Braking The Cycle - Day 0

Um when I got up and left Brooklyn it was sprinkling. Nothing serious, nothing a quick subway ride wouldn't clear up.

Yeah, I got out at 14th street and it was POURING! I had no umbrella, no hat, nothing. To make things worse, I wasn't exactly sure which direction I needed to go in order to catch the bus on 7th between 12th & 13th. It's this one section that just doesn't go in a grid system as there are some triangluar intersections and then the streets turn into names not numbers. Regardless, after a good soak, a stop in a coffeeshop for some Chai and a call home to Jon I made it to the bus!

Do you know the fear going through my head as I'm dripping wet? Buses are often way A/C'd and I'm going to freeze my ass off for the next 4 hours. Great!

Luckily, my hot tea and a warm bus dried me off eventually.

I sat in the back half of the bus (Rosa Parks I ain't) near what at the time I had no idea would become my "bitches" -- 5 men I'd grow to trust, rely on, and love by Sunday night. Not that the bus ride would have been any indication because Anti-Social Dan sat in his seat watching 4 episodes of Supernatural on my iPod. What? I got up to go to the bathroom 5 times in 4 hours so we bonded over my bladder issues.

Finally we reached Gettysburg and the rain was beginning to let up. What's the first thing I see in Gettysburg? A stout man in a black cape with white and black Death Make-Up on. All I could think was, great some homophobic AIDS Kills Fags Dead protester... Wow could I have been more wrong. It was Peter the head of Bike Tech for the Ride and he was supposedly dressed like Darth Sith. Um, okay I'm gay not a geek...

We all went our semi-separate ways and found our hotels for the night. I was staying at the Quality Inn which was across from the Gettysburg Museum and the Best Inn which is where most of the remaining riders would be (except for Princess Paul that was at the high-falutin Holiday Inn about a quarter mile away). This is the akward stage of the day because I didn't know ANYONE really. Not that I care much but all of the sudden we have 5 hours free before we need to meet the second bus that's arriving so we can get under way with our Registration and Safety Presentation. I kind of mill about after checking in and heading to my room.

I run into Don and we decide to find lunch. We cross the street and meet up with Leslie, Hector and Paul who are taking the gold lined sidewalk to the Holiday Inn known to us common folk as The Palace (I kid, it was just the most expensive of the 3 hotel choices and it was seculded from the rest of us).

We head into "Downtown" Gettysburg which is surprisingly quaint and cute though the explosion of Americana could make Custard redact that last stand and take another! Wow folks, seriously with the flags, hearts, and stars...

The good news was that they had a old movie house that played indie movies - that's pretty hot for the middle of nowhere.

We at at The Pub. I had the sweet potato and raisin soup which was incredibly good and a hot veggie wrap. Then we hit an antiques shop before walking back to ye olde historic Gettysburg. Leslie, Don and I walked around the park/battlefield for a few. We saw some Amish in the Parking lot - which got me all geared up for the ride. I'm fascinated by the Amish. Their jaunty hats and homemade wares and all...

I went back to the hotel, napped for a couple. Watched Jeanne Bass from the Quackers Factory and her fabulous head wrap on QVC then headed out to meet up at Patriot's Point for Registration...

...which took forever because the second bus holding the majority of the riders for the ride was still about 45 minutes away. So we waited, were loud, and I kept hoping that my bike was actually there and put back together. I had shipped my bike the Thursday before via UPS and I tracked it, it said it arrived but I'd yet to see it. Of course I had visions of it in pieces parts spread across Gettysburg but really there was no time as the evening was about to begin.

Do they (and by "they" I mean the BTC folks) not know I'm a sucker? The song that starts playing over a screen that reveals hundreds of names that have succumbed to AIDS is Whoopie Goldberg singing "You Got It" from the film Boys on the Side. It's when Mary Louis Parker is dying of AIDS and then there's a montage of fun loving free spirit shots from the film which ends with the empty wheelchair and piano reveal... Crushing. For real? Way to break a man!

After the safety presentation we had to head over to registration (and I had to hit Medical to ensure I didn't have allergies -- you know other than the ones I forgot to list). Some folks had to hit the line which was for fundraising if they'd not yet met the minimum. Of course, one of our bitches Leslie was in that line.

I went down to find my bike. Amazingly it was there, put back together and ready to go! I was a happy man.

Though I would have been happier if we were ready to eat.

After about 2 hours of waiting outside for him Dan R. met up with us.

After like 3 hours of waiting for Leslie to finish up with the monies line we were ready to eat!

Now can I just tell you folks that by this point we'd all been together since noon and it was about 8:30. We were already BFFs and making each other laugh so much that our ultra-personalities entering an Italian Restaurant in Conservative Gettysburg was going to be interesting. Leslie alone has 4 bitchy black women trapped in his body all of which present themselves in hilarious fashion at any given moment so god knows what we'd encounter with Sybill.

Dinner was brilliant. We laughed so hard we almost died.

In bed by 10:30; asleep by 11. Thank goodness too because I know we ain't gotta be at breakfast by 5:30am.


*Stay tuned for Days 1-3