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.