Towel Day

Happy Towel Day!  Towel Day occurs every May 25 as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  On Towel Day, fans around the world carry a towel in his honor.

Why a towel?

From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value -- you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Randonneuring sounds a lot like hitchhiking across the galaxy...

Today I did the Fried Green Tomatoes 200K permanent.  Naturally, I had to carry a towel in honor of Towel Day, and I had the perfect towel for the occasion:

I pinned my Fried Green 50 towel to the back of my jersey like a cape so I could be Super Randonneur.  BTW, because I’ve already done my qualifying 200, 300, 400, and 600K qualifiers for PBP, I really am a Super Randonneur.

As a bonus, the route went on Highway 42! I felt particularly enlightened on this section:

The meaning of life, the universe, and everything

My towel came in handy when I got something to eat at the controls.  At one control I got a frozen dairy dessert (mmm...the marketers sure know how to make it sound appetizing).  It was kind of drippy.

These were called Push-Ups when I was a kid.  I didn't get treats like this very often, but over several months I diligently saved four of the plastic push-up parts.  When I had collected four, I taped them end-to-end in pairs to make axles and wheels, which I then taped to a shoebox to make a car for my stuffed animal rabbit.  Good times.

Another control on today's permanent was a Kroger.  It was lunchtime, and so I got a Sierra turkey wrap.  I don't know what made it Sierra.  Maybe the dried cranberries?  Regardless, it was tasty, but I'm glad I had my towel to keep the accompanying dressing under control.

Other ways I could have used my towel: wet it and wipe my face to cool off in the heat; use it as a mini pillow for a quick roadside nap;  wave yoo-hoo to Robert upon my arrival home; wipe the sweat from my salt-flavored meatpoles.  Well, Fleetwood is glad I didn't use it for that last one because he enjoyed licking my salt-flavored meatpoles vigorously when I got home from my ride.

A larger towel is quite useful, too.  I always put one under my bicycle when I carry it somewhere in my car:

Robert and other guys wrap a towel around their waist to change clothes after a ride.  I'm not coordinated enough to do that without exposing myself, and so I duck down in the car to change.

Don't forget your towel!