Around 10 or so we had a mile run around and through the newly constructed, and not-quite-finished RoseHeart complex where Roger and Jen lived. The garden homes were neatly laid out and beautifully landscaped.
At about 11 we went into town with Jennifer to pick up a dress, and I made inquiries at an electronic store and in a camera store about the elusive charger, but to no avail.
On the way back we lunched at trendy Madeline’s, and we had a very delicious salad there.
Roger was never able to get a hold of his tech guy for the unknown password, and so I never was able to enjoy the wireless internet in the house.
Roger came back from work at about 1:30, and we all left at two for downtown.
Like most other kids, especially guys, growing up in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, one of my most endearing memories of Disney childhood is seeing coonskin-capped Fess Parker playing Davey Crockett on TV. So I’ve always wanted to see the real thing. Ever since that became a possibility with this trip I’ve been hearing how disappointing it would be to see the real Alamo. I’d heard that it would be disappointing in size, locale, and plainness. So one of the main things I wanted to do on this swing through Texas was visit the Alamo and see it for myself.
I knew the movie version was Hollywood pretty much through and through. But I haven’t studied history enough to know what might have been real and what was just Disney or patriotic-type myth. Someone sent me a note somewhat before leaving on this trip about my plans to visit the Alamo. He wrote that they were all just drunken guys in there and that they all should have just been arrested, that they weren’t really patriots at all.
Roger and Jennifer and May and I went into San Antonio, and we went to an IMAX show in the mall there called, succinctly, The Alamo!… It was a late ‘80’s version of what went on there, and was just as sappy as the Disney version, plus the acting in it was wooden and poor. After the movie (and too big a bag of popcorn!) we walked the few blocks to the actual site. I felt the excitement of the place, and the surroundings were not as bad I imagined – at least there was NO Burger King right next door! It was smaller than I thought it might be, and on the inside were only a few little rooms with only a handful of historical things. There was one little diorama, which gave me a much better understanding of the Alamo’s form and shape. I mean, the entrance we all know was not even really the main entrance. And that was a revelation! Otherwise, who knows what the truth was about what went on really! It does make a good story though.
The other thing that the proverbial ‘everyone’ said to go see in downtown San Antonio (Or “San Antone” as most people here say.) was the RiverWalk. This was a longish area of shops and restaurants around the flowing river there. Greenery and water seemed to flow along the whole way. Boats even would take people on tours on one part of the river to another. Sometimes the stores would be on two levels. We four walked a few blocks down, and then headed back the other side and stopped at a pasta place for dinner. Nice atmosphere.
A long the way in the beginning I kept trying to hook up on a hot spot to send out yesterday’s notes. I’m sure the other three were a bit fed up with me, and in the end I was unsuccessful. At one restaurant one of the waitresses in her short plaid-skirted uniform came up to me and said, “There is no charge for you to sit down, sir.” But I said, “My friends are probably already fed up with me.” No matter where I tried, I wasn’t able to get a strong enough signal I guess to keep AOL on long enough for even a one-minute session.
After the RiverWalk we went back to the car, stopping occasionally in a specialty shop or two.
May and I took a mile ride around the development on the motorcycle just at dusk, and when back I finally got on-line to send out yesterday’s notes – via a land-line.
We four chatted in the spacious living room until about 10:30ish.

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August 10, 2006 – Thursday – Day 10
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 99- Total Miles – 2178
Austin,TX to Shiner,TX
(-staying at Peggy & Bubba Patek’s – Bubba is one of May’s brothers-)
(States: TX)
– GOING HOME AGAIN – THE NIGHT SKY –

Roger and Jen were off to work before we got going. But May gave a call to say good-bye. We headed out around 10am for May’s childhood hometown of Shiner,TX, where she was born and raised. It’s where she lived the rural life of a youngster on the farm. Where she picked cotton, baled hay, butchered pigs, and grew all their food.
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The first ten miles of every day just seem to spurt right by. It’s the same for the first ten after gassing up, too. We set out, move a bit down the highway, I look down at the odometer, and ZIP! Ten miles are registered.
Lots of low hanging clouds stretching from one end of the horizon to the other across the end of the highway today. They looked like fields of clouds in furrows that were in neat horizontal rows one on top of the other…ready for planting.
At Buc-ee’s, a big convenience store near one of our gas station stops, we browsed for a while, and found a great Texas flag shirt for May. There we saw a bus full of children out in the parking lot, and May mentioned it looked like a prison bus with young children. It sure did. I mentioned that most junior and senior high schools built around the ‘50’s through ‘70’s looked like prisons to me.
Upon arriving in Shiner we went right to the Country Corner Café. That’s where May’s sister runs that best little restaurant in town.
It was wonderful meeting Kay. (At one point I referred to her as Peggy, and after I was corrected, I noted, “There are just so many of you guys, you know, it’s hard for me to keep up!”) Kay is about the same age as May, and has a wonderful demeanor. It was just terrific listening to her talk. She said she had read most of the journal. She said she was impressed with how I could remember all what people said throughout the day. But then I showed her the little mini-tape recorder I keep in my tank bag, and that helped explain my ‘great memory’ to her.
She said that the reading was a lot to keep up with – but that as she was reading it to someone, he said, ‘He’s a real writer.’ And then Kay said she agreed with that and, “Yeah, he can just write things into existence.” Besides being happy about that sentiment, I thought it was a great expression.
Jerry, one of May’s brothers was there, too. He was a cook for the café, and he was able to chat until his shift came up at 2pm.
I soon learned that the café was a wi-fi hotspot. I mock bowed to Kay in the diner. She said how since the technology was kind of new here, that sometimes people who saw the advertised “WI-FI HOTSPOT” on her sign outside the restaurant would come in and ask what was the new dish being served….
May had told me so much about Shiner – about how small it was over and over, and I said to Kay that I was surprised to see that the streets were paved and that there was running water! She got a laugh out of that.
Shiner is known as “The Cleanest Little City in Texas”, and May says it really is just that. It also draws a huge crowd for it’s annual Boctoberfest (Shiner Boch Beer sponsors it.) Last year they drew over 30,000.
Someone May had worked with was having lunch there when we came in. Walter drove school buses for 17 years around here and so did May. I told him I was a schoolteacher for 20 years so I could get an idea of what he had gone through with all those kids every day. He countered, though, with the observation that I might have had 25-30 at a time to deal with, but that he and May would sometimes have as many as NINETY to put up with!
When the subject turned to travel, Walter said he had been around a bit, but he was staying around Shiner for the rest of his life. He said he wasn’t too impressed with Colorado, but when I asked him if he had seen the Grand Canyon, he noted, “Yeah, when the Lord made the Grand Canyon, he made a pretty big hole!”
Headed out to Peggy’s where we were to spend the night. At first I thought that lively Peggy was May’s sister, but it turned out she was her sister-in-law. The two have a lot in common including looks and that twangy southern way of speakin’. Peggy was very friendly and with her wide eyes welcomed us warmly to her and Bubba’s home. They were married 21 years, and Bubba came back shortly from work where he drives a fertilizer truck.
When I asked Peggy if she had been keeping up with the journal, she said only some of it, and she exclaimed to May, “This trip would be over in half the time if he didn’t write so much!”
Around 5:30ish, we four headed out to visit May’s and Bubba’s dad. Bubba advised me right away to put on the seatbelt. He said that the police were very strict here about it. He said that it was the passenger who got the ticket. We agreed that it was a good way for the local force to get money.
May’s 82-year-old dad was using a ventilator to help his lungs work when we arrived. I joked, “What IS that your smoking there??” It got a laugh. We spent the next hour or so chatting in the little room and then going out to the little pond. May’s brother Poncho (Frankie, Jr.) came by and proudly showed off the quails he was raising. From cute little baby ones to grown up ones to the egg incubator where there were 100’s of tiny eggs. One of the (some kind of pit-bull) dogs had been stealing clothing (presumably off a clothesline), and he was scolded – but admired at the same time!
May kidded me a bit with her dad as she said to him, “Oh Joel would
Next we went down the road to visit Willie, another brother. Poncho had left as we did, but was already there. The six of us visited a bit there on Willie’s driveway. And May and her sibs talked about old times – mostly with good recollections of times past. And there was catchin’ up on births and deaths and various other goings-ons.
On the way back we took pictures of the various homes May had lived in. Bubba, Peggy, May and I went back to the Country Café for a late dinner. And it wasn’t until about 9:30ish that we left.
So many new names and faces, and so little time to absorb who everyone was! Still, I thought I was doing pretty well…
Because of all the visiting, and then eating so late we went out on a very late run. It was about 10:30 before we started down the stony driveway here. Peggy came with us and the three of us carried flashlights. And May carried a small baseball bat – just in case any coyotes got brave!
It was a moon-blanched night – a full moon of amazing luminosity. And the stars were huge pinpoints of light. Coming from the populated northeast I’ve only been out on such nights a few times – 1980 outside the mobile home along the way on my cross-country bicycle ride – in the Arizona Desert always comes foremost to mind. But here out in the countryside was even a bit different. On the horizons were the distant brightnesses – some solitary, some clustered together, no doubt cities. There were great swirls of night-time clouds intermingled with the stars and it was quiet – and it was grand scale nighttime beauty. At one point, I thought I saw the glistening tail of a shooting star.
Peggy and May mainly walked and talked together while I walked slower from behind or ran ahead. When I came back ahead of them they continued walking and talking, and didn’t get back to the house until about 20 minutes after I did.
It was close to midnight before we got to sleep.

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August 11, 2006 – Friday – Day 11
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 161 – Total Miles – 2339
12:15pm-4:15pm – 4 hours
Shiner,TX to Pasadena,TX – a suburb of Houston,TX
(-staying at Linda & Ron White’s – Linda is a lifelong friend of May’s-)
(States: TX)
– HEAT – A REUNION –

Out in the country here one would think that May’s penny pickup would pretty much come to a halt… And last night we ran in the dark of course so there was little opportunity to find a copper coin with a flashlight zigging and zagging on the asphalt while running…. But I wrote “pretty much came to a halt” because on this morning’s run down that same stone/gravel driveway, and then out the country lane to the big highway, May again didn’t find a penny – but she DID find a folded dirty FIVE DOLLAR BILL! Just unbelievable!!!
Bubba was already gone to work, but Peggy bid good-bye as we packed up under the big tree on the side yard. We had had a good stay here and May sure enjoyed being with her friend again. The country home, so different from city and suburban homes, evokes feelings of independence and freedom. This place did all that with a wonderful homey feeling. And Peggy hangs her wash out whenever she can just like we do, and that made it even more special.
After we left Peggy’s we stopped into town at Kay’s restaurant for some kolache. This pastry could be described as a soft baked biscuit-type confection with fruit or cheese in it. I also took care of a couple email sends at the café hot spot. It was good chatting with Kay as she took time from her busy duties. It was hard leaving her friendly demeanor and kind smile. But we needed to get on the road and eventually, after warm hugs, and promises of seeing each other again sometime, we broke away to do so.
We stopped to check air in the motorcycle tires at 11:15am and although the front tire needed about 3lbs worth, the back tire was still dead on the money. Had a little difficulty finding a gauge that would work on that back tire because of the angle of the air intake.
On the way out of town at about 11:30am visited May’s aunt Rita. Rita, now in her ‘70’s, is a younger sister of May’s mom. (May’s mom passed away when May was eight years old.)
Rita is quite a twinkly-eyed character of a woman!! She has a nursery out near her modernish big-windowed home. She has a couple of organs in one of those rooms and is quite proficient at playing several instruments including the organs and the accordian. She goes out and plays in a hobo band. That’s an oom-pa-pa band that often uses washboards and accordions other unique instruments. The big room we sat in while chatting was filled to the brimming with knick-knacks and memorabilia from her past, and from her late husband’s Leo’s long life – including a photo of him when he played Santa (a natural with Leo’s white beard), and a collection of at least a score of wooden canes he had.
I liked Rita immediately as a down-to-earth and plain-spoken no-nonsense energy-inspiring woman. And said to her upon meeting her that, “I like ANYone who carries a leaf around in her shoe!” Looking down, I had seen a green leaf wedged in her left loafer between the tongue of the shoe and her forefoot. That comment got a laugh, and the leaf was still there when we left a little after noon.
This was a day that we both – but especially May – minded the heat. Not sure why though as the temperature may not have been any higher than the other days. But I think we were tired, and perhaps not fully hydrated.
We arrived at Linda and Ron White’s place in Pasadena (a Houston ‘burb), about 100 miles after leaving Shiner. The time was around 4:30pm… Linda and May make up two-thirds of a friendship that goes back about 30 years. The story goes that Linda saw May in their church choir and thought to herself that she looked like she’d make a good friend, and there it began. Shortly thereafter Marilyn rounded out the trio when they met her.
Linda is an out-going woman who seems to love to have a good time. She had just gotten back from several trips to her beloved Missouri, but was out when we arrived taking her mom out to see a show.
Ron was home however, and he sat talking in his soft-spoken way to May out on the little patio near the huge above-ground plastic blue pool. They sat about 90-minutes actually as Ron described a tour of Europe upon which he and Linda would be shortly embarking.
Meanwhile, I sat in the kitchen working desperately to try and get caught up on some journal writing, and the 16 business phone calls that had come into my message machine at home in the last few days.
We had bunked into one of the upstairs bedrooms in the plushly white carpeted home. There were probably millions of pictures of Linda’s grandkids all around the house.
When May and Ron came inside we had a little supper of salad and peanut butter that was in the refrig.
Linda came home a little before midnight, and she and May chatted a bit then.

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August 12, 2006 – Saturday – Day 12
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 2 – Total Miles – 2341
(-staying at Linda & Ron White’s – Linda is a lifelong friend of May’s-)
– MORE REUNION – AN ACCIDENT –

Got a few gems of southern expressions from Linda, a lady with a kind-hearted personality and friendly way. When I mentioned that I needed the ceiling fan turned down a big, she advised me, “Whatever’s goin’ on, you just fix it!”
The conversation came around to May and my being vegetarians. I mentioned about the Mormons being vegetarians and having longer lives because of it. Ron got grins from us all by stating that, “Perhaps it wasn’t because of their diets, but because they were allowed to have multiple wives, that kept them alive longer.”
At one point Ron and I talked about those ubiquitous pick-up trucks that every single Texan guy seems to have parked in his driveway. Ron said there was an name for those, and they are called “Cowboy Cadillacs”! Ron also mentioned an oft-repeated phrase here I would guess: that he wasn’t born here in Texas but he “got here as fast as he could!”
We got a load of laundry done.
Ron had gone to play golf at 1pm. Linda, May, and I left for a local sports-type store popular here in Texas named Academy. There I bought a couple more shirts and a pair of shorts. Then we left for the 45-minute or so ride to visit May’s friend, Marilyn, and her boyfriend Wayne. They had only been in their new home for two weeks – and a nice place it was! The backyard backed up to a real swamp and was separated from it by a big fence. Like Marilyn would say, “It was precious!” There were two white rocking chairs on the front porch and everything seemed in its place. She showed us around and we were impressed by the neatness and design of the place.
After we visited a bit, Wayne played guitar for us – and he was terrific. He played his Ovation Adamas instrument, which he said was top-of-the-line. But top-of-the-line or not, he made it sound sweet and tuneful. He had no music in front of him, playing solely by ear. He strummed mostly country stuff, and his rendition of part of the Deliverance banjo scene was wonderful.
Marilyn and Wayne had met on a cruise ship the December before. When May, Marilyn, and Linda were on the ship as part of a 600-strong group of friendly ladies called the Red Hat Group. After they met there, they became fast friends even though they lived far apart -Marilyn in Texas, Wayne in Oklahoma.
We were to go have dinner at a restaurant about an hour away.
Marilyn and Wayne drove their own car. And Linda, May, and I followed for part of the way. Right in front of Marilyn and Wayne a lady had a flat tire, spun out of control and slid into the trees beside the highway. If we hadn’t been delayed by a few minutes for going back to get Linda’s cell phone (which had been on the seat the whole time), who knows how much closer it would have been to one of our cars? Our two cars stopped and Wayne hopped over to the scene to find a bloody lady in the driver’s seat. Marilyn called 911, and a medic soon came upon the scene, stopped and took over. The front of the car was pretty much bent in, the lady said she had been drinking, and gigantic mosquitoes enveloped the area. We left shortly after the medic came but before the ambulance got there.
We went to Kemah for dinner. Kemah is a fun area with a ton of restaurants, some amusement rides, a little stage for an outdoor band, and even a little train running through the area that carries people back and forth. It has a festive and amusement park flavor, and sits right next to the Gulf of Mexico. We went into Saltgrass Steakhouse, which was a riot of stuff western. The view (until it got dark anyway) was right onto the Gulf of Mexico. There was plenty to eat in huge portions, although he service was kind of slow. The atmosphere was boisterous and friendly with loud talking, good joking, and country music in the air as background.
From my seat I watched a little girl of about 3 sitting at the next table and waiting for her meal. She was intently using her steak knife to chop apart a crayon in neat little sections.
We left from there at about 10:15pm, and May and I engaged some motorcyclists who had Goldwings parked there. It was a friendly group of guys and gals from the Kemah area who had a mcycling group and they rode together when they could. We looked carefully over the Goldwings, and asked ton of questions about them.
Our ride back to Linda’s was about 20 minutes. I came up to go to sleep anticipating a big day ahead tomorrow, while May visited a bit more with Linda.

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August 13, 2006 – Sunday – Day 13
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 346 – Total Miles – 2687
9am-4:30pm – 7.5 hours
Houston,TX to Covington,LA
(-staying at Super 8 Motel -)
(States: TX, LA)

After a run in the growing heat, we left Ron and Linda around 9am. We had no trouble getting out to the main highway, and being a Sunday, there was little traffic whatsoever of which to speak. We sailed….
As soon as we entered Louisiana on Route 10 we could tell. The road became bumpier. May, especially, on the back of the bike felt those bumps a lot.
Made it to Iowa just before noon. Iowa, Louisiana, that is…
Around 12:30pm we stopped for lunch. The advertised Subway was closed and so we tried a Burger King, and to our delight they had a veggie burger on the menu!
I believe it was because we began drinking early and often that we didn’t mind the heat today at all. It was a wonderful travel day and I went between 80 and 90 all day and we made terrific progress. The winds were bad in parts, and at one time a huge red truck came kinda close on the right (and we could feel the sucking of a huge draft on us), and once a car on the right had his left blinker on and began to move into us. But I had both situations very well in hand. I was on top of both, and not either of them was really very close calls. Otherwise, it was a fresh-aired blur of a ride around the Gulf with wonderful scenery of shore and forest, a number of friendly thumbs-ups, and over three hundred relatively easy miles under the belt by day’s end.
Shooting on the way down Route 12 east we passed many Louisiana bays, bayous, and bogs.. We rode twin bridges of highways on stilts – two lanes each way as different roadways.
At one little town turnoff we went the wrong way looking for another Subway. On the way back we were stopped at the railroad tracks for a train that have over 115 cars in it. (Yes, I counted them.) There was no caboose. In fact, it’s been a number of years since I’ve even seen a caboose on a passing train. I heard they don’t use them any more, but can’t confirm that.
We checked into a Super 8 Motel after checking out about three or four others but not finding wireless internet offered in them. During the evening, I worked on these journal notes, and the cataloging of pictures. We also had popcorn and oatmeal (both made in the motel room microwave) while watching Bill Murray in Groundhog Day on the PowerBook G4 we have along.
I was up until midnight returning emails and working on the journal notes.
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August 14, 2006 – Monday – Day 14
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 78 – Total Miles – 2765
Noon-2:30pm – 2.5 hours
Covington,LA to Gulfport,MS
(-staying at a Days Inn-)
(States: LA, MS)

After a little later sleep than usual we began getting things together and studying the map for the days ahead.
We left around 11ish this morning, and while waiting at an intersection in Covington, May hopped off the bike and picked up $.52 in nickels, dimes, and pennies. Just incredible! (I also asked her to grab two pointed screws up out of that intersection.)
It was pretty smooth riding in the early part of the day. But low hanging dark clouds were ominous on the horizon and to the south. We also noticed some moisture under the parked mc that we hadn’t noticed before, and that was a concern as well.
In a Burger King, a young smiley kid tucked himself alongside me as I was walking along with the tray. “You a fireman?” he inquired. He sidled up to us at the table, and May cutely asked, “Your name ‘Tommy Hilfiger’ like it says on your shirt?” He laughed, and replied that his name was Zachary. May asked if he’d like a picture of himself, and he said he would.
Once, as we rolled along Route 12 and gazed southward over the Gulf of Mexico, a long single slender beautiful bolt of lightning flashed from the sky. It was full length to the water.
We got sloshed on in the latter part of the afternoon…. Just some sprinkles at first, then a real soaking. But we got right off the highway in Gulfport. At first, after the Hampton Inn had no room for us, we just trolled up and down the highway looking for a place we had heard about that might have Honda service. We needed to get some oil. But, even with the help of “Lucky Larry” an amiable bespectacled t-shirted heavy guy on a white Goldwing, we could not find the place.
Earlier in the day, we determined that the Shadow needed oil. YIKES! That and because a number of other things were not quite working right, plus the booming thunder, the near-distant lightning strikes, and then the spatters of rain, we decided to end the day early. We seem to be ahead of schedule and so the odds dictated that an early stop would be a good decision on this day.
As the rain began anew after a slight lull, we spied a Days Inn and wheeled over. Although the lobby and every other bit of this motel seemed run-down and lower grade, the room was more than adequate. I’m glad we brought our extra set of sheets along though.
We heard that every single motel room along the Gulf Coast would be about $100 – mostly because of the Katrina hurricane.
The wireless internet didn’t work in the room (because of the weather the desk fellow said), but it did in the lobby.
We bunked into the room, and May did her usual great job of making sure everything was in its right place.
Around 5ish, we jogged over to the nearby Wal-Mart for some dinner things and to browse around… We checked out the grocery items and got some veggie burgers to cook up in the motel room microwave – then some rolls, lettuce, and tomato to go with them. We got some microwave popcorn, too. Then it was over to the McDonalds in the Wal-Mart where we got some mustard and catsup packets.
Over in the tech department I bought a 60-gig drive (because I keep getting the annoying – and likely false – message on my laptop that my drive there is running out of space), and also got a wi-fi/hotspot finder. That’s a little thumb-size device that detects wi-fi signals. (Those are signals that a computer equipped like mine can get right on the internet with.) I had been planning to get one anyway, and it was only $20. Also, got a little speaker that plugs into the G4 which will make the sound louder for when we watch movies or might want to listen to music.
At the checkout line the young tattooed woman’s nametag read “Patter”… I asked if that was her real name, and she said it was. She said it was her mom’s best friend’s middle name, and she was named after her. Patter also had a huge tattoo on her left shoulder and a Chinese character on the back of her neck. I asked what it meant and she said, “butterfly”. Having heard that sometimes people have those Chinese characters put on but the person putting it on draws an obscenity, thinking that no one will ever know anyway… Patter said that she studied Chinese and so she was sure of what it meant.
As we left Wal-Mart I got a quick shot of a kid who found an unusual place for a catnap. He was on the underbars of his mom’s shopping cart. Pretty clever I thought.
On our run/walk back from Wal-Mart the skies opened up again, and we got soaked as we scurried back across the big highway to the motel.
Back in the room we had the delicious burgers and a couple bags of popcorn. Then instead of watching a movie we got chores done. We figured to get an early start in finding the area Honda motorcycle place we were told about by some folks here.

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August 15, 2006 – Tuesday- Day 15
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 234 – Total Miles – 2999
Gulfport,MS to de Funiak Springs,FL
(-staying at a Best Western -)
(States: MS, AL, FL)
– GLAD MY HEAD WASN’T IN THE HELMET! – AND OTHER BAD THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY –

It was a wonderful night’s sleep, and a little later than usual again, until about 7am. We were out running by 7:30, and then May packed up while I went down to the lobby to send out the last three days of notes – and I was sorry to send them all out at once as I know it takes people a lot longer to read them. But it was good getting caught up. I also found the local Honda dealer, a map to their place, and confirmed their phone number.
For breakfast we had the other two veggie burgers w/lettuce and tomato we had gotten in the Wal-mart yesterday. They were delicious as was the bottle of grape juice.
It’s always interesting to see a town the next day after being in it in the rain. It always looks so different. And that one place for the oil that we looked for in the drizzle yesterday? May said she saw it as we cycled toward the Honda place.
A&B Honda in Gulfport gets my vote. When I told them we were on a tour, the manager of the repair department took the bike right in and put it up on the rack for a check out.
Tom, the friendly goateed mustachioed mechanic, who worked on the bike, mentioned that the coolant was a little low, and he found where it might have been leaking. That’s likely what we saw the other day. The oil was fine, but it didn’t hurt to change it, and everything else checked out fine with the bike. While waiting I carefully looked over and read the literature about the Gold Wing that was there. Quite impressive specs on the impressive bike. We left right around 11:30.
Right after we left the Honda dealer in Gulfport we got immediately back onto I-10 East heading toward Florida. As usual, I forgot to put my earplug in before leaving so we pulled off the road to the shoulder. (Unfortunately, it was a sloping uphill grade – mistake one – where I stopped on a bridge – mistake two. I took my helmet off and carefully balanced it in my lap as I’d done a hundred times before. Well, a number of big semi’s came rumbling by shaking the bridge. I felt it shake and I felt the kickstand start to give way a bit and I instinctively put my hand up to the brake. And that motion was enough to let the helmet tumble out of my lap, down the side of the bike, and bounce almost into the middle of the traffic lane. There was little to do except hope it bounced back – and it did – but AFTER it was run over by a HUGE semi-tractor trailer truck!!! We were able to lean over the bike and grab the helmet. Hmmm… I won’t ever buy another helmet except a Nolan ever again! Although it was clearly ragged with some missing parts, and the visor gone and cracked, I was able to put it on and even buckle it. Later at a gas stop I pulled apart one of the sides so it would be a bit more comfortable.
In one of the next towns we stopped at another motorcycle place and they had some flip-up helmets as I wanted but no yellow. I got the idea to call a Nolan place and get the newer version of the helmet I had – that has some improvements. The fellow behind the counter here generously and very helpfully made some calls and spent some time finding me a company that would ship it out to me from Illinois to May’s son’s home in Orlando. It would arrive there by next Monday. Meanwhile I’ll wear the battered one.
On the way out of the store I spied the Gold Wings. One of the alert salespeople saw the glint in my eye, and asked if we wanted to ride the rest of the way home on one. He said someone else on tour had done that recently. He scented fresh meat, but we got out of the store – fast. (Because I was somewhat semi-seriously thinking about it…..)
Hmmm… thinking maybe we’ll send the Nolan company a picture of the one that went under the truck. When people asked about my day, I would say, “Well, my helmet was run over by a truck, and I’m glad my head wasn’t in it at the time!!”
There had been an accident on the freeway. We squirted around several miles of the backup and avoided baking some more, by again riding on the shoulder.
We stopped at the Florida Welcome Center mainly for those motel coupons they offer. May took some pictures of the great jet plane sculpture they have there, and some flowers. When she came into the building I said of the lady behind the counter, “This is the lady who knows absolutely everything about Florida.” She smiled and said, “Well, I’m from Chicago!”
At that Welcome Center we asked around, basked in the coolness, and checked and re-checked distances. Finally we left, and the clouds were ominous as we again headed east. Luckily the darkness dissipated and all we got were a few sprinkles.
As we drive along it’s fun to notice the vanity license plates on the highway. I enjoyed seeing “FULQIVR” today. May got a good shot of it, and as the van pulled off the road onto an off ramp, I noted that there was a guy leaning out the window taking a picture of US! (From that plate, clearly they were archery fans.)
At 200 miles we began looking for a place. It was 5pm by now, there were some threatening clouds again but I was ready to end the day anyway. We used a coupon gotten at that Florida Welcome Center and that chopped $20 off the bill. It came to only $50, and that seemed like a deal.
We checked in to the friendly place, again unloading and spreading out our gear in the room. I was able to park the bike under an overhang in case it did rain.
I spent a good hour this evening looking for my right contact lens, which somehow didn’t make it into my hand when I took it out at the motel room sink. I pride myself in never losing those things, but this one, despite my spending all that time on my hands and knees scouring the tiles, somehow eluded me. I took my shirt, pants, and socks inside out. I patted down all the sink area. (Yes, the stopper was closed.) It would have been good having the vaunted penny-finder person helping me look, BUT……
May was hit with some kind of serious stomach cramping or virus as the day ended! I brought her some soup and crackers from the motel restaurant. Then she slept for quite awhile.
I shortly went down to have a good supper at the Best Western salad bar. I also moved the bike to be under an overhang by a stairwell, and I covered it.

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NOTE: I heard from a few people about cabooses. Ali, a motorcycle friend from upstate PA sent this link and this info which you might find of interest…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caboose
Until the 1980s, laws in the United States and Canada required that all freight trains have a caboose. Technology eventually advanced such that a caboose was unnecessary, providing improved bearings and lineside detectors to detect hot boxes, and better designed cars to avoid problems with the load. The caboose was also a dangerous place, as slack run-ins could hurl the crew from their places and even dislodge weighty equipment. The final nail for the caboose’s coffin came with an electronic box with the innocent name of “FRED,” an acronym for flashing rear-end device, or “EOT,” End-of-Train device. A FRED/EOT could be attached to the rear of the train to detect the train’s air brake pressure and report any problems back to the locomotive. The FRED/EOT also detects movement of the train upon start-up and radios this information to the engineer so that he/she will know that all of the slack is out of the couplings and additional power can now be applied. With the FRED/EOT on the job the conductor moved up to the front of the train with the engineer and year by year, cabooses started to fade away. Very few cabooses remain in operation today, though they are still used for some local trains where it is convenient to have a brakeman at the end of the train to operate switches and the like.
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August 16, 2006 – Wednesday- Day 16
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 225 – Total Miles – 3224
Noon-5:30pm – 4.5 hours (back to EST)
de Funiak Springs,FL to Lake City,FL
(States: FL)
The day’s weather broke sunny and grand.
Called my contact lens place at home, and they will send a new one out for us to pick up at May’s son’s in Orlando when we are there next Monday. Meanwhile, I will make do with the spare that I brought along.
Stephanie was the genial General Manager, of this wonderful Comfort Inn. And she was ambling down the hallway when we were leaving. I mentioned – half-jokingly – to her that if the cleaning woman who did the bathroom just happened to find a contact lens, would she send it to me… She took a real interest in the case, and even got down and looked a little herself.
Stephanie asked about the tennis racquet May was carrying out to pack on the bike. (She had brought it from her sister’s.) May smiled and said, “I have it just in case HE gets out of line.” All the cleaning-up ladies in the hallway laughed at that. Stephanie said, “Oh, he looks like a pretty nice guy to me.” And May replied with her sly drawl, “Well… just in case.”

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The Daily Penny Report: May didn’t even go running this morning and found three pennies at the motel by the vending machines and then two pennies at a gas station in the afternoon. And then a quarter a dime and a penny when we pulled up to the motel. Then when we went to dinner at the Waffle House, a shiny new penny was waiting for her on the floor there. I suggested to her that we just quit the photography business, go on the road, and make money from her ability to find loose coins on the ground.
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Despite a lot of rain today, there were grand chunks of wondrous motorcycling… we rolled through the play of shadows on the highway, the weaving of the clouds overhead, the interweaving of the forest to the right and left… and the cool and warm and cold and hot drafts of air that swirled through us.
At a Subway at lunch I got into a conversation with a guy who had totally mechanic greased-up hands, a few days old grey stubble, and looked kinda cruddy actually. Friendly, smiley Scott said that although his wife wouldn’t let him have a motorcycle they had a pop-up trailer and would travel around place to place. He said they were where most people who were 65 would like to be. He noted they traveled around and they stayed a couple months until he found work. But, “Of course,” he continued, “we’ve been here for 15 years!”
Scott listened to the helmet story in wide-eyed amazement as most folks do. And he said that the story convinced him to get a Nolan helmet – should his wife ever let him get another motorcycle…
At 1pm at a gas station in the afternoon a youngish couple was sitting behind their pickup truck. They were sitting across from each other, and they looked all the world like they were having a picnic and fishing into a small hole in the ground. It was a very odd scene. As I was filling the tank I shouted over with a smile to them and asked what they were fishing for…. The woman said that a lot of people asked them that, but that they were actually just ground water checkers.
We sped down I-10 until reaching south I-75. We talked about going down the smaller coast road to the west, and there were positives and negatives about doing that, but in the end we stuck with the big road – which we enjoy anyway, figuring there would be enough beach scenes and ocean roads ahead (Key West, and likely the Outer Banks to come.)
I hit a steady 75-80 during most of the way, nudging up to 90 a few times. I played it pretty cautious and safe though as usual. Whenever a car is coming up on our left from the distance, I always back it down to the speed limit (which is 70 here, by-the-way) just in case. And that paid off for at one point, in fact, it was a police car overtaking us. And we passed that officer a bit further down the road where he had pulled someone over.
We rode rain for about 15 miles today. May wisely offered me her helmet and it made a big difference. The rain was pelting and I could feel it strongly stinging on the part of my leg where the pant leg was up and exposed my calf. Ever feel a driving raindrop at 70 mph??? Not as bad as hail, but pretty stinging. May, for her part, without the visored helmet, snuggled into the broad part of my back and hung there until we drove through the storm. And it was sunny on the other side for the remaining hours of the ride.….
We pulled into another Comfort Inn that was off the first exit of I-75. They seem to be our favorites – and they usually have a washing machine for the guests to use. Julie Roberts was the manager on duty, and a nice lady she was. She and her husband motorcycle and so she had quite an affinity for our story. She was a kind lady and even offered to have her husband bring over some aloe vera for May’s pipe burn. He did so later in the evening, and they were nice fat leaves full of the helpful medicinal liquid. I was surprised, because I had been expecting a store-bought tube of it. This was much better, of course.
We got the wash done together, made reservations for two nights in Key West (should be there Friday and Saturday). emailed with Connie in Vero Beach (where we’ll be Sunday), chatted with Chris (May’s son who we’ll be seeing Monday in Orlando), and generally planned out a bunch of the days ahead.
We had a good evening of friendly humor, nice togetherness, and important accomplishment. To sleep too late again, but with a wonderful feeling of a good day passed

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Received a number of notes regarding the helmet rolling under the semi. Here’re a few of the replies:

from a fellow motorcyclist:
Joel I have heard a lot of motorcycle stories but Bowling for Semi’s with your helmet. Really!!

a photo client:
Joel, I don’t know anything about motorcycle helmets, but I know just a little about bike helmets. After an accident 6 years ago, I was told to replace my helmet, because the crash causes some sort of stress on the helmet and the integrity/strength of the helmet can be compromised. You can’t see the stress, but it’s there. It could be a hairline fracture or crack or something you can’t see, but it’s there. And if you should have another accident (or if the helmet gets run over by another truck!) it may not be able to protect you fully.

a sister of a former student:
I am also glad your head was not in the helmet!!! Yikes!

from broomall,pa:
Man, good thing your head WAS out of that helmet!!! Phew! Too bad though, as I know that thing had to cost a LOT of those little pennies that May had been finding!

from south carolina writes:
Unfortunate that you lost a helmet to a semi, but if you have to have an accident – that’s the kind to have!!!

from australia:
So sorry your poor helmet had a mishap… better that than YOU! L.

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August 17, 2006 – Thursday- Day 17
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 330 – Total Miles – 3554
10am-5pm – 7 hours
Lake City,FL to Naples,FL
(-staying at Best Western-)
(States: FL)

The days of the week just blur together anymore. And the dates? Well, you can just forget them.
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We got together a bunch of things we didn’t need or bought along the way for home, and put them into a box to send back. Kindly Carol, morning manager from behind the Comfort Inn desk said she’d tape up the box and would send it off for us. I was going to give her $10 and I told her to email me if it was more. She said not to worry about it, but I said, “What if it’s $30??” At that point she took my email address.
We were on the road by 10am, which was pretty early for us – at least lately.
As we rolled onto the on-ramp there was a somewhat seedy hitchhiker there who had a big smile. I stopped and shouted over to him, “Sorry we’ve got no more room or we would have helped you.” His smile was even bigger after that.
There were quite a number of rainstorms in the afternoon that we rode through. And sometimes the darkening clouds were ominous in portent, but as the road traveled their way, they broke out into just blue skies. And sometimes it seemed bright skies ahead, and as the highway turned, the clouds would be grey and frightening. Once I needed May’s helmet (with the visor) to keep going safely, so we pulled off and traded.
We were on I-75 all day today. Near the end of the day we saw a wreck. A white sedan must have hit the brakes too quickly and came upon the side cement barrier. Didn’t look pretty.
We rode along steadily today, except with one stop at a rest area, and got into Naples around 5pm. This is our last stop before Key West. And we spent part of the evening planning what we might do there….

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August 18, 2006 – Friday- Day 18
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 243 – Total Miles – 3797
Naples,FL to Key West,FL
(-staying at Comfort Inn-)
(States: FL)
- WE WENT SOUTH UNTIL WE COULDN’T
GO SOUTH ANY FURTHER
The sky was greeting me ‘good day’ on the run this morning, and was a grand design of dappled clouds covering half the sky. A weak-rayed sun burst through the middle of those dappled clouds, and it was quite mesmerizing.
The southern most route east-west in Florida is Route 41. It’s a bit more southern than the infamous Alligator Alley, the US interstate across to Miami. Route 41 is a two-lane highway with mostly Everglades on one side and trees on the other. There are not many service, and only a few closed down campgrounds along the way. There are a couple other buildings including some kind of Everglades info place. We went about 50 miles with seeing nary a car or truck. It was flat as a pancake. There was an occasional sign like, “Panther Crossing”. It was smooth and wonderful sailing. And then the afternoon rains hit! We had been watching the enormous dinosaur-like black clouds for hours, and finally we rolled right under them. It rains every afternoon here “right at the same time” the anonymous “they” say. And it must be true because everyone else says it, too.
That would not have been a place to have a breakdown, and I got a scare when, as I was pointing out something to May, I accidentally hit the ‘kill’ switch on the handlebar, and the engine conked out. At first I hadn’t realized what I’d done, and couldn’t figure out why the engine wouldn’t start….
A Miami officer, Chris, befriended us at lunch around 1:30 as we took a little break at a little store as we turned off of State Route 41 and onto one that would take us right to Route 1 and Key West – 142 more miles down the road! He was a Harley rider he said, and he took an interest in our trip, and in my helmet story.
Chris said that there were more deaths on this highway than any other in the state. And the handsome officer said he resisted computers with a passion. Then, while chucking down his Subway sandwich, he warned us about the dump trucks carrying stone that were innumerable on that highway, and that we shouldn’t get behind them too close because they spew little rocks out the tailgate, and we should be careful as they come out from the side roads. It was good advice, and we saw many of those trucks bullying their way down the narrow road – to the highway construction project to which they were delivering their load.
The Cuban coffee he said had the caffeine kick of three American cups of coffee.
More than any other trip, I can never remember such changing skies… such gorgeous cloudscapes… such full hemispheres of sky evolving so quickly with varying panoramas of white and blue and grey.
The Florida Keys are wonderful to travel. Seven-mile Bridge is a technological amazement combining grace and utility. It soars over the deep ocean blue in infinite white, majestically rising, constantly pulling the eyes forward.
I frequently thought of my bicycle trip along here – and would see the occasional bike path by the main road to which I would cling given the opportunity on that Miami to Key West and Return trip in February of 1997!
I love seeing those clever store names along the way though little towns. The winner for me today was an upholstery store in Marathon – called “The Rip Off”!
There is an excitement about traveling the Keys. An electric ‘something’ that speaks about doing something special.
We checked in to the Comfort Inn for our two-night stay at around 5:30.
At 7ish we hopped on the Shadow sans heavy gear (just helmet and boots) and headed to the downtown area after a bite at an on-the-way Taco Bell.
After tooling down the main streets we had no trouble finding a place to park the mc down by the sunset wharf area. In fact, this place is abuzz with motorbikes, motorcycles, bicycles, and little run-abouts.
We scurried the block to the pier and joined hundreds of others who were awaiting the sunset. The clouds were simply gorgeous and beyond any real description of glorious in size and design. We got there just as the sun was popping out from under a cloud and about to plop below the horizon of a little island. A couple was trying to take their own picture by holding out a cellphone. I took one for them with our better camera and said I’d email it to them. Then they took one for us with the sun perfectly between us.
Now, there are places in the world where throngs of people gather and seem to become one giant life form. The masses pulse along generally with good cheer and common experience. This is one of those places – the sunset piers at Key West, the southernmost tip of the United States. It’s like a big bazaar, a kaleidoscope of people from all over the world and the big scene we’re all here for is a nature thing. And it’s free!
We toddled our way down the pier, hob-knobbing with the rich and the poor, the genial and the snooty. We watched as some guy played out his shtick (for too long) and then swallowed a long silver sword. We gawked as some guy was suspended high in the air and then to the amazement of the crowd wiggled out of the chains and straightjacket.
We browsed some of the wares that vendors brought in their pushcarts – from fine jewelry, sensitive artwork, touristy clothing, to kitsch of every design. There was a wonderful guy at a mike singing reggae and perhaps some blues – we didn’t spend enough time listening to him.
Then we walked back along the way we came and took it all in again. We made our way off the pier around 9ish, and ambled onto Duval Street, one of the main buzzing places here. We fit right in among all the different looking folks forming a human snaky chain along the stores. Of course, not too many others were carrying two yellow helmets and wearing shorts, t-shirt, and motorcycle boots. But who cares here? Who notices? Only the really bizarre, or ultra beautiful or extremely ugly or very obscene standout in such a multitude. And there were plenty of those types, too…. One odd couple was a 70ish lady, holding the hand of someone who one can only guess was a grandson – he was of normal height for say, a 15-year-old, but had a head the size of someone who might have been 7 years old…. There were the super big 7-foot tall guys coupled with the 4-and-a-half-foot tall women. There were the women showing everything off, brazenly, happily. There were the middle America types, shy and timidly picking their steps through the boisterously raucous music that permeated the air, ever changing as one walked along by different barroom doors. There were the lover couples of opposite and same sex handholding and hugging and kissing with abandon. There were folks in all states of intoxication – from the clearly straight-laced to a few – a young girl and two guy threesome – who already at this early hour were slathered in liquor so lushly they could barely walk the sidewalk.
As I waited for May as she shopped in one of the many clothing places, a lady came out of store and called to another waiting guy, who was standing by a lamppost. “We need you!” she summoned. I interjected a friendly, “Probably for your wallet…” And he and she laughed. When he came back I struck up a conversation with him – in the commonality of friendship of Two Guys Waiting For Women To Shop mode. I asked, “Where are you from?” And my jaw almost dropped when he replied, “Philadelphia.”…. It was a good conversation that followed. He said he had grown up around here.
When May came out we walked along for about another hour – popping in and out of some shops, doing a lot of window-shopping. One store had some nice Key West motorcycle tops for women. We cycled about a bit, and then stopped at a smoothie place and had a delicious strawberry-coconut-pineapple concoction around ten. The night was coolish, and the ride without the gear was breezy and fun. I was extra careful of course, and everyone else on the road was mostly courteous and careful as well. Of course, we got back before a lot of the people had too much drink in them to distort reality.

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August 19, 2006 – Saturday- Day 19
PA TO TX, KEY WEST
AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 9 (around Key West) – Total Miles – 3806
(-staying at The Comfort Inn-)
(States: FL)
-A GRAND DAY – NO OTHER WAY TO PUT IT!–

We planned a day exploring around Key West. But there was no strict itinerary – we’d just cycle in to town proper and let the day pretty much unfold itself. There were only a few things I wanted to see since my last time here, and otherwise it was a day unplanned.
Our first stop was at around 10:30am or so when we checked out the Green Parrot Bar on Whitehead Street. A fellow photographer and motorcycle enthusiast from home, my friend Dave, had asked me to stop in at the Green Parrot to say hi to the manager there, John. He and John had hung around together in the early ‘70’s and were buddies. On my Miami-to-Key West-and-Back bicycle trip of nine years ago I had done the same thing for Dave.
John wasn’t there at this part of the morning but we decided to come back around 6pm when he would be there. In the bar at this time, among other varied and assorted characters, was a middle-aged amiable fellow (aren’t most all that way in bars?) who began asking about our gear and then the trip itself. Turned out this red-cheeked guy was with the lady next to him (not his wife), and he proudly announced that his wife lived in California and that he saw her only once a year, and that way things really worked out GREAT that way!
We left the bike in various spots as we walked around several times during the course of the day. I constantly reminded May and myself to be careful of the scalding pipes. But sometimes, because of the boiling sun on the black material, the SEAT would be piping hot!!!
Around 11:20am we went to the Hemingway home where we met Loren, who would be our guide through the little tour of the famous house.
Loren was a character in his own right. After I said we had a complimentary ticket (another two-for-one from a Florida Welcome Center pamphlet), he said, “Well, I’d like to compliment you.” I replied that it probably wasn’t the first time he’d said that!
Loren and I got into an extensive conversation and he related to me how he’d traveled the country a lot on a motorcycle and that he had a quarter of a million miles to his credit. He had ridden a 650 BMW shortframe for many many years. He was proud that he had been the second person in the Midwest to reach 100,000 miles!
I told bewhiskered Loren of my thinking about getting a Gold Wing. He said with a twinkly laugh that he had ridden a friend’s Gold Wing once, and that, “You can set it at 80, and do a square dance on the seat!” Loren had a good way with words and had a friendly laugh with his turn of a phrase.
We shared some stories and he said that it would have been nice had we been able to share a corner of a bar for an evening to tell each other some tales. I said how I was sure we’d be able to spend at least three weeks between the two of us swapping yarns of what we’d experienced in our travels over the years.
Ernest Hemingway was one of those larger than life characters who led a life that myth and fiction could not match. He was a legendary fisherman, grand adventurer, big game hunter, and a writer of fiction and stories from intense war zones. He was 6-foot tall and 200 pounds. He often was plagued with insomnia and depression throughout his life. Loren supposed that part of that was because they didn’t make beds big enough in those days, and in fact, in the bedroom he showed us how Hemingway tried to solve the problem with two twin beds pushed together. Then he and his wife of the time brought a big wooden sculptured gatepost from Europe that they had taken a fancy to, and fashioned it as the headboard.
In high school Hemingway had lost partial sight and fractured some bones, and had a broken nose. He was injured many times during his career because of his wild ways. His friends wondered how he managed to live so long. He went out of his way for all that he did – such as the voluntary service at 18 in WWI where he received some terrifying wounds. In ’44 he flew unscathed over Europe with the RAF, but when back to England he was riding in a car as a passenger during a London blackout and they were in an accident in which he cracked his skull. And the stories went on and on. In fact, we learned that the author did a good bit of his writing while standing because of his wounds in World War I.
Loren went on saying how Ernest was treated for many months in Europe for wounds. And he and his nurse fell in love. Loren noted how Hemingway only had one good eye, but it was a busy one. He wanted the nurse to come back to America with him, but she wouldn’t because she was older than he was, and that it wasn’t ‘proper’ in those days for an older woman to be with a younger guy. He was so upset about it – and with her, that in his next novel he wrote about a character based on her, and then had the character killed off. Talk about getting even!
When he came to the island here in 1928 he loved the life and contracted what the natives call “The Keys Disease”. The only “cure” they said was “rum and plenty of it”, and Loren went on to describe with a smile how Hemingway took good care to take that treatment all the time he was here.
The second major expense at the Hemingway house is the cats. The guide said that there are citizens on the island that don’t look as good or are as taken good care of as well as the 45 cats here. That’s about the number that was there when Ernest lived here. All of the felines are related to Snowball, the original one there at Hemingway’s time. Many have the same polydactyl 6-toe aberration as that first one did. People would ask Hemingway why he had so many cats, and he’d invariably reply, “Well, one cat leads to another!” There’s even a cat cemetery here.
It was interesting seeing the room and the tiny little typewriter on which he worked. The story goes that he left that typewriter behind because, as he said, “It spelled too many words wrong.”
He was a stickler for schedule and would usually be in his study at 6 and work until he ran out of ideas or he got hungry, whichever came first. I wondered aloud to the guide what it might have been like if Ernest had had a word processor. He said he had wondered the same thing.
Well, then after some time fishing in the afternoon, Hemingway would spend the rest of the day down town here in the Key West bars engaging the populace in conversation and listening to their stories. And then he’d go back to write for some more hours in the evening incorporating those stories he’d heard during the day, and the characters he met into his novels.
While Ernest was away covering some war or another his second wife thought she would surprise him with a swimming pool when he got back. No matter that she had to move his beloved boxing ring from out behind the house to a place across town. Now, when they bought the house in the early ‘30’s it cost $8,000 dollars. Seven years later, she paid $20,000 for that in-ground pool (which had to be hand dug out of the hard Key West rock).
“If you’re going to spend my money that way, here’s my last red cent!” Hemingway exploded when he learned of the expense.
At that he threw a penny at her, and then he stormed out to go drinking. She kept the penny (and got the house, of course), and she had the penny cemented in plastic at the spot she got it. Then, when she had parties after the divorce, she would show it to her friends and tell them how she got Hemingway’s ‘last red cent’….
And since it was cemented into the ground there, that was one penny May couldn’t pick up.
One can find other interesting bits about Hemingway at hemingwayhome.com.
He bought the place in 1931 and proceeded to amass a wonderful wine collection in the basement. He couldn’t take the wine with him to Cuba (because of custom laws) as his second marriage ended, and he was going to move there. He didn’t want to leave it behind or let his ex-wife have it, so he invited all his friends in town one night to come and partake. And before morning, they had finished it all.
After he lost all his considerable Cuban holdings to the Castro revolution in the early 1960’s, his mental bouts of depression got worse. He suffered considerably and even decided to go for electroshock therapy that backfired, and left him without huge blocks of memory. He was just short of 62 when he ended his own life with a gun blast. The manic depression won the final battle.
We got in on the tail end of another guide’s lecture. He had just been talking about where to get some good sandals on the island – a place called Kenos. As I trudged past in my bulky, big, and black motorcycle boots, he sideward glanced at them, and uttered, “Well THOSE sure aren’t Kenos!”
After leaving Hemingway’s place we spent more time mcycling around to various spots on the island. At one point we passed a white bearded guy looking just like Hemingway. He was sitting on an outdoor bench with an Apple laptop on his knees. I guessed that more than a few eyebrows were raised at the sight of him.
May’s son called saying that he heard that because of an approaching hurricane they were evacuating the Keys. Although cause for concern, we didn’t see anything like that here – it was overcast in one part of the sky, and very sunny and blue in the other. We checked with some folks walking by, and they said they had just listened to the Weather Channel, and hadn’t heard anything about it.
On my bulletin board at home for many years I’ve had a little 2-inch by 3-inch picture of the “END OF THE ROAD” sign. It’s the spot where Route 1 ends (or begins, depending on how you look at it). For many years it was my goal to stand there, and it was accomplished on that bicycle trip. But the emotion continued, and it was quite a thrill for me to be here yet again.
Near the End of the Road sign there was a kapok tree. The kapok tree grows to 130 feet, and was the sacred tree of the Mayans who believed that the souls of the dead climbed the mythical branches into heaven. It can grow 10 feet taller in a year. It has amazingly wide buttresses at the base. Most commercial kapok, we learned, now comes from the island of Java in Indonesia.
Little chickens and roosters run free all over the island. It’s quite a sight when traffic is stopped by one nonchalantly strutting across the roadway.
Next, around 1pm, we went to the giant buoy that announces it is the southern most point of the United States. We learned that as early as 1867, the International Ocean Telegraph Company began laying a cable, which would connect Cuba, 90 miles away, with Key West.
We found a great health food store, The Sugar Apple. It had some wonderful tasting foods. I told the manager that it was the best place for food we had come upon for the 3,500+ miles we were on the trip. And it was! I said, “It’s a… it’s a….” and he finished the sentence with the word I was groping for… “It’s an oasis!” And it was the truth! We savored over the fakin’ bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, some blue chips, a wonderful organic fresh fruit smoothie, and some soy ice cream.
As we left the place and waved good-by to the owner, he said what must be his expression here, a friendly “Stay.”… I said, “No, we have the real world to get back to…” And without missing a beat he said with a laugh, “Oh, you must mean the main land.”
At this point we could decide whether to go back to the motel for a bit or walk around and see some sights, take in some tourist stuff, and do some more window browsing. We decided on staying in town, and the first place we went was Mel Fisher’s sunken treasure museum. This was recommended to us by fellow motorcycle pal Ernie from home. We used a two-for-one coupon we had picked up at the Florida Welcome Center and saved $11, and then enjoyed ambling through the museum. Seems this guy Mel’s slogan was “Today’s the Day” and though he spent many many days where it decidedly wasn’t the day, he eventually struck it rich in a big way. He made a ton of money and opened up doorways of education about the past. Most of that knowledge was specifically about life aboard the Spanish galleons of the 1700’s that floundered in the waters near here when they were taking purloined booty and other treasures back across the ocean to Spain.
There were exhibits of the way Mel’s people found the sunken ships and there were many examples of what they found. The most impressive to me was a little case where one could put one’s hand through a little hole and lift up a gold bar that was maybe 10-inches long. It was VERY heavy!!
At a much larger exhibit of huge gold bars, maybe three feet long, and maybe fifty of them in there, I turned to another museum goer next to me. He was a youngish guy in a t-shirt. He had a moustache. I loudly whispered under my breath in a mock conspiratorial tone, “You break the glass, and I’ll run out with one of those bars. We’ll meet up tonight at 8 at Sloppy Joe’s (another well known bar in town) to split the loot. Whadya say???” He looked over at me at first bemused, and then we both laughed.
While in the museum, the heavens opened, and the rains fell. But the downfall timed out perfectly and we walked out of the sunken treasure museum at 3:30pm into bright sunshine.
We walked around town variously souvenir shopping and window shopping and getting a snack or two…
At 6pm we were back at the Green Parrot and we got to meet the manager, John, who my friend Dave from home knew. I tried calling Dave on my cell phone so he could talk with his old friend, but he wasn’t home. John said he had remembered me from my 9-year-ago visit. We got some nice shots in front of the famous bar.
We went back to Mallory Square to watch another sunset, but it was pretty cloudy so we were glad we had been there the night before. We made friends with some of the other watchers there, especially two couples who had come from New Jersey who happened to be sitting near us.
Amidst all the hullabaloo and circus atmosphere there was a couple getting married on the pier at sunset. It was about 7:45pm and all the passers-bys were gawking and marveling at the tiny ceremony between the heavyish woman in the white formal dress, and the older looking gentleman.
A bit further down was the old man singer strumming the blues, and again we didn’t take enough time to listen to his good sounding and moving tunes.
We walked around town for a while soaking in the festive atmosphere and occasionally peeking in a shop or two for something we might find of interest. In one of the finer art stores we poked around for about 20 minutes looking at the fine looking paintings and prints. Then I said to the fellow who presumably the owner, “Isn’t it just the classic irony? Here we are in a store with so many fine art pieces, and I am buying this kitschy little “Route One Mile 0” mug??”
In one store was a display case of about 50 three-inch-or-more thick gaudy (presumably fake) jewel encrusted belts. They were laced in sequins and colored glass and to my eyes at least couldn’t have been more ostentatious or pretentious or garish! Perhaps like the kind of wide belts Elvis would have worn in his later sodden years. I went up to the instantly very likeable, hugely charismatic young sales guy and asked innocently, “Do people actually BUY these things??” He said they did and he had one woman come in last week and buy eight! He said at $150 or more a pop that sale made his month. I left just shaking my head in bemused amazement and told him, “Thanks for the education.”
Many of the storefronts were full of signs with funny, cute, urbane, clever, nearly obscene, very obscene, risqué, or non-sensical slogans. And t-shirts, too. It’s always interesting what is the most popular from year to year. The most popular t-shirt saying this year seemed to be, “Please tell your boobs to stop staring at my eyes.”
In one of the restaurants we passed trying to keep out extraneous traffic just looking for a bathroom was this sign hanging on the door: “If you don’t eat it here, don’t dump it here.” Maybe a little over the top, but EVERYthing here could be construed as a little over the top.
May was really astonished that people were drinking right out in the open while walking down the streets!
As we meandered down the bustling sidewalks in the darkening, warm, and humid evening we could feel the icy blast of the air conditioning in huge waves just pouring out of the stores upon us through the open doors.
After searching for quite awhile around town, we finally found the little shop with the little shirt top with the sequined motorcycle on it that reads, “KEY WEST – LIMITED EDITION”. I had wanted to get that for May.
It was about 8:30pm, and after a full day of trudging around to all the different places we were happy to be heading back to the motel room. We took a route down Duval Street and the crowd was there again – folks of every style and sex and persuasion were shopping, and drinking, and partying as they were last night, but with a mostly different cast of characters.

One’s mettle on a trip like this is tested not by the days that go swimmingly well like the last four have, but by the days where there are enough problems to make one think, “Why did I ever begin such a journey?”
Today came close to being one of those days.
One of my camera battery chargers appeared to be missing. I think we used it this trip, but it was nowhere to be found this morning. Could I have left it charging somewhere? Arghh…
Got a call from my sis late morning, and she needed computer help – but because of all the things going on, and the lateness of the morning hour I couldn’t give her the help I wanted to provide. Arghhh…
We spent too much time talking this morning. It was comfy in the room. But we just spent waaayyyy too much time talking and not getting the day started… Mostly, well somewhat Arghhhh….
Because of the lateness we decided not to run this morning but rather wait until after the ride. And I know that is never a good idea…
Spent so much time sending out the last two days worth of journals (what with getting logged off all the time) and working on the AOL problem that developed that we ran past the 11am checkout time, and the room cleaners kept knocking on the door. Thank goodness we weren’t billed extra, but that could have been a problem.
Among the other problems was a billing misunderstanding with my on-line service, AOL. Because there was no wireless internet last night I had to log on using AOL’s 800 number which is $.06/minute ($6/hr)… No problem and I don’t mind paying that – but when I logged on this morning, I got a notice saying that I had been using the 800 number for 20(!) hours now, and so they were going to log me out. Which was promptly done! Now that was aggravating – but not anymore so than later around noon in the Subway when I was on the phone trying to get a hold of a live person with whom to talk about the problem. Finally did break through those damn recorded messages to a live breathing someone who had a pulse! But she said that it didn’t look like I was actually billed, she couldn’t tell for sure…. Arghhhh…..
The signage for I-20 west was non-existent. Because of that we went right past the entryway and went several miles and a good half-hour out of the way. We asked several folks and finally got pointed in the right direction. Argghhh…
(Right before we got onto the right way, a nice lady in a car came alongside us and asked if we were lost. She said we looked hot, that if we wanted to stop by her home, we could get a nice cold something to drink, and could cool off.)
We actually didn’t leave the area and on the big road west until about 1PM!!! Arghhh!!
It was the kind of day where almost everything didn’t seem to go right. And my experience with such days is to just hunker down, take a short day, be extra careful not to make things worse than they already are, and then get a good early start the next day.
Stopped into the Alabama Welcome Center. We hoped to get some motel coupons there, and came up with a couple booklets of them, which did help save about $15 later in the day. As we were leaving an older gentleman came up to me and exclaimed, “What great suits those are! So visible!”
Out on the parking lot, a fellow motorcyclist came over to us, and we chatted a bit. He said a couple crotch rocket guys had just gone by them on the highway doing 90, and one of them was standing on his bike doing a trick at that speed. The guy said it scared him just watching!
The weather was a BIT cooler but still in the mid-to-high 90’s. Again, we didn’t much mind it, but May was warmer than usual.
We were aiming at about 200 miles as goal for the day. Around mile 190, at about 3:15pm as the sky began to get a bit darker, we pulled over to the side and slid on the protective covers to the tank bag and the main bag on the back rack. (We would have put plastic on over our boots, too, if it wasn’t so close to the end of the day.) Then just as we hit mile 196 or so, the rain came spattering, then pummeling down. We had been watching dark cloud gatherings for the latter part of the day to our south. And when the road turned south the bluish cloudy sky of earlier was obliterated by darkness and ominous grey. Then the lightning show began as thin ribbons of light sliced apart the black heavens. Then huge booms, and THEN the sloshing of big buckets of rainwater came pounding down with gigantic drops. Many cars put on blinkers, a few moved to the emergency lane. We saw three or four motorcycles under a particular bridge, and the folks huddled up where the wind would not get at them quite so much.
At a gas stop ($2.85/gal), we walked around the little air-conditioned store for a bit. There were bottles there with wares that one would never see up north – pig’s feet for instance.
I immediately stood on my pegs and was very comfortable in peering over the spattered windshield. I backed down the speed, and enjoyed the immense power of the big storm. We pulled off a couple exits away at a Tuscaloosa turn off and headed for a Sleep Inn which earlier I had seen billboard advertised as having wireless internet.
After parking under the front portico, we waded into the lobby like a couple of wet rats through the wind and blowing rainwater. We checked in.
By now the wind was wailing something awful and great gushes of wind and water were sweeping in waves against anything outside including the Shadow. A wet woman had launched herself out of her car, and rushed in as I had finished up at the counter. I said to her in all mock seriousness with a twinkle in my eye, “Oh sorry, I just got the last room..” But the joke was played back to me, as she chuckled and said, “Well, I have reservations!” We both laughed….
Later after the rain subsided May and I dried off the motorcycle and put the cover on. Then we went for a run to pick up some dinner, and when back we plotted out miles and days to Texas and her family members. (Oh, and on that run back May found yet another penny on the road!!) I caught up on keeping the money-spent spreadsheet, and though May had a bad upset stomach, we went to sleep in the comfy room.

(NOTE: If you’ve missed any posts, you can now go to www.joelperlish.com and click on the 2006 link to catch up.)
Note 2: May’s stomach was all better by morning.
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APPENDIX ONE:
Perhaps some folks are interested in all that’s packed on such a trip as this… here’s the working list below:

PRE-TRIP
HAVE MC TOOLS NEEDED
“IMPORTANT INFO” SHEET LEFT
(ALARM INFO, IMPORTANT #’S)
NOTE TO NEIGHBORS DISTRIBUTE
GET AAA MAPS (and usa ones)
BUNGIE CORDS/TIE-DOWNS, LOCK(S)

PACKING
JOEL BATH STUFF
FLIP-FLOPS
RAZOR, SHAVING CREAM
EMERY BOARDS
Q-TIPS
SOAP, LOOFA
SHAMPOO/CONDITIONER
NAIL CLIPPER
PACK TOWEL, WASH MITT
TOILET PAPER
FLOSS/TOOTHBRUSH/PASTE
GLASSES – REG – SUN – CLOSE-UP
SKIN CREAM
LENS-SOLUTION/CLEANER/CASE/SPARE/SUCTION TOOL

JOEL CLOTHING
1st SET:shirt,shorts,socks,hndkerchf
2nd SET: shirt,shorts,socks,hndkerchf
3rd SET shirt,shorts,socks,hndkerchf
Set of LONG PANTS,LNGSLEEVE SHIRTT
SHOES – RUN
BOOTS, MC PANTS AND JACKET
JACKET
WATCH
HAT,HELMET, LINERS

MAY CLOTHING
1st SET:shirt,shorts,socks (undrwear)
2nd SET:shirt,shorts,socks
3rd SET shirt,shorts,socks
Set of LONG PANTS,LNGSLEEVE SHIRT
SHOES – RUN
BOOTS,MC JACKET, PANTS,RAINPT
JACKET
WATCH
BRACELT,EARRINGS,NECKLCE,RINGS,WATCH
HAT,HELMET, LINERS

MAY BATH STUFF
EMERY BOARD
TOWEL, WASHCLOTH
SHAMPOO
RAZOR,SHAVING CREAM
TOOTHRUSH,PASTE,FLOSS
GLASSES- SUN,REG
MAKE-UP, DEODORANT
SOAP, SKIN CREAM
FLIPFLOPS
HAIRBRUSH/COMB

OTHER,MISC.
CAMERA/COMPUTER STUFF
DIGITAL CAMERA (S)
VIDEO CAMERA/TAPES/CHARGR
EXTRA CAM BATTERIES
EXTRA CARDS
POWERMAC & POWER CORD
TUNGSTEN T (& POWER CORD
PHONE CORD FOR COMPUTER
CELL PHONES/CHARGER RECORDER,TAPES
EARPLUGS
USA MAP (MC&BICYCLE)

THIGH BAG STUFF
MONEY
TRAVELERS CHECKS
LICENSE/CREDIT CARD

TANK BAG STUFF
KNIFE
RADIO
BINOCULARS
BUG REPELLENT
SUN BLOCK / CHAPSTICK
BUSINESS CARDS / PENS
RUBBER BANDS
MAPS, NOTEPAPER

STATIONARY ITEMS
LABELS – ADDRESS
LABELS – BLANK
STAMPS,ENVELOPES
PENS – SHARPIE, REG

WATER: BOTTLES/CAMELBACK MOIST TOWELETTES
FLASHLIGHTS / EXTRA BATTERIES
FOOD STUFF, VITAMINS
WOOLITE
FIRST AID … ASPIRIN
POETRY PAGES
NEWSPAPER ITEMS
EXTRA LIST:
•glasses,sunglasses, contacts,
close-ups
•EARPLUGS

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August 6, 2006 – Sunday- Day 6
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 454(!) – Total Miles – 1662
9am-5:30pm – 8.5 hours
Tuscaloosa, AL to Marshall, TX
(-staying at La Quinta Inn-)
(States: AL,MS,LA,TX
– MOST MILES EVER IN A DAY – AN MC DAY TO WRITE HOME ABOUT – INTO TEXAS!

For anyone who loves to put miles on a motorcycle THIS was the ultimate day! A true day to write home about – glorious weather, most miles in a day ever, new friends met, and good companionship throughout….
—–
I was up early and figured out how to post to blogger.com. That way late subscribers – or anyone who has missed journal entries can go to www.joelperlish.com and click on the trip link at the top of the page. It was fun refiguring how to do it, and I most appreciate friend web designer Carl (http://www.thecarpetedwall.com) Baldwin’s time in setting up the process for me and helping to explain it to me.)

May went out and got the continental breakfast served here at this Sleep Inn. I was still typing notes on the bed and she brought me back a delicious banana and waffle. She said that last night she just wanted to die with that upset stomach, but this morning it was all better.
Here’s one for the book of Might Have Been A Tragic Outcome: In the hurry to get out on the run we were shuffling at the bathroom counter, and I was about to put in my contact lenses. Half sleepily I reached for my lens solution, but grabbed my plastic bottle of peppermint soap instead. I was JUST about to squeeze some on my lens and pop the little plastic disk in my eye when I realized the mistake! Whew!
We went on our run in the sunny morning out on the big highway. We were on our way back, and just as I was thinking we’d return without it happening darn if May didn’t find yet another penny. We had almost passed it by, but then she glanced down at it, and said, “Look, here’s a riggety penny, it must have been run over a thousand times!” It was quite remarkable! (“Riggety”?? “Riggety”?? What kind of word is that? It’s like I’m sometimes learning a cute foreign langwitch here. May said she COULD have used the word “calabidated”… I am noticing that she is slipping into the southern drawl and words more and more as we reach closer to her homeland.)
One of the first days out May felt a vibration coming from the packed bags as she got them ready to go in the morning. We took them apart a few times but couldn’t find the culprit. We suspected the electric battery-run toothbrush, but that wasn’t it… Well, it happened again this morning, and we discovered it to be, of all things, my new Gillette blade razor with the tiny battery and moving cutting edge. What a world we live in, eh?
The days are just skittering along now. It’s hard to keep track of them. Hard to believe that tomorrow ends the first week on the road.
As I came out of the food place at the gas station next to the motel a lady entered and she had what to me looked like a very weird contraption strapped around her stomach area. It looked like something that might have a baby holder attached to it. I inquired if that is what it was, and she smiled and said, no, it was a bone stimulator. Seems she had some kind of degenerative bone disease. “But I’m still here!” she said with a smile. And I thought, “Now, THAT’S a good attitude!”
Most of the mileages today panned out as using about 35-38mpg of gasoline.
The tree-rimmed highway was ours for much of the morning. It was ours! It was straight and long and flat to the horizon. In the distance, above the end of the road, the dappled light-purple-and-whitish puffs of clouds were bunched in pairs or trios – just waiting for us to arrive under them. In fact, this was perhaps the most delightful morning for a motorcyclist in motion that there ever has been since the beginning of the world.
We had some wonderful 100-mile chunks today. It was nice and cool – at least compared to the previous days. Often on the road as we dip or turn a corner, a cool breeze will hit us. And also sometimes a hot wind will touch us. Hard to say when either will come, but the cool breeze is certainly more welcome. I just don’t know what causes either other than the changes somehow in the geography of the land and its relationship to the weather patterns. But man, that unexpected coolness is sure appreciated and enjoyed…
We notice that the gas is a bit more expensive with the newer charge card pumps. The older station pumps – where one has to go in and pay are generally $.03 to $.05 less expensive.
As I mcycle along I’m always scanning the roadway, of course. But I’m also working on my poem memorization, and sometimes I get lost in those poems and the wonder of the words. Today, for instance, I gave one of the best recitations of Poe’s The Raven I’ve ever given. Too bad no one heard that rendition. For the recital hall was just the narrow confines of the inside of my Nolan helmet – where it’s just me with the earplugs, and my tinnitus as background music moving down the highway.
The bike is holding up well with the miles. But I did notice today that one of the bolts on the windshield is gone. Will have to replace that, but for the moment there are plenty of others holding it in snugly there.
We got numerous ‘thumbs up’ today… friendly smiles giving us little bits of energy as we made our way down the highway.
May was stretching her legs at one point, and when I reached back to grab her knee as I sometimes do to give it a friendly tug through the thick gear, but here knee wasn’t there where it usually is. I had a brief feeling of terror in my throat as I was afraid she might have fallen off a few miles back.
Occasionally, if I lean just the right way, and May is leaning just the right way I can see a fraction of her wonderful smile in the rearview mirror. And occasionally, I can also spy a bit of her bright blond hair shining and waving in the wind. It’s a wonderful sight, and it just sets my heart racing!
We had a little rough road riding through the Jackson, Mississippi, area, but mainly we appreciate that for the whole trip so far the fact that we have been the beneficiaries of mostly newly paved smooth riding roads. The interstates we’ve been on have all been well cared for and in good shape.
I was so sorry to have missed the Vicksburg things I had remembered from my 1985 bicycle trip through here. But we were across the bridge over the Mississippi (the span seemed way different than the one I had crossed), and we were way far from the riverboat on the river before there was a chance to turn around.
We stopped in at the Louisiana Welcome Center on the other side of the big river. The super squinty-eyed lady there behind the counter studied me for a minute or two and remarked, “It looks like you have just come from the moon!”
We stopped at a Taco Bell in Tallulah, Mississippi, from 1:30 to 2pm… A real nice local guy named Donnie came over and was curious about the ride we were taking. We told him the particulars and he said he had a Goldwing. That perked up our eyebrows and we asked him a bunch of questions about it – and got all positive replies. Then we got to meet his wife, Linda, and his son and his son’s girlfriend. Friendly folks, and it was good meeting and chatting with them. I gave Donnie the email address so he could get the journal notes if he wanted.
At a gas station just before leaving Louisiana I went in to pay the fellows behind the counter and one said, “Where y’all from?” I said, “We’re six days out of Philadelphia, PA.” They looked surprised. I said, “Well, I told my girlfriend I’d bring her to where she grew up in Texas, and now we’ve both got the sore butts to prove it.”
At exactly 18,000 miles on the Shadow odometer, and it was exactly 100 since getting gas, and it was 400+ miles since leaving this morning – it was all those numbers JUST as we rolled into Texas… I leaned back to May and shouted, “I TOLD you I’d bring you to Texas on a motorcycle, and here we are!”
We were both pretty punchy tired when we got in at 5:30pm. But perhaps all the sun really had gotten to May from the eight-and-a-half hours of riding…. She needed help in getting off the outer layer of her thick motorcycle pants and lay down, and she said that she felt ‘hunchbacked because of all the riding on the lawnmower today…’ Hello? We had a good continuing laugh over that one…
We walked over to the nearby Waffle House for some supper at around 8ish. It was May’s first time in one of the cute ubiquitous little food places that can be found all over the south, but not too much in the northeast.
Our backs ached a bit from the long ride today, but nothing that wouldn’t feel better in the morning. It was a fabulously successful and wonderful day of motorcycling and friendships.

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APPENDIX TWO:
I’ve frequently mentioned that I recite poems while riding along. I have two favorite trip poems, both introduced to me by fellow travelers. The first is Ithaka. I was way up in the Rocky mountains on one of my bicycle trips in the ‘80’s, and I came upon a family of four picnicking up there. I had mentioned I was a schoolteacher visiting former students across the country, and somehow we got into talking about words and poetry and the such, and I recited Casey at the Bat for the young kids there. The mom insisted that I become acquainted with Ithaka which she said would be a perfect poem for all my travels… the main subject of which is how important the “getting to” someplace is as opposed to just “arriving”… She took my name and address and after I got home the following poem arrived from her. It’s been one of my favorites ever since… I’ve since learned it was recited at Jackie Kennedy’s funeral… When I say it just right at some of my poetry presentations at libraries or old age homes, I can see tears streaming down the faces of some in the audience….

ITHAKA
-by Cavafy (1863-1933)

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long is your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long.
At many a summer dawn to enter
- with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as many as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

Have Ithaka always in you mind.
You arrival there is what you are destined for.
But do not in the least hurry the journey.
Better that it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.

Ithaka gave you the splendid journey.
Without her you would have not set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka has not deceived you.
So wise have you become, of such experience,
that already you will have understood what these
Ithakas mean.

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Cavafy (1863-1933): most famous of modern Greek poets. Ithaka was the kingdom of Ulysses, an island off the west coast of Greece. Ulysses, one of the Greek leaders of the war against Troy, did not return to Ithaka and his wife Penelope until after an absence of 20 years. His fabulous journey is narrated in Homer’s epic, The Odyssey.
Laistryogonians: a savage race of cannibals that was encountered by Ulysses during his wonderings.

The second traveling poem was givem to me by a fellow bicyclist I met in Alaska. He was quite the character! He was a lawyer from southern California, and he’d work just enough to get the money to go on bicycle rides around the country, and when he’d run out of money, he’d just go home and make more… he gave me this one:

AT LEAST I TRIED
Though your bones have got arthritis
and your bowels have got colitis,
You’ve got galloping gallop-itis
and you’re thinking it’s time you died.
But when you’ve been a man of action
though you’re lying there in traction,
You can say with satisfaction,
“Well, b’jeesus, as least I tried.”

Three others which are travel-related and are fun to recite each day are two Frost pieces, and of course the John Masefield below…

STOPPING BY WOODS
ON A SNOWY EVENING
– Robert Frost – 1874-1963

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
– Robert Frost – 1874-1963

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as long as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passage there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

SEA-FEVER
- by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way, and the whale’s way,
where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

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August 7, 2006 – Monday – Day 7
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 307 – Total Miles – 1969
10am-5pm – 7 hours
Marshall, TX to Austin,TX
(-staying at Terry & Andrea Wyatt’s home, Andrea is May’s sis-)
(States: TX)
– RAIN! – RAIN! – RAIN! –

This morning’s run brought yet ANOTHER May penny. I stepped right over it, and she reached down to get it – a shiny penny with a rim of corrosion on it. Unbelievable.
Perhaps it’s just that May has a way of coming across money. She was driving back from Colorado one winter with her relatives we were going to visit tonight. They were some place in the mountains, and money just started flying up from the road – dollar bills all over the place. Of course, there was no way to find out where it all came from, and they collected as much as they could.
As we came back into the motel a cowboy-type guy was sitting on a bench by the front door killing himself with a cigarette, and he had the most amazing eyes. Blue as all get out. I mentioned it to him wondering if they were blue-tinted contacts. But he said they weren’t, and then went on saying, “Yeah, my one sister wants my eyes, and my other sister wants my eyelashes – everyone wants a piece of me!” He must have told about that a hundred times before today, but it did get a laugh.
And then in the lobby the woman behind the counter smiled a big one, and I noted so she could hear, “Now THAT lady has a great smile!” She chuckled.
After starting to move around a bit we could feel yesterday’s big day creeping up on us – I could feel it in the little tenderness in my right elbow, and May in her lower back. It had been quite the effort!
After a good breakfast in the motel lobby area which included Texas-shaped waffles which were made from griddles on the spot, we packed up leisurely and left to gas up by 10 under threatening skies and predictions from all of rain coming from the south… the direction we were headed.
Anyone who knows me well knows that when I sneeze, it’s a bunch of sneezes in succession. That makes a flip-up helmet mandatory for me. And I was able to get up the face mask part up JUST in time for a succession of about 8 sneezes out on the highway today!!!
At one of the stops May got her real initiation into motorcycle riding. No matter how many times one is warned about the hot pipes, eventually one gets a burning from them. She had rolled her pant legs up on the protective suit to be a little cooler, and shortly thereafter, ZAPPO!, the million-degree pipe bit her. I think everyone who rides gets bitten eventually – usually in the beginning of their motorcycle experience, and usually never again thereafter.
There were amazing skyfulls of clouds all day. They ranged from friendly puffy whites to dynamic broad expanses of darkness that seemed to threaten to engulf the entire viewable sky. But mostly, and memorably, there were contrasts in the heavens where one side was menacingly dark and spewing lightning bolts. And the other side completely tranquil and fit for planning a picnic day.
At a gas stop we lingered and were treated to a show of forked lightning and double bass drumming of thunder. (It’s always a guess as to weather to out wait a pattering of rain – or to get going – since it MIGHT get WORSE… In this case we got going – and it seemed to be for the best. From late morning until about 5pm we rode rain to varying degrees, but none as bucketful as a couple of days ago. We got very adept in May passing the towel to me, and my wiping my visor, the top of the windshield, and my sunglasses, then passing the towel back.
The rain was a minor inconvenience. But because of the rain there were huge pockets of coolness for us to ride through. In fact, there were a number of times that we were downright COLD! (“Freezing cold,” as May would put it!) We had to zip up our pit-zips, zip up our arm vents, and May even put gloves on! Hard as it was to believe this hot hot summer, it WAS freezing cold in some spots for us on today’s ride!
We’d seem to be heading to the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel all day, but then the doorway would shift, and we’d get poured on anyway. Once we went rolling down the road between two ominous weather systems with it dark on both sides and a slim tunnel of light for us to move through.
We got to the Austin area at around 4:30 and then had to negotiate the beltway system. It was mostly clogged with traffic and the worries about the weather which was in the just-threatening stage again… at times we were pummeled with huge blobs of raindrops, the type which normally precede a downpour. We never got the downpour, but we did miss an exit in the roaring traffic and the expanse of overpasses and bridges and skyline.
A fellow motorcyclist on the beltway – this guy on a chopper and looking every bit out of a movie, threw us the peace sign, a huge smile, and the big greeting, “Welcome to Texas!” He was a happy looking guy with the beard and the bandana and the boots, blue jeans, tattoos, and chains and riding a Harley.
After turning back and exiting we found our way to the Wyatts in suburban Austin. Andrea Wyatt is one of May’s ten(!) siblings and she’s married to Terry, a softspoken guy with a wonderful smile. She’s just about a year younger than May.
In timing that just could NOT have been planned as well, May and I pulled into the driveway about 10 seconds before Terry arrived home from work as a county comptroller. In the first of quite a number of aspects of him that reminded me of me, before he even said anything, and before he even got out of the car, Terry had a camera up to his face and took a picture of us as we stood by the bike.
We shortly met Andrea who to May’s surprise was home from the hospital where she volunteers – being in charge of the gift shop.
The sisters who had many similar characteristics in appearance and manner seemed to have a good time reconnecting. May, when seriously ill a couple years ago, spent quite a bit of time recuperating at this home. I made it a special point of thanking Terry and Andrea for taking such good care of her.
I mentioned how my one little camera needed a charger for the battery, and Terry right away took out the phone book for the nearest Best Buy.
When I said I didn’t want Terry to go out of his way, his eyebrows went up, and he remarked, “Best Buy. Out of my way to Best Buy??” I liked that as it’s just something I would also have said.
Terry and I went to the big electronics store shortly. And though they didn’t quite have what I was looking for (a specific Sony charger type), it was wonderful spending time with an immensely likeable guy. We talked, we joked, we shared likes and dislikes and interests. I watched as Terry just plain out and drooled in the big screen tv department. (A little embarrassing actually as they must have had to get a mop bucket to dry off the floor there after we left.) He took a picture of me with the fake full size gorilla which the Best Buy folks had set up behind the Customer Service desk. (SOMEONE in corporate America has a sense of humor!!!)
When back, and after he prepared it, we had a delicious supper of green beans, guacamole, spinach salad, and potato. Later in the evening we had a delicious slice of Andrea made-from-scratch dewberry pie. (It was the first I had even heard of dewberries – which are a variety of blackberry.)
Andrea is a seamstress and has one room here with five, count ‘em five, sewing machines. May got my shorts that had a hole in the pocket. (One day last week in a store I put the fistful of change I had gotten from the counterperson into my pocket and it dribbled out all over the floor!) Andrea stretched out that pocket from the inside out, placed it knowingly into her computerized machine, and zip, zip, zip, the pocket was repaired.
There’s no wireless internet here, and so Terry and I tried to figure how to use the Ethernet which came into the house – but we were unsuccessful at getting the settings right. So I checked email using the 800-number (must remember to just use the local access number next time). Then I worked on the journal a bit while May visited.
I went downstairs to the cozy living room, and May was visiting with Terry and Andrea and their daughter Kelly, who will be attending her freshman year of college in the fall. (“Visiting” is a term I’ve just gotten used to. It seems to be synonymous here in the south with ‘talking with’. As in ‘you go and visit with someone.’)
The five of us chatted a bit, then we got to look through some photo albums for younger pictures of May, of which there are very few. It was somewhat near 11pm before we went up to shower and get ready for bed. There are a number of personal and household items of May’s here that she left before coming north. They range from little elephant statues, to a tennis racquet, to a lamp, to a marble rolling pin.
We should have fallen right to sleep, but instead we again talked long into the night (in quiet hushed tones since the other bedrooms were right nearby – and it was a bit past 1:15am before we finally drifted off.

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APPENDIX THREE – HOW A MOTORCYCLE WORKS – HOW TO RIDE ONE
It seems to me that some of you readers may not know anything about motorcycles. Here’s a primer on how they work. I am surely no expert, so perhaps you should take that into account when reading.
Well, a motorcycle usually has two wheels – but there are also trikes out there.
It’s my understanding that the gasoline put into the engine sets off a sparking bit of energy that makes some cylinders of some kind go up and down, which in turn moves a chain or leather belt that turns the wheels. (Millions of years’ worth of prehistoric animals died for this – a tip of the hat to you dinos and others, and thank you!)
There are various complicated other ways the above happen, but I think you get the gist of it. Anyway, one used to start a motorcycle by kickstarting it. That created the force to get the whole process going. As far as I can tell, all bikes worth anything now have a little button that works as an electric ignition.
Well, after the bike is turned on with a key, that ignition button is pushed and assuming the bike gears are in neutral, the engine should start purring away. (If the bike isn’t in neutral, and the gearshift lever isn’t held in, then the bike may buck out of control.)
Okay, on each of the handlebars there is a lever. The right handlebar lever is the brake for the front wheel. (A lever near the right foot operates the brake for the back wheel.) On a motorcycle, the most important brake is the front wheel one. It is the opposite for a bicycle, where the back wheel’s brake is most important. This is because of the particular weight distribution of the machine. Normally, however, both brakes should be applied evenly.
The left handlebar lever is for the clutch. One squeezes this to engage the gears, much like pushing down on the clutch with your foot in a car. Motorcycles usually have five or six gears I think. The toe of the left foot moves the gearing. A little lever there pushed down is first gear. Lifting the lever with your left big toe (usually in a boot) moves the bike into neutral. Then lifting the lever again with your toe moves the bike into second gear. And so on up to the bike’s highest gear (for when you’re moving really fast). When you go slower or faster you push the gears down (or up) – and it MUST be in tandem with pulling in that gearshift lever on the left handlebar.
So after lifting your leg over the bike, one straddles it. Then one engages the first gear, slowly releasing the clutch while at the same time turning the end of the right handlebar (the accelerator). Then you lift your feet to the pegs and off you go.
Much of the above needs to be done at the same time as looking ahead of you, of course, and taking glances in the rearview mirrors.
When riding there are generally two positions. One with feet on the regular pegs (the right one near the brake lever, the left one near the gearshift lever). Or if one has crash bars (bars that curve out from each side of the bike to take the brunt of a fall should the bike tip over), one could put cruiser pegs on these bars and put his or her feet up on these pegs. It’s good to change positions occasionally on a long trip. And sometimes I ride with one foot up and the other down.

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August 8, 2006 – Tuesday – Day 8
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 109 – Total Miles – 2078
Noon-7pm – 7 hours (w/visitin’)
Austin,TX to San Antonio,TX
(-staying at Roger & Jennifer Roycroft’s home, Jennifer is May’s daughter-)
(States: TX)
-VISITIN’ – “A LITTLE WAYS OFF” –

As I lay typing these notes on the Wyatt guestroom bed I could smell the blueberry pancake aroma wafting up the stairwell to me. The flavor was rich and full in flavor, and I just knew it will be a life memory. (Smells can do that, can’t they? Several come back to me for no other reason than they were powerful. One of the best: In 1980 as I bicycled out of a little Pennsylvania town on the tail end of my coast-to-coast ride, I lifted myself over a little hill and the fresh smell of a newly hung laundry line of clothing came washing over me.)
And when coming down to the kitchen, the pancakes themselves, made from scratch by Andrea, did not fail to match the smell in taste and deliciousness. I gobbled down three and May had two.
Terry had left around 7:30. May and Andrea chatted some more. May and I ran in the hot morning sun for a mile – no penny, but then we didn’t expect one in this residential area. When back we plotted out our trip days ahead. More relative visiting and then scooting across the Gulf States to Key West. Our timing seemed good, and well within our time for needing to be back for end of August photo shoots.
It was to be a relatively easy day travel-wise. And the next few days would be that way, too, what with visiting so many of May’s relatives.
Kelly, Andrea and Terry’s daughter going to college soon, had never been on a motorcycle, and wanted a ride. So we put the big jacket on her, and a helmet, and we went on a round-the-block trip. She liked it, but said she didn’t think she could deal on the heavy protective gear.

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Have been trying to pin May down about distance between places of relatives we’ve been visiting. A typical conversation might go like this:
“How far is it down the road?” Reply: “A little ways…”
“I know, but how far is that?” Reply: “Well, I guess it’s more than I thought…. It’s quite a little ways…”
And today I got a serious reply of “Not far… it’s a hop, skip, and a jump.”
Cute.
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Big Sky country. And it surely is…. in most areas the horizons stretch forever outward in this part of the country. The gigantic clouds dot the firmament as far as the eyes can see – generally unimpeded by buildings or trees or hillsides. An easterner like me has to blink twice and then take minutes on end to take it all in – to swallow the whole panoramic scene – which seems like pasted-together photographs in the round.

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Our perceptions of the world are so colored by how we were raised and what we were taught!
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We visited May’s uncle Lawrence and aunt Jody. They are off the main highway and situated on Canyon Lake. They own the adjacent properties and others in the area. Jody got a chuckle from me when she remarked, “It’s like neighbor management.”
We all shared some good conversation and May and her relatives got caught up on the divorces, the deaths, the births, the new marriages and all kinds of similar goings-on. For a time the tv was on low volume in the background with the daily soaps grinding out their unending stories. As the talk continued about the family successes and travails I pointed to the tv and mentioned that it was not at all unlike what was going on in that world, too… Jody nodded in agreement, and her eyes twinkled…
Another time her eyes twinkled when she handed May over a penny and said, “Here I thought of you when I saw this penny!” May put it back, but then Jody said, “No, I’ve been saving it for you, it’s yours!” Clearly reading the journal, Jody brought a nice smile to both our faces.
Lawrence and Joe (Lawrence’s son-in-law) were there. Joe is a master builder it seems and we walked over to a nearby house, which they were rehabbing. When May had been here, she had done a lot of work on that house, too. It was shaping up grandly.
There were semi-wild deer free-running all over the place – ranging from grown full-antlered animals to the little does still with their spots.
Jody told us how the lake was 5 feet lower than it should be at this time of year. She also regaled us with stories of how once they had a 17-inch snow there, and how one time how the lake, swollen by rains had come up the hill and into their ground floor!!
We left around 6ish and headed out to a gas station we had passed with an incredible $2.74 per gallon pricing!! A fellow with a big smile came over to us and we began talking motorcycles. He said he had a Goldwing, the type we’ve been thinking of getting. And, in an amazing gesture of friendliness he asked if we wanted to ride his Goldwing to see what it felt like. We were already a bit overdue at Jennifer and Roger’s (May’s daughter and son-in-law’s), but May made a quick call, and we headed the one-and-a-half miles to Herrel Scott’s place.
He got the bike out of a small garage and after a bit of instruction as to where the important buttons and instrumentation were, May and I rolled on our way down the small lanes on the huge bike. I was nervous. The Goldwing weighs about 200 or so more pounds than the Shadow, but it is a true touring bike with all the amenities for touring and comfort. I felt awkward, of course, with some of the controls, but I kept thinking, “Man, I could get use to this!”
The Shadow has become in many ways an extension of myself. With mere thought – and sometimes without thought – things are done to move along. The shifting is almost automatic now and I can “feel” the machine beneath me and react almost by instinct. After last year’s 11,000-mile ride, and the long one this summer, much of the riding is now intuitive and flowing: consciousness moving down the highway at whim – taking in all the sights and sounds and smells – while experiencing the breeze on one’s face and the joy of life itself.
As we got halfway through I joked with May, “Let’s leave the bike around a corner and trudge back to Harrel and tell him it got away from us!” I can’t imagine, though he denied it, that he wasn’t a little nervous.
It was a wonderful experience, and we told Harrel that if ever he was up in the Philly area he had a place to stay. He said he just might be at the beginning of next summer. We shook hands, took a few pictures, and then we were off down the highway ‘for a little ways’ to Jen and Roger’s home.
We were honored to be the first guests in the home. It’s a new one, and they’ve only been in it a month. And quite a grand home it is! Large rooms, well appointed, and with that wonderful new home smell. Yet, they had clearly done a lot of work there, and it somehow had a good lived-in feeling.
Jordan, their 3-year-old daughter was away for a week, and we were disappointed about the timing of that. But Roger, originally from New Zealand and still with a little accent, and Jennifer, five months pregnant were good hosts. And we sure appreciated the efforts they made for us.
There is wireless internet here, but we couldn’t come up with the password to let my PowerBook onto it. Roger said he’d give a call to his tech tomorrow and get it.
After seven days on the road and over 2,000 miles we were to spend two days here, and I was looking forward to the day off tomorrow – realizing how important that kind of thing is in the long-term scheme of things…

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May has a cell phone that has a very reliable alarm clock feature. One of the choices of alarm sounds in the amazing little mobile device – a phone which seems so commonplace to us all now – is a collection of chirpings which sounds like a gaggle of tropical rainforest birdsong…. Sometimes in the morning I just want to stomp on those little birdies, but this morning when they roused us at 6am, I knew they heralded a new adventure ahead…
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The cute first email this morning at 6:20am was from a Vero Beach, FL friend and parent of a former student of mine (from my VERY first class of students back in 1969!). Connie, one of our stops along the way, was concise and simply wrote, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”.
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We were up quickly and soon moving along with the last of our checklists…. both realizing that the day had finally come. That the bravado and planning and all the looking-forward-to moments were now about to be translated into action. We were up-rooting ourselves from a nice comfy summertime and transporting ourselves into days ahead where we literally wouldn’t know what’s around the next corner – but hey, that’s what adventure is all about.
But only so many times can one check off the list and make sure it’s right and go over it again. And then go over it again. At one point you just have to stop and be satisfied and move ahead.
When traveling like this for almost a month, there are a lot of little details to help make things go better. For instance, these days, l most need another whole suitcase just for chargers and batteries and cables in this technological age.
We went for a tandem ride and I had a little breakfast. May said she was too nervous to eat much.
Dolwin, a friend who’s building a room for us in the basement, and who’s watching our home for us while we’re away, had some nice and kind words of well-wishing for us to send us out onto the highway with.
We were packed up and left right at 8am, and May called her son to say we were leaving. Then we headed north to the PA Turnpike. It would have been shorter to head west by taking the Expressway, but there was a huge, huge traffic jam that way. So I elected to go up the Blue Route all the way to the turnpike. It would put us on further east, but it would avoid the traffic. Regrettably, uncharacteristically, and somewhat stupidly, I got caught in the wrong lane and we actually had to head east until the next exit where we could turn around. It was an out-of-the-way jaunt of about 10 miles. I couldn’t help but think how much time that would have taken had I been on one of my bicycle rides!
We had our first thumbs up on the way to the turnpike. By the end of the day there were three folks sending thumbs-up to us – likely in reaction to our “PA to TX, KEY WEST, AND RETURN – AUGUST 2006” sign on the back of the motorcycle.. . One wave was from a friendly lady trucker. In fact, everyone on the road was friendly to us today. But then we wave to everyone. It’s biker courtesy to wave to another motorcyclist as one passes in either direction. But we wave to everyone who lets us pass or glances our way, or who we just see grinning at us.
Our first gas up of the trip went pretty smoothly. Took about 3 gallons which is just about what the tank holds. We had gone 114 miles and that works out to about 38 miles per gallon. Didn’t go into reserve at all… It was a cool morning although the horizon at the end of the highway was always in deep shrouded haze.
It was mostly gentle rolling countryside we spun through this day. Lots of farmland, and farm homes, and rustic green beauty spreading out on hills undulating and friendly.
I put my earplugs in after about 40 miles and it made a big difference in the enjoyment of the ride – not hearing the wind and the trucks so up front and personal…
We were pretty cool for a lot of the day… of course, after the lunch break I noticed that the fly was down on my suit – maybe THAT’s why I was so cool. Thank goodness it wasn’t that noticeable what with the long heavy jacket.
The success of this kind of trip and a lot of the enjoyment has to do with not making mistakes. The least mistakes made, the better it is to deal with the unexpected.
Things have to be done in order… for instance, when I put my helmet on first I have to take it off and THEN put my sunglasses on and also have to put my earplug in. Too many times until I get used to it, I put that helmet on and then quietly curse because i don’t have those sunglasses on yet – and have to take the damn helmet off again.
Getting into good habits early is important on a trip like this. Being vigilant about making sure pockets are closed and bags are tight is important. And trying to avoid the mistake of leaving the mc’s lights on because of hitting the kill switch instead of turning off the key at the ignition! That has cost me dead battery time before, and I’m trying not to let it happen again: so, it’s 1.) engine off, 2.) take out the key, 3.) lock the steering column, 4.) put key in the thigh bag pocket where it belongs.
Some kind of bug must have gotten into my open jacket sleeve just before Harrisburg. It wormed it’s way up, and seemed to have given me quite a couple of bites right below my right bicep. It was pretty painful, but when examining the location at the end of the day, there was no swelling or sign of a bite.
During the Subway lunch we took a bunch of napkins and stuffed them into the top of May’s helmet underneath the foam padding. This helped the helmet fit better and not be so heavy on her head or make so much pressure on her neck.
For most of the day we rode past gas stations posting $2.79 through $2.84’s. And that’s a lot less than the $3.15 through $3.24’s we’ve seen recently at home…
On the highway my eyes are always scanning, always scanning. Don’t want any surprises there…
Sadia Syed, a likeable woman with big brown eyes, was the manager at the Super 8 motel where I had made reservations over the phone last evening. She said it reached 101 degrees today, but after we said that we hadn’t found it a problem, she noted, “Well, you have an advantage the cars don’t have because you get a breeze!” And we thought how right she was…. it was a delightful soaring day on the bike – and we felt power and joy as we sailed along at mostly 80 and 90mph. It was well within safety range on the big highways and I, of course, backed it down when warranted. As a bicyclist it’s great being in and part of nature for thousands of miles. It’s not so much different for a motorcyclist.
After a bunking into the motel, and beginning these notes, and organizing gear, and taking a nap, we headed out around 5 for a nice walk/run.
(I really needed that nap as I got into a really head-weary state, partially perhaps from the excitement of the day, the lack of sleep last night, or not hydrating enough. But I awoke refreshed and feeling good)
We made a big circle around the motel and wound up in a strip mall part of town. There we found a health food store and got what turned out to be some delicious spinach-filled pitas and juices which we carried back to the motel.
We made some calls to relatives and settled into a relaxing mode after May washed some clothes and we ate. We covered the motorcycle which was in the shade of a nice little tree. We checked email over the wireless internet here, and that was fun for me.
It was everything one could ask for in a first day of riding: good miles, but not too many, an early stopping, a friendly mostly smooth highway, and time to relax at the end.
TOMORROW: INTO THE MOUNTAINS AND INTO THE CAVES

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August 2, 2006 – Wednesday – Day 2
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 140 – Total Miles – 400
9:45am-4:45pm – 7 hours
Front Royal,VA to Charlottesville,VA
(-staying at Mike Shane’s – a former Havertown neighbor and friend)
(States: VA)
– THE HIGHS – THE LOWS –
Rolling back on the second half of the morning mile run we had a strong head-breeze hit us that was cool and delicious. It was strong in our face as the winds swung out of the mountains before us. In front of the Super 8 we stopped at the motorcycle and took the cover off of it. It was beginning to warm up into another 100 degree day. May found not one, but TWO lucky pennies on the ground during the run.
Sent out the first of the journal notes on the motel wireless internet which worked flawlessly during our stay… For breakfast we finished the last of the spinach pies and also had some English muffins and a lot of the orange juice from the motel lobby area.
As we tanked up at the gas station across from the motel, we met Jim and Susan from up near Stroudsberg,PA. They were riding his rebuilt Vulcan. He had adjusted it so it gets up to 200 miles per hour. Jim said proudly that he bought a new motorcycle every year, and that the Goldwing he had for years needed nothing but new tires after he rode it for many miles. I was happy to hear that as we’ve been considering getting one.
At the turn off to Skyline Drive we came closest to dumping the mc. At a standstill we both leaned the wrong way and almost went over with the 600+ pound Shadow. We drilled what to do if that happens: tuck in and try not to do the reflexive put-your-arm out. That way the roll bars and our suits will protect us – and an arm or hand won’t be broken.
At 9:50am we rode right up to the entrance of the park. A bicyclist was unloading his bicycle for a day ride up into the mountains. He took our picture by the entrance sign.
As we got to the official entry way and the lady stamped our National Park pass, I got a little choked up at being there amidst that grandeur again. It’s an almost magical place to me – where I had sweated many hours toiling on those up grand mountains, stood triumphant on the summits, and then swooped so deliciously down the other sides. The 600-mile range has great meaning to me. I mentioned to the lady how, on the first trip (a 2,000-mile bicycle ride from Philadelphia to Dallas), the lady in the booth, feeling sorry for me I suppose, let me onto the Drive for free.
I remembered seeing the little milepost stone number “1”….
Twenty-five miles away, at Elkwallow there is a little camp store and gas station. And a delightful tree-lined fresh-aired 25 miles it was! The many overlooks were mainly marred by fog enshrouding the distant valleys below or mountains in the distance. But the top-of-the-world feelings rushed back at me from the other times there. And the wonderful splash of yellows from the daisies were phenomenal! May said she had goosebumps from the coolness and the excitement.
In the store, the lady behind the counter thought I was a fireman coming in… Outside I chatted with some friendly mc folks from Reading,PA…
Whenever we’d stop at an overlook or on the road the little gnats would congregate around our faces. It brought back memories of me on the bicycle trying to move up the mountains with my 40 pounds or so of camping gear, etc., to stay a few steps ahead of those annoying insects. (Usually unsuccessfully, I might add.)
I thought back to the first time I saw deer on the Drive. I put up my binoculars at the beautiful creatures standing at the edge of the wooded area, and it was then I discovered that in the wild those cute animals all have hoards of flies and fleas buzzing around their faces!!! Not exactly the romantic image of Bambi we all have in the back of our collective consciousness….
The ups and downs in the mountains were effortless and with the little traffic, it was great riding. What a contrast to the superslab riding of yesterday. It was to be a short day today because, our next stop is so close – a friend from home. And, Luray Caverns is nearby as well.
At 11:20am, after 32 miles on the Skyline Drive we headed out of the mountains to Luray.
Founded by a couple guys 126 years ago, the collection of caves and geologic formations are among the best in the world. They go on for miles underground. The $18 ticket gets you a tour guide for a group and a walk of about a mile along fabulously lit walkways and underground nature views at their best.
The reflecting pools are among the most amazing sights here – so still and tranquil, they mirror the walls and ceilings of the large and small cities of stalactites and stalagmites.
Throughout the mile walk I was aching for my good camera equipment and perhaps a tripod for the mostly low and sensitive lighting. It was frustrating to only have what I had and to know that I had what was needed – but it was 300 miles away. The tour leader was a boy about 18 who talked in a monotone and so low, that especially hard of hearing folks like me couldn’t hear him at all. The stupid jokes that could be heard were so lame! And they must have been memorized from a 25 year-old script.
There’s an organ in the midst of the Luray complex of caves. Seems a guy came for a visit in 1957 and he figured a way to attach wires to various stalactites and get them to reverberate at a certain pitch. They bill it as the biggest musical instrument in the world. The sound was pretty interesting but not as amazing as it was billed.
(Warning: Philosophical Note Ahead!) So much in the caverns is seen by special lighting – so we can’t see what it really looks like… it’s a little like life itself, or advertising things, or movie stars, or movies, or even some of our memories… It’s not really reality we’re seeing… For instance, when the flashbulb went off, the picture taken was of the “plain” rocks without the special lighting. It was still amazing, but the reality is only half as amazing as it appears on the walk through…
Some guy waiting in line at Luray was wearing a particularly upbeat t-shirt of quotations from Maui, Hawaii. I asked him if I could take a picture of it, and he readily said okay. One of the sayings on the shirt read, “No rain, no rainbows!’ I thought that showed a lot of insight in the ‘making lemons from lemonade’ vein….
We spent some time in the gift shop and then left for the highway.
We made a quick 2pm stop at a huge Wal-mart for a big blue sheet, some AA batteries (since the rechargeables didn’t last as long as i hoped they would in one of my cameras), and some earplugs (since I only seemed to have brought one).
As we were leaving the lunch stop Taco Bell, a young woman walked in. I recognized her from the ornate tattoo which stretched across the breadth of her back. I made note of the fact that I had seen her in Wal-Mart moments before. (I often talk to folks about their tats – wondering if they fade, and how much they cost, and if they know ANYone who ever had an infection from getting one.) And then she proudly showed me the wonderful colorful angel or fairy fairly covering her left calf. Her mom was nearby and she chimed in about her sons’ tattoos. So I asked her since her progeny all had one, if she had a tattoo anywhere? She said no, but that she had wanted to get one, but her husband wouldn’t allow it. She said she wanted a little seahorse on one of her butt cheeks, but her husband said that he’d just have to watch that sea horse getting bigger and bigger every year, and so she couldn’t get one….
We had about an hour or so of highway riding to Charlottesville, Virginia, where a friend who had moved away from my Havertown neighborhood had lived until a few years ago. It was good visiting with Mike for the short time we did. May walked with Mike and his little dog Moshe and they chatted a bit as I wrote and studied the map. We said how we’d be back in the autumn to visit and check out nearby Monticello. Mike was on a healthy diet kick – regrettably made necessary by some health problems recently. But we fit right in and it was good seeing him, and spending some time together.
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August 3, 2006 – Thursday – Day 3
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 326 – Total Miles – 726
8:30am-3:30pm – 7 hours
Charlottesville,VA to Charlotte,SC
(-staying at Bud and Marlyn Oehrli’s – old friends, and parents of a student of mine)
(States: VA,NC,SC)
– WE BREAK 300 MILES! – ANOTHER WARM ONE – OLD FRIENDS –
We had a run around the only level part of Mike’s complex (about 5 times around!), and wouldn’t you know it, May found yet another penny.
We had a good bowl of cereal and left in the beginning of the rising heat around 8:30pm. Mike and Moshe had gone inside. And again, we were soon alone on our way down the highway.
Passed a dead young deer on the side of the interstate today, and at one point passed a truck that must have been carrying manure – ugh, was that ever bad!
At noon we took a 40-minute lunch and rest break from the steady highway riding.
We stop around every 100 to 110 miles for gas. And for us to stretch around a bit.
Fifty miles north of South Carolina the gas was the highest we’ve paid in awhile – $3.05/gal.…. We were both hot and tired on this third day in a row of 100+ degree heat. Still, it wasn’t totally unbearable. A short stop in a gas-food place for something cold to drink always seems to bring us both back up to par.
Arrived at the Oehrli’s just before 3:30pm. Bud and Marlyn’s daughter Beth was in one of my third grades. And Bud and I soon became good running buddies. We probably hadn’t seen each other though for about 14 years – or that was as close as we could figure.
When the garage door opened there was a place to pull the motorcycle right in…
It was sure good seeing the Oehrli’s again!! And their new home in Tega Cay, essentially a Charlotte, SC, ‘burb, was gorgeous beyond words. Our guest room was like a little hotel suite – and a 5-Star hotel at that!!!! Marlyn greeted us with her great smile.
May and I washed up and changed from our sweaty clothing, and soon Bud arrived. And we launched into reliving a lot of old memories – long exhausting runs (Bud alleged they were always longer than I said they’d be), and updating about people now passed away or whereabouts of common friends, and news about the school district.
I went with Bud to the nearby supermarket for some things, and we met there a fellow handing out newspapers who was newly transplanted from Wayne, PA. We also went into a nearby eatery looking to see if they had wireless internet there, as Bud didn’t at home.
Beth lives in the area and we got to meet her son, Anthony, when his other grandparents brought him over. He’s got quite the twinkle in his eye, enough energy for a battalion, and a clear simmering intelligence behind quickly moving eyes. Before he left, I got a picture of him on the motorcycle to which he took a shining.
For supper Marlyn made a delicious zucchini pie and a wonderful salad. And then there was Bud’s favorite, white-on-white cake for dessert.
After dinner we were taken on a tour of the community, and got to see the beach area and the marina where we saw the “Rig-a-Tony”. That’s Bud and Marlyn’s pontoon boat cleverly named by Marlyn after their cute-as-a-button grandchild.
It was getting dark by the time Beth called on the cell phone and we headed right back to the house. It was good seeing her again and updating my view of her – which was still as an 8-year-old in my classroom. Now she was very pregnant 30’s-something. But she still had that warming smile about her. It was good reminiscing a bit and then hearing her husband, a new principal, talk excitedly about his first assignment as school here was just beginning. They left around 9:30ish.
Bud and I tried to figure out how to use his cable into my computer to send out the journal, but we couldn’t quite figure it. I did, however, get onto my AOL email account through his Internet Express, so could respond to a few emails.
A little after 9:30pm, that I checked my cell phone for messages. There was, in fact, one from the home security people. They reported that there was a signal sent to them via the system that there was a fire in the house. (Now THAT caught my attention!!) With a gulp I tried to reach Dolwin, but only got a message. Then I called the Brinks people, and only heard that the alarm had gone off, no other details. I had made Dolwin the initial contact, but Brinks had still called me first. Shortly, Dolwin, having seen that I had called, was trying to get through. He said that he was working in the basement, that the heat or smoke from the tools he was using, set off the alarm, and that he had hit ‘cancel’ too late. The fire truck didn’t come out, but a police officer did. Apparently, after explaining things, the officer left and all was okay again.
About 10pm, and exhausted, I came out into the living room and said I was going to sleep. Marlyn noted, “So, you’re gonna crash now?”… and without losing a beat, I said to her, “Well, considering the type of trip we’re on, I would appreciate it if you didn’t use quite that particular expression….”
The bed was high exquisitely comfy – especially after the long hours in the saddle… we fell almost instantly into a deep sleep.

TOMORROW: STREAKING DUE WEST

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August 4, 2006 – Friday – Day 4
PA TO TX, KEY WEST AND RETURN – SUMMER 2006
Miles Today – 281 – Total Miles – 1007(!)
9am-4pm – 7 hours
Charlotte (Tega Cay) to Atlanta (Lithia Springs),GA
(-staying at a Motel 6)
(States: SC, NC, SC, GA)
THE POLICE! – WE CROSS THE 1000-MILE MARK! -

It was a great night’s sleep in this 5-star place!
We took a little longer lingering among friends. We were just leaving and everyone was out by the bike except me. I came out the garage door in full gear, and I announced solemnly, “Well, I’ve decided that I’m not leaving.” Bud, as always with his great sometimes dry wit, but always quick and funny comeback, noted, “Well, you might want to dress down a little.”
Hit a small traffic jam shortly after leaving Bud and Marlyn’s.
I always travel with a little set of binoculars, and we saved several minutes and miles when I used them to spy down the road to some distant signage. We headed north a bit to reach the big highway Interstate 85 west and south. And we were on that until reaching the other side of Atlanta where we picked up I-20.
Some motorcycling folks don’t care for superslab riding, but I enjoy the breeze and the movement and all the little soap operas that the cars and trucks play along the way.
Played leapfrog with a bronco for a while along Route 85. Finally, he shot past us going about 100 mph, and I figured, “What the heck? Why not?” So I pulled on the right grip, and May and I zoomed ahead quickly and effortlessly overtaking the Bronco and not looking back. May leaned over my shoulder at that point and got a good picture of the needle nudging around the century mark.
May could not have seen the groundhog that I probably almost hit. Just as we were whizzing down the highway in the left hand lane a big furry thing came tentatively out on to the road from the grassy island on our left. I saw the little guy looking up and around, but at 85 mph I didn’t get too good a glance. I gripped the handlebars hard awaiting the impact (and likely the carnage!) to follow. And I was well aware that the animal had the ability – though unwittingly – to throw us into a topspin if I didn’t handle the bike right. We seemed right over him as we hurled past, but I felt no jarring, and there was no gore splashed up. And, of course, I had no way of being able to look in the rear view mirror for such a tiny thing, now long past. Best I guessed that either the car behind us got him, or he rushed back to the safety of the lawned island between the east and west highways….
About 50 miles east of Atlanta there was a huge backup of traffic for about five or more miles. May took a picture of a friendly trucker next to us who gave us a thumbs up and told us that she had checked on her cb radio and that an accident was ahead.
We sat in amongst the hundreds of cars and the scores of trucks and we were stewing in the blazing sun of what was likely 100+ degree heat on that white cement highway. It seemed as if we were in a crock-pot turned on high in our protective gear for about 10 minutes or more. Our perspiration was providing a dandy basting sauce, and must have come near the boiling point a few times as well.
Soon I decided to squirt up the right hand shoulder past all the waiting cars. Did that (illegally and somewhat nervously, I might add) for a couple miles then ducked back in line figuring I didn’t want to push my luck too much. But then I got impatient again, and we scooted another few miles past the line-up of fuming cars and trucks.
After a bit, we broke out into the open with traffic moving, and there was no sign whatsoever of what caused the massive backup.
Outside of Atlanta to the west off the first exit we stopped for gas. As I was going into the little store there a woman tried to panhandle me for a soda. Inside the place folks were helpful when I asked about directions. When I came back out an officer was in his car talking to May who was standing by the bike and the gas pump. When he saw me approach he seemed to relax, and then he said that he was just making sure that May wasn’t “being harassed” as this “was a bad part of town”. We told Bob, the officer about our big trip, and he said he took special attention to us because he rode – a Harley, and because he was at first thinking may was alone. He said he’d been on some trips to and through the mountains, but nothing much further. I told him I appreciated his help, and that if he ever made it to Pennsylvania to give us a call, and I gave him our number.
The fellow was very friendly to us, but my first thought when I saw him pulled up beside the motorcycle at the pump was that he had caught up to us after seeing us stroll down the emergency lane for so many miles – or that he had finally found us after his police buddies on the force had radioed that the motorcyclists in the yellow outfits had been exceeding the speed limits (by 40 mph!!!)… but no to all – he was just being kind.
We spent about an hour between 4 and dish looking for a suitable motel. Between needing internet, desiring a no smoking room, and considering price, we stopped at as many as five different places. Finally, Motel 6 came closest to all requirements, even though it would be just old dial-up instead of wireless.
Felicia was the friendly young lady at the front desk. I spied the pool outside, and said that it looked inviting. She muttered that she wished she had some time there. I announced that I’d happily take over her job for her for fifteen minutes so she could have a dip. That brought the first smile to her tired face.
We were able to leave the bike out front under the portico here. It looked like rain.
Here was an odd thing: I noticed a swastika penned in on one of the window frames outside. It wasn’t very big, but there were about three of them. I mentioned this to Felicia, and to my huge amazement, she didn’t know what a swastika was!!! I just couldn’t fathom that she wasn’t aware – especially as a black person – what the symbol stood for! I explained it to her and said she really ought to call the police, too. She didn’t seem to think that the police here would be that concerned… I did notice later that she had smudged them out.
We took one of two popcorns we had brought from home, and went in search of a microwave. Felicia was happy to take our bag in the back and pop it up for us. We enjoyed it back in the room.
A bit later we picked up the phone and ordered a Dominos tomato pie with mushrooms for dinner. About an hour after we called, a tired looking woman shortly delivered it. May had a good talk with her daughter Jennifer who was wondering about when we might arrive in Texas. Our best guess is in about three or four days.
On our PowerBook G4 laptop computer we watched one of the dvd’s we had brought with us, a clever, funny, mostly poignant movie named Shallow Hal with Joe Black and Gwyneth Paltrow.
May went to sleep after that and I worked through some tiredness on the journal notes, but could not finish them from being so exhausted. I practically fell asleep with keyboard on my lap in bed around 10ish. We certainly got a lot out of this day from one end to another….

Breakfast was at one of those ubiquitous Waffle Houses again. And this one was only feet from the motel room door. I ate that waffle slowly, knowing that this was to be the final breakfast of a wonderful trip. Each forkful I sliced and ate deliberately and much of the day I proceeded in the same manner. The cute, freckly young woman waitress with the huge southern accent smiled at us on our way out when we were done. “Y’all have a gud day!”

Karen was going to try a little pillow on her seat this day. But when she sat on it she was just too high. (She had tried using her orange padded-like cold vest the other day as a cushion, but it didn’t work out for her. And I was just as glad since it threw the dynamic of the bike off a bit.) Sometimes throughout the trip, either because she had lost some weight or because she was leaning back more, I couldn’t feel her in back of me. And I had to actually look in the mirror to make sure she was still there!

During the trip we’ve seen mostly motorcyclists in black, of course. And before today there was exactly just one other guy in one of the hi-viz yellow suits. But today we saw a business guy who was presumably on his way to work as he had his briefcase strapped to the back of his gold Goldwing. And he not only had the yellow full suit but also a bright yellow helmet like mine.

It was a smooth riding day toward and through landscape that was known to both of us – especially at the end. Throughout the day it began to look more and more like home was coming at us. We had a few sprinkles of rain, but nothing significant.

We stopped more frequently than usual on this last day of the ride. Instead of every 100 to 110 miles (or about an hour-and-a-half), we stopped about every 75 or so miles. This, partly because of sore butts and partly to savor the day.

When we hit the traffic around Baltimore Karen said, “Well, back to the congested northeast again!” I noted the difference in the air quality as we moved into the northeast corridor. The smog and/or humidity I guessed.

One sign off the major highway around Baltimore stated boldly that motorcycles should beware the bridge ahead because of open vertical grates and I wasn’t relishing that in the near-dark. But, thank goodness a turnoff came before that bridge.

We stopped on I-95 at the Maryland House and had salads at a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant there. We had stopped at around 7ish and lingered over that dinner. But had I known it was going to get dark as soon as it did, we wouldn’t have stayed so long. Esther, a lady with really unfortunate teeth (one sharp pointy one in the front middle of the bottom jaw, and fused decayed ones on top), was very friendly and helpful. Extra friendly, in fact. She followed us out the door and gave Karen a little Bob’s Big Boy as a memento of the last part of our journey. Then a little boy came up to her with big eyes, and asked, “What are YOU doing here?” Karen said we were motorcyclists not firemen, but the young lad’s dad explained, “Oh, he thought you should be up on the space shuttle!” (Which was making big news at the time, as it was supposed to land in a day or two.)

Shortly, we had our final gas-up of the trip and on our way on the last leg. By 8:15ish it began getting dark and we were on the last major highway in dimness After that we were on what’s called the Blue Route – a road that dumps us off within five minutes of home.

Regrettably, there was danger there, too. In fact, one of the three or four incidents – which could have gone either way in making this trip really uncomfortable or deadly – occurred within the final fifteen minutes of the ride today.

One of those incidents you’ll recall was back on day 22, the Avenue of the Giants day. That was when we toppled over on the bike. If one of our limbs was just a few inches one way instead of the other, we surely would have suffered a broken something. But the bike crash bars were constructed soundly, and our suits helped, and we tucked in just right. Nothing but embarrassment there.

Another incident has gone unreported. That was also on day 22. At my former student, June’s home, we were unpacking stuff. Our gear was brought into the house. Well, I decided to take out my contact lenses and was leaning over the big back bag doing so. As I took out one of the lenses it slipped from my grasp and tumbled to who knows where. Although I had an old back-up pair and a pair of glasses, it would have been a very uncomfortable trip without my regular lenses. After about ten minutes I found the elusive lens in and amongst some folds of clothing.

There were a couple times during the trip when the adventure might have come to a sudden and painful ending when I stumbled and almost tripped over curbs. You know, those close calls that could go either way but one rights him or herself just in time!

Well, on the way back on this last day in the evening glooming we hit construction in the final five miles of the ride. And it was the kind of construction that has one of the two lanes already newly blacktopped and the other lane not completed yet. So there is a lip between the two lanes going the same way. Now this is no big deal to a car’s four wheels but to a motorcycle it can mean life or death if that lip is hit in just the wrong way – especially around a curve. I was conscious of the road situation, and was very very careful to stay away from that road danger, but once going around a curve and in the midst of a bunch of traffic, the mc veered over to that lip, and there was that few moments hesitation of the bike toppling before I righted it with balance maneuvers. I don’t think Karen even noticed, but I sure did, and was breathing heavily for a while after.

By mid-evening we were pulling into the carport from where we had left 40 days ago, a wealth of new experiences under our belt and wonderful images to replay in our minds for many years to come.

Over the next week or two I will be sending you a couple Afterwords and also some other info about the trip along your way. It was sure good having everyone with us on the journey. Plans are being made for the next one — and hoping you’ll join us on that one, too.

(LAST DAY REPORT TOMORROW, FOLLOWED BY VARIOUS OTHER INFORMATION AND AFTER WORDS… )

PS. IT WAS GOOD HAVING YOU ALONG.

And we’re into the homestretch!

With another 400+ mile day today, we’ve brought ourselves within 400 miles of home. It’s very exciting and sad. I guess it would surely be feeling the textbook example of ambivalence.

After a Waffle House visit for breakfast, we went about five miles to see Stone Mountain. Neither of us had been to the place for about 25 years. This is a quite spectacular mountain. It rises to a height of 1,683 feet above sea level (roughly 650-750 feet above the surrounding area, depending on where it is measured), and has carved in it three gigantic Confederate generals – Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

As with most things over the last 25 years it’s become hugely commercialized now – even has a ‘village’ around it with all kinds of come ons.

I was sorry we spent the $8 “parking fee” to get in and sorry we walked around the place for so long in the heat of the morning. After pictures we finally left around 11am, just not having more time to spend.

It was a very difficult first hundred miles of the morning on the highway what with more trucks than I can recall from any other day. Also, the wind was buffeting like crazy.

The second hundred miles of the day ended at Spartanburg, SC, and was not so truck-filled or windy. There were a lot of little and giant lakes going from South Carolina to North Carolina.

One of the things we see a lot of these days is kudzu. Kudzu is a hardy vine from eastern Asia. It was brought to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, PA. There’s so much of this fast-growing vine in the Southeast, you might think it was a native plant. Actually, it took a lot of hard work to help kudzu spread so widely. Now that it covers over seven million acres of the deep South, there are a lot of people working hard to get rid of it! (Check out http://www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu/ if you want to find out more about this amazing hardy plant which can grow a foot a day.) It covers everything including trees and poles and bushes and signs. Karen noted that it makes some things look like giant green dinosaurs standing by the road. It covers everything including trees and poles and bushes and signs. Karen noted that it makes some things look like giant green dinosaurs standing by the road.

We rolled into a Subway around 2:15pm. Both of us were beat up from the heat of the day and the road. I was pretty tired, and after the meal, leaned over onto my mc jacket and helmet next to me and dozed lightly for about 20 minutes.

For much of the south we passed through today, I got kind of down about what the three main enjoyments of the people here seem to be – at least as defined by the biggest and most numerous ads – cheap liquor, even cheaper tobacco products, and even cheaper and bigger fireworks. I never saw such big fireworks stores – they were as huge as giant department stores. I couldn’t believe it!

I’ve often wondered about those big shards of rubber on the highway, and how dangerously they must molt off the tires they’ve been on. I’ve also always wondered what it would be like to be behind one of those big many-wheeler trucks when those tires come apart. Well, I need wonder no longer, because just north of Charlotte, NC, we were rolling along when a smoke smell began to permeate the air. I looked all around. And there just ahead and barreling along in the right hand lane (next to an even bigger rig in the left hand lane) there was smoke coming from one of the rear tires, and the truck began to wobble. It continued on like the driver didn’t realize the problem and I became extremely alert, slowed down, and watched with great anticipation about what might happen next. It kept on like that for a few moments, and the smoke and the wobbling continued both even greater, and then huge black scabs of tire spewed out onto the roadway. I noticed smaller ones that I avoided and then the bigger ones rolled speedily off to the side, and then the trucker, clearly knowing something was amiss, pulled his huge 18-wheeler (minus one!) off the road entirely.

Another rain shower again today. Just as we hit the foothills of the Appalachians also after Charlotte, NC, before we got on I-81. We had some recently familiar spatters. The sky ahead was very bright, but there was that orange lightning bolt through the light blue! And THEN there came the torrent. I was managing fairly nicely until the tanker truck swooshed by us – then everything turned to a misty white and I had to slow to a crawl. Luckily the thundershower only lasted about 5 minutes – but on that mountain curve with the traffic around us, it was a long 5 minutes!

Was in a shower of another kind, too. As a van passed an occupant tossed out some coffee onto the road. It spattered on the windshield making a nice design. I’m guessing the occupants of the van didn’t realize we were there.

Again, we were pretty butt-sore by the end of the 400 miles. And I had a few extra special shooting stabs through my seat and my shoulder. We weren’t a pretty sight either as we dismounted a few times during the day. But I guess if this whole she-bang were an easy thing to do, everyone would be doing it, eh?

The EconoLodge this evening was right next to a Waffle House and beside a Subway. They took our ten stamps that we’d been collecting all around the country and only charged us the tax for the room!

The Subway had a veggie patty (unlike most all the recent ones we’ve been to), and I walked over and brought it back to the room where we celebrated the last night of the current trip on the road with the sandwich and a Stewart’s root beer!

(Off on the side of the road, somewhere between Montgomery, AL and Atlanta, GA – perhaps near mile marker 259 – I began the uh, conversation, with…)

“Yes, officer??”
“Do you know what the fine is for going 30 miles per hour over the speed limit in these here parts, son?”

I took off my helmet then. And replied with,
“Respectfully, sir. But if you notice the grey on the sideburns I might be old enough to be your father.”

I tried to manage a smile while looking up at his crisply ironed blue shirt, somewhat sweated on the edges in the afternoon heat and humidity. He wasn’t amused.

He repeated his question. Then, without waiting for a reply, said,
“You’re not from these here parts, are you boy?”

“N-n-n-no, sir,” I stammered.
“Where exactly ARE you from, boy?”
“Pennsylvania.” I said.
“Oh, so, you’se a YANKEE then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me see your license, boy,” he bellowed, “if you HAVE one for this thing, and an owner’s card.”

I fumbled to get the paperwork he had requested.

The cars and trucks were whizzing by on the highway. Occasionally one would slow down and I noticed ma and pa and little MarySue look over at the goings-on and “Tsk-tsk” to themselves about the commie-hippie-punk motorcyclist with the dew-rag just pulled over to the side of the road.

The officer took the said paperwork back to his car for computer reference or something. He shortly came back to the Shadow, Karen, and me, who were baking in the afternoon sun. He was perspiring himself and with clipboard in hand came right up to me…

“You gonna be around these parts long, boy?” he snorted, badge glinting into my eye from the sunshine.
“No, sir, we’re just passing through.”
“What’s that fancy sign on the back of your rig sayin’?”
“Oh, that’s just sayin’ that we’re on a trip around the country and touching all 48 contiguous states.”
“Contigu-WHAT, boy?? Are you making fun of America???”
“NO, SIR,” I shouted over the belching of a passing truck full of hogs. “It’s just that all in one trip we’re trying to go through each of the 48 states.”

He put his yellow police pad down as I continued.
“Yes, and this is the 38th day on the road and we only have two more days to go. We just passed 10,000 miles today.”

With this his features seemed to have softened, he got on his police phone and made a call to his superiors. Then he turned to me and said, “Well, I’ve talked things over with my boss,” and then he reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. THEN he riffled through his wallet and took out $50 and handed it to me saying, “Well, we’re so darn impressed by what you’re doing we’re giving you $50 out of the community fund we have and letting you know you can go as fast as you want through the rest of this hea’ great state of Georgia!”

We thanked him mightily and headed off smiling down the highway…

Well, if you’ve been wondering what I’ve been thinking about for all those sun-baked hours on the road, you have a pretty good indication from the daydream fantasy above what some of it is.

Also, among many other things large and small, I recite the hour or so worth of poems I have memorized in years past. (The inside of my helmet has had some pretty darn good recitals!) While riding on the back and when not taking pictures, Karen is often times thinking about the great scrapbook she wants to put together about the trip.

Once again, after looking out the motel room windows this morning in Gulf Port, MS, we knew our decision to stop last night was the correct one. It was grey clouding all over, but at least it wasn’t raining, and the sky showed promise for brightening up.

We were hungry for more of those Waffle House waffles, but decided to get on down the road a piece before having some. We left a little after 9am, and I was glad Steve wasn’t on-line to scold us about the relatively late leaving.

Just south of Mobile, AL we turned north on what was our fourth and final corner. We skirted in and out of and between showers all day long. Must have been six or seven of them. But the worst was just as we were leaving Montgomery, AL. It was on the interstate through town in a whole crowd of cars when the splashdown began. A few patters at first, and I thought, “Uh-oh!” and then the constant downpour. It was right in the midst of the 70mph traffic and all of a sudden my visibility was down to a few feet. I quickly handed my sunglasses back to Karen and just as quickly popped up on the pegs so I could see over the now-water-blotted windshield. Rodes like that for a while calling on all my strength and experience from such situations – though truthfully none of the past times were amongst so many cars and big trucks. It lasted maybe five minutes, but was pretty scary, especially when I noticed the curve in the roadway and had to maneuver through that.

After most every gas stop, I always forget to put my earplugs back in. (Many cyclists use the things to mute the noise constancy of the passing traffic and the engine roar.) Then I have to pull off to the side, take off my helmet, and put them in. At one time today, I was doing so, and leaned back to Karen and joked, “You know, we’d save an awful lot of time every day if you’d just remember to remind me about putting in my earplugs!” We got a good laugh out of that.

At 10:30am we got our Waffle House stop in.

Rode for a while today behind a pretty stinky trash truck. Ugh! That was not pleasant riding.

I just hate it when I’m hurrying Karen along to get on the bike and then I realize I don’t even have the bike in gear yet!

We worked hard at not missing State Route 21 off of I-85 toward Atmore. It was only about 8 miles down that road that we tapped Florida at exactly noon for our 41st state Karen took a picture of me by the welcome sign and we returned back to the big highway. On the way back we met a man at a gas station from Allentown, PA. This fellow said he had inherited a 1934 Harley trike! It was all rusty now but he was spending a mint on E-bay getting parts to fix it up, and he hoped to ride it one day.

Also in Atmore we came upon a health food store. I had mentioned just yesterday that one of the things I missed most from home was some Soydream (something that tastes like ice cream, but is made of non-dairy soy). This place had a delicious confection of non-dairy chocolate and nuts and vanilla Soydream. It was great, and we each relished and savored the taste of the ice cream-like treat!

At a gas station just 20 miles north of Montgomery, just as I was walking toward the office to pay (one of the rare stations that didn’t have credit card pumps), I saw a man leaning against the front wall there. I noticed that he and I both noticed a rather nice looking lady in hot pink short shorts walk by. I looked up at him as I passed and said, “Nothing like hot pink, eh?” He laughed, and said with a big Morgan Freeman-ish smile, “Just something to look at.”

We stopped into gas-up at one point about 60 miles shy of 400 miles pretty darned tired – I pointed to the name of the station, and said, “That’s what we need about now.” The gas company was named “JET-PEP”!

By the end of the day, my stomach problem (guessing it was some kind of virus that ran its course) seemed to have died away completely. Happy about that, and I could tell the rest of my body was, too, as total energy and spirits returned.

As we entered Georgia we “lost” another hour because of entering the Eastern Daylight Savings Time. (Now just WHERE do you suppose we lost that hour? I looked all over for it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. In fact, I spent so much time searching for it, I had to set my watch an hour earlier when I was done looking.)

We’re both feeling the adrenaline-effect over the excitement about finishing the trip. That adrenaline is seeping into our muscles and our minds. However, not enough of that adrenaline is seeping into our butts, which seem to be aching more and more earlier and earlier in the day.

When we got done crunchwrapping at Taco Bell we headed off for the EconoLodge near Stone Mountain. Karen wondered if I had seen the policeman sitting on the side of the road with the detector pointing in our direction as we entered Georgia. (I hadn’t!)

We had one of those long laughing fits as we were leaving the Taco Bell. Karen’s face, concentrating hard on being able to get her leg up and over the motorcycle so late in the day, and as tired as we were, was so set in determination and her lips were so clenched to be able to make the effort a successful one, just struck me as really funny. And as I described it to her, she found it comical, too. We sat back on the Shadow and laughed for quite a few moments about it.

15 minutes later we were checking into the 10th motel of that chain. (Our next night at an EconoLodge is free!! And there just happens to be a few in Roanoke, VA, our goal for tomorrow.)

It was a basic keep-riding and make-time day today. All interstate at 80-90mph and a couple truck passes at 100mph. We wore our orange cool vests for the first time for awhile since it was pretty darn hot.

At a Taco Bell in McComb, MS, I put my head down at the table and just fell asleep. Did that the other day, too, at a lunch stop. My body must really be fighting off the probable virus in my belly (which ranges from just okay to very painful at times). Now, I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t get sick very often so this is something pretty unusual. But I’m also the kind of guy who can just put his mind ‘somewhere else’ to tolerate a painful situation – like, for instance, no Novocain for even the occasional root canal! So this has been more of a discomforting nuisance and something Karen has to put up with, more than an actual illness.

A woman came up to Karen while I was sleeping and Karen got in the usual conversation with her. Marilyn Jackson had said she had seen the motorcycle (and sign) and that she just wanted to come over and “welcome us to Mississippi,” and that she “was glad we included Mississippi in our trip.”

At a gasoline stop right after lunch I came into the station with a little herky-jerky motion and then came right up to the pump and stopped very short. Well, it just hit Karen kind of funny the way that happened, and she went off on a laughing binge. I got into it, and helped it continue with a few deadpan, “What?” comments. And then a few wry and deadpan jokings, “Are you making fun of my driving?” questions.

Ran into spots of rain between New Orleans and Slidell. They just cooled us off and then we dried out on the other side. But just before Gulf Port there was a bigger storm with no blue that could be seen on the other side. What COULD be seen, however, were long dull orange bolts of lightning splitting the skies. We pulled off and much to our good fortune there was a Waffle House and an EconoLodge (with laundry facilities, to boot!). We stood wondering, in light of only having 3 days left if we should stay, but Karen had our miles figured out, and she said that we’d be able to do it.

From all the trips I’ve taken in the past I know that these last few days are the most important to a journey’s success. I mean now is when home is looked forward to the most, and concentration on the travel at hand can become sloppy. With all the successful days behind, it’s darn easy to become over confident and miss little important details. Also, weariness is at its greatest point now, and problems can develop from being tired. So, as we head into these last few miles of what seems like it will be 11,000 or so, we have to be even more on guard than ever. More perceptive to our surroundings, to sounds and performance of the Shadow, and keenly aware of ourselves and our goal. (But ahhh… ever so looking forward to sitting in our favorite chair again in the cozy tv room at home with a bowl of warm popcorn in our lap watching a favorite show and knowing that we don’t have 420 miles to go when the program is over. mmmmm… )

48 States or Bust – The USA on Two Wheels
Miles Today: 290 – Total Miles: 9189 – Average: 255.3 (travel days)
9:30am-4:30pm (7 hrs.)
SIKESTON, MO to SARDIS, MS (south of Memphis)
(-staying a Super MO,IL,KY,TN,AR,MS (38/48)
- WE TOP 9,000, AND FEELING THE MILES – DIPPING SOUTHWARD – FIVE(!) STATES CHECKED OFF -

In 1985 when I went through Blythedale, which is near here, I had a great experience and met some new friends. Here’s the story from my July 3rd, 1985 journal:

Finally, at day’s end, I had trouble getting a place in Blytheville. No luck with a campsite. As I wheeled by a drive-in theater, a man and child were coming out. I rolled over and asked if they knew where I could pitch a tent. It was the theater owner and he said that I could put my tent up in a corner of that drive-in theater!!! I went over to the best place, sat down, and wrote postcards and journal pages. Soon, Shane, on his 4-wheeler dune-buggy-type rig came over, and we chatted. Shane, the theater owner’s son, was a very likeable 12-year-old, and he took a big interest in my trip! I wrote postcards for about 45 minutes and then noticed dark clouds rolling over. Shane came back, and at first drops, we took the bike, still fully packed, to the projector room/concession stand. There I met Shane’s good-looking blonde mom. We stood around, watched the clouds roll in, and then we witnessed a huge thunder and lightning storm hit with a fury matched only by the brilliance of the flashing bolts. The wind ripped. The skies created huge mosaics of ominous cloud in varying hues of gray and black. They swirled and blew. It was quite a show. Not great for the anticipated crowd for tonight’s feature show and I felt badly for Mr. Glasscock, the owner. I also felt badly for myself and my evening tenting prospects. But Mr. Glasscock suggested I stay in the trailer behind the big outdoor movie screen. After securing the bike, that’s where I landed. My back really itched from bug bites while I wrote this journal entry at around 10:30PM. Shane and his grand dad came out with a sheet and pillow for me which I appreciated. After some chatting, I curled up in the sheet. The night was punctuated by more storming at around 2AM. I was happy to be in that trailer behind the huge drive-in movie screen and I had a good sleep.

Well, I checked on line for any Glasscock that might be in the area and sure enough I got to chat with a member of the family. Seems Mr. Glasscock passed away and Shane was out of the area. I tried calling Shane’s brother all day but only got an answering machine.

We were out and gassed-up by 9:15am and it was pretty much a through-driving day.

Once we turned off a highway and there was a hospital right there at the intersection. I toyed around a bit with the idea of stopping in and checking out the pain near my belly, but decided to move on.

It was a hazy day today – the first such of the journey, and partly because the surroundings were fairly mundane (mostly all flat farmland as far as one could see), and because it was getting so warm, and because the highways had nothing particular notable about them, it was a bit harder to keep concentration up.

This was the beginning of our sixth week on the road and we passed over the 9,000-mile mark today. And for whatever reason, it’s starting to get a little tougher now. We both admit to being a bit road-weary at the end of the day. And Karen, who does such a good job charting our next day routes in the evening, says it looks like we’ve got 1,600 more to go! (Remember, we’ve planned to be back by this next Thursday and MUST be back by Friday to get ready to shoot a Saturday wedding. So it looks like we’ve got to put in all 400-mile or so days coming up this last week! A lot of people said this would be ‘fun’, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy. We both agreed that it would be a perfect time for a day off, but it just can’t happen now. It was 18 days ago (after 18 days on the road) that we took our only day off. (In Superior, Montana, remember?)

We were looking for an EconoLodge this evening since we only needed two more stickers to get a free night, but ended up at a Super8 south of Memphis. We could have gone into see Graceland, but we were both exhausted and butt-weary, and had little interest anyway.

After unpacking, we both napped, exhausted from the day’s ride. My stomach thing began acting up again a bit more than it had during the day, and I was feeling a bit stiff all over, and I was happy for the air conditioning, too.

Karen did some hand wash in the room while I mcycled the little way to Nonnie & Pops, a little eatery scouring for something that we could eat.

We talked routing back in the room and I caught up on these journal notes while Karen did some reading.

A lot of the names of these little towns along the way have been familiar to me from my 20-year-ago Gulf-of-Mexico-to-Canada ride. But one of my favorite stories comes from when I met Nikki, Bub, and Little Bub. I had rolled into town on a July 4th and my recollection has been that Nikki and Bub just let me, a total stranger, take care of Little Bub while they went to see the fireworks. (This was not substantiated by my journal notes. However, that’s sure the way I remember it!)

We got on the road mid-morning and headed into the town that has been my favorite since childhood. Who knows why? But anyone who knows me, knows that the city of St. Louis is one that I’ve had a love affair with ever since I was about 8 years old. The city, the sports teams, anything about the place… (Oh, and when I rolled through there in 1980, the series of interesting and amazing circumstances found me at the Cardinal’s ball park, Busch Stadium, watching a night game. On the scoreboard (and I got a great picture of it) they flashed the words, “Joel Perlish, who is Bicycling Across the Country, is Attending Tonight’s Game!!” — THAT was quite a thrill for me.) So, twice before I triumphantly entered St. Louis. Once from the west on the cross-country trip, and once from the south on my Gulf-of-Mexico-to-Canada-Along-the Whole-Mississippi ride, and NOW from the north!

It was about 100 miles to the big city from Hannibal to St. Louis, and it was a thrill to see the huge stainless steel arch spiking up from the riverfront as it came into view. We navigated the city roads well and found a parking space in the nearby underground parking garage.

A big family, the Tuzaks, had just parked beside us, and I quipped that they were our welcoming committee. We got pictures with the folks, Jim and Michele, and with their three cute kids, Ashley, Samantha, and Zach. From Joliet, IL, the family was in town for the day. Jim said he hadn’t been to the Arch since he was a kid.

Then, with all our gear, we trudged up the steps out of the parking garage and then down the long thoroughfare of tall-tree lined grass area to the base of the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch. It positively gleamed in the sun of this brilliant day!

We found a long line for the security check (which, of course took longer for us because of all our bags and gear). After about a half-hour in that security line around mid-afternoon, we faced a ticket line that snaked around and was an hour long!

At the base of the Arch inside, there is the ticket area, two big theaters, a few gift-type shops and a wonderful museum. We got tickets for the ride to the top, and tickets for the two shows there. One, a National Geographic IMAX presentation about Lewis and Clark, and the other, a film about the building of the Arch. Our ride to the top tickets were for 2:40pm, so we had time to see the two movies before the ride.

The Lewis and Clark IMAX flick was first. It was slick and wonderfully done. The huge big screen popped with gorgeous colors and brought the audience right into the scenes of the two explorers as they crossed the newly purchased virgin territory part of the United States in 1804. It made Karen and I both want to learn more of their exploits. We enjoyed the movie from the last top-most row, munching on some trail mix we had brought in.

After that 45-minute presentation we were even more exhausted than we had been before. We sat near the museum entrance for a bit and munched on an apple and a couple soft pretzels. We ventured a bit into the museum, but shortly it was time for the building-of-the-arch movie. We sat in the darkened theater way beyond the start time, and that was concerning to us since the end of the film bumped into the start of the tram ride. Well, the film never did start – seems a bulb burned out or something.

Others stayed, we got up and left, and explored more of the museum, and then a little before 2:40pm went to the queue for the tram. We were led to a loading area, and then another loading area, and finally down a series of steps. Eventually, a little bubble-shaped car appeared behind a door that opened. It was small and held only five people. The others with us were a very tall motorcycle policeman and his two daughters. When the door closed it was very claustrophobic in there and the car began a series of somewhat nerve-provoking shuffling bumps and grinds. In that way the little cylinder made it’s way to the top of the Arch. Finally, the pod stopped, the door opened, and we made our way up a short series of steep steps to the little hallway at the top. Others were milling around there already, and leaning against the carpeted somewhat-slanted window sills to peer out one of the eight or so windows looking down from America’s tallest man-made monument.

The Arch, in the area of the St. Louis riverfront that is known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was completed in 1965. The visionary designer was a guy named Eero Saarinen, but he died before seeing it completed.

People looked like ants below. I enjoyed the St.Louis city side of view the most. There were views of the Old Courthouse (where the first Dred Scott case was heard), and Busch Stadium, and the beginnings of the new stadium to be completed next year. Looking out the other side one could see the magnificent Mississippi still huge even from so high up, the little play boats on the river, and views westward.

After about half an hour we reversed our ride up. The pod went down much faster, it seemed, and plummeted down in three minutes (as opposed to the four it takes to get up the side of the archway).

We then went back to the theater to see the film we had missed. It was made in the late ‘60’s shortly after the Arch was completed. It was good, but dated. And the theater was a regular one, so after the 4-story tall IMAX show, this screen seemed pretty puny. Our heads bobbed a couple of times during the show.

Then we left the complex taking pictures and video along the way. Two couples, the guys mostly toothless and tattooed, were from Britain, but they lived in the area. One was a truck driver. I asked the one if I could take a photo of one of the babe tattoos he had. He obliged eagerly. I asked him the same question I ask a lot of folks with tattoos, and that is, did he ever regret getting it. (He had at least 20 all over him.) He volunteered that he had designed-over several women’s names, and he listed them for me, at the base of the one of the tattoos. “Gail” was the final name on the list, and that one still was there!

Leaving the foursome with smiles, we made our way back along the sunny field and back to the mc underground. We left the parking area around 4:30pm and headed south.

At one gas up today we had our cheapest gas ever – $2.09. Also, went the most miles without tanking up – 113! Still haven’t had to turn on the reserve for the whole trip. Pumped in 3.17 gallons. I think the tank hold 3.5 gallons.

Beginning last night and working itself through today, I had some kind of stomach cramps. Whether caused by some kind of viral thing, or caused by not eating right, or even a more serious appendix thing, we didn’t know. But by the time we arrived in Sikeston I was pretty much doubled over and more exhausted than ever on the trip. I fell into a deep sleep without even showering, and apologized to Karen for all my moaning.

It was a grand day in St. Louis, and I was feeling a little down when we motored out.

If anyone asks you how far it is from one side of the top of Missouri to the other, you can tell them it’s just about exactly 200 miles! And that’s what we covered under sunny skies today. It was mixed road surface so in parts we had to slow down, but basically it was farm fields of corn and some wheat, warm winds in our face, and pockets of trees beside the road. Also, rolling hills for a change instead of pancake flat land. Karen noted that more than half the sky was covered with swirling clouds.

We had begun late because we had to pick up another camera battery and charger at the local Wal-Mart, but it was basically a good ride. And then we had a race to get to the 4pm riverboat ride which was the last of the day out of Hannibal.

Hannibal, Missouri. The name conjures up for me the days of Mark Twain and the slow-paced days of life on the river. I had bicycled through here in 1985 in the midst of my New Orleans to Canada – All Mississippi bicycle ride. (1642 Miles – 31 Days – Jun 24 to Jul 26) It was a great ride and as a far as I know, I’m still the only one to have crossed the country both ways (west to east, and south to north) solo!! Anyway, one of the highlights of that ride was my campsite right by the river. Here are my notes about it from my 1985 journal:

As I wrote this particular journal entry it was a really special and wonderful moment. I was sitting right smack dab on a bank of the Mississippi. It was not more than ten feet in front of me. My tent site wasn’t more than 100-yards in back of this picnic table I’m writing upon. A huge barge was just floating by. A long train whistled past to the left about 300-yards away. It was just before dusk and there was a cooling wind to the east blowing my way.

The river looked so serene here. An occasional bottle would float by, but otherwise it looked clean and gentle. I was seated with cameras at the ready and binoculars set. The green of the banks and the green/blue/gray of the ripples combined with the millions of birdcalls to create an idyllic peaceful setting.

The barges moved so slowly and smoothly down the river. They were like hour hands… they hardly seemed to move at all, but then you noticed, after looking away, how time tricked you. And movement was there after all. But like southern drawls, and the ways of many southern folks, the barges were purposeful, & intent, and forever moving forward.

The odd duck horn of the tugs as they nudged their cargo downstream was delightful and it was easy to see how Samuel Clemens – or anyone – could fall in love with the Mississippi. The snake-like barge cargo seemed to stretch for miles in front of the barge pushers. And what a slow inexorable push it was! I got a wave from a riverboat captain and it felt like a real treat! It was about 8PM, and the light was dimming on the riverfront. To the sounds of the river, the train, and the birds, I fell fast asleep in the cozy tent.

As I wrote, we raced to the 4pm riverboat ride. I didn’t think we’d make it really, but arrived JUST in the nick of time to get tickets and board. We got there at 3:55pm! As with most touristy places, one has to go the gift shop area first, but then we boarded for the hour-long trip up and down the river near Hannibal. The PA system had a cheesy soundtrack of history and jokes and tall tales that occasionally punctuated the peacefulness of the ride. One could see many of the younger folks quite bored with the ride. After all, there were no loud fireworks, fast animation, or gored up battle scenes. It was a slow and purposeful trip. Occasionally the loud full horn of the ship would blast and there was a short rendition from the big calliope on the top deck. It was warm and sunny and we both enjoyed the ride – and the comparison between it and the willy-nilly racing of the motorcycle rides that we’ve daily been taking for more than the last month.

Soon it was over and we climbed back on shore, to the Shadow, and having gotten caught up in the mellowness of the river, and the steamboat ride, and the sunny day, we made the decision (even though we were only at 200 miles) to stay in Hannibal for the night. We found a reasonable EconoLodge and scored one of the nicest rooms of the trip – a huge spacious new room to boot.

After a little nap we got on the motorcycle (sans gear other than helmet) and took some back roads into the main part of town. We noticed to our dismay that even on this Friday evening, all the tourist shops and little stores had closed up early – before 8pm even.

We went to the Mark Twain Dinette (the enormous mug proclaiming its name as signpost) and had a delicious reasonably priced meal, that included home made root beer in a somewhat frosted mug.

From a town brochure:

Hannibal is a picturesque town situated on the banks of the Mississippi River approximately 80 miles north of St. Louis off of US Highway 61. Best known as the boyhood home of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who is better known as Mark Twain, the emphasis on this fact is evident throughout the town. Many attraction and businesses focus on a relationship to Twain or two of his better known novels of life along the Mississippi – Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Attractions in this genre include the Mark Twain Boyhood Home And Museum, the Becky Thatcher House, and Grant’s Drug Store where Twain once lived.

Hannibal does have a significant history besides its connection to Mark Twain and his imagination. Hannibal was founded in 1819 and chartered as a city in 1845. The first railroad to cross the state of Missouri was the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. The first locomotive manufactured west of the Mississippi, a 34 ton engine called the General Grant, and the first railway mail car for sorting mail en route were made in the town’s railroad shops.

After the meal we walked around the corner to see some of the old buildings – Becky Thatcher’s house, Mark Twain’s boyhood home, and the Tom Sawyer fence of fame. We headed back after the walk through the cool air of dusk – we were determined to get a good night’s sleep and an early start tomorrow.

48 States or Bust – The USA on Two Wheels
Miles Today: 401 – Total Miles: 8417 – Average: 255.1(travel days)
11:30AM-9:30PM (10hrs)
GREAT BEND, KS to ST.JOSEPHS, MO
(-staying at a Super KS,NB,IA,MO (33/48)
- THREE STATES! – A FRIEND FROM THE PAST – INTO THE HEARTLAND -

One of the Days Inn come-ons is that one can pour the batter and make freshly made waffles in the morning. While Karen was making us a few in the snack area, a woman said to her, “I don’t go hardly nowhere, but I don’t know if I’d want to do it on a motorcycle.”

On that bicycle trip of mine a quarter century ago I stayed in Great Bend for a night. Here’s how it went after that 84-mile bicycling day from my journal notes:

One cute woman in the laundromat and I got into a conversation and after she learned about my adventures, she asked if she could call her husband. He happened to be a reporter for the Great Bend paper. She went to pick him up. I spent the next hour being photographed and interviewed. Then, when my tip of a place to stay in at Pawnee Rock fell through, reporter Chuck Smith and his wife Lisa invited me to stay at their home. Lisa made bean tostados for supper. Chuck was a big fellow and wears a cowboy hat and a bushy beard. He was constantly puffing on an ever-extinguishing pipe. The couple was in their twenties and Lisa is expecting a child in December. I slept on the floor in my bag which was laid upon Chuck’s big buffalo cape. I forgot to ask the Smiths to turn off the fifteen-minute-interval chime of the grandfather’s clock. The huge clock was in the same room where I was sleeping. But it didn’t matter. From the time my head hit the bag at 11:00, until I was up at 6:00, I didn’t hear a thing. In fact, I thought they had turned it off! My sleep was sound and deep.

Well I wondered if maybe Chuck Smith might still be around these parts. I called a person by that name in the phone book and the lady who answered said it was the wrong one. Then I mentioned that he had been a reporter 25 years ago and she said, “Oh yes, I read his stories in the paper!” I quickly got the Great Bend Tribune phone number and before you know it, I was talking with Chuck Smith.

As soon as I said I was the guy who slept on the buffalo robe, he knew exactly who I was from so long ago. We chatted a bit on the phone and I was sad to learn that Lisa had past away, but Chuck had remarried and was doing well. He was now an editor of the paper. He invited Karen and me over to the office.

We were there by 10am or so and Chuck and I gave each other a good hug. After some conversation, he took a picture of Karen and me and the Shadow with intention of doing a story about us. Then he invited us in to his office. When we walked into the Great Bend Tribune newspaper building, Karen, who had worked for a publishing company many years ago, immediately smelled the ink and felt nostalgic.

Chuck was just recently 50 and there were birthday messages in his office. (Like, “Antique Human – THIS is what 50 looks like!”)

We met Kevin, a friend of Chuck’s. As we were talking about Chuck STILL being at the paper after all these years, and how surprised I was, Kevin gave a friendly jab to his pal by saying, “Well, you’ve gotta add the element of sloth in there, too.”

We got a nice tour of the little newspaper office including the huge press machines in the back. Chuck and I reminisced about my time there and we talked about his kids and a little about Lisa. There were some good posted slogans that I liked around the office – one in particular read, “It’s Fun Doing the Impossible!”

Chuck, admiring the trip we were taking by someone older than himself, said as we left, “What you’re doing gives me hope.” We shoved off at around 11:30ish.

We rolled passed some cattle pens. Not the big ones like yesterday. Outside Dodge there were huge stinking pens of cattle. The smell was intense. Here’s what I wrote 25 years ago, and what I still thought today:

On the way out of town, I passed sprawling cow pens. The poor beasts were mooing their lungs out ready for slaughter or ready to be sent to the slaughter houses. I wanted to tell those cows that it wasn’t *my* fault, being a vegetarian and all. But I pedaled speedily away. The stench of the air from the unclean pens made me want to get away quickly. And the filth there made me gladder than ever for being a vegetarian!

We swung eastward on Route 56, then 156 north, then I-70 east then 75 north, then 2 east, and I-29 south… Now, that’s a lot of numbers but what they meant was we zipped through Kansas to Nebraska, then into a little nip of Iowa, then south a-ways into Missouri. And that added three more states to our goal of reaching all 48 contiguous states. (At the last gas stop in Kansas, I was going over the route with a trucker guy, and he turned the phrase, “So, you just gotta go up and tap Iowa, an’ then come back!”)

Trees. We saw trees today for almost the whole day. That’s the first we saw of trees on our way back from the west. Also, today was the first day of the trip in which there was not a single cloud in the sky for the whole day.

The roads were the worst of the trip on I-29 south out of Iowa and into Missouri. There were big vertical cracks in the highway that just looked hungry enough to gobble a motorcycle tire. I was VERY careful there to be sure. Karen noted that it bumped Ohio off as having the worst roads.

Coming into St. Josephs, I let the mileage get all the way to 112 for the tank of gas. Still didn’t have to put it on reserve.

We had stopped at one of those visitor’s centers and saved a bunch of bucks with a coupon on a Super 8.

On my run in the evening out of the motel, I found Carlos O’Kelly’s Cantina (a mixture Mexican and Irish place I guess) and got us a couple of guacamole tostados to bring back for supper. Karen wasn’t sure if we were getting potatoes or beans.

In eerie reminiscence of our first day on the road at my cousin Leslie’s place, the phone rang at 2am! It was the room phone this time and woke us up out of a dead sleep. There was no one was on the other end when I picked up the receiver. I called the office, and they said that someone in another room must have called the wrong number! Arghhh…

When I looked out the motel room door from that second floor deck the sky was roiling, full of dark clouds covering the whole of the atmosphere above. They started clearing away around 9ish. We very rarely have the tv on in the motel room, but this morning Karen checked out the weather channel. The map there showed that there was rain behind us and below us and north of us, and in fact it was predicted to be wet everywhere but where we were headed!

It’s interesting how on a trip like this little inanimate objects can have a real pull on one. My little camera, the second of three that we have along, was missing. And we searched high and low, but somehow it got out of my thigh bag and was gone. It can be replaced, of course, but the feeling of missing it after all these days of companionship of sorts, was intense.

In the parking lot this morning as we were packing up, a fellow from San Antonio came over and chatted with Karen. He and his wife were coming back from the Albuquerque area where they had met their son. The son had flown in from Washington State where he was on leave from duties in Iraq. His folks had asked him what he’d like to do, and his reply was that the one thing he’d like to do is some fly fishing in New Mexico. They said that if the kid could get to Albuquerque, they would meet him and do some fishing together. With great sadness in his eyes, the dad said that now the boy was headed back for his last tour in the Middle East and strongly implied that we as a country shouldn’t be there in the first place.

The same San Antonio guy said that the day before he had met a retired school teacher woman who was horseback riding from the Canadian border to New Mexico. She was taking all back roads, of course. She told him the story about how to get out of the rain one day, she had ridden her horse right into a service station bay. (A bit like us back in Vermont, you faithful readers will recall.)

What a fabulous day of riding this was! The day began in complete cloud cover and ended 444 miles later without a cloud in the sky. It was clear, sunny, fresh breezed, gorgeous, and totally cool throughout the day. For much of the time through this mid-western area it felt like a San Francisco cable car hook was underneath and just pulling us along.

For most all of today we traveled up roadway from grain silo to grain silo that I had bicycled upon on that 25-year ago cross-country bicycle journey. Again, nothing much seemed familiar except the museum that will be mentioned a bit later here, but the town names were warmly and well remembered and it was good being here again. Later in the day I would read to Karen from my journal notes of 25 years ago and that flooded back a lot of those quarter century ago memories, and correct other misremembering.

Today as most days, it was all good road to travel upon. A few spine-crunching bumps and holes here and there, but basically fine highway. And I was thinking, as I do on many days, that the good system of roads in this country is surely what helps make it great.

Just as we turned off I-40 and headed northeast on Route 54, the land changed dramatically. It went from the butte and mountain scene to flat agricultural areas. And that’s what we traveled all day with good winds and blue skies. The clouds at first were impressive to me. There were lower little cotton puffs of clouds scudding along swiftly layered under larger clouds above. And we had good winds today, too. Mostly at our back.

Most of the speed limits throughout the day were posted in the four states we were in as 55-70mph. But all the roads were built for faster than that, and it was a rare vehicle that wasn’t cruising at around 75. We sailed through the empty countryside at about 80-85mph most of the day. There seemed more trucks than cars, but not many of them either. Passed plenty of semi’s, and all were friendly, most moving over a little as we passed. The roads were long and mostly straight, the mirages of water at the end of them seemed real and palpable. Coming the other direction, the mammoth trucks would appear to rise, shimmering out of those mirages, headlights like two monster eyes.

I am most appreciative of the drivers who were pulled over by the police ahead of me. By their sacrifice we were able to soar along throughout the day without a delay of having to chat with a patrolman.

In Tucumcari at our first gas stop we had a close one! Karen was pulling the straps around the back bag a little tighter and, not realizing her new-found strength, almost pulled the Shadow over on to herself. And to make matters worse the gas tank top hadn’t been closed yet so gasoline would have spilled over. I caught the bike just in the nick of time.

We came into farming-type areas where there were long stretches of road – maybe 30-50 miles with nothing there other than barbwired-off land, and then little towns sprouted on the roadside. Along the way, occasionally, one would see a little farm house pocked into a small valley.

There was a monstrous fire on the short distant horizon just outside of Dalhart, TX that had smoke plumes billowing up way into the sky – and there was a single white cloud there that was being dirtied, and shortly consumed by that smoke.

There was a $10,000 Reward poster in the gas station in Dalhart and the I thought it was a joke one. The man in the picture looked like the little man with the big moustache who was taking my money. I asked if it was him. He said that no, it was his great uncle and that it was for real. “Black Jack” Ketchum, around his grandfather’s time, was hung nearby, he said, and was in the books at the museum.

A train leaving town, and others during the day, at our urging (by moving our arms in the manner of pulling a cord!), gave us a huge bellowing of it’s horn. It was energizing and brought big smiles to each of our faces.

Tracks traced beside the roadway most all day once we hit Kansas. And in one of those magic moments a train was going in our direction, on our left. We started at the end and, going 80, caught up with the engine and then took the lead. It was like a scene from Superman when he was running alongside and beat the train.

No trains have cabooses any more. Haven’t seen a one yet. Karen said that she heard they were outlawed for some reason a few years ago. I miss them.

Into Hooker around 3pm, I recalled the sign that I saw 25 years ago – “Hooker Pig Sale – Where Champions Come Alive!” But there was no sign of it now. The town got it’s name form the Civil War general who passed through here. At our gas stop here, we got a couple new matching do-rags, and we were 250 miles into what we hoped would be a 500-mile day.

We both had a few small, hard, sharp stones hit our legs out on the roadway today. Even through the Aerostitch thick material they caused bruises on our lower legs. And once, Karen had something fly by and just graze her helmet. She didn’t have her shield down at the time so she felt fortunate the projectile wasn’t over a few inches.

We flew into Kansas and wanted to stop in one of the first towns there, Liberal, for a late lunch. Liberal is the home of my fabled pancake story. Here’s the tale from my journal notes of 25 years ago, April 20th, 1980:

Came to a terrific pancake place on the main drag where I had two orders of buckwheat and wheat germ pancakes. The big platefuls were for only $2.00 each. And the owner couldn’t believe it when I wanted more. Finally, with amazed customers looking on, I downed twelve plate-sized pancakes. I imagined that I heard bets being taken on how many I’d eventually finish. The bike tires were a little flatter with my pancake-bloated belly weighing things down a bit. (Note: Bicycled 71 miles that day!)

In Meade, KS, we stopped at the history museum. We met Deb, the lady in charge, and I told her how I was there 25 years ago. She checked on some records from the past which had just been found within the last couple of weeks. Sure enough, there scrawled on the paper, was my name where I had made a Life Membership donation 25 years ago. Karen and I walked around the museum and enjoyed the many well displayed artifacts there. Deb played a piece on a player piano for us which was delightful to hear. Here’s what I had written in my journal when I bicycled through in 1980:

Despite the lateness (it was about 3:15), and the distance to Dodge (which was still considerable), I lingered in Meade. That’s the home of the Dalton Gang Escape Museum, and the small, but really superb Meade County Historical Society Museum. Lottie Bisbee of the Historical Society was a warm and wonderful woman who I enjoyed listening to immensely. I decided that when I came home, I would send the Society a donation. The whole town of Meade really impressed me with its cleanliness, quietness, friendliness, and beauty. I really lingered at the park there – it has a beautiful patch of flowers, trees, color, and greenery. It was rich in beckoning and warm in friendliness. I wanted to stay, but had to move on. But still lingered. Pulled in by the indescribable quality of peace.

Around 6:30 or so we pulled into Dodge. I well remembered my time there back in ’80. The town had grown quite a bit, but there was still the Boot Hill area of ‘old Dodge’ in the middle of town. The backdrop of old time stores was now replaced with some real ones, and the old hangin’ tree (which I had posed by so long ago) was gone and it was much more touristy now. I don’t recall having to pay anything, no less the $8 fee they now imposed, to get into the area. The entry was now through a “museum” which was really just a gift shop. We picked through the shop and I was content because of the fee and the lateness of the time of day not to go into the main area. But when the young girls went to ring us up the computer was down, and so, as a courtesy she let us go on to Main Street and see the ensuing gun battle, for no cost.

Neither of us were impressed with the somewhat loosely acted out sophomoric gun battle, and we left before it was over.

We traveled long and hard today. This morning we had an IM session with Steve again and it began the day with good humor, encouragement, and good-natured prodding. The session went a little like this:

Steve: finally getting an early start
Steve:(8:22:49 AM): well if you were still on pacific time anyway
Joel perlish (8:23:07 AM): yes, we hope so, but not as early as we hoped. a call came into the room at 2am by mistake!…. arghhh…
Steve: (8:24:05 AM): so how far did you make it yesterday
Joel perlish (8:24:48 AM): 380! caught by the cold actually.
Steve: (8:25:27 AM): i had you pegged pretty good again.
Steve: (8:30:33 AM): based on your current habits and past performance 422 is the best you could possibly do today. honestly i’d be impressed to see you get to 400.
Steve: (8:31:00 AM): at the mirage the odds are posted as follows:
Steve: (8:31:40 AM):
under 200 miles —— 20 to 1
201 to 300 miles —— 10 to 1
301 to 350 miles —— 4 to 1
351 to 400 miles ——- even money
401 to 450 miles ——- 2 to 1
451 to 500 miles ——- 7 to 1
501 miles or more ——- 15 to 1

We thought about and smiled about that during the day. I was determined to get to 500 today, but as we pulled into Great Bend, with still about 100 to go, and darkness falling fast, I realized we didn’t have the time to get in before dark. Steve had pegged us right for another day.

As we had passed into Great Bend we went by a Days Inn that advertised “Wireless Internet, Waffles in the Morning, and $39.99 Lodging.” We sailed by to the other end of town to get gas, but it was then we realized that the wise judgment would be to stay here, so we doubled back.

It seems to me that some of you readers may not know anything about motorcycles. Here’s a primer on how they work. I am surely no expert, so perhaps you should take that into account when reading.

Well, a motorcycle usually has two wheels – but there are also trikes out there.
It’s my understanding that the gasoline put into the engine sets off a sparking bit of energy that makes some cylinders of some kind go up and down, which in turn moves a chain or leather belt that turns the wheels. (Millions of years’ worth of prehistoric animals that died for this – a tip of the hat to you, and thank you!) There are various complicated other ways the above happen, but I think you get the gist of it. Anyway, one used to start a motorcycle by kickstarting it. That created the force to get the whole process going. As far as I can tell, all bikes worth anything have a little button that works as an electric ignition.

Well, after the bike is turned on with a key, that ignition button is pushed and assuming the bike gears are in neutral, the engine should start purring away. (If the bike isn’t in neutral, and the gear shift lever isn’t held in, then the bike will buck out of control.)

Okay, on each of the handlebars there is a lever. The right handlebar lever is the brake for the front wheel. (The brake for the back wheel is operated by a lever near the right foot.) The left handlebar lever is for the clutch. One squeezes this to engage the gears, much like pushing down on the clutch with your foot in a car. Motorcycles usually have five or six gears I think. The toe of the left foot moves the gearing. A little lever there pushed down is first gear. Lifting the lever with your left big toe (usually in a boot) moves the bike into neutral. Then lifting the lever again with your toe moves the bike into second gear. And so on up to the bike’s highest gear (for when you’re moving really fast). When you go slower or faster you push the gears down (or up) in tandem with pulling in that gear-shift lever on the left handlebar.

So after lifting your leg over the bike, you straddle it. Then engage the first gear, slowly release the clutch while turning the end of the right handlebar (the accelerator), lift your feet to the pegs and off you go.

When riding, there are generally two positions. One with feet on the regular pegs (the right one near the brake lever, the left one near the gearshift lever). Or if one has crash bars (bars that curve out from each side of the bike to take the brunt of a fall should the bike tip over), one could put cruiser pegs on these bars and put his or her feet up on these pegs. It’s good to change positions occasionally on a long trip. And sometimes I ride with one foot up and the other down.

We slept late because we were up late last night. But it wasn’t our fault this time – seems the shower stall of the motel backed-up, the guy never came to fix it, and it was 11pm before they finally gave us a key to the (unoccupied) room next door to use its shower!

It was basically a head-down hard riding day though the southwest. Came up short against darkness and cold though for the planned 500 mile day.

Rode the 130 miles into Gallup and though it was a delightful ride, there was much more wind-buffeting than yesterday. Also, the scenery had continued to level out and there were hardly any dramatic mountain rises or cliffs. All day it was a cool delightful ride – much to our surprise.

Had lunch in Gallup before getting on the big highway, I-40, to cross New Mexico. As we were getting on the bike, a boy of about 9 years old came running excitedly out of the Taco Bell and wanted to know how many states we’ve been in. Karen told him 27 and that we’d be going to Texas next. The boy very proudly said, “THAT’S where I come from!”

Had a note from friend Wayne the other day and he wondered if we had seen many of those dark skid marks on the desert highway and then veering off to the side of the road usually. Actually, yes, we had seen a bunch of them. He said he had read or heard that those skid marks were made by drivers who were on long trips who had fallen asleep while driving and then awoke with the horror of their situation.

Once we got on the other side of Albuquerque, it became very cool as we were on a side of some storm front. And as we rode further it became actually cold. I could see my breath as it slightly fogged up the inside of my helmet. By the end of the riding day, I was actually shuddering. (Had talked with my sister by phone today. She lives near Philadelphia and she said they were having a heat wave of 98 degrees weather with high humidity!) Hard to believe Karen and I had the coolest of the two places here in the Southwest.

Yep, rode with the Arizona Chapter of the Hell’s Angels this afternoon. As we streaked down Interstate 40, I saw them cross on a bridge over the highway. There were about 20 of ‘em maybe. Then, in a little while after they came down onto the interstate, they came right up and rode beside us in the passing lane. Then they passed us. So we rode together for about at least five or six seconds. I’m not sure we exactly blended in with our yellow outfits, but they didn’t seem to mind. They rode right on. Actually, I’m not sure whether they noticed us or not.

We arrived in Santa Rosa, cold and butt-sore, with evening approaching. We stood at the gas station trying to decide whether to go on or not, but then inertia kept us in the town. I checked out a couple places along motel row here and we ended up in a very nicely appointed Days Inn with high hopes of getting a good night’s sleep. As you’ll read tomorrow, it was not to be.

Didn’t have a great night’s sleep here in the log cabin on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Just as I would begin to fall to sleep I’d have an itch somewhere that had to be scratched, or an important or silly thought enter into my head that wouldn’t leave. Karen, on the other hand, fell instantly into a deep sleep, not having slept too well the past two nights.

We had a good run/walk to the bike to get the cover over it and then around and about part of the rim admiring the morning views. Then to the wonderful dining room where we enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast and our last views of the Canyon through the wall-sized picture windows. Our waitress was a young woman from State College in Pennsylvania and she told us that our timing was good there – that a couple weeks ago there were fires so bad that it was uncomfortable being outside and the views of the canyon were obscured. The couple at the next table were from Pittsburg and the man said that with eastern, mid-PA, and western-PA, we “had the whole state covered.”

It’s nice being away from the steady beat of bad news from around the world. Occasionally that seeps toward us from an CNN report blaring from a lobby tv, or a stray newspaper on a restaurant table. But otherwise, it’s nice not having all that negativity of bombings and hurricanes and the like in one’s daily life.

On the parking lot, we talked with a likeable motorcycling couple, Paul and Paula out of Ontario, Canada. They were also a month on the road but had to miss Bryce because of time problems. Their Harley broke down on them and they lost a day with that fiasco. With regard to Bryce, I was in the odd turn-around position of telling someone else (as folks often tell us), “You should have seen!”

Seems they had made their reservations here at the Grand Canyon two YEARS ago. So we felt especially lucky to get the room we got as a walk-in yesterday.

It took us 50 minutes back to Jacob Lake instead of the hour and a half it took us to get to the rim in the rain last night. As we went around some of those curves on the way back, Karen observed it seemed like the three of us were one machine.

One view from Route 89 was almost overly dramatic. A mountain ridge at the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument was along the whole broad expanse of view and otherwise there was an empty plain with nothing but scrub as far as could be seen in all directions way out to where the ground met the sky at the four horizons. A number of weather systems could be observed out in the distance. Rain tendrils fell down out of darker clouds, then a little further over, bright sunny areas were sparkling.

One thing for sure, it will sure be hard to get used to the puny sizes of clouds, sky, and landforms when we get home.

The clouds decorated the ridges we rode through today with designs large and small. Often the shadows would appear as images zany to clear according to how much imagination we’d be using.

The wide open riding went on for mile after endless mile with nary a car and not much aside from the tall electric power line towers marching like huge behemoths in the near distance. It was the best riding in the world. Certainly the best of the trip. The day was relatively cool. The road level, clean and straight… And endless seeming. And as we’d scamper at 80-90mph from one long horizon to another – and skitter between or through storm systems it dawned on me that THIS was the best place on Earth to motorcycle. There were endless changing views of cliff and color and small gulch and enormous canyon. One’s attention didn’t need to be on the road incessantly, so one could actually observe the fine sights. And fine sights they were – and as each ridge at the horizon would be scaled, the new views were wide-eyed amazing.

At some of those new views, one would have to be made of solid rock not to be impressed, and mightily impressed with the sights. Occasionally, but actually more often than not, as we crested a hill or turned a corner, I would instinctually utter an exclamation of astonishment! Or my eyes would widen in certain disbelief at the scene before me. Or my breath would actually be taken away for a bit! Or my mouth would drop open. Or I’d release the throttle just a bit to get a few extra moments to take in the vista magnificent. Well, you get the idea. In reds of Earth and blue/white of sky, the endless scenes were ever-changing and a delight. Even during the times we rode through rain today it was delightfully cooling with splashes of raindrops.

Not to say there wasn’t nervousness about some of the day’s ride. Despite our urgings for it to go in a different direction, often the road would turn right into a massive black area where lightning could be seen splitting the dark clouds above. First came a spattering of drops and then the downfall. But we never did get a good drenching this day. But there was always the worry of another hailstorm-like torrent or strong winds to contend with.

We got into Page near Lake Powell right before 2pm. What the time is has been a problem today. Some parts of Arizona and the Indian reservations have Daylight Savings and some don’t. So we basically had to keep asking.

Traveled the entire day’s ride with nary a traffic light. It’ll sure be hard to get used to them when we get back east.

At 4pm we stopped to take a picture of the odometer as the Shadow rolled over it’s 10,000th mile. It was in the middle of Indian country surrounded by buttes and mountains and with the Navaho Indian Monument land in view.

It was an incomparable sled ride today. (Many motorcyclists refer to their mc’s as ‘sleds’.) Riding today was so effortless at times it seemed like the surrounding landscape was moving at high speed alongside us and WE were actually the ones standing still.

What with the G.C. this morning, the Vermillion Cliffs this afternoon, and the Four Corners this evening we hit yet another record for images taken today – 675! Karen has not been just sitting idly on the back of the motorcyle, folks!

While buzzing down the highway we came across a bunch of goats with dogs trying unsuccessfully to herd them as they meandered on and off the road. Good thing I was paying attention.

Four Corners was established in 1868 by US Government surveyors and astronomers. Since childhood Karen has had a long and abiding interest in the culture and area of the Four Corners. And in recent years she’s read all the books by Tony Hillerman, an author whose novels are set in the Four Corners locale. Karen said, “Fifteen years and twenty books later, I’ve finally made it here!”

Four Corners is surrounded by Navaho and Ute Indian nations. It’s the only place in the country where four states come together at right angles. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah are the states one can put each limb into at one time. There’s a monument there in the desert that shows the demarcation. We, along with the others there took turns at having our pictures taken making all kinds of funny contortions at the magic spot. Around the monument are sales stalls where various Indian groups sell native jewelry and the such. We sampled the Indian fry bread (much like funnel cake) and bought a little Navaho pottery jar. We left the Four Corners at what we guessed for that area was 7:30pm.

We got caught in the dark at the end. In what seemed long ago in the Grand Canyon Cabin of this morning, Steve Diano, my Las Vegas friend, had IM’d us in the late morning and scolded us with how we should have been out on the road already! And we knew he was right. (Well, sort of knew. After all, the Grand Canyon IS the Grand Canyon – and who in his or her right mind would hurry away from that?) Then he bet we’d get 422 miles or below. And I took that wager. All day long we worked at winning that bet and would say how we’d go on for as long as it took to best 422! But as we rolled into Shiprock (an enormous ship-shaped rock nearby), we realized we would be losing that bet. Here, in the deep dusk of desert we either had to go 93 miles (and a 10:30pm end-time) to Gallup or 30 to Farmington. No place else in between to stay. So we opted for Farmington.

While tooling through the nightfall of the city looking for a motel, it was hard not to be thinking of the grandeur that was the day’s ride.

Sell your pets, rent out your house, trade in green stamps, find a sitter for the kids, and just get yourself to Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon!

After a good breakfast at Harold’s Place Inn, we took off by 10am for the northern rim of the Grand Canyon. After the magnificence of Bryce we were thinking of skipping right to Four Corners, but put off that decision until the last moment at the turn off.

We took Route 89 most of the way today. And right after that landscape opened up to total flat in every direction for as far as one could see. It was very impressive. And the long walking stick-straight road was more than 20 miles in length. At the end of it was a small mountain, and looking back from the mountain, the plain was very striking with that road curling down through it. And NOTHING else there could be seen but scrub and land.

As we crossed that landscape Karen noticed a little stream called Asay Creek which was snaking along and curly-qued for miles and miles.

Just before Kanab, there was a canyon of red rocks. The most spectacular was a double football field sized canyon wall with unbelievable scoring on its surface of straight lines and holes and designs.

It was precisely 100 miles from Bryce to Jacob Lake, which leads to the Canyon. There were huge storm clouds over the canyon area, so we had lunch until they cleared. A very friendly mid-80’s couple was in there. They were from Sedona, AZ which they proclaimed was “the most beautiful place on earth.” The man said he was born in Philadelphia. The smiley fellow said that they used to ride mc’s when they were younger. Karen mentioned that most of the folks on motorcycles we see on the road are around our age, and he replied, “That’s young to me!”

Unfortunately, by the time we got gas, more huge black clouds returned. I made a call from the lodge at Jacob Lake and discovered it wasn’t raining on the rim. We asked several locals and tourist types whether the rim would be worth seeing after having experienced Bryce. We got mixed replies, but generally favorable.

We left for the rim at 1pm. And almost immediately we were riding through a cool steady rain through cold winds. We were very cold. Karen was glad to have bought those Aerostitch pants so long ago it seemed. I had to stand on the pegs a few times to see over the water-dotted windshield.

It took an hour and a half to go the 44 miles. It was sunny at the rim with white clouds playing over the big hole in the ground. But the enormous black cloud was still over the area we had ridden through – maybe bigger now. I checked out availability at the Grand Canyon Lodge and found there was exactly ONE cabin left. And I decided to take it! Most times it’s weeks or months in advance to get such a place, but we lucked into a cancellation.

As Karen was putting the cover on the Shadow she chatted with a guy at his van waiting for the rest of his family. He was admiring the bike and as Karen was telling him about our journey he said a couple times that was something he always wanted to do – take a long trip on a motorcycle. Karen advised, “Do it soon, before it’s too late!”

It was a cabin that had a view of part of the canyon walls. It was simple but spacious, and also had a homey gas fireplace.

The rim of this northern part of the Grand Canyon is 8,255 feet, which is a thousand feet higher than on the southern edge. The average depth of the canyon is one mile. From South Rim to North Rim is 10 miles as the crow flies and 200 miles by car! There are far fewer visitors in the winter than summer on the North Rim because the average snowfall is ten feet a year.

The Angel Trail out to Bright Angel Point which overlooks the Canyon on the northern rim goes out about a quarter mile. The path is only about 3 or 4 feet wide. And on either side are unparalleled views of the Canyon stretching out to infinity. The path is smooth of surface but raises and lowers in elevation at points by a hundred feet or so – it’s not an easy trek out the end point. One could spend literally a year photographing the rocks alongside the path, the views spreading out from the path, the plants and trees all around it. Some of the rocks raise high beside the path and brave (or stupid or talented) scramble high up and cavort or pose there for pictures. Two such girls did so high above the path (and Canyon) on a mostly narrow boulder, and we all gasped.

In a related note, Karen spied in a pamphlet that over 250 folks a year are rescued from the depths of the Canyon.

The Grand Canyon’s top five layers are clearly visible on the walls of the Canyon. They represent 50 million years of ancient environments – swamps, seas, and deserts. Some rock layers are sheer vertical layers, while others form slopes because some of the rocks crumble more easily than others. Geologists guess, though, that it has taken less than five or six million years to carve the canyon.

The views really were amazing. And they made me really crave my good photo equipment – and a tripod. It made me laugh and surely seemed ironic and perhaps even oxymoronic seeing someone take pictures there of all that grand majesty with a cheap disposable camera. One guy I saw took some shots with his pda. There was a Frenchman there with a higher-end camera on a tripod. I got a good shot of him far out on a ledge with the canyon walls as dramatic backdrop – and gave him my email address to send him the shot.

Way out at the end of Bright Angel Trail I scanned below with my binoculars and amongst the trees saw a big waterfall – tiny through the lens, of course.

On the path, people of most every description were walking to and fro, coming or going. Sometimes going the same way, sometimes passing us walking in the other direction. It was a friendly conglomeration of folks and I got right into the spirit of that friendliness. A few times as people would pass, I’d put on a mock grin, and put my hand out, and say, “That will be $5 to pass, sir.” It got a good laugh every time. And I’d go up to someone and innocently say, “Do you know if they deliver pizza out here?”

Hard to compete with a 35 year old memory of that southern Grand Canyon rim that I had, but the views here were as spectacular. And a lot different. Not as deserty as the West Rim that Karen knew.

We missed seating for the dining room which overlooks the Canyon walls, but had good eating in the deli… veggie-tofu over rice, and two good portabella mushroom sandwiches.

We spent some time in the gift shop, and then back at the cabin we settled in with the usual chores of unpacking – and trying to go to sleep early.

Tomorrow morning – a short run along one of the biggest holes on earth, and a huge mileage day!

(BTW, just as a reminder, readers are welcome to write in and ask things about which you may be wondering. We like hearing from you and knowing you’re with us. Hope you’re enjoying the trip. — Joel

Any online readers can also feel free to leave their comments by clicking the appropriate “Comments” link under each online journal entry.)

Everything before this was preamble. All that we’ve seen from before were poor, pale shadows to what we witnessed today. The Virgin River Gorge, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park. Each alone would make much that has gone before tiny in comparison!

At Steve’s urging and with his inspiration, we actually did get on the road a little before 8am! It was good getting into the morning earlier and miles on the road before the heat of the day.

Around 10am in the little town of Mesquite, NV we breakfasted on pancakes. A couple motorcyclists were eating there. We met up again with Bruce Lee and Wilson at a gas place in Hurricane a while later. They were just tooling up on their Harleys to the Bryce area for the weekend. It was a dazzling day to ride. Especially toward the end of the day, the heat was somewhat lessened by thunderstorms in the area.

Just before St. George, UT was the Virgin River Gorge. It reminded us of some of the other scenic byway gorges we’ve traveled through, but it had few trees, mostly scrub and rock. Oh, and much much taller mountains. I had to watch the road, of course, but I recall riding through the gorge on my bicycle with craning neck and bulging eyeballs at the scenes through that corridor of mountain miles.

We entered the 25 miles or so of Zion National Park at 1 o’clock. The road would lead us to route 89 which would take us to Bryce. In Zion were splendid views of mountains distant and near that rose to such heights as to be staggering to the thought. And then the road took us up with turns of narrow hairpin variety and finally near the top was a slender tunnel. A mile-long, it was through and along the side of the mountain. It was very dark in there, although it did occasionally have open ‘windows’ on the one side which let a splashing of light in. Only one lane of traffic was allowed through at a time and we were first in line. When it was our turn to go I proceeded slowly to be sure through the darkness. The light shafts that came from the truck-sized windows in the rock were welcome, but also caused pupils to close, so that when past the blast of light, it was actually harder to see in the darkness that followed.

Zion National Park is made of swirling, tortured, fractured rocks up to the clouds – dotted with the trees that would, along with other erosion forces, bring down the leviathan mountains in say, a couple million years.

We stopped occasionally to take pictures, but many of the turn-offs were gravelly and I was hesitant to stop on them because of the intense angle of the roadway and the worry about keeping the bike upright. Karen was snapping photos like crazy all the way from the back of the bike and at one point she said how her neck was getting stiff from looking up so much.

At all the stops we would attract attention because of our sign and at the final one we had good conversation with a lady originally from New Jersey, but who now lived in Arizona. As with most she wished us good luck on the ride.

It was about 80 miles or so getting to Bryce Canyon. After some sprinkles from the occasional dark clouds scudding around, we got to the Bryce area around 4pm. We decided to check out a motel about 15 miles from the canyon. We had to come back this way anyway, so we figured we’d freshen up, leave our stuff in the room, go tour the 18 out-and-back miles of the national park, and then return to the motel before dark. First I called a few other motels in the area. One was booked up and the other only had three rooms left. On the basis of this and the very reasonable price, we decided to take a spot in Harold’s Place Inn. We had a choice of little cabins or a more conventional building. The more conventional one offered wireless internet so we took that one. (But it ended up not working anyway!)

After we had gotten into the room I was actually a little light-headed for some reason – probably not having eaten for awhile or some blood sugar thing. But I drank some water, had the remainder of some long-ago opened corn nuts, and then we made our way toward the park.

On the way to Bryce is Red Canyon. A wonderful geologic area all in itself. The rocks resemble the result from when one was a kid playing at the beach with wet sand. Then taking that wet sand and drizzling mounds of it to make castles and columns. Only here the hue of the material was red and the substance was very solid rock. This fairyland design of magic pillars went on for maybe a mile or so of highway and a couple of times the road tunneled right through it.

After a bit more highway, we came to the Ruby’s Inn complex of buildings and attractions. The Ruby family had been at the right place at the right time in the late 1800’s and began an inn at the entrance of what would soon be a national park. Descendents of the original family still run the place. And they run it well.

At Ruby’s café we had a good dinner and then after a little sojourn in the nearby gift shop, we headed into the park. (By the way, most of the national parks cost $20 to enter these days, and so I was glad to have purchased a park pass before leaving.)

There were a number of vista points along the 18-mile roadway. The traveling was easy, no major switchbacks or hills to climb. We were already on the top of the immense canyon. At the breaks in the trees the vista points were nicely paved. We stopped at almost each one to take in the amazing sights.

Nothing like the combination of water, wind, air, and time to create such beauty! Because of the way the river canyon was formed and eroded huge mountain-sized structures were left after nature had its way with things. “Hoodoos”, or seemingly slender odd-looking stove-pipe-like columns graced the landscape out to the horizon in parts. Slices of harder mountain rock still stood after the less strong surrounding rock had eroded away and the result was often jaw-dropping beauty of grand design. Frequently, that design looked to me like vistas of alien apartment buildings that ranged for twenty miles or more in every direction and of most every hue and shade of color.

All the turn out points presented dream-like views of this evening tapestry in rock with now lengthening shadows. One enormous rock area had been worn away from the middle and formed what appeared to be a gargantuan natural bridge, but which was really a fantastic arch spreading wide for all to see.

The day set a record for the most photographs taken (approaching 500!) and also for the most times scrambling off and on the bike. Karen especially got tired of that.

Riding back through Bryce this evening to the entrance on that broad smooth blacktop through the forest was like slicing through the freshest sweetest air in the world!

I was a little nervous about that leg of the ride because it was beginning to edge on middle dusk in the midst of that tree-lined roadway, and also because the gas tank mileage was approaching 100.

We stopped at the ranger visitor center for bit and then back at Ruby’s for gas and more gift shop time. I tinkered with the idea of buying an expensive Utah blanket, but instead opted for only some food stuff and a pair of sunglasses.

It was a cool to cold ride back through the expanse of desert and eventually through Red Canyon and to the motel. But it was a clear evening, and the 70mph fresh night winds hitting my face on that straight deserted drive evoked heightened perceptions of wonder and life itself. It was a grand feeling.

As we were loading up we chatted with Debbie, Dave, Rose, and Ralph. They were two California couples who were out for a weekend’s jaunt to Bryce and Zion on two Goldwings. They had left yesterday evening at 8pm and arrived here at the Buffalo Bill Resort last night at 1am!! I was astounded at that and asked how they could get here so late. The one friendly guy said, pointing to his buddy using buddy-like mannerisms and tone, “Because HE rides like a girl! And because we ran into construction along the way.” I said I thought that was pretty funny (unless one is into the politically correct stuff), but that I know several girl motorcycle riders who could ride rings around most men. Then asked whether they had encountered any bad weather last night when they came in so late. They hadn’t.

When we got in last night, of course, the roads here were dark, and everything was a mystery. So it was quite something and exciting to see the outside of the place in the daylight – all manner of glitz and excess – from a monorail and a rollercoaster that loopedy-looped all around the place to caves and monstrous flashing signs. As I took my morning run somewhat around the perimeter, the place resembled a huge gaudy artichoke having sprouted itself in the desert’s middle of nowhere. All in all, though, and perhaps despite that, I thought it would be a nice place to take a restful vacation – if one didn’t gamble their money away. They had a first run movie theater, all kinds of other things going on, the rooms were cheap, and the atmosphere friendly. Primms Valley Resort.

After leaving at exactly 11am it took under an hour to get to Las Vegas. It was bright and sunny and I watched the road carefully to see how it would have been had we continued our way last night. The road was in pretty good shape, but occasionally over it were shards and shreds and strips of tires that had come off of the big trucks. I was happy to have made the decision last night I did.

Vegas is where Steve Diano, a fellow I’ve known for more than 30 years now lives. As a second grader, Steve would often come over to the chess club I sponsored at the elementary school where I taught. He was a whiz at chess and was soon beating me regularly. In our tournament with the senior high school, he beat his opponent! He was as bright-eyed and smiley a second grader as I’ve met. We have kept in touch throughout the years and he had invited us to stay with him when he was back east for a wedding.

After we arrived, Steve, with a great convincing and gracious manner invited us to stay for the day despite our puny mileage and after studying the map it seemed feasible. Beside the time we could spend together, he argued, there was the opportunity to do laundry, take a nap, catch up on some other things like checking home phone messages, have access to wireless internet, and also possibly get the rear turn signal on the bike fixed.

We made several calls to that end and found an accommodating place that would take us in. Then with great kindness Steve, with Karen in the car, led me to Motorcycle City, where service guy Dave, and mechanic Jason said they’d fix the bike right up. It was a big busy and friendly motorcycle place. Steve, Karen, and I went to a local deli for lunch while the turn signal was being repaired. We got back about 2 hours later and everything was set to go. I was most appreciative of the folks there for taking the mc right in.

I then followed the car back to the house. It was only about 6 miles or so. Along the way we had a good view of the Vegas skyline. I was most impressed by a Space Needle type building that had restaurant AND a roller coaster on TOP of it.

Steve’s place was spacious and we spread right out in the downstairs guest room. After a nap we got wash done and had a little supper, and then got to see Steve’s command center, which has banks of smaller monitors, and one bigger one he was currently working on. He showed us about how he plays on-line poker and how popular it is! Many thousands seemed to be involved in the playing. Karen enjoyed looking at Steve’s friend Ginger’s scrapbooking room.

We hoped to get our earliest start of the trip tomorrow morning (Karen can hear everyone laughing at that one!) and so headed toward bed around 10:30.

Unluckily, the right rear directional signal was out. Luckily a motorcycle place was virtually right next door to the motel. Luckily the folks there said they could look right at the problem. Unluckily, it wasn’t just a bulb, but rather the signal wire looked like it had dropped down from inside the back fender and rubbed itself apart on the tire. Ryan, the nice young fellow who took time to look at the problem taped the rest of the wires up to avoid any further problem.

Much of the days lately have been numbers. Route numbers. Today looked like this: 46 west to 99 south to 58 west to 15 north.

We lunched at 1:30pm at Quizmos in unpronounceable Tehachapi, CA. We were about half way for the day. The nice manager lady let us take as much ice and water from the soda machine as we wanted to wet down our vests. She warned us of “scattered thunderstorms” in the desert.

Before hitting the desert, we rode past some vineyards and some almond orchards, and some fields of roses. Of the latter, Karen said the fragrance was heavy like putting one’s nose into a bouquet of roses.

I’ve spoken on earlier days of the heat licking at us ferociously. And also of days when waves of heat have washed over us. But today, especially as we crossed the Mohave Desert, it was oceans of hot air flooding across us, bathing us in constant deep sometimes searing warmth. Our orange cooling vests helped somewhat, but against the onslaught of the high temperatures it was difficult to do anything except keep hydrating steadily and barreling ahead. Occasionally the metal part of the handlebars would be too hot to touch as the temps ranged significantly above 100.

Today we rode at mainly 80 and 90mph through what turned into mostly all scrub deserty areas punctuated occasionally by a small town or two. Otherwise, just lonely emptiness. And the horizons were generally ringed with very high mountains.

One town had modern windmills all along the ridges of the high mountains generating gobs of electricity from the steady winds.

We rode through a mountain range. Steadily rising to over 4,000 feet elevation. At 4:30pm we pulled off and battened down the hatches, ready to continue into the desert. We now saw storm clouds, lightning flashes, and dim skies on the mainly flat panorama ahead. Shortly there appeared distant mountains, and darkened skies over them that emitted bolts of light sometimes two or three at a time or pitchfork-pronged.

We pulled off at Baker for a little supper. When back on the road the darkness had increased, the lightning strikes over the mountains into which we were heading had multiplied, and the road surface had worsened (and the potholes couldn’t be avoided because NOW they couldn’t be seen!). By the time we got the 25 miles to Primm, Nevada (our 23rd state), all the above had intensified. It was only 8:30pm, but about black as night. I was quickly coming to the conclusion that it was not safe to ride in this, but there was nothing but darkness along the roadside. As we saw the Primm oasis of lights in the distance, the final blow to going further occurred – and that was the wind gusts that had strengthened. A couple bursts blew the bike over a few feet on the roadway. We were only 40 miles to Steve’s and I had the sinking, depressing feeling in the realization that we’d have to stop sooner somehow. I suppose we could have gone on and kicked it in, but the odds just weren’t there – and I suppose that’s what Vegas is all about, eh? Knowing when to hold ‘em and knowing when to fold ‘em.

So even though we were amazingly close, I pulled into the Primm exit and there was found a dreamland of bright lights, casinos, and all the razzmatazz glitz and pseudo-glamour that goes with the gambling scene. (And to think! This was only the little sister of the excess that lay up the road!) It was quite the contrast to the desert sameness of the road grind.

I called Steve, a former second grade student and told him of the tantalizing so-close predicament – we were only 40 miles away!!! He sounded disappointed, which intensified my disappointment. He volunteered to drive out and lead us in. In the end we agreed to meet for breakfast tomorrow.

We got a room for what seemed to us to be an amazing price – only $39.99! Cheapest of the trip. Guess they wanted people’s gambling money and so made the rates attractive. With the help of the obligatory valet staff, Karen bundled our stuff upstairs into the big resort casino while I rode off a little ways to the motorcycle parking area.

The room was a good one and we quickly spread out and went over maps thinking about friends Bryce, Zion, and GC that we hoped to see the next day.

On this 25th day of our journey around the country we awoke at 6:30am in the Lucia cabin. The cabin was completely socked in with fog. Couldn’t even see the quarter-mile away store or the road. And even the Pacific Ocean right down the cliff was blanketed in fog. Karen went back to sleep and I finished typing up the recent days’ events. I lifted the thin blinds slat at 8:30ish to check on the fog. The scene was a bit different – the fog was thicker!!! Same for 9:15!

We finally made our way up to the store/restaurant area by 9:50am, and found a superb breakfast awaiting us. Delicious breakfast foods arrayed on tables set in a splendid dining room with fire roaring – and a big picture window displaying an ever-de-fogging view of the Pacific.

By 11:30am we had the bike packed up and we headed up into the mountainous fog. It wasn’t too bad by then. Low overhanging stuff that occasionally touched the road, but for much of the way it totally shrouded out the ocean far down on the right. I don’t know if that was a good thing or not. It surely made it feel like boxed-in riding, but it saved us from the tortures of making those narrow curves while actually seeing into the deep down awing depths below.

We passed the campground where I spent my 33rd birthday, celebrating back in ’80 with two cheese sandwiches right on the Pacific shoreline.

There were some of the roughest of roads we’ve encountered – usually due to landslides and the unfinished road work on the highway. And the turning in and out of the canyons was tighter than before – once I swayed over the middle line while turning – and I was sure glad that the guy coming around the mountain hadn’t begun his trip 30 seconds sooner!

The worst and most nervous times for me were when the road was rough ON those tight turns way up over the ocean – and there wasn’t a guardrail. I tried to keep my thoughts on the navigating duties at present instead of all the ‘what COULD happens’!

At one o’clock, we passed a beach full of elephant seals along the way. Karen said they looked like big slugs. And that they did. Most were just lying there seeming like they were sunning themselves on the beach. Odd looking creatures to be sure. We got a couple pictures from the road since I didn’t want to risk pull into the gravel vista point.

A bit further down the road came my only opportunity – as it turned out – to touch the ocean. It was a deserted motel and there was access to the beach. Although that access was roped off we lifted the rope, headed across some dune like areas, and I jumped down to the waves and actually touched a few of them as they lapped up to the shoreline. Karen got the picture from high up on the crusty hard-packed dune.

It was rocky along that bit of shore. Near some of the bigger rocks about a quarter-mile away a couple had gotten out of their red car and were frolicking in amongst the huge boulders thinking they were unseen from the world.

Along the coastline the air has been so fresh – from the ocean on the right and the millions of trees on the left. I’ve always thought it was the freshest air in the world – certainly the cleanest and sweetest smelling of my life. And here right on the beach – it was fabulous.

Shortly, we scrambled back up to the mc and headed down the road a short way to a little house on the hill.

Those who know about Hearst Castle, and who have been there know that no descriptives in the world can fully describe the place – or even come close. And those who don’t know about Hearst Castle can have no idea about its wonders or it’s amazing story. (I would suggest a google on the place.) I can only say that if one wanted to make a get-away home, without a shred of limitation as to money or imagination or material, then this might be that home! Imagine living above the clouds in a dream castle that had everything you might possibly want or desire.

We parked in the lot, took most of our gear and a couple bags, and headed to the main entrance. Kellen Riley, with the Park Service at the Ranger Station, helped us immeasurably with his kindness of letting us put our heavy riding coats and a few carry bags in a locked side room. (The lockers at the Park were all being used or were broken.) I handed him one of the pens I carry that has our internet information on it and his face brightened up saying, “Hey, we really NEED pens.” So I handed him another one.

After getting one’s tickets, it’s a fifteen minute bus ride just up to the mansion itself. The mountain grounds used to hold a zoo of over sixty types of animals. Some of the descendants of those animals are still roaming around the place. There we met our affable tour guide, Bree. She was wonderful with the group, segued great into the next topics, was very informative, and had a good sense of humor.

The castle itself remained as I remembered it from my 25-year-ago visit, but there was a huge new entry way, and a wonderful theater. The I-Max type movie we saw after the tour was a bit smarmy and self-serving but full of interesting details none-the-less, and the quality of film making was quality personified. It was my third time taking a tour through the place and it was even more fascinating and downright amazing than each other time.

William Randolf Hearst was quite the icon. He was over 6 feet tall. It’s said he had the body of a bull mastiff with the voice of a Chihuahua and that may be the reason he didn’t win the Democratic nomination in the year he ran. He died at 88. He inherited most of his money at age 56, before he hit it big in yellow journalism. His dad was a miner who had a good sense with the earth, and dug into it, gambled that what most people thought was worthless was actually silver – and it was!

William assembled works of art from antiquity (a statue over 3,000 years old) and from his time. The place, which lies on 188 acres of prime coastal land, cost over ten million in those days dollars. He didn’t like to mingle with high society types.

The bus driver on the way down the mountain had a good sense of humor. We sat in the first two seats in the front of the bus. We got to asking him about the trips he took up and down the mountain and if there were ever any accidents and so on. He joked, “Well I took my seizure medicine an hour ago and I’m feeling fine now.” This as we hurtled over steep grades and around ultra sharp turns. From where we sat on the bus it seemed like the big bus was going over the roadsides, or about to. And the drops were as dramatic as they were deep.

We learned from the driver that Bree was the youngest to fly coast to coast in an airplane at 13! And that Hearst Castle frequently takes guides who have been well known in other things – among the 100 or so guides there were some former Miss Americas, a rock star, and scientists of note.

Another reminder of being in a particular generation came when the 30ish couple in line at the Hearst Castle café turned and asked me who Patty Hearst was and wasn’t she involved in something in the sixties?

We spent about three hours at the Hearst Castle complex. Then left for a wonderful ride down the coast a bit before turning the third corner of the trip – and headed east for the first time in awhile.

We found a reasonable Motel 6 in Los Robles. After supper, we had some serious mapping and routing discussions. Because of our lost time we were disappointed to have to decide that we wouldn’t be able to swing down into southern Arizona but would be heading right toward Las Vegas and national parks north of Vegas. (I was especially disappointed not be able to meet on-line friend Clark Isaacs who has written us on the road more than anyone else, and who had invited us to stay in his log house on top of a mountain surrounded by 42 acres!)

We had internet service for the first time in a couple days and I dispatched our recent notes, and we were asleep relatively early. Needed the rest for what must be a big mileage day tomorrow.