Europe 2013: Then the Sun Came OutAugust 18, 2013 I awoke this morning (at the Pannell Farm B&B and campsite, next to Bridge of Wier, which is next to Johnstone, which is next to Glasgow) to the sight of the side of my tent glowing unnaturally: the sun was rising. Actual sun, unobscured by clouds. It was the work of a moment to get my boots, gloves and socks set out to soak up the rays and maybe be a bit less soaked. Coincidentally, this is the same place I stayed after I took the ferry over from Ireland, although I think I didn't mention it at the time.
Particularly from the last entry, it may seem like I'm not having a very good time. This is one of those things where the instantaneous, subjective reality (which is what I'm recording in these missives, which are essentially my journal of the trip, spread to a wider audience) can be pretty daunting, but the memories you keep and cherish are the good bits, and the bad bits just make a funny story over dinner after you get back. From yesterday, I will always remember standing at the top of that little hill, and the wind whistling fiercely around me, waves of grass undulating furiously, and the feeling that nature was approving of me, in my own little selfish way. I will always remember sitting on that rocky beach in Smirisary, or the walk up that little path past the fairy glens. I won't really remember the pouring rain or the freezing hands and feet, or just how chilled I was when I stripped down to the waist so I could add long underwear to the clothing keeping me warm, with, again, the wind whistling around me madly across that broad heath. It didn't feel like nature affirming me then, it just felt bloody cold. But that's not the memory that will remain as being important. If you're concerned that I'm not having a good time, keep this perspective in mind. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip, and you're getting the daily nitty-gritty of it. I am indeed having a rough time occasionally, but what I'll remember, and talk about, is all the good stuff that's happening. I would have preferred to take this trip with a friend, with whom I would have had a shared experience; in the situation as it exists, you are my travelling companion, and this writing is the vehicle through which we share the experience. By the way, ironic trombone moment: as I was sitting here writing, I heard the sound of rain on the roof. Dashed out to get my drying items back under the tent flap. Oh, Scotland. Of course it's stopped now. ---- It's now evening time, and I'm at the Wellingham and Goosnarch Social Club (or something like that), which is a drinking club and also caravan park located at the site of (I'm told) what used to be Britain's largest mental asylum. One mile wide, and four miles long (obviously I'm only occupying a tiny morsel of that space). It's just outside of Preston, north of Liverpool. The former mental institution is a huge series of economical but nice-looking brick buildings, with their roofing materials (worth money) removed, and just the rafters left in place, through which trees are now growing. The ride down from Pannell Farm (I had to think for a moment -- the last moment in Scotland that really left an impression was Glenuig, and I *know* I didn't just drive that far) was largely uneventful. I really just needed to get from point A to point B, and do it in about a day. Done. There was some fooling about taking the A6 instead of the M6 for part of the way, since I really dislike riding motorways (but gosh they're fast). The thing about riding A roads in Britain and Ireland is that every few miles, you stop being able to go 60, and have to slow down to 40 or 30 as you pass through a town. They're pretty, they're twisty, they're much more fun, but A roads are definitely a lot slower. There was rain, but nothing like yesterday. It was just a few sprinkles, really. What occupied my attention more today was gear. The first order of business was to figure out what was up with my USB power gizmo. It has a little blue light that's supposed to come on, and it was flickering sometimes, but not others, so obviously something was still alive in there. However, even when it was lit up, it resolutely failed to power the GPS, and I ran through another set of batteries today. After I arrived at home base tonight, I took the thing apart to see what I could see -- there was still a bunch of water in the housing, so I pulled the guts out to let them dry overnight, as well as blowing all the water out of the circuit board as I could. The interesting thing was, regardless of what's going on with the GPS, the liberated power gizmo was charging the tablet just fine. This solves the single biggest problem I was worried about, which was how I was possibly going to continue writing if the tablet has no power. The GPS can be stuffed with AA batteries -- inefficient and expensive, but workable. The tablet, on the other hand, pretty much needs a charge every two days, or it's a fancy-looking brick. So, that was a load off my mind. As for the GPS, the cable I have for it looks a little suspect, so I borrowed a USB cable from a neighbor. However, even that didn't help, so something's going on there. I can survive on AAs, but it would be so much nicer to have it working off the bike power.
A potentially larger problem that occurred was as I was cruising south, just over the border to England. By the way, crossing the border, the sky ahead of me was all blue skies and puffy clouds. Behind me, in Scotland: GREY DOOM. It was very much like driving down I-5 to California, how the clouds just magically disappear around the California border. Anyway, the problem: mid-rainstorm, and about 20 km after filling the tank, the engine hesitated, and started running intermittently on one cylinder. This is not the problem it would have been on the Ninja 250 (a two-cylinder engine running on one cylinder has about 25% the power of when it's operating on both, and 25% of 70 HP is a much larger number than 25% of 26 HP). However, it's still definitely not good. I could maintain speed, but couldn't really accelerate at all. It was intermittent, the missing cylinder coming back for a moment here and there during the episode. In 45 seconds (which felt like five minutes), it was back to running normally. Given that this was mid-rainstorm (it was actually a decent downpour, although still only a fraction of what I ran into yesterday), and it was shortly after refilling the tank, I'm going to opt for water in the fuel as being the most likely cause. It's also nearly impossible to test for, since once the engine started running again, the evidence was gone. The other choice is that the rain knocked out some part of the ignition system, but since it didn't happen during rain-a-palooza yesterday, I'm inclined to think that's less likely. The problem didn't come back, which also makes me think water in the gas. It's interesting to come into England like this. I've only been in England twice before that I can think of, both times to London to visit my aunt Deb (who now lives in Bend, Oregon). I've never seen any of England that wasn't either Heathrow or London. The bits I'm seeing are very similar to Scotland, just generally calmer and less bold, a bit more carefully done up. But the weird thing is the feeling of being in a more-foreign place. I can't logically explain it, since even if you count the time I lived in Edinburgh, England is less like a foreign country: there's no Gaelic to worry about, half of American culture comes straight from England, and all of American law does. Very interesting, and not what I'd expected. As today was a relatively uninteresting day, and I have a long one ahead of me tomorrow, with many miles of either motorway, or quaint and slow Welsh roads (I'll probably opt for an even mix of the two, if I can figure out how), I'm going to sign off and go to bed. I hope you're enjoying reading my travelogue thoughts, even when they delve into less comfortable territory.
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