Date: 2004-06-06
To: Escape From New Jersey
Miles today: 0.0

I¢ll begin this section with a quick summary of the Laws of Thermodynamics: 1. You can¢t win. (Energy is always conserved; it doesn¢t come from nothing)2. You can¢t get ahead. (Once the form for energy is changed, it never goes back to its original state but changes into a new form, becoming more disordered by this transition) and3. You can¢t get out of the game. (Absolute zero is unobtainable).         So there you have it. The three basic rules that govern practically all motion in the universe, and they¢re identical to the house rules at a poker table in Atlantic City. In both situations, when you¢re down you¢re down yet you somehow manage to stay in the game until forcefully removed.        I was down. Whatever energy I had was dissipated, gone to wherever energy goes when it gets too close to entropy. I couldn¢t move. I couldn¢t stand. But at the same time I couldn¢t reach absolute zero because I was not going to let myself die in New Jersey. That¢s a fate I¢d only wish on my worst enemy.         OK, I¢m switching to Newtonian physics here: I was a body at rest. I was tending to stay at rest. If I could only become a body in motion, I would tend to stay in motion. It was time to absorb some more energy and convert it into a form that allowed me to exert some force. That would create the kind of reaction that would lead to the equal opposite reaction I wanted.         I fumbled through the trash that filled my food bag until I found an unopened packet of ramen noodles. I swallowed the flavor packet then chomped down on the brick of noodles as if it were a giant cracker, somewhat disturbed to realize I was developing a taste for eating it this way. After a few more minutes of enduring the din and winds from the traffic speeding past, I rose, spat a bloody loogie into the Delaware River, and trudged back across the bridge. Through a sheer triumph of will, I got out of New Jersey.StrayhoundMy early plan was to reach the Greyhound station in East Stroudsberg and take a bus back to Harrisburg. I knew it was a mile and a half away. This used to seem like a comically short distance, because I figured a mile and a half would seem like a hop, skip and a jump after walking 145.6 miles. And, to be fair, it was. There was only one problem: I wasn¢t exactly sure where East Stroudsberg was and had no idea how to reach the station. All I remembered was East Stroudsberg was north of Delaware Water Gap on the map.         I broke out my compass and followed the red needle through Delaware Water Gap¢s main street. It really was a quaint little place, which in this case worked against it. I would have loved to have found an ATM machine and a Burger King. All they had was a small cafe that didn¢t take credit cards.         At least I did see signs for Route 611 on the main street. That alone reassured me beyond any levels of exhaustion. Route 611 runs along the eastern edge of Pennsylvania, cuts through Doylestown and ultimately becomes Broad Street in Philadelphia. Best of all, I remembered it ran right into East Stroudsberg. I was headed the right direction. I followed 611 until it came to a T-intersection. And there, to my right, after a distance so short I realized a lot of the AT maps take serious liberties with the scale, I saw the Greyhound station.Matrix Style        The rest of this isn¢t terribly interesting, so slip on your sunglasses because I¢m shifting the tempo to Matrix-style bullet time. Or, if you want, you can just skip this part. Do I look like I care?        - I arrived at the station two hours before the bus to Harrisburg was leaving that night. Unfortunately, they didn¢t take credit cards, so I had to walk the better part of a mile to a gas station with an ATM.        - That gas station also had hoagies and candy bars, so I withdrew a little extra cash. I sat on the concrete outside, savoring my cold wet hoagie with all the sybaritic pleasure of Nero sitting on a velvet lounge chair munching on his lion-dung tarts. It wasn¢t the Wawa hoagie of my dreams for the past two days, but it was a lot better than raw ramen noodles. And although they had no Snickers, a good king-sized Caramello satisfied that craving. I probably didn¢t need the sour-cream-and-onion chips or the Coke, but man were they good.         - The bus itself wasn¢t originally scheduled to get into Harrisburg until 12:55 a.m. because it had to stop in Philadelphia on the way (to my friends who aren¢t familiar with eastern Pennsylvania geography, that means it had to go south then west instead of just going west). As it happened, though, I made it to Philly just in time to catch an earlier bus west, and by 10 p.m. I was in Harrisburg.        - Grandpa was waiting for me at the station, but I didn¢t see his minivan. Or, more appropriately, I did see it and hear it when he honked at me, I just didn¢t make the connection it was him (in my defense, he was driving a sedan the last time I saw him). So I went inside the station and waited about ten minutes while he waited outside for me. Luckily I happened to go outside and he honked until I finally noticed him.        - The grandparents gave me many snacks back at their house. They also washed the clothes and dried out the gear I gave them at Port Clinton. I thanked them profusely; Grandpa said he was just happy he could be a part of the adventure.        -I loaded up my car and drove home. As Grandpa will tell you, that¢s quite an understatement, because my car had so much moisture in the fuel line from sitting idle during a rainy week it took a half-hour to get it to go more than a block without stalling.         -Oh, and somewhere between the Greyhound-Harrisburg station and Grandpa¢s house I lost my cellphone. I swear, I carried that thing with me through the whole trip and lose it then, right at the very end. Pardon my French, but ce la vie.         - Around 1 a.m. I made it back to my humble apartment. I threw down my gear in the living room, then staggered back to my futon. My Appalachian adventure was finally and definitely concluded.