will load up one more time for the final leg of this Wild Goose ride, but before I do, let me leave you a brief reflection on some words from Frederick Buechner:

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts….We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.

The time is ripe for looking back... I've been doing a lot of that over the past two weeks and it has been such a gift.  I say again to Anna: thank you for your love, support and encouragement; to Justin and Zack: thank you for all the joy you have brought to my life - follow your dreams wherever they may lead!; and to Mom and Dad, and to Chris: thank you for all you done to support our family over the past 25 years!

To those I have failed over the years, "I am sorry..."  It has been my attempt every day to do learn from the mistakes I have made and to try always to improve myself and make the world a little better than I did the day before... "The Angels And The Furies" continue within me...


1
Have you not wounded yourself
And battered those you love
By sudden motions of evil
Black rage in the blood
When the soul premier danseur
Springs towards a murderous fall ?
The furies possess you.

2
Have you not surprised yourself
Sometimes by sudden motions
Or intimations of goodness
When the soul premier danseur
Perfectly poised
Could shower blessings
With a graceful turn of the head ?
The angels are there.

3
The angels, the furies
Are never far away
While we dance, we dance,
Trying to keep a balance,
To be perfectly human
(Not perfect, never perfect,
Never an end to growth and peril),
Able to bless and forgive
Ourselves.
This is what is asked of us.

4
It is the light that matters,
The light of understanding.
Who has ever reached it
Who has not met the furies again and again:
Who has reached it without
Those sudden acts of grace?

To all who have nurtured the light within me... blessings... that's all for this ride... until next time on the Sabbath Road...