The County Road Apocalypse

I was just sitting down with a kiddie-sized chocolate ice cream. I was still wandering, still sixteen miles from New Haven and the Couchsurfing host I'd set up. I crawled into the tiny child's picnic table, wishing for a tiny touch of whimsy in my life. I settled down and—with a terrifying lurch and a wild flip—the table rose up to meet me. The Snapple bottle on the table, with a daisy and a bit of greenery, tipped inexorably into my lap, spilling water directly into my crotch.
I threw my head back and laughed. I've been having that sort of day.

It didn't start badly. I was staying with Hunter and Valeriia, a young married couple in Connecticut. Valeriia offered me cereal. "You want the healthy kind, or the tasty kind?" Tasty, every time. Lucky Charms! We sort of talked, but it was easy conversation, nothing important or urgent. She showed me how to lock the door and then took off for her job. I watched a little of the fast sashay of the Olympic speedwalking 50k, packed up my things, and got ready to head out the door, only to discover: Oh! I left my sunglasses in Hunter's car from when we went to pick up the pizza, and he was gone to work! I sighed, deeply. The sort of sigh that empties out the corners around your ribs and really digs deep into your lungs. That's why I packed two pairs. I knew I would end up doing this, I just hoped it would be in Virginia somewhere, or better yet, in California. I just pulled out the other pair. Identical Walmart grey-tinted safety glasses. Six dollars. Cheap and effective.

I took off for Haddam and eventually New Haven. Everything was pretty easy, all-told. I was making good time. A couch surfer named Kevin offered me a couch in New Haven, I started listening to a podcast to eat up the miles, and the once-a-rotation click to my left pedal wasn't very pronounced. It was gonna be a good morning.
I stopped in Haddam for lunch. The first place I stopped was triple my price point, so I looked up one that was double but served fries.
I rolled in to the Haddam Pizza Restaurant and Lounge parking lot and tipped my bike against a pole. I pulled off the Gatorade I bought yesterday to take it inside and the woke bike launched itself at me, pinning me to the wall.
One.
I just laughed a little and put it back a little more securely. Walking inside, I found a much nicer interior. I ordered a gyro: tomatos, onions, tzatziki. I sat down outside to wait for my meal. Literally forty minutes later, I ventured back inside to look for my meal. Nobody had brought it to me or questioned why they had a gyro sitting on the counter. I asked the cook.
"You order a gyro, or a gyro?"
I looked at him like an idiot. "A gyro . . . "
"Because a gyro is like a sandwich."
"I had the one with tzatziki."
Two.
I ate the fries and bit into my gyro, satisfied with my meal choice, and found it wildly chewier than I expected. "What's in this?" I thought to myself. It was steak, which I didn't expect. I was baffled. Do I eat it and have the runs, or do I make a pain of myself? I decided to make a pain.
Three.
The woman who owned the restaurant said "Isn't this what you ordered?"
Well, yeah. "I was expecting what I've always gotten. Aren't they usually falafel?"
"Not in my country. But I know what you're saying. Before this, I ran a gyro shop. We had steak, chicken, goat, falafel. So we had all kinds. What do you want instead?"
"I don't know? Uhh a grilled cheese. With pickles."
"Right."
My second meal came out (I waited for it this time), and they gave me more fries. I tipped three dollars. I figured they deserved it, or something. It felt right at the time.
Loading up on the bike, I flipped through my options. Search wasn't working; I had no Internet at all. But Google had found a few options. One led me far north and through a lot of bumpy terrain updownupdownupdown. One led me on a more direct route and was one big up and one big down. That's the one I wanted. Much better, I thought, to slap the hill in the face and get it over with. I clipped in and raced away along the river, thinking, naively, that it wouldn't matter much about my lunch setbacks if I made good time up the enormous hill I had to climb. I zoomed away from the restaurant and, it seemed at this point inevitably, something went wrong.
"GPS signal lost."
Four.
I took off north, stopped after three miles, found I had gone much too far, and turned around. I wandered down the north end of Little City road, took a left on Jackson, and came to a left-right turn and a driveway fifty meters left of straight. Google was telling me to continue on County Road. There were a dozen gnats landing on my eyes and face. There was no Internet service. There was no GPS signal. I was, in many ways, utterly lost. I looked at the compass on my watch. None of the readings aligned in any way with the roads on the map. Google showed some nearly cardinal directions, while my watch was telling me that the most westerly route was to turn right.
"When in doubt, trust your instincts," I said, and began a glorious and utterly unreturnable downhill run. After the ~600 feet I had just climbed, I knew there was no going back. I checked my watch again. Due north was the road. Full sad was my face. I had no idea what road I was on, what the name of it was, what the best direction to go would be, or why I was in this position. I solved my problem by matching street signs to the map, found a route, and finally got back my GPS.
Google told me to go south on 79 and turn right on County Road. Oh no. Not this again.
When I pulled up to County Road, it looked utterly normal. There were no "dead end," "no trespassing," "abandon hope all ye who enter here" signs at all. But a half mile down the road, the road disappeared. There was a big white gate and a rocky path leading on. I pulled up Google. The path existed, right there on the map.
I invite the reader to join me in this experiment.
Look up 208 County Road, Madison CT. Follow the path of County Road as it wends southwest to Rockland Road and eventually Lake Drive and freedom. Now turn on satellite. Tell me the road didn't just disappear from your map like "OH! You found me out! Haha, there's no road here."
Five.
I remember saying to myself "If you're going on an adventure, let's go on a gosh-darned adventure." Idiot.
I bounced over rocks the size of loaves of bread and sped around permanent lakes in the roadway. I had to walk my bike up some inclines lined with boulders and outcroppings. Google faithfully tracked my position NOW, but I was cussing mad at her.
Philip called.
I picked up and spent my time telling at the phone instead of Google. We had a very pleasant chat about the road I was on, and while he was on the phone, my front left bag slapped a tree, driving my wheel at a ninety degree angle from my direction of travel, nearly upending me and tossing all my stuff down the slope. But I managed it. Philip started sounding concerned. I pedalled past a few enormous lakes and then down a frankly ridiculous rocky path—partway. I braked too hard and the bike lost momentum, I tipped left and (being clipped in) fell into the grit. I was so sweaty by this point that my entire left side came away with a thick coat of fine gravel.
Six.
Philip found me on the map and assured me I was almost out. I hooted when I touched pavement again. It felt superlative. It felt like a discovery. It felt like all the troubles of the past could bother me no more.
That's when I found the farm stand, bought my ice cream, cleaned off in their farm faucet, and tipped a full bottle of flower water into my crotch.
Seven. Whatever. Nothing can touch me now.

When I got back on the bike, I discovered that my sunglasses were gone. I went over every inch of the farm stand, everywhere I had been, and determined an important fact: my sunglasses were on County Road, covered with grit. They had been hooked to my shirt when I feel over, and now they were back a mile or less, which, I hasten to add, is nothing in the grand scheme of things. But I just didn't consider it an option. I shuddered and rode away. I left them for the next idiot to attempt County Road. Look up Lakeside Feed (and Llamas) in Guilford. Do it so you can see how close I was to my sunglasses on Rockland Road. I was within spitting distance, and I left them.
Eight.

This is usually where a day goes to the birds and I throw my hands up and walk away. But I can't, because I had sixteen miles left. The last sixteen miles became increasingly less scenic. This is good for not being lost, but otherwise undesirable. The last mile or two was positively urban, And when I rolled up on Kevin's house in a nice neighborhood in New Haven to sit on his porch in the dying light sipping grapefruit seltzer, talking about adventures, I was glad I hadn't given up. I was glad that the bike was there to push me that extra sixteen miles.
I wondered if this trip is causing more pain than joy. Eight to two isn't very equal, but seltzer water and lucky charms can make up for a lot. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Valeriia. You made my day.