Gas @ 65,819 – 3.386 g E10 93 @ $3.869/g = $13.10. 124/3.386 = 36.6 mpg
Gas @ 65,931 – 3.040 g E0 90 @ $3.999/g = $12.16. 112.4/3.040 = 37 mpg
End at 65,965 (156 miles)
I planned to pick up a couple of places on the Virginia Grand Tour, but after getting one in the middle of nowhere, I decided I’d had enough and went home from Hopewell via 295.
I was on VA 156 (before the decision) and got surprised by a long drawbridge with a grated center section. I had a full-blown panic attack. Instant onset as soon as I hit the first expansion join. Hyperventilating inside my helmet is no fun, that’s for sure. Flop sweat, every muscle contracted. I’m not sure exactly how I got across that bridge. I know I slowed down because the engine started to lug and I had to downshift. There were no other cars so it wasn’t a problem. I remember telling myself, “You can do this” and “You’re not going to die.” Not terribly convincingly, though.
Obviously I survived, but I’m not real happy about it and for a while I was super unnerved. I ended up backtracking to get E0 gas at one point. The gas station had awesome chicken, and I chilled there for a long time. Big guy with long dreads had a lot of questions about the R 90/6, that helped me focus on something and get out of my head. Pretty sure my therapist would say I should view it not as a setback, but as a success since I did indeed make it across the bridge. She’s said before that fear and anxiety will stay with me, maybe forever, so what I need to focus on is not “curing” it but managing it when it pops up.
I don’t know if it was my fried nerves from the psychotic episode on the bridge or just being out riding in the heat, but those chicken tenders I got at the random Exxon station were fantastic. I mean—really fantastic. There’s really no comparison close to home—Sheetz’s are tiny and over-salted (and over priced, too), Royal Farms’ are decent but still too salty and corporate. Food Lion does OK, but they only give you three at a time. This gas station had a LINE for food—there were maybe 10 people in front of me when I queued up—but it moved fast. The cook was working her poor feet off keeping up with the lady running the counter. Kind of exciting to find a place like this, it feels like a secret.
I was exhausted when I got home, didn’t accomplish anything the rest of the day. I did NOTHING. That stupid bridge took a lot out of me.
