Testicle Festival

Six A.M. and I felt better than I had a right to feel.

The three of us, Kirsten, Chuck and I are sales professionals, folks known for their hard partying, and the evening went late, even though it was a school night, 12:30 A.M., several bottles of beer and three bottles of red wine later, a mad mixture of the grain and the grape.

We drank the night away, chitter-chatting about work, Bozeman, the ridiculous amounts of money that the celebrities pay for their second (or third, or fourth, etc.) home in order to ski on a private mountain, that includes the ability to build your own private lift. Chuck sells windows, large, very expensive ones, to the celebrities and to the various companies needing them. We regaled ourselves with sales war stories while Izzy, their rescue dog, a five-year-old bitch with the energy of a puppy, the power of a pitbull, all sinew, muscle and bone, slept fitfully on the couch, obviously annoyed that she was the only one with the good sense to go to sleep at a reasonable time.

It was a great night until it was morning and I awoke early to write the blog. Chuck had left already for work by the time Kirsten and I made our way to historic downtown Bozeman for breakfast. I scratched Izzy, gave Kirsten a hug, thanked her again, and sauntered away on the bike, feeling too blah to make an exit statement, instead slinking away, mildly alcohol concussed.

It wasn't until I hit Butte, 85 miles outside Bozeman, that it hit and hit hard. It was too early to take a break but I needed it, the bathroom at Wendy's, a diet Coke. I was on my way to Spokane, Washington and my travel had started inauspiciously.

And, gentle reader, I must confess that as I sat at Wendy's I contemplated cancelling my reservation for the Hotel Montvale, an historic Spokane hotel in the heart of downtown, and instead crossing the street to the Butte Holiday Inn Express - just give me a room! - where I could curl into the pillows, childlike, sleep the day away. I had made progress, after all, 85 miles, and that should count for something.

But very good sales person knows that no matter what toxic damage you did to yourself the night before, you persevere, you show.

It matters not that your angry liver kicks you so hard during the morning that you alternately flop sweat and urine shiver every fifteen minutes or so.

It matters not that your eyes feel as though they are bleeding. Internally. And that the tears produced from the ducts are hot, thick, and coagulating.

You're a professional, damn it.

Back on the bike.

By the time I hit Missoula, I felt better but not great. Kirsten had told me that Missoula was hosting its annual "Testicle Festival" and I pulled into the city to get gasoline, check as to where this spectacle might be. I talked to the hipster behind the store counter, asked where I could find the festival and, obviously, I wanted to ascertain whether the testicles in question were bovine or human, the latter of which I'd frankly not much desire.

"We're not Bohemians," he said, meaning I take it that the testicles belonged, in fact, to the bovines, Montana being beef country. "You go west on the highway. There'll be signs. You can't miss it."

I headed west, never saw the signs and, frankly, I wasn't sure my stomach could handle the sight or the smell of Rocky Mountain Oysters and so I sauntered along instead, wondering but not really caring who participated in a "Testicle Festival".

I stopped for gas earlier than usual, again, about 100 miles, needing another break and the restroom. Another motorcycle pulled in next to mine at the pumps, a Honda ST1300, a V-4 touring bike, and a darling among the long-distance riding crowd. We introduced ourselves, his name being Tom, and we agreed to ride together, at least to Coeur D'Alene. Tom hailed from Vancouver and had ridden all over the northwest region for years. He pulled out his maps (physical maps!) and he recommended an alternate route to Neah Bay, one more scenic, that would avoid the Seattle traffic that he assured me would be terrible, especially on a Saturday. His suggestion was to take Highway 2, to 174, to 97, to Highway 20, all the way to the Port Townsend ferry. I'd take the ferry across, continue on 20 to 101 and travel to Neah Bay, the fourth corner.

We enjoyed a brisk ride to the lovely city of Coeur D'Alene, I-90 having incredible views of the Lake Coeur D'Alene, alternatively leading across the rather interesting, downhill, and rather sharp corners that run across the pass connecting Idaho to Washington.

We pulled over at an exit, said our farewells. I toured through Coeur D'Alene then headed to Spokane, back in the Pacific time zone, just a few days from home.

Head Winds

"Crap, I'm out of gas."

In optimal conditions, a single rider, no trunk, no luggage, my bike gets 220 miles on a full tank of gas, 5.6 gallons of premium unleaded. When fully loaded, single rider, trunk, in optimal conditions, I travel a maximum of 200 miles per tank.

Traveling between Medora, ND and Bozeman, MT, the conditions were not optimum. The head winds, though not fierce, were steady, occasionally gusty. Also the elevation varied, usually in the direction away from attaining the best gas mileage. I filled the tank when I left Medora and the next "major" city was 184 miles away, Forsyth, MT, a bit beyond my comfort level but certainly within range, typically. I passed through Miles City, MT, at 140 miles and my gas tank just hit the low fuel gauge, 1.5 gallons left, and 44 miles to Forsyth. It would be close given the conditions and I'd stop along the way, maybe 20 miles farther up the road.

If I had had the boss along, she would've insisted that we fill the bike at Miles City, the conservative, safe approach. Looking at the green travel signs along the highway, it looked like there were at least two cities along the way within range.

I arrived at the first "city" and there were no services. I'm twenty miles into it and bullishly optimistic, even though the grade was elevating, the winds only getting stronger. The next "city" was Rosebud, about 14 miles away.

There it was, that sinking feeling, range anxiety. I checked the instant fuel mileage gauge: 25 MPG. That put me right at 175 miles. Rosebud would be my last chance. As I started the last ascent towards Rosebud, 174 miles on the trip counter, the bike popped out of cruise control, not enough fuel.

I downshifted to fifth as the bike began to backfire, lurch. I crested the hill, shifted to neutral, and I hoped to see a gas station sign.

Nope. There was a steep descent, a sharp ascent and nothing on the horizon but trees and cows. Rosebud lay at the bottom of the hill and I coasted down, considering options. I saw a couple of farm houses to the north. I pulled off onto the Rosebud exit. The bike sputtered, surged, sputtered and I had just enough gas to pull into the driveway of the closest house, a white ranch with a motorhome, a tractor. As I made my way into the residence, I noticed an older gentlemen, in t-shirt and jeans. Looking at him, I could see that he had seen many long, hard days of manual labor in his day.

"Hi," I said.

"How's it going?"

"Well, my bike's out of gas," I shut the bike off, stepped off the machine, removed my helmet. "You wouldn't happen to have any would you?"

He looked at my bike, said, "That's a Victory. Nice bike. I've been looking at them, used to ride a Kawasaki 1300."

"This is an 1800," I said. "Over a 1,000 lbs. when I'm on it. I ran into some strong head winds on the way and miscalculated my range."

"I have a gallon around here that I use for mowers and such."

"That would be great," I said. "How much can I pay you?"

"Oh, maybe three, three-fifty."

"How about five?"

"That'll do. It may take a moment to fetch it. I hope you're not in a rush."

"All we really have is time and I'm glad to spend some of it with you."

He paused, nodded, then went to one of the open garage bays to find the gasoline. I wondered if gasoline had a shelf life then realized it didn't matter much. I needed the gas to get to Forsyth, ten miles away.

"I brought a funnel. I use it for all sorts of things but it should be clean enough."

I poured the gasoline into the tank and paid him the $5.

"Thank you, sir," I said and I went to shake his hand. I noticed that his hand had difficulty closing and when I shook it, it was as dry and rough as unformed concrete. I flipped the start button, hit the ignition and the bike kicked over as though it had never been starved.

I thanked him again, waved and headed west to Forsyth to fill the tank. As Napoleon Bonaparte said, it's better to be lucky than good.

By the time I passed through Billings, the landscape had shifted from the wonderful cumulative flow diagrams that describe the aging bluffs to the mountain ranges that poked from the green land like smoke-charred incisors. Montana is a beautiful land and each time I travel through it I find myself agreeing to its adage of big sky country. At times, on small rises, the sky appeared so large that even though I rode uphill, it felt as though I were actually riding down.

The Yellowstone River, pregnant with the season's run-off, threatened to flood the highways, and I nervously watched the occasionally stormy sky hoping not to be impeded by standing water. Fortunately, I didn't encounter any rain, just wind, a lot of it, and made decent time to my friend Kirsten's house.

Medora Bison

Even though she stood alone, the rest of the herd would be near and I approached her slowly, relatively quietly. She grazed by the roadside and when she heard the motorcycle, the music I had forgotten to turn down, she merely looked up from the ground, non-threatening, just curious. Obviously, she had become accustomed to cars, motorcycles, people, just another day. I kept the motorcycle in gear, ready to leap away, if she made any move towards me. Being a fully grown cow, she tipped the scales at 1,100 lbs., could hit nearly 40 MPH at a full charge. An even-toed ungulate, she could hit full charge faster than I could speed away, having the torque advantage from the start.

But she didn't charge and I felt comfortable enough to get within a few feet of her and then after a moment glided away, off again on the thirty mile loop of road, some rough, that meandered through Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota.

The wildlife was plentiful, bison, wild horses frollicking, groundhogs, snakes crossing the roads, various birds, mostly predatory, living their lives in the Badlands. The scenery reminded me of how a mite would see the human skin, a battery of magnificent undulations, angry blisters, warts, the crags of which would allow many hiding places, gullies to climb, layers of sloughing skin. It felt nearly extraterrestrial, the heat in the 90 F range, in the valleys, deciduous trees lined the sparse river, at elevation the conifers jutting almost by sheer force of will. The native Americans moved away from the Badlands during the summer for good reason, a beautiful, inhospitable land.

Nestled against the park is the town of Medora, mostly wood buildings dolled up to give an early Western cowboy feel. Not much goes on in Medora, tourism mostly, the locals preferring to live in the hills. It's shoulder season, still a week or two before Medora gets into full swing.

I eat at Little Missouri Dining Room & Saloon, a quiet place with a looping track of old Country songs. I order a burger and a Rusty Beaver wheat beer, mostly because it's called "rusty beaver", and it was hoppy with a bitter finish. I chose Glacier Ale next, not really happy with the wheat beer, and the ale was darker but not a stout, full-bodied and quite good. The waitress asked what sides I wanted with my burger.

"How's the potato salad?" I asked.

"It's fantastic, the best."

I asked her if she had seen Quentin Tarantino in  Once Upon a Time in Mexico. She hadn't and I encouraged her to watch it first before saying that anything was the best.

Across the street is another bar, Boots Bar & Grill, and after my meal at Little Mo's, I trundled into the place. Unlike Little Mo's, Boots was full tilt, plenty of locals and tourists, eating and imbibing. I sat at the bar, had another beer from the tap, something forgettable, watched the second period of the LA Kings versus the Blackhawks. The Kings had come back from a 3-0 disadvantage against the San Jose Sharks to win the playoff series and I figured they were the team to beat. When I left, tired from the day, the Kings had scored to move ahead in the game 4 to 3. The Blackhawks would come back to win 5 to 4 but by that time I had returned to the hotel to prepare for the next day's ride to Bozeman, Montana.

Carpenter's Dream

Eighty miles per hour is the optimum speed for the Victory Cross Country Tour; the RPMs hover right at 3,000; the gas mileage, no wind, bike fully loaded ranges between 42 and 45 MPG. Eighty miles per hour also happens to be five miles above the posted limit on I-94 West, leaving Fargo, ND, heading to Medora, ND, home of the North Dakota Badlands.

The 180 miles of pavement between Fargo and Bismarck, North Dakota's state capital, classifies as a carpenter's dream: flat-as-a-board and easy-to-nail. I'm not nailing it, no need, just tooling along at 80 MPH, not even bothering to slow down as I pass the troopers, just a nice, little wave. There are cars and pickups, though, that roar down the road, easily pushing triple digits, moving fast, clearly on important business.

If this portion of highway were set to music, it would be the last 42 seconds of the Beatles' Day in the Life, a single piano note, in this case held for 180 miles. It's the wet season here. The lakes are full, gullies turned to ponds. The smells as I roll along the long, flat, barely turning road are comprised of wet manure, diesel fumes, boredom. The red-wing blackbird flits from pond to pond, cheerfully tended to its business, whatever it may be.

I pass through Jamestown, ND, home of the world's largest buffalo. Do I want to go see it? I do... not, thank you, keep rolling, listening to XM's Classic Vinyl. It's during these long spells, that my mind gets bored and I feel pains, lower trapezius, knees, itches, insects. I know it's is just my mind at play, trying to get my attention. I focus on the pain. Is it real? What's the scale of one to ten, ten being something that needs attention. It's a three. I breathe, focus, it goes away. Then another and another. Silly mind.

Bismarck, a relative metropolis in North Dakota, has four exits, I believe. Annie told me during breakfast that Bismarck is the start of where North Dakota becomes beautiful. And, certainly, I can identify a distinction between I-94 east of Bismarck, and I-94 west of Bismarck; it's ten degrees cooler, the wind stronger, at least today, at my back, multiple elevation shifts, rolling grasslands. East of Bismarck contains virtually nothing of interest, just farmland, open. Pull over, let your dog off-leash, let him run in the fields - he can run forever, you'd be able to see him as far as he wants to run.

I can see Annie's point about I-94 west of Bismarck: it is pretty but it's pretty as an intellectual exercise, the way Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata, number 15 in D major, is pretty, lovely even. But it doesn't grab me as does the fifth or the ninth. I like my scenery the way I like my wines, bold up front, interesting middle, strong finish. I-94 west of Bismarck is an immature wine, long legs, but disengaging, the smell of clover, hay, mud.

And right smack in the middle of these pastoral hills glower cities brimming with Americana kitsch, New Salem with a gigantic cow overlooking the town, giant sculptures of pheasants, geese, on the Enchanted Highway, jarring and a bit disorienting, like dropping Little Richard in the middle of Beethoven.

It's not until I reach mile marker 32 that I begin to see the beauty of North Dakota, the emergence of the Badlands, painted blisters jutting from the earth, ravines filled with snakes and prairie dogs, fields of wild bison and horses.

The next ride will be through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota.

Sofa Surfing

Not a wood chipper to be found and the dialects weren't of the Yooper derivation.

And yet, Fargo, North Dakota's downtown area met, perhaps exceeded, my expectations - a very hometown feel, essentially two main cross streets, a signal light, shops that appear to come and go, with a staple of long-lived, established places, such as the Hotel Donaldson, or the Hodo for short, a hotel and restaurant, with sharp-witted servers and tasty burgers, mine being buffalo, a specialty.

Annie and Kevin were wonderful hosts, Annie being my buddy Hugo's friend, Kevin her boyfriend,and we walked the streets of downtown Fargo, discussing movies, Tom Cruise, Wolverine, Godzilla, and of course our common bond, Hugo Gonzales. There were many laughs, mostly at Hugo's expense, and I had my picture taken at the Hodo, next to the picture of the red snapper, a staple activity apparently within Hugo's entourage. The red snapper is an art piece of a naked woman holding a huge fish, ostensibly a snapper.

Annie had a test, statistics, in the morning and when we returned to her apartment, she wiled away the rest of the evening studying while Kevin and I bonded, watching the news - apparently there's a registered city, Vance, North Dakota, that has no residents, zero, and yet it's still a city here - and the History channel, part two of a World War II series. It was a low-key night and frankly a much needed return to normalcy, hanging out, relaxing, playing with Brutus and Eddie, the two pets, a dog and a chinchilla. A little Big Bang Theory and I curled up on the comfortable sofa, a pink quilt as a bed roll (that's okay - I'm comfortable with my masculinity) and slept well with the occasional interruption by the nocturnal Eddie who lived up to his namesake, Eddie Van, by partying most of the night.

Today will be a short trek over to Medora, North Dakota, yet another derivation from the original schedule. There's a loop through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park that is supposed to be a great motorcycle ride, roughly 30 miles in the badlands. It's not a technical ride, more gentle sweepers, with a decent road and I hope great views. The original plan had another eight hour day to Billings, Montana. At roughly 4.5 hours, this should be a nice, relatively short ride.

Sonny Barger

Deer carcasses exude an almost bovine smell, though muskier, almost a charred, burnt ash. I see the carcasses, usually, but not always. Sometimes the vehicles barreling across I-94 West hit them so hard they fly into the ditch. I smell them and I see the crows nearby. It's a bad day to be a deer near the highway here. Many have fallen, dozens, from the nearby Wisconsin woods. They are all fresh kills and this is a dangerous place for a motorcycle traveling at 75+ MPH, in the light, yet constant rain.

What if one of these kamikaze wood-rats decides to lunge in front of the speeding black bike? I need to be aware, both hands on the grips, hit the animal hard, try to run through it, like an NFL lineman chasing down a tailback. Head down, full bore. Hang on for the ride, hope that the bike stays upright and that I don't land on the road shoulder or ditch. If I'm not lucky, it would be a bad day for me as well. I wonder, briefly, what odor would be my decay? Adrenaline-infused, flop-sweat, the excrement from Noodles and Co.'s Wisconsin Mac and Cheese, the cheap smell of Travelodge soap-cake.

I'm heading towards Fargo, North Dakota, staying with the good friend of a great friend of mine, and I'm sofa surfing for the evening. When I think of Fargo, I think of the Coen brother's movie and I think of wood-chippers.

How deer carcasses and wood-chippers lead me to Sonny Barger, the famous - or infamous, depending on your point of view - founding member of the Oakland Hells Angels, I can't really say. But there it is: my mind wanders when I'm riding.

I've talked to Sonny three times, all inadvertently, twice at Arlen Ness's Victory/Indian dealership in Dublin, California, and once at the Corbin July 4th celebration in lieu of the original Hollister motorcycle rally. He's an old man now, has an entourage of Hells Angels protectors whenever he travels. He rides a Victory Cross Country, the same as mine. He said once that the fastest way to get killed on a motorcycle is to ride a black one. Mine's black. So is his.

He wouldn't remember me, of course, just another biker in the long list of bikers he's met over the years. The first time we talked he had just finished filming a season of Sons of Anarchy and he proceeded to tell me what happened in the coming season, not that I wanted to know. But I wasn't going to stop him. He went into details about a movie he made and was trying to get a distributor, Dead in 5 Heartbeats. The second time, he had ridden from Arizona where he now lives and decided to stop at Arlen's on the way to a rally somewhere. He had an iPod, one of the monster ones that holds entire catalogs of music; some musician, I can't remember who, had given him the entire collection of Hank Williams Sr.'s recordings mastered from the originals, the perks of being notorious, I guess.

July 2013, Sonny glad-handed at Corbin's, the motorcycle seat/parts dealer, to help with the signing of Phil Cross's book, and to meet with his admirers. I went up to him to shake his hand with my right and with my left hand, as I'm wont to do, I unconsciously grabbed his right tricep with my left hand. The reaction from his crew was swift and menacing. It could have been a bad day for me that day but I realized my mistake quickly and withdrew my left hand. Sonny didn't seem to even know that they were ready to do to me what the trailer-tractors do to the wayward deer along the highway. He just kept talking.

Later, Melissa had her picture taken with Sonny and he had one of his paws on her breast the whole time.

I didn't say a word.

Da Ohio Po Po

Death never enters my mind. Neither does severe injury.

My response is always anger, my go-to emotion.

As the crappy, white pickup truck began merging into the physical space that I and the motorcycle occupied, I honked the bike's horn - it's loud, an aftermarket horn that scares me everytime I inadvertently hit the button with my left thumb - and sped up to avoid the collision. He swerved back into the right lane, clearly unaware that he had nearly veered into me. No harm, no foul. Of course, when Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk... So, there I was, slowing down, yelling at the driver, flipping him off, generally acting the ass.

Hurricane, my wife, is always concerned when she finds that I've been riding... precipitously. But when I am riding fast, it isn't reckless; I know my limitations, the bike's limitations, and I'm not a half-bad rider. So when I'm traveling along at speeds that would land me in the pokey, I won't say that it's not dangerous, but compared to the travel from Cleveland to Madison today, it's downright Kindergarten.

Today was all heat and boredom, a plodding tour of all-too familiar farmhouses and trees along the I-90 West corridor between Cleveland and South Bend, Indiana. Cars, trucks, minivans, the drivers of which yawned tiredly, the passengers sleeping, the only interesting aspect being the Ohio state troopers actively pulling over speeders, fishing from an overstocked lake, making their quotas, funneling the state funds.

Our dirty little secret, we motorcycle riders, is that the police mostly leave us alone, unless we're just acting downright stupid. Most cops ride motorcycles or know other police who do and they know that the safest mode of travel for a motorcycle is to be slightly faster than the flow of traffic. You want to concern yourself mostly with what's in front of you or to the side, not behind. Also, it's devilishly hard to get a good read on a motorcycle with radar as radar picks up the largest object so experienced riders stay in a slower lane, still moving along at a generous speed of course, and pull into and out of the faster lanes as needed. Also, I use rabbits extensively; rabbits being other speeding cars, the ones doing greater than 15 MPH over the posted and give them a long lead time, about a quarter of a mile. I can still see them, note if they slow down suddenly but quite probably they'll get the ticket long before I would.

Today I rode with my GoPro attached to my helmet, looking for anything interesting, anything at all, to capture on the monotonous trip.

Two co-eds in a silver car, possibly an older Camry, Phish stickers plastered to the bumper, to the rear window, passed me, saw the GoPro. They slowed down, matched my speed, and the passenger flashed me.

Nice.

I waved.

They sped off. I didn't even get a picture.

Anyway, in retrospect, it was no wonder the truck pulled into my lane. The driver never looked, never even registered in his mind that someone else would be on the road to his left, until he heard the horn and was confronted by an angry motorcyclist cussing and screaming at him. He just mouthed, I'm sorry. I flipped him off one last time, just because.

But that's the reason a day like today is so dangerous. Ennui.

Madison, Wisconsin is my home-away tonight and I don't plan on doing much exciting this evening. This will be a touch-and-go. Madison is the state capitol and a university town. There's trouble somewhere here; I'm just not in the mood tonight to find it.

House Rules

Casinos and I don't get along.

I don't gamble.

But I do find casinos fascinating if only for the habitat, the wild gaming species that roam the halls, mostly bleary eyed from sitting too long, popping coins into brightly lit, flashing arcade machines, loud ringing noises chiming, binging, attempting to attract the ardour of new suitors. Then there is the species of gambler locked into a life-and-death struggle at a card table or craps, oxygen bottles strapped to little carts by their sides; they long to beat the house, tell grand tales of their successes. While they are clearly in their element, enjoying their time in this artificial daylight, I feel the desperation too. There's always the next game, the next push of the button. I keep hearing stories of how someone spent an inordinate amount of time pumping coins into a slot machine, only to leave in frustration, and watch in anguish as a new gambler sits at the same machine and on the very next turn wins big. If only they had stuck with it one more time, one more roll, held instead of folded. The story is always the same. It's the house rules and the house always win in the end.

Cleveland opened Horseshoe Casino in 2012 and by all accounts it has been a huge success, not only for the casino but the surrounding area, as well. It's brought in new life and unlike the tired old ones in Vegas, it is clean, doesn't smell of musty years of smoking, the perfumey scents pumped through the air ducts to cover the smoky stench. It is bright, clean and loud, a gambler's paradise.

I walked through the area, Cleveland Warehouse District, adjacent to the Flats, the Warehouse District being the happening area, the threat of the Flats nearby, just blocks away, pulling the young and hip towards the Cuyahoga River. That night, Memorial Day, the Warehouse District bustled, wedding parties, bridal showers, groups of young men and women moving from place to place. I holed up in the D'Vine Wine Bar, cherished a Zinfandel with so many spices at the finish, I thought it was hot - too much alcohol - but came to savor it. I moved to a Paso Robles' Cabernet, that I didn't really enjoy, too many tannins, very dry. It would've been a decent steak wine but I wasn't eating.

Cleveland has treated me well and I've learned to appreciate the city. I'm sorry to leave but Madison, Wisconsin and Fargo, North Dakota - and ultimately home and my lady - are calling. It's time to pack the motorcycle, shift into gear, hit the pavement again.

Memorial Ride

T.J. Dillashaw captured the UFC's bantamweight championship last night in a masterful display of mixed martial arts prowess against an opponent who was on a win streak of 33 fights, Renan Barao, an 825 spread favorite. I sat drinking Blue Moons, four of them in all, at Cleveland's City Tap bar, a bowling alley-type space, that was broadcasting UFC's fights for free.

I stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown, situated across from the heavy nightlife of East 4th Street, a one-block area of dining and bars, overflowing with drunken 20 and 30 year olds, all pretty, dressed to impressed. It's wedding season, one reception was in full blast at the hotel when I went to find Cleveland's nightlife around 10 P.M., another had finished early and many young women and men in their finest livery prowled the light-hearted scene. I started my night as I usually do when I go to a town I don't really know and find the Irish Pub, in this case Flannery's, guaranteed to have many inebriated or in-process people. I sat at the bar, watching some softball game when I struck up a conversation with two gentlemen who complained that the bar wasn't showing the UFC prelims. Usually, I would've known that the fights were on and could recite the card. But this trip has shifted my sense of time; I know the day of the week and roughly the date but not much else. I hadn't even known that it was Memorial Day Weekend when I arrived in Cleveland.

Was Flannery's going to show the fights? No. One of the gentlemen mentioned City Tap, I finished the Old Speckled Hen and my salad, and ventured into the night, not really knowing where I was heading, just somewhere "over there..."

Eventually I found the bar and the fights had started. My main interest wasn't the headliner, we all knew the Dillashaw wasn't going to win, rather Daniel Cormier versus Dan Henderson.  There was also Jake Ellenberger versus "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler, a devastating southpaw striking machine. All great fights. But T.J. Dillashaw stole the show and the championship by technical knockout in the fifth round.

I sat next to a young Cleveland guy (let's face it, they're all young to me now) who asked if I trained MMA and said I didn't any longer, my knees no longer functioning well, and I showed him Duane Ludwig, one of T.J. Dillashaw's coaches, and pointed out that I had trained with Ludwig for several years. The guy asked what brought me to Cleveland and I gave my pat answer, "To talk to you, of course", which was funny. And true. He was a Clevelander, born and raised, thought he might want to move to New York City someday, but he liked Cleveland, figured he'd stay for awhile, at least.

I staggered home; it's hard to believe that four beers can get me drunk these days, because I'm out of practice, not having had much to drink in the past couple of weeks.

I awoke to the sound of motorcycles, 9 A.M. Fortunately, I had drunk a lot of water so I wasn't hungover. As I dressed, got ready for the day, I kept hearing motorcycles roaring down the street. I had a chore to complete, get my iPhone working, and I didn't want to become distracted in my goal. My will power gave out, however, as I kept hearing more bikes screaming through downtown.

Gabbing a quick coffee and scone from Starbucks in the lobby I raced to my bike, hopped on, and followed the next wave of riders, who were heading towards the FirstEnergy Stadium, home of the Cleveland Browns. They congregated there for the Tenth Annual Cleveland Firefighters Memorial Ride. They stopped us on the way towards the memorial sculpture, asked to see our bands to prove we had paid the requisite fee. There were over 1,000 motorcycles registered for the event. I, of course, didn't have a wristband and I explained that I had driven from California just to be at the event, which in a way was true. They let me pass and parked among the throng, lined up, ready to go. I walked among riders, talked to many, listened somberly as they made speeches regarding the lives lost, presented several scholarships funded by the group to students, reviewed the names of the fallen in the last calendar year, played taps, flags raised at half mast, finished with Amazing Grace, bagpipes, really the only appropriate use of bagpipes.

Directions given we mounted our bikes and in a steady stream, two rows at a time, we moved the greater than a thousand motorcycles onto the streets of Cleveland, a thunderous herd on a 43 mile run. I wouldn't run with them, of course; I still had much to do. And I pulled off after a few miles. It wasn't my ride, after all, and it felt wrong not to have paid my way into it. I had donated money and bought food and drink, all going to the charity. I felt privileged to have spent time remembering our fallen heroes with them.

Double Day

I purposely avoided scheduling double days, staying two days in one city; when I built the plan spreadsheet, I added optional days to the timeline in certain cities due mainly to the number of back-to-back travel days and/or whether I thought the city would be fun or interesting and I might want an extra day to explore. Bear in mind, any point along the way could be a double day due to unforeseen issues, such as a flat tire but mostly double days were there as a means to recuperate especially if my back were too sore or I became simply too road weary.

Cleveland has become a double day, not because I feel the need to explore another day or that I'm fatigued. No, sadly I've ruined yet another electronic device in this quest. When I went to get on my bike last night, my Samsung S3, a company phone, slipped from my coat pocket. I still had my full-face shield on my modular helmet and didn't hear it hit the concrete. I could've salvaged it if I'd heard it drop. I'm sure it wasn't broken as it had taken worse falls over the past couple of years. As I rolled the motorcycle out of the parking space, easily over 1,000 lbs. with my bodyweight added to the other things I deem necessary to have, I heard the sickening shattering of Gorilla Glass and plastic under the front wheel's weight. I hopped off the bike, picked up the phone and my first thought was, "It's dead Jim." Surprisingly, the phone's computer still worked, still wanted to give me directions, but sadly the display was black as obsidian, a black hole of non-luminescence.

There are those fleeting moments when I wonder how I can make things harder on myself but as a rule I take the prudent path and look to make my life simpler, easier. Clearly that wasn't what I had in mind. Not only was the phone my primary means of familial communication, it also served as my GPS, not really a luxury these days, more a necessity. I pair my phone to my helmet via Bluetooth and get turn-by-turn directions, which generally works well, although lately my phone had had trouble keeping the GPS signal, very annoying.

Fortunately, I have a spare phone, an Apple iPhone 4S (I believe - it might just be an iPhone 4), that I use as a music player. With XM radio, I haven't used the phone on this trip but I'm glad I have it now. It is the holiday weekend and I'm hoping I can find a Best Buy to initialize month-to-month service, enough to get me home.

That gives me a double day in Cleveland, not really planned, but necessary.

Cleveland Rock

The teacher from Pink Floyd's The Wall, nearly 20' tall straddled one side of the brick facade, his enormous buttocks on one side, his immense head on the other, fourth floor, Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Above us was a video tribute to live concerts, Janis Joplin, U2, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, below us three other floors of dense, incredibly interesting rock and roll paraphernalia, from Johnny Cash, Elvis, Elmore James, Professor Longhair, Woody Guthrie, to Blondie, even Grandmaster Funk and the Furious Five, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, the touring bus, a rusted panel van, from Rage Against the Machine, all housed within the narrowing structure created by world-renowned architect, I.M. Pei. This was Cleveland, no longer just a joke about its professional teams, but a thriving area, one of the fastest-growing, newly gentrified areas in the country, including a new theatre district unlike anything to be seen in the central U.S. I was privy to this from Glenn Knific, my city host, who showed me around from east side with the burgeoning river constructs of the Flats to west side, with its culinary market, and we shared in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and later a couple of pints and a downright tasty burger at the local brewery, seventy degrees of sun shine and fresh air, and welcome respite from the previous two days of rain.

Cleveland, who knew?

Those who know us know that music is central to who Melissa and I are, our house filled with paintings of music from the San Jose Jazzfest, three guitars, black-and-white, oils on canvas on our main living room wall, my electric guitar and stand in the corner of my office. This was the reason I decided to spend a couple of days in Cleveland and as I walked towards the front doors and the music of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers flowed across the front courtyard, I had goosebumps, very cool indeed.

Tomorrow, maybe the day after, I'm not sure yet as it is the holiday weekend, I'll trundle over to Madison, Wisconsin but today, today was a wonderful day to be on the shores of Lake Erie, enjoying the sights, tastes and smells of Cleveland.

Full Frog

I went full frog today.

Normally, when there's a possibility of rain, I'll hold out, wait to see if I can make it through the storm, tough it out, and enjoy the ride with an open faced helmet and without the Frog Toggs, generally accepted as some of the best wet weather riding gear by motorcycle aficionados. But when I left Troy, New York this morning, home of the original Uncle Sam, statue above, there was no doubt that I'd have to go full frog, closed helmet, full wet gear.

This was disconcerting as my motorcycle generally elicits comments of "Hey is that the bat cycle?" The black Victory Cross Country, almost 1800 CCs of raw V-Twin muscle, exudes the vibe of "Hey, I'm Batman."

My Frog Togg gear, especially with the lime-green protective vest for high visibility, exudes more of a "Hi ho! Kermit the frog here..." vibe. Uncool. But it is what it is, as they say, and to follow another cliche, you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. It was going to rain and it would be cold.

It was time to hunker down, pay the price for all the relatively nice weather I'd had up to that point, minus the generally horrid day before. Today would be different, nasty, even worse than the day before, wet and worst of all, cold. The Frog Toggs would add yet another layer, and as it turned out, they helped but not too much. If I had had my actual cold riding gear, the heated top plugged into the bike's 12 volt charge, I would've been much more agreeable to the weather, comfortable even. But as I rode through Buffalo, New York, with signs everywhere to go see Niagara Falls, instead of making the turn to see the majestic views, taking the detour, I huddled into the Toggs and counted the number of miles it would take to get to the Knific's, my next stay.

Glenn and Mary Ellen Knific were my hosts for the evening and we had a great time in their beautiful house in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. They fed me well, steak - medium rare, thank you - and we imbibed in libations, a BV, Rutherford, and then a wonderful Napa Cabernet for me. The perfect way to warm the blood after a cold, brutal ride from New York through Pennsylvania and finally into Ohio.

I'm lying low in Cleveland for a couple of days looking to take in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tomorrow. The weather should be grand and I'm hoping to recuperate in time for my next push into Wisconsin.

from away, Third Corner

In the vernacular of Eastport, Maine, I'm from away, as opposed to from here. Everyone I interacted with from Eastport was quite friendly but I would not be mistaken as someone from here, and even if I were to move my whole family and live there a few years, I'm pretty sure I'd still be considered from away. To be from here would be a big investment of time, which I did not have, the third corner being an hour away in Lubec, Maine, and after a nice chat and breakfast with my gracious hosts, Pierre and Kendall, I pointed Google Maps to Sail Rock, Lubec, Maine and shifted into gear to finish the third corner.

Lubec, Maine would not be considered a beautiful place, not in the same sense as Eastport, which is postcard pretty. Lubec is spread out, the homes far apart, and while everything is well manicured and still lovely, it just didn't have the "Wow!" factor that I experienced upon reaching the island that is Eastport. If I could have taken a ferry from Eastport to Lubec, it would have been a fifteen minute trip, as opposed to the hour, as I had to circumvent the four bays between the two cities. When I arrived at Lubec, a sign had been posted proclaiming that Lubec is indeed the furthest east United States' town and to get to Sail Rock I had to go south aways to get to Quoddy Head State Park. Unlike Eastport, there was a real briny smell to the ocean and in the distance, perhaps a couple hundred yards, is a large buoy that designates the separation of the US and Canada. I traveled down a rough road to get to the Quoddy Head State Park and when I crested the last hill, that's when I had my "Wow!" moment of Lubec.

The view of the ocean behind the lighthouse was amazing.

I spent a considerable amount of time walking about, taking pictures, recording a narrative on the GoPro. The bike had 6,159 miles on the trip odometer and while I knew there was still a long way to go, I felt fortunate to experience it.

As I've talked to people about this trip, other than the initial disbelief that inevitably shows on their faces at first, they'll usually ask why I'm doing it and whether the trip is a bucket list item. The sad truth is that the farther I travel, the further it feels that I have to go, which is to say that I don't have a good answer. I could be glib and simply say that I had the time and the wherewithal to do it but that would be disingenuous and frankly insulting, especially after I heard from one woman who told me how she's raising her two children without a spouse while also caring for her father who is suffering from Alzheimers. She sat at the bar next to me at Leslie's Retreat the last night I was in Salem. I had stopped for food based on a Yelp review and I enjoyed sitting at the bar so I could hear the locals talking.

I asked her if the wine was any good and, no, it was house wine, not very good, so I had had a beer, Yuengling, a popular beer on the east coast apparently, steak tips and scallops. We started talking and I told her about the four corners, she asked if my wife was okay with the trip, and I said she worries but that she had traveled the first two corners with me before returning home for work. Then she told me how she would love to be able to do what I'm doing and explained her situation. She had one night a week to herself to go to Leslie's when she returned from the doctor and while we were talking her daughter, eight-years-old, called her, and she told her daughter she was leaving right away, she'd be home in a couple of minutes. She paid her tab, wished me well and she was gone.

And right then I knew the answer as to why I'm doing this crazy trip - because I'm lucky and I can and not many people I've met have the time or ability to do it. You will never be any younger than you are right now and if I didn't do this thing now I never would.

Today was a long ride, from Eastport, to Sail Rock, Lubec back down the eastern coast of Maine into Massachusetts back into New Hampshire, Vermont and finally to Troy, New York. Massachusetts and New Hampshire were sad to see me go, at least the constant rain and coastal fog felt like big, soggy tears, and Vermont welcomed me with a blanket of low-lying clouds and more rain. Only New York was happy to see me and greeted me with sunshine.

First Witch

She gestured, her left index and middle finger pointed to her eyes, then pointed to me.

My bike and I rested, stopped, on the Bridge Street overpass, waiting at the yield sign for the flow of traffic that merged onto First Street (not Essex!) on my way out of Salem to continue the journey northward.

Clearly I had somehow upset her, perhaps encroached too far into the oncoming lane(?) although the bike's front wheel stoically waited behind the white line. No matter, I thought, and pulled in behind her, her broom, in this instance a white Ford Focus. I looked at her driver's side mirror and she still looked at me, started saying something, an incantation. Here it was then, my first run-in with a real Salem witch. She talked to me, gestured with her right hand, rolled down her window, rolled it up, murmured more, gestured more, the driver's side window intermittently moved up then down.

As we rolled along, my eyes started to tear, burning tears, and I coughed, roughly. I looked down at my motorcycles' gas tank, covered green with Dutch Elm pollen. Through telekinesis and incantations the vile witch had manifested the pollen to magically appear on my bike, to attack me through my allergies. How she knew I had forgotten to take Claritin, I did not know, but she was obviously a witch of some mastery as she was clairvoyant, a mind reader.

What to do? I thought. I should probably pull her from her car at the next stoplight, haul her to the nearest large body of water of which there are many in Salem and throw her in; if she floated or tried to swim, she was a witch - if she sank, an innocent. If she were a witch, she'd need to be hung or banished. Would the authorities back me?

I decided to pass her; better to flee and take Claritin than stay and fight the sorceress.

Vampires! The tiny, pernicious blood suckers were trying desperately to get me through the three clothes layers, my gloves, and the full-faced motorcycle helmet. I had stopped at a gas station to shutdown my cell phone, Google Maps and Life360 having drained the GPS life out of it, and the mosquitos bumped and buzzed off my visor, angry, thirsty, desperate.

I was near the third corner, within the Passamaquoddy Indian Township, a beautiful area surrounded by rivers, lakes and, of course, the ocean. I had chosen the more direct, albeit the slower, route from Salem to Eastport, Maine, diverting through U.S. Route 1, the coastal highway that abuts the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. The drive proved to be mostly dark, a bit stormy, and incredibly scenic once I passed Rockland, the port of which being where I took the picture of my bike below.

The early travel on Route 1 had proven to be somewhat arduous with many stoplights and signs encouraging me to ditch the coastal highway and take I-95 North, instead. Coastal highways always payoff if you put enough time into them, some wonderful scenery that would've been lost if you'd taken the faster route, and there were plenty of amazing views, some of which I captured on the GoPro, although transferring the media has proven challenging on the new Samsung Chromebook.

I digress.

The conifers have overtaken the deciduous here and I'm not sure why but the deciduous trees seem smaller, shorter, somewhat anemic compared to the ones south.

Eastport, Maine and Lubec, Maine have an on-going feud as to which is actually furthest east in the U.S., with the peacemakers saying that Eastport, once a quite busy sardine producer, is the furthest east city, while Lubec is the furthest east village. In the morning, I'll take more pictures of Eastport before traveling half-an-hour south to Lubec to confirm I did indeed make the third corner.

I'm staying with another AirBnB house owned by a wonderful couple Pierre and Kendall and their four dogs that allowed me a huge puppy fix that I've been craving. I finished coffee with them before going to the room to write the blog and, as always, the best part of AirBnB has been talking with my hosts.

It's all good now that inertia is back on my side, no more mud.

I've realized that I am now at the furthest point in this journey away from my friends, my family and my lovely wife, all of whom I miss dearly. Tomorrow I turn the third corner and begin heading homeward. Here's hoping I have a strong wind to my back.

Dread

Inertia isn't a great motivator but as a force it's a good way to move forward.

I needed to rest, take a day from the long-distance riding that had propelled me so far. The challenge of stopping is that resting invites the rain, turns you to mud, a thick, resistant dreck and it takes a lot of energy to move forward.



I'm tired. Still.

Last night I called our youngest daughter. It was 8 P.M. and I had a difficult time staying awake to talk. She noted that I'm in it now, there was no turning back. I like her attitude but it's easy to say when you aren't living it, aren't in the fight. Keep going.

But there's always turning back. There's always a myriad of options: I could fly home, have the bike shipped; I could just leave the bike, New Mexico-style, park it on the side of the road, get a ticket, take a bus home; I could stay in Salem for a few days, sell the bike, hitchhike, call friends, make different arrangements...

Part of me wanted to teach her, a part of me that wasn't somehow exhausted - there are always possibilities, there are always options. You might not like the options but they are always there. For our conversation, however, I simply agreed with her. I barely had the energy to brush my teeth. I fell asleep by 8:30, up at 6 A.M., and still I'm mud, even after the strong, crappy hotel coffee, still resistant to moving forward.

I miss my friends, my family, my dog and most especially my best friend, my wife.

Here's to inertia. Onwards then to corner three, Sail Rock, Lubec, Maine.

Salem Massachusetts

And I'm in Salem, actually a quite lovely town, and it was a beautiful day.

Eating always takes priority for me and I filled the rear tire with air via my portable compressor, the noise of which I'm sure my neighbors at the Clipper Ship Inn found pleasurable at 7 A.M., and tooled down to old town Salem.  I was surprised at how much activity 7 A.M. brings to what I thought would be a sleepy little town. People and traffic scurried hither and yon and the street parking meters, which were everywhere (no designated motorcycle parking I could find), were generally full.

Salem feels bigger than small, though still charming, the old houses well cared for and the people I've met have been chatty, very nice, not witchy, at all. Other than the tacky business names, there were many "witch"-related names such as the Ice Screamery and Witch City Cycles, Salem's vibe entailed what I'd consider normal for an active coastal city with a strong tourism bent. Of course, the town is old New England, which means the streets are small, the cities laid out akin to onions, tiny rings in the center that expand and run into other blooming onions that were growing towns that eventually run into each other and create the occasional five-way intersections with similar or the same street names that don't quite run together properly.

I took the Cross Country to Cycles 128, a family-owned motorcycle dealership that's in Beverly, Massachusetts, about 4 miles away. The service people were exceptional. The nearest Victory dealership belonged in New Hampshire, about 40 miles away, and as I run a specific set of tires for the bike, Bridgestone Exedra G series, the aftermarket touring tire that most Honda Goldwing riders prefer (the bikes share the same tire sizes), I knew taking my bike to the Victory place would entail a two tire replacement, front and back, most likely, as the Exedras are radials and it might be tough to match. So, I took a chance and headed over to Cycles 128, a Honda (as well as Triumph, Kawasaki, etc., but not Victory) dealership in the off chance that they might - just might - have the Exedra G704.

I should've played the lottery today as the dealership did have one, only one, of the tires I needed in stock, a special order that someone hadn't picked up, and though running a full bay in the garage, the one tech guy who knew the Victory platforms had availability and could change it. Two hours and $350 later (thank goodness it's only money) and I trundled down the Essex bridge to an amazing view of the harbor that opened onto the Atlantic, an infinite range of adventure ahead.

Later that day, my phone had died, out of battery. I had been on a call, texting with my family, texting with the next AirBnB hosts, and using GPS extensively. Where was I? I looked around. Beverly, Massachusetts. I knew I was close. I pulled the bike next to an older man sitting on a bench, turned down the music.

"Are you from around here?" I asked.

"Yah," he said.

"Great. My cell phone... ah... it died and I'm trying to get to Bridge St."

"Okay."

I wait a moment. No response. "Can you tell me how to get there?"

"Sure," he said. "You want to avoid the pahk." I assumed he meant "park".

"Okay," I nod.

"So, here's what you do. You go down this street. It's Essex."

"Right," I said.

"You go aways and you come to a sign that says Essex and it will take you to Gloucester. Don't take that one."

"Don't take Essex?"

"Not that one, but this one."

"Uh huh."

"Right before you see the sign, there's a street. It's called Drimbal Ave. Take that one to the right but it's short. And then you take Essex but to the right not the left."

"Okay. To the right, not the left. Got it."

"Then you'll run into Bridge St. It will be right in front of you. That's the Essex Street you want."

Most of the morning had been spent getting the bike fixed and I spent the early afternoon being the consummate Salem tourist heading over to the allegedly haunted colonial mansion House of the Seven Gables made popular by Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous 1668 novel and several movies.

After that I drove to Salem's Witch Museum, gandered about but didn't take the tour, instead walking among the magic shops or shoppes, respectively, filled with brooms, wands, witches' hats, dragons, crystal balls, Harry Potter paraphernalia, books on potions, love spells, bad spells, good spells, wicah, druids, all sorts of magical treasure, none of which I purchased, of course.

I stopped for lunch at a Mexican comida for tacos, surprisingly good and certainly not what I expected in witch-central Salem.

And then I found Carl (or Karl?), the proprietor of New England Magic, a younger guy but certainly a knowledgeable reference about all things magical but most especially the Salem witches and their 1662 story, the fourteen that had been hanged, none burned as most imagine, that most witches were charged with civil not criminal offenses which meant banishment, not outright hanging, but banishment pretty much meant death as one lost all property and found oneself alone in the woods with no means. I had imagined, and secretly hoped, that the witches had actually been early suffragettes, looking to free themselves from the harsh Puritanical ogres bent on moral legislation. These women would be heroines, martyrs even, for a greater purpose.

After talking to Carl for about half-an-hour I conceded that the hangings were less about social mores run amok and more about property rights. A woman in the 1600s couldn't own property but she could inherit it when her husband died. Women outlived men almost 20 years at the time and that made it possible for a woman to have two husbands who died and she would have a lot of property. Apparently, if someone, say a land-owning woman, were convicted of being a witch and was either hanged or banished, the two adjacent property owners, not the woman's family, would inherit and split the land so as is often the case, especially in the land of plenty, follow the money.

Ah well.

30,000 Tons of Bananas

As I blasted north on I-85 I couldn't help but notice that the trees had become less coniferous, more deciduous, as though the different species had been having a fight and here in the northern areas, the deciduous were winning.


Massachusetts greeted me with rain, traffic and a rear motorcycle tire that kept losing air at a precipitous rate, which made my arrival in Salem, the land of witches, much later than I had wanted. I had to pull over every 75 miles and fill the tire with air. I check tire pressure every time I stop, of course, and the tires had been fine from Maryland through Pennsylvania.

I stopped in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a place from my past long ago. Scranton and I didn't recognize each other; it had been 40 years, at least, since we'd last been in touch. I remember the forests, the warm rivers where I had learned to snorkel, had captured and released turtles and snakes, very fond memories. Scranton couldn't recall me, too many people, too much time. Its infrastructure, specifically the roads were in decay, and I suspect that one of the myriad potholes I hit on the highway was responsible for the tire damage.

I stopped at the corner of Moosic St. and Irving St., in old-town Scranton. Years ago, Harry Chapin, the musician most known for Cats in the Cradle, had written and recorded a song about the crash of a truck carrying 30,000 Tons of Bananas in Scranton. Being in Scranton again, I had to check out the intersection where the accident had happened, years ago.

When I stopped in Connecticut, I noticed the rear tire's gauge had turned completely red (I have pressure gauges on the tires' stems that show when the air is low - green is good, any red is bad). I used the tire pressure gauge and the rear PSI had sunk to 20, 20 PSI below the tire's optimum pressure. Concerning. I filled the rear to 45 PSI. I traveled 75 miles, checked again, and the tire had sunk to 15 PSI. This is known as "not good" in the business of travel. I stopped several times, through Connecticut and Massachusetts and filled the tire along the way. Looking at the wear on the tire, it was obvious I had been running a low PSI as I traversed blustery New York.

I'm in Salem tonight through tomorrow night.

The original plan had been for me to stay in Boston two nights but I changed my mind the night before last when I had stayed at the house of Laura, a Tennessee house purveyor from AirBnB. Laura was great, had put up her whole house, as opposed to simply a room, in Knoxville, and at a great rate to boot. She had left to visit a friend that evening which meant I had free reign of the plethora of books she owned and I stumbled upon an old gem, Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy, a familiar scholarly tome I had read eons ago, essentially an analysis of European-based art and literature regarding witches and demons. I had formed a hypothesis years ago that the Salem witches were actually the first vestiges of the women's rights movement and that the Puritanical men of the time leveraged religion to essentially quell and kill the uprising. I'll see if I have time tomorrow to look around Salem but that will depend on the tire's repair, of course.

Tears

I am crying, hard. I haven't cried this hard in - what? - fourteen years.

I've had my moments of man tears, of course, those annoying tears men try to hide during The Wrath of Khan when Spock is dying or when Brian Piccolo (as played by James Caan, of course, not Sean Mayer) gives his farewell soliloquy to Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) in Brian's Song.

These are not those kind of tears.

I'm crying so hard, the tears streaming into my Wiley X Jake glasses, the mucous draining into my motorcycle helmet's face mask, that I consider turning off, far too early into the ride to Hagerstown, Maryland, a mere 130-ish miles towards the destination, 40 shy of an acceptable iteration.

I had grown tired of my standard XM radio station choices, 1st Wave, Lithium, Octane and Alt Nation, cycling through the same playlists regurgitated across the entire country. Not everything is synth pop, grunge, raging against the machine and weekend vampires.

Instead I decided to sample a wider variety.

I landed on a classical station, not the light, breezy classical pop of Vivaldi; rather the heavy piano of Rachmaninoff, all Bolshoi and Russian revolution, entirely inappropriate for a trip across the east coast.

I was looking for something more apropos, I wasn't sure - maybe Lynyrd Skynyrd-ish. I hit the channel previous to the 1st Wave, the Bridge, XM32, playing classic Fleetwood Mac. I hovered on the tuning button, decided to stick there. Next up on the Bridge, Cat Stevens. Eh.... Okay, the Bridge hadn't lost me, yet. Close. But not yet. I almost gave up when Neil Young began. I like Neil Young. But so far the Bridge's only discernible characteristic happened to be lead singers who somewhat sound like goats.

Then, the Band came on, playing The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. I can't count the number of Confederate Flags I've seen along the highways since I crossed into Georgia but several, very large.



I decided to stay on the Bridge for awhile (believe me, it is difficult for me not to use Star Trek puns here), and came to understand that this channel occupies the mellow, classic rock, smarmy, sentimental spectrum of the XM bandwidth, a rich cacophony of musical schmaltz, every word of which I could sing, loudly and poorly, from Steely Dan, to Paul Simon, to James Taylor, to Carly Simon, to Supertramp, to Elton John, to Billy Joel... Awful and wonderful, all at once, my bygone youth.

My XM tuning thumb, my left, was happily tucked away, gripping the handlebar, when one of the smarmiest, unctuous, fawning tunes ever recorded slithered onto the Bridge, John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads. Usually, when I hear something by John Denver, or Yanni, my hearing simply shuts down, white noise, unable to distinguish that from the farting noise spitting from my mouth.

This time, however... I feel my stomach turning, my eyes are watering, my nose draining. What the hell? Three lyrics into it and I'm blubbering. I decide to pull into a gas station near Marion, Virginia to compose myself, get a diet Coke. I pull into a space next to a green car, pull off my helmet, wipe angrily at my eyes and my nose, and the passenger, a boy, a preteen, turns to his mother and says something I'm convinced is not flattering. I turn away.

Goddamn John Denver.

The heat and palm trees of Florida have given way to the rolling hills that began in Georgia and that are rollier here, especially in Virginia, and I'm traveling fast through the states, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, now Maryland, at a Courtyard Marriott in Hagerstown.

It took me longer than I wanted to get here but I had to stop at a Best Buy in Harrisonburg, Virginia, to buy a Samsung Chromebook, my Mac Air having lost its file system and quite possibly all of my videos from the trip.

Tomorrow, depending on how I feel, I'm deviating slightly from my original travel plan based on a book I read at the AirBnB house I stayed at last night.

Dragon Slayer, Eleven Years

The silver, hard-top Miata pulled away from me hard in the corners.

At first, there were some straights and, of course, I'd pull on him, narrow the gap, look to overtake him. But Deals Gap, aka Tail of the Dragon, is eleven miles of - allegedly - 318 corners and I can tell by my motorcycle's scraping hard parts around the hairpins, I won't be able to keep up with him. He'll own me and even if I pass him, eventually he'll force me to pull over to let him pass. The Victory's torque curve pulls hard out of the corner but going in hot, my head pivoting hard to pull the bike into and through the corner and I'm hitting asphalt hard, no touch-and-go here, and I decide to pull back on the throttle, concede the battle before it's really even started. I'm over 4,500 miles on the journey with another 6,000 to go. No need to damage anything here, ego be damned.

At least, the rain had stopped. The sights deluge during the first of the two rides I completed today and ostensibly the more scenic of the two, the Cherohala Skyway, was limited

What a contrast between AirBnB and a cheap hotel.

I'm sitting in a, frankly, nasty hotel in Lawrenceville, Georgia, a town not quite to Gainesville as I'd hoped, non-smoking of course, except that the towels smell like smoke, the bedspread has who-knows-what on it, and I insisted that I park my motorcycle in view of the front office because I didn't trust that someone wouldn't mess with it.

Yes, I checked - no bedbugs - but I wouldn't be surprised.

Why would I do this to myself?

I used AirBnB to find a great room the previous night in the Wilton Manors neighborhood of Ft. Lauderdale, $50 total, clean, great parking, wonderful hosts, walking distance to everything, including Rosie's, my favorite bar in Ft. Lauderdale.

I decided yesterday to pay $60 in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Days Inn, and while the owners are nice, $60 doesn't get you much. * sigh *

But I was in a hurry while at Volusia, getting the motorcycle's oil changed, and while one can get a place on AirBnB the same day, the owners have to verify and if it took them more than an hour and the answer was no, then I'd be - possibly - in trouble. As it turns out, I should've paid the extra and stayed at a nicer place or stuck to AirBnB and got a better deal. In Scrum we inspect and adapt. This is one of those times.

I'm on my way to Cherohala Skyway and Tail of the Dragon, two of the premiere motorcycle rides on the east coast or so I've read and one of my key milestones for this journey. It's roughly four hours from Lawrenceville, so not too far, plenty of time to get a good deal (I hope) on AirBnB somewhere in Murphy, North Carolina.

On a different topic, today is Melissa and my wedding anniversary, the first time we'll not be together for it in eleven years, at least as far as I remember (I'm getting older). I'm sad and I miss my fine lady, my wonderful companion, both in riding and life.  I miss you and wish you were here with me. I love you, my little Hurricane, more than you can possibly know.

Crocodiles Crossing

I'm a feral dog, famished from not eating for several hours, and I'm strapped to a black rocket ship that's eating the concrete and asphalt of Florida's Overseas Highway 1 at an alarming rate, nearly twice the posted speed limit of 55 MPH. This is a two-lane highway divided by a concrete barrier, painted a faded hue of sea foam and auto agony; on either side of the road are wire fences, ostensibly to keep the crocs from gaining ill-gotten access onto the road.

At triple digit speed, I'm focused - myopically - on the coming 400 yards of road but I will glance at any traffic sign when presented. That's when I see it, "Crocodiles Crossing".

Is this real?

What am I supposed to do with this information?

Why would a croc be on the road?

To cross if for food? Sex? A better residence on Cross Key?

I realize it doesn't matter why sometimes there's just 'cause. It's irrelevant to the situation at hand.

I can only hope it's a small croc, fast enough to get out of my way but by the looks of the barrier and the narrowness of the lane, it's unlikely that it'll be able to veer from the motorcycle careening towards it.

Worse yet, what if it isn't a croc? What if it's a 'gator? A toothy, vicious, prehistoric omnivore with a nasty temper, ready to stand its ground. Those bastards can grow to thirteen feet, the length of an SUV, with the whip-tail strength to sever the spine of one of the endangered Key Deer.

That guy isn't running. I can only hope to catch him with the tires across his snout before it's fully opened, when he's at his weakest, vulnerable, unable to catch any part of the bike or me with his powerful jaws.

Either way, I'm going for a ride. I'll have to hold on, steer into the crazed animal, try not to flip.

At this speed, or even 55 MPH, it wouldn't matter. There would be blood, mine and the beast's.

I bear down. I need to eat.

That was a couple days ago, of course, on my way down to Key West, but somewhat indicative of my experience with Florida. I managed to find the islands of blue among the sea of red in this conservative state and I enjoyed all of it, the whole ride, even the rain today, as I left, later than I had hoped, 7:30 AM, towards Gainesville. But which Gainesville?

I stopped at Volusia Motorsports, in Smyrna Beach, to have the oil changed in my motorcycle and to plan my route.

Depending on the weather, I'd either bank the three-and-a-half hours I'd already ridden plus one-ish more and hang-out in Gainesville, Florida, by way of Daytona Beach, but only if it were overcast or raining. If so, I'd head over to Ron Jon's before ambling to the Florida Gainesville.

If the day were clear, which it turned out to be, then I'd invest another 7.5 hours of riding time and burn towards the Georgia Gainesville.

I felt great, my back fully recovered from the 50CC, the weather blue, sunny, lovely. The decision was made. It was time to stop lazing around. It was time to leave Florida.

Second Corner, Firearm Needed

"Where's a gun when you need one?" Six A.M. and I'm asleep at the Cabana Inn. I'd been experiencing the Duval Street nightlife until about 1 A.M. and I had hoped I would sleep late; checkout was at ten and I wanted to push the sleep envelope.

When I arrived at Key West I noticed the amount of fowl roaming the streets, wild, cocks, hens and chicks underfoot. Six A.M. and the roosters started braying at the dawn, at each other, their families, who knows. Do they bray? I don't care. They're loud, little peckers. And THEY WILL NOT STOP.

I'm not a violent guy, well not usually, but - oh man! - if I'd had had a pistol...

It actually turned out to be good that I got an early start. The buoy for the southern-most point is a mighty popular place, filled with picture-taking tourists all during the day, and your best bet is to get there early, get close enough to take a picture or two, and get away quickly. I made it there about 7 A.M. and a cute couple in neon, screaming yellow running tops, had just finished their turn. I pulled my motorcycle onto the sidewalk, grabbed a quick video that I'll post later, and took a couple of pics, one of which was a selfie that blurred so badly, it couldn't be used.

Back to the Key West nightlife: mildly disappointing, less Hemingway Old Man and the Sea and more McInerney Drunk Fratboy and the Peroxide Blonde. I expected more from the old dame on a Wednesday night and certainly there were a plethora of bars and restaurants begging for attention. I wandered among them, a California ghost, taking it all in.  I stopped for a vodka tonic at one place and then another at a another. Finally, I ended up at a honky tonk, Cowboy Bill's, its claim to fame being a mechanical bull and some kind of contest wherein seven ladies vied to win the male judges' favor by disrobing and simulating sex on the spinning, grinding, cowhide-covered contraption.

I stuck around until the final two, a three-phase elimination. If the ladies were modest enough to keep their tops during the first round, they were ousted, which quickly brought the number down to four. Clearly, skin-to-win was called for. Two more were eliminated during the second round; I wish I could explain why cthey were; certainly, they gave it their all and shed appropriately. The last two was the plucky, somewhat overweight young woman with natural breasts and the enhanced hottie who shed down to bra and panties in the first round. My journalistic ethic should've kept me there to report the winner but, frankly, I had grown bored and I had finished the Longboard and didn't really want to invest into another that late into the evening. It was that tipping point during a night out where you either go all in or you go home.

I'm pretty sure the enhanced hottie won and for the purposes of this story, I'll declare her the winner, but I was rooting for the overachiever.

A Farewell

Twenty-five hundred years ago, give or take a century or two, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, taught that you never step your foot into the same river twice. This is an elegant way of saying that life is always changing. Today, Hurricane Melissa and I spent our last day together on this trip in Ft. Lauderdale before I dropped her off at the airport and thus our lives are changing, after a fantastic week together. We both moped like despondent school children most of the day and walked around the Las Olas neighborhood vainly trying to bouy each other's moods. It didn't help. It's amazing that after fourteen years together we're still this much in love with each other.

The previous night we had sampled a couple of cabernets, a zinfandel, and a few other treats at a wonderful wine bar, the Naked Grape, in the up-and-coming Wilton Manor area. We had started the evening at J Marks, a pleasant restaurant with decent wine. When we travel we try to support local businesses as much as we can and avoid chains. The best, though, had to be lunch at Rosie's, a local favorite, also in the Wilton Manor neighborhood.

Melissa and I said our goodbyes, Melissa crying, me harumphing around my sadness, and I quickly set off down the 1 towards Key West.

My mood didn't help the rather long, slow 133 mile trip, and while there were times when the ocean seemed to merge with the sky, a rather blue infinity, and the lush, warm, briney breeze washed over me serenely, I didn't take in the splendor of the keys as much as I should have.

I'll finish the second corner tomorrow morning, after breakfast, and make a decision as to what my next move will be.

Hell

I don't believe in Hell but I have driven through the middle of Kansas, mid-August, in a car without air conditioning. Between the brain boiling,  oppressive humidity and soul-crushing monotony of the fruited plains, hay stacks and rolling corn fields, I'm convinced that Beelzebub and Dante's ninth circle of the inferno must be somewhere in the general vicinity. I write this to provide context for our recently completed ride which, though arduous, was actually… I want to write pleasant… but that doesn't really capture it. How about tolerable? Almost, enjoyable?

What follows are some impressions of the states we passed through from the viewpoint of (predominantly) Interstate 10 East. Certainly, these don't reflect on the actual states themselves, merely their respective highway ambassador.

Arizona: our oldest kids live in Mesa and we know Phoenix and Scottsdale, fairly well. From I-10 East, however, Arizona paints an image of the swollen land of saguaro cactus, scrub brush, lot of tans, sprinkled with green, and road runners, one of which didn't make it under wheel. Sorry, little fellah. Among this rather droll landscape, however, boulder fields erupt spontaneously, stacked this-away-and-that, random, like the fossilized, fecal remains from giant, prehistoric rabbits.

New Mexico: we love New Mexico; we've honeymooned in Taos, spent too much intoxicated time in Santa Fe, driven through the splendors of Eagles Nest. From I-10, however, the "Land of Enchantment" should really be called the "Land of 'Ahhhhh, FV@k It'", as in "My car just broke down. What do I do now?" Well, fv@k it, leave it to rust in a ditch. "What do we do with these leftover railroad cars? Can't use them anymore…" Well, fv@k it, let's just derail them on the rail embankment. How about the unwanted Winnebago… You get the idea.

Texas: ah, Texas. I really enjoyed the 80 MPH posted speed limit for the western half of the I-10 speedway. Also, during the evening hours, late - when the fatigue of the last two hours of the first 16 hour day nearly demoralized us - we noticed many deer on the roadside, in the scrub, ready to leap in front us, giant versions of the Arizona road runner, looking to cause untold damage to us. The fact that there are so many guns and that many deer still alive in the same place, gave me a warm fuzzy for humanity.

Louisiana: Louisiana, for us, has been the rather soggy remembrances of New Orleans Bourbon Street, bank-draining dinners among high-rollers we knew and gratefully abandoned long ago, and Melissa shedding her clothes during Jazzfest, ostensibly to acquire beads from a gaggle of inebriated frat boys. Essentially, what you'd experience from the land of Mardi Gras, beignets and Hand Grenades. What we found in our travel was an amazing twenty mile bridge, the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, that spans  bayous, bald cypress swamps, and marshes. That Baton Rouge is a college town only makes it that much more interesting and we wished we could have explored it more.

Mississippi: it's undoubtedly ride fatigue but Mississippi proclaimed itself as the land of large casino billboards and numerous state police cars, far too many for such a small state, the trooper cars lit with many blue and white flashing lights, a veritable dance floor light show, pulling over three different cars of African American people, not that there's racial profiling happening. Just coincidence, I'm sure.

Alabama: we experienced the most rain in Alabama, not that much really, and the skyline of Mobile really stood out for us. The picture below doesn't do it justice. We left the Mobile drive-by saying "Who knew? Why are they keeping this a secret?"

Florida: We're spending a lot of rest time in Florida and we're enjoying the respite here in Ft. Lauderdale, land of the blue in the red that is home to Dade County. The travel into north Floriday, also along highway I-10 East into Pensacola and eventually Jacksonville encompassed heat, humidity and a myriad of insects, many of whom died a horrible death, impaled on the war machine that is our motorcycle.

Tomorrow is the last day that my lovely wife, Hurricane (how apropos!), will be with me and we'll spend one last day together on this trip before she returns home to San Jose. Words cannot express the sorrow I feel that I'm losing my traveling companion and best friend for the rest of this trip.