2022-11-13 34 -112

Location

A ways off the freeway off what seems to be a closed turn off a roundabout, about a mile from the PRC airport.

Participants

Expedition

Failed kidna- er, totally normal trip

My roommates were surprisingly easy to get on board the train of "go to literally nowhere important for no good reason." Me and two of my roommates left around noon in one of their cars, but there wasn't anywhere close enough to park. We tried around the airport and near the roundabout, but neither area had a good spot to walk from.

Insert Galaxy Quest quote

A few minutes after we got back, I set out on my own two wheels down the freeway. This was exactly like riding a bike down a sidewalk (or in a bike lane with a reasonable speed limit), except at least ten times worse, a hundred times more dangerous, and a thousand times scarier. Not to mention, it was the first day over the past week with actual, noticeable wind. Still, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun. Until my bike's front axle decided it was a good day to absolutely fuck off. I did end up finding it, but I wasn't able to find the nut that went opposite the handle, so I was now without a bike and faced with the difficult decision to continue on foot (which would lead to me arriving at dark, and returning home around midnight) or quit.

... is exactly what a normal, sane person would say. I, however, have a somewhat reckless disregard for my own health and safety, and decided that as long as both wheels spun, the bike was rideable. I just had to be careful where I rode it, and stick to paved roads... nope, still a dumbass. The bike lane on the freeway (which in retrospect was probably not a bike lane) was way too small, so I just went off the road. I eventually got to what I will call a sewer inlet (please correct me), which I decided to skip on as it may have led to an extradimensional portal of some sorts, or more likely my face in less-than-clean water. Luckily, there was a crosswalk just above, which confusingly had no sidewalks, so I rode into and through a series of parking lots and, once again, off the road and into a field. After crossing the field, I passed by a barren construction area, an RV storage lot, and a high school. I then found a trail that would take me under the freeway through a slightly less daunting tunnel than before, with light fixtures but no actual lighting. The trail led to a closed-off bridge and another trail that went through the "majestic" fields of nothingness. I decided to leave my bike here and chained it to a nearby bench.

Surprisingly, there weren't many fences around, and the only things that stood out were strangely tall PVC pipes and what appeared to be an abandoned silo. The only major thing I saw happening was the flocking of plant matter to my shoes and socks like some sort of mobile nanomachine acupuncture session. After wading through a seemingly endless see of weeds, I finally arrived around 3:04 and sat down for a nice read. After finishing, I decided to try taking a different way back, leading me to what looked like an old irrigation canal with a couple of outlets. I followed the canal for a while until heading back to the trail. At this point, it grew much windier than before, which ended up making the return trip much less enjoyable (and colder). After picking up my bike from the bench, I pretty much retraced my footsteps (bike treads?) to get back to campus. It also began to snow very lightly around the spot where I originally lost the axle, so that was pretty nice.

After a fruitless car ride, a few dozen meters of bike-carrying, four rapid unplanned dismounts, three dozen reseatings of the front wheel (give or take), two easily visible scrapes (and at least twenty smaller ones), one pair of shoes and one pair of socks rendered unwearable to their newfound pokiness, one StreetPass tag and 14756 steps, and an encounter with an African wild dog, I have found myself within the ranks of geohashers around the world (but seemingly not within my graticule).

Maybe I should take a creative writing course.