Rutgers in the Rain

Where the D&R Canal Ends at the Raritan River

"Crap!  Crap!  Crap!  Crap!"

Ed is jumping up and down by the trunk of his car.

Poor Ed.  He tries so hard not to be in this blog, but he keeps doing things that I can write a story around.

"Crap!  Crap!  Crap!  Crap!"

It's my fault, really.  I called Winter Larry at just past 7 this morning to ask if his ride was on.  We were both looking at the radar.  We both thought we'd miss the rain.  So I emailed Ed to tell him.

Now it's just the three of us in the Sweetwater parking lot in Cranbury.

"What happened?"  Winter Larry and I ask.

Ed's car, a VW with a touch too much intelligence, had decided that, because Ed had closed the trunk and then the passenger door, he must have wanted the car to be locked, and therefore did so with a defiant click, trapping Ed's keys within Ed's jacket pocket on the back seat.

"I have three choices," he says.  He could call the Cranbury police, call AAA, or break into his own car by smashing the vent window.

"Don't break your window."

He's wearing hiking boots.  His bike is leaning against the car; his helmet is inside.  "I have a spare helmet," I offer.  "You can ride in those boots."

He hesitates.  He's looking around for something to smash glass with.

"Don't break your window."

"How far away do you live?"

"Half an hour."  He lives, more or less, in Highland Park.

Ed calls his wife, Cathy, who gives him the phone number for the Cranbury police.  After a dozen rings, Ed gives up on that idea and calls Cathy back.  He arranges to call her again when we're half an hour from the end of our ride.  She'll meet us here with a key.

We set off on the usual southerly route.  We've just turned off of Main Street when I make a suggestion.  "We could ride to your house."

"Wanna do it?"  Larry asks.

He and Ed slow down.  We all turn around.  "This is the kind of thing we can do when there are only three of us.  It'll be fun," I offer.

I ride behind while Larry and Ed quibble about how best to get over Route 1 and Route 130 and the Raritan River.  It's a foreign language to me.  My road knowledge peters out at the northern border of South Brunswick.

I recognize where we are all the way to Dayton.  After that, I have a faint recollection of a few winter rides back when Kermit was still green.  I remember Riva Road and passing people ice fishing on part of Farrington Lake.

Kermit is running smooth and quiet.  He's just been thoroughly cleaned.  He has new bar tape (purple) and new tires (Michelins again -- others just don't compare).  Once in a while we pass through a patch of faint drizzle.  As long as the rain doesn't get any stronger than this, we'll be fine.

We ride through Deans, North Brunswick, then Miltown, and into New Brunswick.  Ed pulls into a parking lot to call Cathy.  "Put on a strong pot of coffee," he says.  "We've got coffee fiends.  We're talking Laura and Larry here.  We'll be there in about ten minutes."

Now we're in real rain.  Larry takes us down Livingston Avenue, past the public library, across George Street, and down to the river.  Ed snakes us over Route 18 and down into Johnson Park.  We ride along the water, Larry pointing out the once-fabulous mansions on the hill a quarter mile away.  We stop at a series of small, colonial-era houses carried from all over the state to this site.

"We're really close to where I work," Larry says, so we leave the park and ride up the hill, into Rutgers' Piscataway campus.

"I should warn you, I had a bad time in grad school."

"Should I schedule you a session?"  Larry asks me.

No need.  I only vaguely recognize one building, Waxman.  Microbial ecology?  The fluorescent microscope I used a few times?  My car parked in front, but I can't remember why I was there.  What's the name of the building my classes were in?  I've forgotten.  Completely forgotten.  Nothing we pass stirs memory.  We're on a part of campus that I don't ever remember seeing.

Ed leads us down to the river again, Larry uneasy about his brakes in the rain.  "I've been caught so many times this year,"  I tell him.  "Kermit's going, 'What am I, an amphibian?'"

We turn off of River Road and climb the hill up to Ed's house.  Larry and I lean our bikes against the garage door, under the eaves.  Ed fusses with the bike rack on his wife's station wagon.  While Larry helps, I take a hard look at the hatchback trunk, lift Kermit up, front wheel off, swing him around, and fit him in.  I have plenty of time to clean the frame with my damp bandana.   Might as well get the rims too.  Not bad.  This wasn't a dirty ride, not like last Saturday.

Inside we shed our wet jackets and shoes.  My booties are soaked, but my winter shoes are dry.  My toe warmers are toasty as I pad across the floor wrapped in a towel, answering, "Black" when Ed asks me how I take my coffee.

But there's leftover steamed milk, so cappucino.  Cathy offers around a bar of dark chocolate.  I stir some in; mocha.  Cathy and Ed are emptying their pantry onto the kitchen table.  Larry is surrounded by scientists.

Ed should take Cathy to the Blue Rooster in Cranbury, we decide.  "Yeah," she agrees, as she pulls on her coat.  "I should get something out of this."

The rain has slowed.  We take Route 18 towards the Turnpike.  I haven't been up here since 1993, 1994?  Route 18 has changed, widened, fake rock walls.

The rain has stopped in time for us to unload and re-pack.  Ed and Cathy walk towards the Blue Rooster.  I turn on the engine and crank up the heat.

At home I piece together where we've been.  Ed sends corrections.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1993933

Nelson.  It was Nelson Hall.  We were one street away.

Larry says a tour of Princeton University is next.