Going through Paradise is hell of an ordeal
Tomorrow will be the final day of biking in the US for this time, and today I wanted to get close to Philadelphia (which I’ll be going into tomorrow) so that I would just have a short ride tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be stressful enough with the traffic, so I figured it’d be better if I didn’t have too many miles in the legs (and head) once I hit the city. So today I rode to West Chester, a suburb of Philadelphia, which as far as I’ve been able to see basically consist of one huge university and not much more…
When I went to bed last night the rain was falling hard, but the forecast was that it would have passed in the morning and the day would be mostly sunny although not as warm as the last couple of days. Fortunately, the forecast was correct. So, I couldn’t complain about the weather, but the first half of the route was really awful, even though it went through Paradise. I was riding on a highway with lots of traffic, and it seemed to consist mainly of trailers. Thankfully, the shoulder was wide so there wasn’t really any problems as such, but the noise etc. you experience when riding in heavy traffic makes it quite unpleasant. Roughly halfway there, the road split in two and most of the traffic disappeared, so from then on it was much more pleasant.
I came a bit early to the hotel so the room was not yet ready, so I headed back to a shopping plaza a few hundred feet earlier on the road to check out the offerings. As luck would have it, there was an used books shop there, so I went in and browsed through it and ended up buying two paperbacks (I’m getting weary of watching TV):
Michael Chabon: The Final Solution
Kaye Gibbons: Ellen Foster
I have no idea whether they’re any good, but at least they’re small enough to fit in the back pocket of a cycling jersey, which is an equally important criteria at this stage.
As usual, you can see the Google Map of the route taken today by clicking here.