Lower 48

Pacifica:

I woke up in the Best Western Plus at around 7. *I slept in. * This in has a big garden courtyard with a truly massive koi pond and you could hear the frogs that presumably were imported croaking at night. * Very nice. *The dinner at Mari Calendars was not that great. * I got wings and this tower of avocado and shrimp, and somehow they had contrived to make that tower have less flaver than a pile of poi. * Impressive in its own way I suppose, but not what you really want. * I meant to aim for Astoria Washington, but more importanly I intended to stop early to give myself something approximating a break. *I saw the weather forecast called for rain in Coos Bay, so I steeled myself for that.

I left Eureka listeining to Mark Levine in order to catch up on the multiplying scandals in Washington. * I enjoyed seeing the ocean make incursions inland, little inlets and bays that were clearly mixing with fresh water to create brackish marshes where I could see cattails and various marsh grasses. *Or it was only one kind of marsh grass. * You cannot really tell from a long way away at 55 mph, but various sounds more impressive.

I entered the redwood forest with not too much traffic around. * I have *visited this particular forest something like five times now, the first time in 1976 when my father took me and my siblings on a very long road trip to Canada and down the Pacific coast. *I took a few pictures but did not linger.

I entered Oregon to the greeting of hills and low mountains absolutely covered in greenery. * Obviously it rains a lot. * You can tell. * Incidentally, Seattle residents are uniformly defensive about the rain. * If you meet one, say something like, "I really like Seattle, but I cannot take the rain." *I promise you that the response will be, "Oh, it really does not rain that much in Seattle." * At which point you will break out the rejoinder, "Then why does moss grow on the sidewalks and the bannana slugs grow to the size of St. Bernards?" * Comedy gold.

Oregon offered many vistas of an agitatted ocean on the drive with the typical mountainous rocks a little way out into the surf. * I like the oregon coast, but it has never struck me as friendly. * I first saw the ocean as a teenager at Coos Bay Oregon, and that visit is still magical to me. * We went to the aquarium there. * I briefly considered doing that this time, but Meh, it was too long ago. *Why spoil the memory. * The Pacific in Oregon and Washington is grossly misnamed in my opinion as it is rarely peaceful in my experience. * I worked for the government at the Naval base in Bremerton Washington when I was in college for a summer job. * I spent some time at a test range in Nanaimo Canada, but one week we went out to a test range at Quinalt which is on the coast of Washington. * It was in the winter, and there was driftwood the size of houses on the beaches. * The team shot off a torpedo to take telemetry from it. *Then they had to recover it. * In the calm waters near the range in Nanaimo, they would use boats, but the waves at Quinalt this time of year were ten feet out on the test range I am told. * So they had to use a helicopter to retrieve the fish. *The ocean was so rough they almost crashed the chopper into the ocean before they finally pulled the torpedo out. * Again, so they said. * But I believe it.

The water was not that agitated, but it was rough. * It was a nice ride, but it rained lightly much of the way. * I was really nursing my hands, because the hours of twisties yesterday had massively tweaked my right wrist, and I am trying to avoid damaging the nerves. *I took a couple of alleve to keep the inflamation down. *Sitting typing this, I think it worked ok, because my hands seem more or less ok tonight.

All over I see yellow bushes of flowers that may be scoth broom. *It is very pretty but toxic for allergies. *There are also massive bushes of other flowers as large as big roses, pink, white, red. * There are very impressive and utterly pervasive. * I wish I knew what they are.

When I stop for fuel I encounter that ridiculous beureaucratic bullshit about Oregon that I had forgotten. They pump your gas for you. *I guess you can pump the gas if they hand you the pump. *If were to rank the idiotic government-mandated behaviors in America, this one may not be at the top, but it would certainly be in the top ten.

Eventually it starts to rain hard and I need to be more careful in the corners. * As the hours wear on the boredom leads to strange behavior. *I start to sing madee-up folk songs to myself in the style you would get if you gave Leon Redbone a liter of whiskey and then injected his mouth with novocaine. * Comedy bronze. * But I did end up inventing a creepy little folk song that I kind of like. * I will hone the verse and maybe do a video of it later if I can get some novocaine.

Riding through Coos Bay was fun, but I really don't remember much what it looked like, and in the rain I was not that motivated to go to the beach. *I just rode on, past the biggest sea cave in the world, with seals. *Uh sure, whatever. *The world is a big place, and you have little motivation to be honest. *Whatever a sea cave is.

The rain did not manage to soak through the Revit pants, but it was still relentless, and eventually I got cold enough to feel it even with the electric jacket. * I had been aiming for Tilammook for some time and as I got close I began really hopiing it was large enough to have the hotel and restaurant options I wanted. * It did. * I stopped. * I did less than 400 miles, but after yesterday I was determined to stop early. * It was 4:30.

The room was in the price range I wanted, and ok although not luxurious. * One nice thing about these small non-chain hotels though is you don't have to put up with the "Save the Earth by using your towel 50 times" bullshit you do with practically every major hotel, although every once in awhile even they surprise you.

I made a couple calls and headed for dinner to supplement the 400 or so calories I had already had.

They gave me a very good oyster stew and a rather unispiring rib eye.

Now I am forced to decide if I am going to the Olympic Peninsula or if I will skip it. * I have seen it all several times so I am leaning toward skip.

Find this somewhere in your near future.
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Unstuck in Time:

Unless I have become unstuck in time, tomorrow is the 21st day of this trip. * I just wandered up the street in Chinook, Montana, to a lonely pharmacy to get some triple antibiotic cream in an effort to make sure *that the hole in the skin on my chest that was burned by my electric jacket. * When one begins to pay a price for warmth that is other than monitary, one is rather near the edge. * That is not an intentional allusion to the war on terror, but it would work in a pinch.

I wander the street like a zombie. * My caloric intake has been extremely low today, but I still am not super hungry. * I am curious what would happen if I did not eat tonight. * I won't find out. * I am sure I am still running off the calories from the great dinner last night with Chris and Liz. * I will relate that in sequence, but it was a lovely evening.

Two Mornings ago: * I woke up in Tilamook. * Bloody overcast again. * I grow weary of rain and being cold, *and yesterday my jacket was burning me. * Today I put on a shirt, because I thought it was a metal snap in the vest I was wearing that conducted the heat and that the shirt would protect me better. I try not to make a habit of being wrong, but it does seem to be a persistent result.

My final ride of the pacific coast gave me many wonderful images. *The bays and inlets, and what seemed to be tidal lakes around the Tilamook area are charming. *It is both a shame and a charm to think of this places as always cold. * It seems a cozy place to huddle for warmth. * Very soon the Scotch Broom, a brilliant yellow invasive weed, will grow over everything not moving and make *the place uninhabitable, or at least so I think as I see the vast seas of the shit extending their cobalt yellow embrace over the landscape.

The ocean is pissed off again today. * It is probably irritated that tectonics lift new stone out too fast for it to win the war of erosion. * I empathize a bit, but the ocean has time. * In the long run they will both succumb to heat death, so let them fret.

It rains. *I am cold, but Iearn later that part of the reason for that is that I left my summer gloves on. * I have always known that there are lots of blood vessels in the hands and that you need to keep them warm, but this is a reminder. * I put the heavy gloves on much farther down the road and feel a good deal warmer even though the temperature drops at least ten degrees to 40 F as I ride over White Pass in Washington.

Riding through Astoria I think that I really want to come back to this town for at least a day with Lori for the express purpose of photographing Victorian houses. * I spot one up the wooded hill festooned with flowers? *Maybe I am only hallucinating festooned is a word, but you will have to deal with it. * I was charmed, but not charmed enough to slow down. *Must. * Ride.

The rain and my chilly discomfort make the final decision for me. * To hell with the Olympic Peninsula. *I have seen it many times, and I have not compelling need to take my bike to Hurricane Ridge. *I need to cut time and miles. * I am nursing my wrists along, but I do not need slow twisties today. *I will go through the national park at Rainier and hope to get a view of the mountain. * I have not seen the old girl for many years. * I went cross-country skiing here back in 1983 or so when I was interning at the Keyport torpedo base. * That may very well be the last time I saw it. * I have been in the area several times, but the mountain is typically hiding behind a veil of mist and rain clouds despite the fact that it simply never rains in Seattle. * This time was no different. *I did not see it.

At some point on the road I see a car about a quarter mile in front of me light its brake lights. * I think nothing of it until I see three elk at the side of the road, one actually almost on the road itself. * I am too much of a coward to try riding past these wretched rats on stilts at any speed given how spastic they can be, so I pull over and rev my engine until they resect my authoritah and run off in the opposite direction. * I ride on gloating over my superiority, but still generally lacking opposable thumbs.

As I said before, going over White Pass got cold. * The temp dropped to 40, but I felt wider. *Somewhere near the top I encountered someone on another bike in front of me. * The twisties down off the pass were fun and it stopped raining so they were also dry. * He was in front and faster than I, *but we both were moving fast, passing other cars when we had to, sometimes legally. * Washington cops are speeding nazis, but fortunately we encountered none. Every time he outpaced me he would get caught up by a car that slowed him enough for me to catch up. * At the bottom I stopped to check the way and he went on. **

I stayed on the freeway headed for Spokanne Washington. * Things warmed for a bit and then got very cold again as I climed a long way to cross a hill that was covered in desert. * I was aiming for Hayden Lake to get a hotel and have dinner with someone I knew in high school. *I stopped somewhere to call, and learned that they intended me to stay with them at their house. * It sounded good to me so I went on. **

I arrived in Hayden, a different incorporation from Hayden Lake (some sort of liquor license brouhaha), and stopped to buy a couple bottles of wine in case they had also intended to eat in. * I *arrived at their lovely house with a view onto a golf course green fairly early. * Chris and Liz set me up in their guest room. * I showered and it is here I realized that the electric jacket had actually burned a hole in my skin. Oh well, if you want to make mayonnaise, you have to break a few eggheads, so whatever.

We walked to a pub very near their house, also on the golf course, and had dinner. * I ate a lot. * I tried the gumbo, because Chris said it was very spicy. * He was right. * It is probably the spiciest dish I have ever had served to me in a restaurant, but it was very good. * I still have the remains of a cough from the cold though, and it made me want to cough a lot. *I also had the baby *back ribs that we all had. * They were good. * It was served with corn bread that had a brown sugar glaze. * That was good too, but I did not eat all of it, because, well, I try to limit carbs even when ravenous.

We went back and sat by the massive fire pit on their back porch and polished off a bottle of wine as the sun went down. * I have to say that all of the ridiculous pain and expense is recompensed a bit having been able to meet Jeff, Brian, Jeanne-Anne, Eric, Heahter, and Mile in Florida and Chris and Liz in Hayden Lake. * I really do feel bad about not slowing down to say hello to Kelley in Texas, but at that point in the trip I was extra desperate for the miles and had not planned a stop.

I crashed to a quiet and peaceful night of typically unusual dreams.

Up early. * Coffee with the hosts, and then on with the self abuse. * I put my sweatshirt on this time to protect me from burns. * I reduces the feeling of warmth, but I guess I am full up with wounds for now. *I ride out of Hayden Lake seeing a single, long, low string of cloudy mist about 200 feet above the lake.

Long, long, and long. * Riding. *Montana is great, but this early part of the day has already faded a bit into the ravages if time. * I remember racing over yet another pass into clouds that look like their deepest desire is to snow. * It is too warm for me to worry, but arctic disaster fantasies intrude nevertheless. * It gets very cold and foggy near the top, and then clears a bit as I descend into Helena.

I aim for Great Falls, where Lori and I stayed on our long road trip several years ago. * I ride out into the middle of the great sky. * I have no idea why they call Montana, "Big Sky Country", but I think it is because its eastern plains, unlike those in Wyoming and Colorado, are quite verdant, and you tend have 360 degree views of stratocumulus clouds piling up destruction as they mosey on through. *Easter Montana really is an incredibly beautiful place. * I ride through that 360 cloudsape trying not to crash as I gape at the massive clouds trying to figure how to paint them. * Eventually I end up under some of them I was ogling. * I see gray rain left and right and thin ribbons to the left front. * I get hit by a bit. **

I am moving very fast, praising the lack of cops. *I enter a ravine of broken granite of many colors. *Ochre, green, touches of blue, and a lot of rosy gray. * I exit that ravin into a a glacial valley typical of Montana. * Such wide, lime green stretches of velvet-looking grass rising to forested hills obviusly careved by the slow, frigid flensing of huge masses of ice. *I ride through one and another, and yet another of these. * The rich green fading into bowl-cut hills is intense. * I would love to live here were it not for the fact that the winters are not fit for humans.

One cannot remember much of a ride like this. * How many seconds of even one ten hour ride can be stored by the brain? * Then multiply that by 19 or so, subtracting out days spent swimming in the Atlantic and wandering through grave yards in New Orleans. * It is hopeless. * Yet still you get flashes that will stay forevver. *I ride past a row of low ore cars on a railroad. * For many miles they flaunt their yellow against the sky with its massive thunder clouds and their almost complementary blueness. * Yellow and yellow and yellow and yellow agains this massive cowering of white and multiple hues of blues. * If I could only throw in a bit of purple for the actual complement, I might drive off the road with natural color overdose. * Amazing. * I may try to paint an abstract version of this some day.

I stopped in Helena to make sure I had a place to stay in Chinook, because Yelp tells me they only have one hotel in town, and I am nearing the chaos of the oil fields in North Dakota. * I am set, so I ride there to encounter one of the most depressing rooms on the trip. * Fair enough. * There is a price to be paid for the excellence of last night.

I wander the streets for a bit, zombie-like. *I go get the antibiotic cream and more alleve, which I am taking somewhat liberally to keep inflamation down in my wrists. *I go the the restaurant at the hotel, the only restaurant in town, and ask for a margarita. * The waitress serviing me goes to get the grizzled waitress who knows how to make drinks. * She rummages around in their liquor and informs me that she does not have the stuff to make that. * She apologizes that the bar here really is not properly stocked. *I quietly assure her that we will get through it, but she seems rather unimpressed with my stellar wit. * I guide her through the construction of a martini, which becomes a bit ridiculous, but she delivers something that has the merit of not being anywhere near as bad as what you would get if you ordered a martini in Amsterdam. * I order Salmon and wine and settle into pounding out this bullshit. * Cheers.

The Long Nonwinding Road:

I guess today's theme is roads that run straight forever and hypothermia.

The room last night was really dingy and depressing, and the restaurant was run by mentally challenged young women. * I feel for them, but *you have to call it as it is. *I ended up in a dreary saloon to have a drink and watch game of thrones. * On the plus side, the drinks were dirt cheap.

It was thirty eight degrees out when I got up, easily the coldest it has been on the trip. * Normally cold is not a huge problem with the electric jacket, but I am wearing a sweatshirt to preserve my skin from broiling and it blunts the warming effect.

The eastern part of Montana is less beautiful than the west, but it is still nice. * Very flat and generally green but with more of the semi arid areas common to Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. **

I was headed to Williston North Dakota to check out what I could see of the fabled oil fields up there. * The roads on the way were arrow straight and built for speed. * I went fast as I knew I was losing another hour to the time zone effect. * The wind started up. * I begin to despair of having any of my remaining days be actually pleasant. **

Williston definitely had a lot of truck traffc, many of them covered with mud. * Many of the hotel parking lots were very full. * I saw a couple specialty lodging places. * One had rank upon rank of these funky mobile buildings that were built as row houses on wheels. * Later down the road I saw something that *looked like a military barracks with, again, rank upon rank of simple rectangular buildings for lodging. * This is very odd, and I have never seen anything like it.

Of the oil wells, I did see many, but they seemed fewer and far less ugly than the ones in Maricopa. * Here they at least do as they do in Colorado and paint them earth tones to try to make them less of an eyesore. * But with all the activity, there must be hundreds of wells I did not see. * I am not sure what I expected, perhaps a grid of wells for as far as the eye can see (which probably is not very far if your vision is being blocked by oil wells).

The ride east on highway 2 out of Williston was damned brutal. *I had to go 120 miles with a very bad side wind. * I wore me down. * My neck hurt from buffeting and from hunching, *because I became increasingly chilled. *Eventually I was breathing as you do when you are in pain. *Take a breath, hold it briefly, and then puff it out. * It was really hard and took forever. * I got really bad fuel mileage on the bike, around 33 mpg I think.

At Minot the road swuns south and thankfully the wind was at my back not, but there was still another 120 miles to Bismark. * I had altered plans. * I was not initially planning to go through Chicago, but decided to do so to visit the in-laws. * But it works out best for them if I show up on Friday. * Given that my natural schedule would put me there Thursday mid-afternoon, I decided to go south and knock off South Dakota so that I would not have to veer way north to hit it on the way back as *I was originally planning. * Hence Bismark as a destination. * If I still get into the Great Lakes area way early, I may try to circle around into Michigan before backtracking a bit to Chicago.

I ride as fast as I can getting lucky with cops more than once, and I get colder. * I start to shiver a bit. *But I think, "At least it isn't raining." * Then it starts to rain. * It has been 45 degrees for a very long time.
By the time I get there and figure out where to stay, I am shivering worse than I have since I almost gave myself hypothermia riding the rebel in the mountains of Colorado in September.

I unload stuff into the hotel and take a very long shower. * Then I walk a mile in the rain to a Brazilian Grill nearby that got good yelp reviews. * In general I do not like the Brazilian Grill "all you can eat" format, but I hope for something other than than all you can eat, as I cannot really eat all that much.

At this point I hope this deep overcast is not here tomorrow, and frankly I suspect it may snow here tonight.

Danger Will Robinson:

The day seduced me and then left me for another.

I am not exactly sure what that means, but maybe I will figure it out.

I got up at he usual time, around 6 am. *I knew the forcast for Bismarck was 72 degrees with a 20% chance of rain, so my hopes were high for a decent day. * It started that way.

I got up and the sky was clear and sunny with only a few high herring bone clouds, still colored by the sunrise. * It was cold, maybe 40, I don't recall, but I figured it would warm fast since the forecast was 72. *

The Dakotas finally gave me something to feel good about. * There are many small and funny shaped lakes of various sizes along the sides of the highway. * Well, lakes is more than any of them really deserves to be called. * Most of them are ponds, but they are coldly glorious lit up in the brigh sun. *Their grasses grasped at the sky. * And the green of the grass on the ground is vivid. * And it really looks like some very crude lawn grass. * It all sits like velvet on rolling hills. * I remember thinking, "Hobbits might live here". * Really the hills are not generally large enough for that. * But the overall feeling has "Shire" tatooed on its forehead.

I *kept riding by these rows of trees, obviously deliberately planed, that ran perpendicular to the highwayd and each row separated from the next by maybe 100 yards. * They seemed like field markers or something. * Very odd. * I wondered if they were wind breaks, but the trees were not that close together. * Later on I road past many huge piles of wood and cut trees in the same configuration. * I still cannot be sure it was not some rediculously planned and executed ironic joke, butt if it was, I totally got it.

I went past a sign announcing that this was Lawrence Welk's home town, and then I was pretty sure the whole day was a joke. * It was, and it was on me.

But seriously, I rode past several litttle villages in this shire that were just " get on your knees and kiss the ground" gorgeous. *I did think, "Man THIS is America." * As David Byrne sang, *"I would'nt live there if you paid me to"

The day really was not warming up, but frankly I would be happy if it had stopped at just being cold.

The territory really did look like duck hunting paradise, and I did see a few ducks flying overhead across *the road. * Many smaller birds were flying across the road, occasionally in pairs. * Several times the little *birds had to alter their path avoid me. * Does in make me a girl if I would have been really bummed to kill one of them? * Answer: *yes.

Why did these birds feel the need to fly across the road at about five feett above the ground. * I mean, they have wings. * The sky is the limit, and here they were massively altering the morning fly to avoid me. * Damnit. * It was like I was the deer in their morning experience. *Perhaps I am overt thinking it.

I went across a couple of sections of road with signs warning of rough road and bumps. * I hit the bumps at 60 mph and wonder why they wasted the time making a sign. * I hit the first patched section. * This is a very short area of the road thatt seems to have a big patch, but it really is not bad at speed, so I basically do not slow for the second. * Something looks a bit odd, but I fly across. * The third one was mud. *I swear I felt the rear tire move in another way than forward. *I may have imagined it, I am not sure, but I am cerain that this low area had mud it it. * I am not disconcerted enough to slow down generally, but I do plan to pay attention to warning signs more attentively from now on.

Shortly after this it begins to rain. *I have my core apparel on in this order: *Deviant Art hoodie, electric jacket, Revit motorcycle jacket. * As I said earlier, this cuts down on the effectiveness of the electric jacket, but it also keeps the jacket from charring holes in my skin.

But as the rain continues, and the temperature holds a 45, I realize this is no going to cut it as I am not even half way yet and I am already beginning to shiver. * I stop at a gas station and stand in front of a family restaurant and strip from the waste up. *Good thing I got that right. * I put the electric jacket on first, then the hoodie, then the motorcycle jacket. * To shield my skin, I use this triangular piece of material whose intent is to hold water and wrap around your neck in hot weather to provide evaporative cooling. * In this context it keeps my flesh from melting. * I am still too stupid to put on the *actual rain jackett above the motorcycle jackett. * I really should have as it would have prevented the hoodie and my Revit jacke from getting wet, as they inevitably did since it rained for over 300 miles.

Oh, and wind too. *Fantastic. *Just great. * At least it is not as bad as yesterday, and yes I probably would rather have rain than wind if given the choice, but together they suck, and not in the good way.

After making the wardrobe modification, my legs begin to shiver very badly for a few seconds. *This is pre-hypothermia behavior, and I begin to wonder if I can keep going. * But just after that I am forced to ride at 50 mph for awhile by road work, and I begin to feel warmer. * I stop shivering. * The electric heat against the skin is much more effective, and I am pretty sure I can continue now.

I road for many many miles, heading east in South Dakota toward Minnesota. * Somewhere along here (I do not even recall where) I encounered more road work. *But this was in a town. * They had the highway route through town shut down for work, and they dutifully provided a detour. * Through. *Fucking. * Mud! * Some towering intellect of a tactical toady for some road company or local junta decided to make tthe detour over about an eigth of a mile of dirt. * ...all of which is filled wih both well and goodiness if it is DRY! * But it is raining, and this little section of road, more pockmarked with little holes than a teenage girl after a bout of *smallpox, is also slick as snot. * This is clear as I follow a semi onto it.

My heart rate is well above its resting rate I assure you, and every muscle in my body save one is instantly hyper-tense. * I know that does not help, but I cannot relax into this. * Let me just say that my dirt riding skills are meager at best on a bike thatt weighs one third what the F800 weighs. * My mud riding skills are non existent with knobbies. * On street tires I am doomed. * The KLX 250 I could probably duck walk it through, but on the F800 if I put any foot wrong it will go down anyway. *Oh yeah, and I am cold and tired. * When I enter this section of road I have no idea how long it is. *I am too busy trying to avoid crashing to be scared. * Well, ok, I guess I was scared. * There were semis passing within feet of me in the opposite direction. *I do not know how I made it. * Yes, the back tire did become squirrely, and the bike began to fish tail. *Somehow I stayed up. * Yes, yes, we all know an off at this speed ain't that big a deal (unless I slide under the wheels of a semi), but a crash could still end the trip in a number of unpleasant ways even if I don't break my ipad which is in a messenger bag over my shoulder. * My arms were in serious pain, and I was very out of whack when I saw pavement. * Pavement, pavement, pavement. *Please. *I make it.

I still feel very cold and shiver some. * I had planned to head south to hit whatever state is below Minnesota, Iowa I think, when I decided to check. *Minneapolis is right at the 500 mile range I want tto hit, so I decide to go there, just so I have a big place I can measure my progress against and be assured of a hotel when I get there.

After another long, cold, painful ride, I arrive and grab the first convenient hotel I see, which ends up being a Hilton propert, so it is expensive, but I can't take any more. *This morning I thought that I did not think I would have been able to go had it been overcast and raining, but the sun secuded me into another hard day. * I need to start using the rain jacket, but tomorrow in Minneapolis says 67 degrees and no chance of rain. * I could really use a dry and pleasant day.

I come to Olive Garden for food after lifting weights a bit in the weight room at the Hilton. *Olive Garden gets a lot of shit from snobbish foodies (one of which I am), but I am grateful for a motivated and competent staff serving above average fast service food.

I have decided from this day that I am going to try to slow it down a bit. * It is rather difficult to get up every day at about 6 and to ride for ten hours or so without res. * Swimming against the time zone makes it even more difficult. * But I honestly am not seeking to die doing it, so I need to slow down a bit. *I don't mean stopping or taking rest days. *I do not need rest days, but on days like today, I need to take the time to sweat all the details more carefully.

I hope tomorrow is dry.

Hills for Hobbits:

Last night after eating I came back and put on the swim suit and headed down to the pool for a bit of a float. * I thought and did some aggressive stretching, and tried to avoid having any of my wet skin be out of the water in the too-cold air of the *pool room. * I wish they had a hot tub, but alas, it is so warm all the time in Minnesota that they do not need hot tubs. *I can see why old people exercise in pools. * It totally turns you into superman, or superman with *bad joints anyway. * I toweled of fast after exiting the pool and went upstairs to a hot shower, a big bowl of microwave popcorn, and the end of last week's episode of Game of Thrones.

Sleep interlude:

When I wake the sun is bright and the sky is clear of all clouds. *Yea and verily. * But I am not a complete fool. * I fell for this yesterday, and *I am pretty sure the day will not end before I have to negotiate a detour through very deep silicate sand while snow falls around me, and the third SS Panzer division fires shells onto the landscape around me. *I go anyway. **

My intended destination is Madison, Wisconcin, Via Iowa. * I like the way that sounds. * Via Iowa. *The ride out of Minnesota and into Wisconsin is really very lovely. * They have some aggressive hills here that actually serve the purpose of creating the illusion of being in mountans. *I took the Hobbit Habitat award away from the Dakotas and planted it here. * These are hills for hobbits. * It has the same lush green lawnlike grass that the Dakotas did,but the hills give this area the edge. * It really is beautiful. * It is also cold. *The day started at 42 degrees F. * It stayed in the mid forties for many hours, but I remained fairly warm. * Rain and wind make things much worse.

Green grass and many kinds of trees provide support for red barn after red barn. * The land looks very productive, and I would say so even were it not for all the buildings screaming, "people are producing shit here!" *

Just out of Decora, Iowa I hit some lovely twisties through these super hills, fast and curvy as these things should be. * I see a long train on the left. * This forms one wall for very long way while the other wall is solid rock, straight up at the side of the road. * The train is parked, and it is long. * I do not know if it is car storage or a waiting load. * A few miles down the road I encounter another train. * It seems to be moving slowly in the direction I am travelling, but I cannot be entirely sure. * It seems like an optical illusion. * I slow down enough that I can see that yes the train is moving. * Very odd.

Just afte that I swing around a curve and see a very wide riverr on my left. * I think, "That cannot be the Missisippi." * But it turns out it was. * I had no idea it ran this far north, but of course, it must. * Where does all the water come from if not. * Hell, it must have feeders in Canada.

I stop to fuel up somewhere around here and decide to check to see where Milwaukee is. *The wife likes it, and we had tentatively planned to have her fly out here to meet me. * But last time we spoke about it, I decided not to have her come, because of the expense and that at that point I was planning to drive hard today and blow past Chicago to set myself up to hit Michigan before returning to Chicago on Friday night to stay with my in-laws. *The last two difficult days convincee me I do not want to push that hard. *Hence I am near Milwaukee, and I decide to push on to there. *I feel bad now about not having Lori come, but my plans changed.

The rest of the ride was just grinding it out. * There was a row of farms with white windmills in the background with green grass and blue sky full of puffy clouds adding to the effect. * There was an SUV that got pissed when I made a questionable maneuver to hit the exit I needed. * There was the drive of four miles off the highway to get gas, which rather annoyed me. *The town was charming as hell though.

I get to Milwaukee, and try to pick a hotel. *I want to stay downtown to experience what I can of the place, but these large city hotels have a different audience from the dives on small-town America, and they charge a lot more. * The first one has no place for me to stop and check for room availability, so I stop at a corner and pick another on the ipad. * This one is good. * Of course it is a bit expensive, but I take it. * I lift weights for a very short time. * I take a 45-minute nap, and then I go to dinner.

I go to a steakhouse near the hotel. * Ordinarily I never go to steak houses for the simple reason that if *you can spend the money on good meat it is child's play to make steak as good or better than what you can have served to you in the hyper-lame steakhouse format. **


Before I go in I try to walk around the area a bit, but the wind is really quite cold. * What I see of this city I really like though. * I add it to my list of places to which I should return with the wife in the belly of a metal beast. *I love the old buildings mixed with the modern ones trying to fit in with the them laid down by the past. * It seems a lot like Denver, but older and with more varied texture.

I eat an expensive but somewhat lame steak dinner and step out into the fading day. * There are large white birds with black extremities cavorting amongst the tall buildings. * I see them playing around a 15 story white brick building that I am sure has been gazing out on the future dead for twice as long as I have been alive and probably more. *One of the birds comes close enough to confirm they are sea gulls. * I have never seen them so beautiful. * What the hell are they doing? * They cannot be hunting so high amongst the buildings. * They really must be playing, flying for the pure hell of it. * Perhaps it is a mating ritual. * I do not know. * It seems that sometimes animals do expend energy for the pure pleasure of the thing, and now seems as good a time as any. * It is a moment and it is mine.

I have a very short distance to Chicago tomorrow, so I will rise late and try to enjoy the city in the morning until noon or so. * Then I will ride to see Mary, Mike, and Sherry.

Via Chicago:

"The wind blew me back via Chicago in the middle of the night. *All without fight at the crush of veils and starlight." * I love thatt song. *It is right in the range I can sing, that is when I can recall the *words that make up this particular example of Wilco's sinister nonsense.

I am sitting in the lobby that happened to intersect with this particular when going through motions.

I am so very weary of the Doug thing that flits and flaps like a festering moth around the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind. * The sunshine is never quite hot enough to incinerate the fucking thing.

Life is frequently very much about the going through of motions.

I am one tenth of the way there.

I am two tenths of the way there.

I am half way there.

Here I am.

Hurray me!

Close Call:

I woke up early even though I had no reason to do so. * I felt ok at that point even though I over indulged last night. * I went down to the lobby to have some coffee and read a bit. *Then I realize I did not really feel that well, so I went back to bed for a couple hours. *Then I decided to ge going.

I loaded up my stuff on a luggage cart and headed to the garage to load the bike. * I came out the door and the bike was gone. * I think they towed it and I stand there trying to figure out what to do. * A surly black guy sitting in a truck asks me what is up, and I tell him I think they towed my bike. * He says, "Your bike is over on the other side of that wall." * I had just forgotten where I parked it. *But I did find a 25 dollar ticket on it as bikes are not allowed in this parking garage. *Why? *I wonder.

I drive to the exit where I try to pay the attendant. * The woman who supervises the place came over and told me where I was supposed to park, and points out that they do not allow bikes, because the barriers sense metal and will not sense bikes and can close and injure you. * I told her that I had seen another garage that had a sign that said motofcycles were not allowed but that I had looked for the sign and had not seen it. * She points to the lettering on the barrier and the lettering on the supports of the cieling that both say no motorcycles allowed. * They could not have been more obvious if they had carved the words into a bat and tatooed them to my forehead through blunt-force trauma. * How the hell did my brain edit that out when I came in. * They did not make me pay the ticket.

I drove around the city a bit and went down to the water to take some pictures, but there was no place to park conveniently so I just left.

On I94 heading south I was riding along when traffic suddenly slowed drastically in a work zone. * A red SUV in the lane to my left (Yes Tom it was the driver, I know) was not paying attention and had no possibility of stopping in time to avoid hitting the van in front of him at probably 40 mph or so. *The driver braked briefly, and then did a hard swerve to the right into my lane barely avoiding a nasty crash. Had I been about four car lengths down the road, his maneuver would have been very unfortunate for me.

I rode south until about 12:30*and then stopped for coffee and to buy a couple of bottles of wine. * I continued on to Mary's house, which I found after going to the wrong place, and I am now writing this and will soon get ready for dinner with Sherry and Mike and their family.

I may need to find a clinic to get some antibiotics as the burn on my chest may be gettting infected, but I will wait a bit. * I likely will not start super early, and that is ok, as I want to time my arrival in Portland Maine to Monday rather than Sunday as it looks like the rain will be clearing out by Monday, and I would like to stay dry.

Where will I be when I am thinking of now?

I crossed over 10,000 miles today. *It is taking at least a minor toll. *Most of the symptoms of the cold are gone, but the cough is hanging around. *The jury is still out on the chest burn, but it does hurt a bit. *

With all that in mind, my plan for today was to make it 300-400 miles. *Part of the reason I am moving intentionally slower as it is raining for the next two days in Maine, and I am fairly eager to avoid any more rain riding. I picked a town and moved out after Mary made me breakfast of two eggs. *I watched jack work himself into the typical frenzy of excitement at the prospect of bio-interaction with a tree. *I snapped a shot of the painting I gave Mary a couple years ago to remember how it looks in the frame she chose. *Here it is:



It was a nice day, although a bit overcast. *I drive on Illinois roads thinking about roads in Washington and North Dakota. *I wonder where I will be when I am thinking of now. * And that is as Zen as I am willing to become on this trip.

I do not want to burn the battery on the ipad, so I memorize the freeways I need, but I still manage to miss the turn and drive deeper and deeper into the entrails of Chicago. *After about 50 stop lights, absolutely none of which were green in my favor, I decided that it was stupid to waste this time and do something clever. * I check the ipad. * ...turns out the freeway is about a mile south of me. * I suppress my inclination to flog myself for riding 20 mph along the side of a freeway for who the hell knows how long, and just go to the freeway.

I have to say that I really loved the spectacle of the Chicago skyline. * The citty is massively wide. * I have been to Chicago itself twice before I think,, maybe three times. * But I have never been outside of it, excpet for a Christmas trip with my wife, and we took the train out that time I think, so I have never seen much of the country side of the city-scape from a distance. * The area I stayed was truly lovely, and after washing clothes and a nap, Mary and I headed over to Mike and Sherry's place for dinner. **

It was a beautiful day and evening. * A bit chill perhaps, but it was sunny. * Mike showed me his latest conctruction project after making sure "the raccoon" was absent. * It is a very large counter/holder of the egg grille-sink-storage area. *Mike has mad construction skills. * He will not starve when shit falls apart, assuming people need carpentry I mean. *

I tell my stamina to fuck off and down three margaritas before helpin them drink the Chateauneuf Du Pape that I brought. *Mike had prepared steak, stuffed tomatoes, and the sweetest sweet potato I have ever tasted. *We all had our wit on display, of course, and the conversation was fun. * It is interesting to see the children of people you have known since before they were born, and to realize that they have developed the art of conversation since you last saw them. * Amber seems to have an implicit understanding of the "Yes and ..." *construct of improvisational comedy. * I listen to Adam Carolla a lot, and he used to do improv, and the primary rule is, "Yes, and..." * I think "Yes, but also..." * Is ok, but going with, and trying to find the next thing to say about, the point previously raised really is one of the good conversational strategies. * I concluded this about three months ago. * You can ask the wife. *We have talked about it. * Seriously. *Anyway, as I was trying to say, Amber can hold her place in a fast-moving conversation. * I am sure whatever natural skills she has were augmented by sparring with Mike and with Sherry. **

Anyhow, I seem to have wandered away from the now. * I mean the then. * Sigh.

I hit the interstate past Chicago. * I already mentioned that I was impressed, but still I spend a bit of time remembering bodies falling from the WTC as I gaze at the Sears Tower. * The road turns to a toll road. *It is a serious pain in the ass to deal with tolls that require actually stopping and conducting a transaction. * And I have to do this about ten times as each state wants its cut. *People of *the northeat, listen to me. * You know the problem of having to have actual human beings sit in the middle of the freeway and collect fares? * That problem has been SOLVED. * Denver's toll roads run automatically using photograph techology. * You don't even need to put down your beer. * *There may be good reasons that Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio have not implemented this, but I would love to hear them.

After Chicago I come in to Indiana. * Off to the left on the lake I see a large collection of black factories, the legendary dark satannic mills. * Nah, I guess those were in England, but still. *I generally like factories as I am rather a fan of the fruits of civilization, and I have a deep awe for the will and determination to which these things are monuments. * Men do amazing things. * Even so, I think the world would be a nasty place were it paved in these things. * Now if they could only *figure out how to run a fucking toll road. * Sorry. *I am still bitter. *Oddly I ride past a sign from an attourney saying what number to call if you have mesothelioma. * ...lovely. * I hack up phlegm in reflexive sympathy.

I blip up into Michigan and ride the edge of the state to Sturgis, Michigan. * At some point on this road a deer runs across the road at maximum deer velocity about a quarter of a mile in front of me. * Whip smart quick my brain concludes there might be deer around here. * I slow and start actually looking for deer, but the forest crouds the road, so it would be easy to not see them. * I spend the obligatory amount of time worrying about getting killed by a deer, but there is not much I can do about it. * I suppose I could collapse weeping on the side of the road and beg for mercy at the hands of passers by. *That seems a bit umanly. *What I decided to do was to ride on so that I could get to my *destination and being inconsistently using verb tenses in an over-long ride report.

I was pretty tired today for some reason. *I stopped and slept for about ten minutes under an inviting tree in Michigan. * I stopped again briefly to close my eyes a couple hours later in Ohio too. * I hope I am not this tired tomorrow. * I need to hit 500 miles tomorrow if I can.

It is odd how much of the last week and a half has been spent in utter boredome or in serious discomfort of a sort. * I have never been in an isolation tank, but this feels like an analogue of what I imagine that is. * Oddly, you are so constantly barraged by stimulation, that I think your brain really cranks up the bar and starts editing shit on a massive scale. * ...kind of opposite to what it does in an isolation tank. * And oddly the brain gets so good at editing out all of the noise of the landscape that you find yourself bored while being immersed in information, some of which will kill you if you aren't careful. *Yes, you get bored. * More than once during this trip I find myself intentionally chanting nonsense mile after mile to help maintain the determination to keep moving. *Sometimes I amuse myself, but it is often very puerile. *I fought with this a lot today, and frankly it started to annoy me. * I kept telling myself to think something productive or to think about the landscape, but my brain insists on trying to invent lyrics to the "Fatal Dradle" *song.

I am in Elyria Ohio, in the effluvia of Cleveland. *I am sitting in a bar called Rubins eating breaded, deep-fried saurkraut and writing. * It took a ridiculous amount of time trying to find the restaurant, because Apple Maps is functionally retarded. *Oh, and could all you hotels do what Adam Carolla says and standardize the goddamned faucets in your bathrooms. * Seriously, I have seem some idiotic shit on this trip. * Everybody just go to Chris' house and copy the faucet in the shower in his guest bath. * You can independently set the temperature from the volume of water. * Simple. * Brilliant. * Do. * It. *Now.

So anyway... * *I guess 500 miles tomorrow if I can. * Uless I hit rain. * Rain equals stop.

Done tonight with whiskey and coffee.

Silent Running.

I woke up at 4 am with a bunch of different philosophical threads running though my head. *I was thinking that I really had to add these to the trip report, but the light of day convinced me otherwise. *They probably are of no general interest.

I decided to get up at 4:30 am. * I knew that the transit through Vermont, and New Hampshire, and Maine would be slow, and I wanted to be as far south toward NYC as I could by the end of the day. *So I got up before sunrise and packed and waited for it to become light enough to ride. * My main light is out, so I only have the high beam now. **

The route out of johnstown *went through country side that would make maidens moist. * Or at least I presume. * What the hell do I know about maidly moistness. * It was bucolic with velvet grass, trees, charming cottages, small rivers, gnomes, unicorns, and all that shit. * I rode through the village of Amsterdam and judged it a pale comparison to its namesake, but still soothing and satisfying all its ownself.

Every open body of water for quite some time had tendrils of mist rising from it. * I used to see this on the Kitsap Peninsula when I would go to work back in 1983, and I still love it. *It does soothe me, but it is not likely to break through my growing depression.

It is generally cold outside, but the forecast looks good, and I planned my arrival from three days ago accordingly. *It does get colder than at any other point during the trip on the ride over mountains in Verrmont. * It drops to about 37 F. *But it is dry, so it is fairly manageble for the half an hour or so it is that cold.

I could not distinguish between north-eastern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in a proper double-blind test, although Maine did seem to have the feeling of ocean somewhere with the sea breeze coming in.

The mountains and twisties of NY, Vermont, and NH were really nice and satisfying. * It had clearly rained last night and there was dampness in places, but the road was largely dry, which gave me some confidence, since the BMW was flashing the warning that it was below 38 degrees and ice might be present. * It was not and the long, long twisty ride was one of the best of the trip since highway 1 or the Ozarks. * It was marred a bit by a long delay for some sort of memorial day ceremony in some village. * Cops were directing traffic and it took me about half an hour to get through the line. * I was right, the first part of the day was very slow mileage-wise.

I had to spend a lot of time navigating, because I cannot leave the ipad on all day without destroying the battery, so when I know where I am going I shut it off, *and then stop and check when I am not sure.

I arrive in Maine and spend some time touring one of the towns, Dover I think, a bit, since I will not ride here for long.

Then I head south to Rhode Island. *I stay on the interstate and do not grant it the opportunity to distinguish itself. * Sorry Rhode Island. *Oh, right, Mass is before that. * I blew through there pretty fast too, since I have visited more than once.

At some place in the ride, probably New Hampshire I stopped and slept for ten minutes under a tree at a health center. * At a gas station, a local says, "Nice day for a ride." * I say something like, well it is drier than yesterday." * He replies, "And the day befoah that and the day befoah that." * I was tempted ot ask him if I could get there from here, but I didn't want to appear rude.

Conneticut and New York began to get really strange on the freeway. * First the traffic was mega-heavy after Boston, and after it collapsed to two lanes south, the traffic patterns got very strange. * Traffic would be sailing along at 80 mph, and then it would suddenly stop dead. *Freeways do this sometimes, but I have never seen what happened on these freeways. * It kept happeining. * 80 mph to 0 mph *then very slowly back to 80 for a long time. * Over and over. * It must have happende 20 times or so.

At some point I pass a sign saying something about Pez factory visitor center, and I wonder if I can get an Anne Boylen Pez dispenser.

I weary of the traffic and decide to stop somewhere near Norwalk, Conneticut. * I wanted to go farther, but I just cannot take it. * I have been riding for almost 12 hours. * I am so tired I almost drop the bike during a tight turn as I fight with the iPad to show me the way to a hotel. * It keeps routing me the wrong way. * Eventually I get to the Hotel. * They have a restaurant. * I shower and go down to drink and eat. * I have an extremely good mozzarela and tomato salad that puts to shame the shitty one I had last night.

I need to research places to take shots of the NY skyline on the Jersey Shore.*

Silent Running? * Yeah, well a bloody-minded part of me wants to go below the sonar. *To hide under thermoclines and give the evil eye to dolphins that may reveal my position. * If I do not post for a night or two, perahps others will begin to wonder where I am as much as I do. *I want so much to no longer be part of my thoughts. * Let it be me thought by someone better. * Please let me lay silent 'til thought by someone good.

Sleep young traveler, Sleep.
After 13 hours and 700+ miles in holiday traffic yesterday, I wasn't sure I ever want to get back in the saddle. But today is a new and brighter day.

Travel Safe, when you can!

Damn dude, I am not sure I could do 700 outside of Texas. 500 really taxes me.

Creep *of the Week:

What the hell happened today? *Hold on, let me collect my thoughts. * I woke up in Kentucky I think. *I remember a lovely Caprese salad the night before. *No no, that was the night before. * I told Lori about it last night. * I remember. * Oh yes, it was Ruby Tuesday with the diminutive blonde waitress with the southern drawl. * She attempted to feing interest in my story, and actually probably was within the limits it deserves.

Anyhow, it was Harrisonburg into which I fell from dreamsape into wakefullness. *Or Wakekhalffullness or whatever. *I got up and packed slowly and put flag labels on my pannier. * I wanted to 600 miles today, but I *was not in a crashing hurry as I would steal time from the time zone lords today and suddenly become an hour younger but just as wise. *So I had time to burn.

I took the time to get two prepackaged boiled eggs at the continental breakfast. * It took me exactly .33 eons to peel the wretched things. * I ate what remained.

I rode through part of Harrisonburg on the way out. * There is this little compact square with a large old building in the middle and what is essentially a round about around it, but like all *european and old looking.

The grass seems pretty yellow in this state, and at times very long; seriusly lush grass. *I ride through mountains in Western West Virginia and Kentucky today. * I have the road mostly to myself for a very long time. *When I started it was actually 70 degrees out, but it dropped into the mid 50s in the mountains. * But it was nice. * I kept the electric jacket on but not plugged in for most of the eary day.

Lots of green. * Lots of red buildings. * At one place on the road I looked to my left and see a very green and fairly steep hill going to a good height before returning to the state of mountain proper, and on this hill I see a trailer court. * The trailers are parallels to the road I am an and there are probably four rows of them. * Very very odd. * Only later did I wonder about the roads into such a court.

My first view of Kentucky was, oddly, a large mass of factories on a river. * Refineries I think from the look. *They are both immensely beautiful as engines of human life and somewhat ugly as grimy intrusions. * But hell, were it not for the factories the landscape would all just blend in anyway.

Ok, now I am going to steal a routine that Dave Dameshek does on Adam Carolla's' podcast. *The routine is "Creep of the Week" * He starts out by singing the theme for the bit to the tune of Darth Vaders theme in Star Wars. *"Creep creep creep creep of the week. *He or she is the creep of the week." *Then he begins to describe various nominees. *In my case I have only one:

I came up behind about five cars that were behind this semi. * The semi had his emergency blinkers on and was moving about ten miles an hour on the twisties. *Fine, whatever. * I pass a few of the intervening cars and wait. *Soon we come over the summit if this particular mountainette, and there is a long long glorious passing lane free of cars. *Of course the semi proceeds slowly to let all the people he has been holding hostage pass. *Right? * Right? *Wrong. * I speeds way up his trailer slewing around a bit on the road. * So anybody who cannot accelerate fast enough to pass him ends up crawling along behind him at the next rise. *I did not happen to fit in that category, but I had to hit 90 mph to get by the miscreant.

What douchebag academy did this cretin attend to hone such sophisticated methods of assholery. *You, inconsiderate Semi guy are the CREEP OF THE WEEK! * Taste the Blaster! * Pew Pew.

Those last bits, too, were invented by Dave Dameshek, and I love it when he does it, but I stole it to relate the story about this jerk.

Now look. * I *am no hero when it comes to being rigorously non-assholish. * But Jesus. * Tonight as I was walking to dinner, this skinny black-haired girl who was probably good looking too (It is hard for 53-year-old eyes to tell from much distance) was walking perpendicular to my path and intersected it. *She turned to walk in the same direction I *was walking but about ten feet in front of me. *I though,"Sigh, I am not going to walk half a mile ten feet behind this chick." *Why not? * Well, because I run this simulation of her in my mind and come up with, "why is this guy following me." * I am sure she is not thinking that, but I do not want to be responsible for that feeling, so I turn around and spend more time than needed to take a picture of the Hotel in which I am staying. * This lets her get way in front and I feel better about the whole thing.

Now why the fuck do I care what she is thinking? *Why not just walk and to hell with what my imaginings of her thoughts are? * Well, that is just the way I am wired. *What I want to know is how is someone wired who would deliberately put people in potential jeaopardy in order to make sure that they crawl behind him on the next hill. * Very. *Fucking. *Strange.

But I do get by and get to ride some more fun twisties. * Eventually I hit the interstate headed to Lexington. * *Interstate now and time for the long grind. * At Lexington I have to decide am I going to head south into lower western Kentucky as I had thought or do I shoot strait across Indiana to Missouri and preserve the possibility of being home on Friday? * I choose the latter and aim for Louiseville and Saint Louis.

At one point in Kentucky I came over a hill and was stunned at the view of rolling hills of yellow green grass dotted with trees. * A sky full of busy but relatively non threatening clouds added textural drama and all but covered the powder blue of the sky behing. * But enough showed through that you knew this was a celebration, a command to procreate rather than a sky of a vengeful god. * *It was like a pastel post card, or like a hand colored stereopticon image of a place that, can you actually convince yourself exists, you are sure did so hundreds of millions of miles behind us in space and an age ago in time.

I was impressed. *So much so that I wrote the previous paragraph first tonight so that I would not forgett to include it.

The grind was very long, *but I felt oddly well through it. * I blew into a rest area briefly and jumped off the bike and lay in shaded grass for about 5 minutes doing forece REM. * It is very odd how well this works to make sleepy urges go away. * I have been doing this for years and it really works for me.
I do end up going 600 miles today, so that is my high score. *It was way easier than many days on this trip that were much shorter.

I narrowly avoid my first ticket as I decide to slow down to something reasonable, just before a state trooper turns into a median slot.

I gained my hour *back. * I get a room that I again pay more for than I would like. * Then I try not to follow a girl as I wald to dinner that is made a bit less pleasant by a plethora of men who have showed up at the bar of this restaurant to speak with each other about matters urgent. *Many years ago some chiick told me I was a misanthrope. * She was right.

A few of my favorite things.

I seriously just had to look up where I was last night. * I don't think I ever even realized it was in Indiana. wo I guess that is one of the states I have hit more than once. *I was thinking just grind out Missouri and get into Nebraska, so I was in distraction mode and listened to like six hours of podcasts. *Adam Carolla just mesmerizes me. *Yeah, a lot of it is kind of childish, but the man has a very quick wit. * But the states got somewhat short shrift of my attention. *Grind it baby. *Get home.

As I rode into St Louis, I saw the arch. * I so wished there were a convenient place to photograph it with the city as backdrop, and there probably is, but I did not want to find it on this side of the river. * I did leave the freeway and rode to its base. * Hell, I always thought this think was on the ocen, that St Louis must be on the gulf coast somewhere. * Heh. * It looked really unique and beautiful with the earth tone city intervening in front of storm clouds. * Dammnt, rain. *The arch is way cool. * It may not be worth a vistit to the city, but if there is another reason to go there, I would like to find that spot to photograph the stupid thing well.

It did not rain much in St Louis and it stayed cinsistenly pretty warm.

But the temperature slowly dropped as I rode across Missouri, comparing this part with the small tab of it I rode through in the first days of my trip. * So another state I have hit twice. *I stopped to put on my sweat-shirt as I was getting kind of cold. * At the "gas station" I stopped, none of the pumps were working. * It was also something else, like a fireworks stand or something. * I jest. * Anyway a pretty blonde who must have worked there exchanged a few relevant observations of how much rain sucks on a bike. *People who ride are always so deperate to communicate to you the fact that they ride as well. *Ah well. * I rode on.

Traffic was really heavy 50 miles or so out of Kansas City. *Maybe it was only 25 miles. *I don't know. *Anyway I suddenly noticed that the sky was getting rather sinister. * One section of cloud seemed serrated, * Mist was descending rapidly from it, maybe rain, so fast it was as if the sky was clawing at the earth. *Behind this was an intense blue gray that bade ill. *Oh, and lighting. * This was a storm not the slow agonizing drizzles I suffered through in north and south dakota. *This was more like what we had riding into New Orleans. * I got slammed by a shot of huge drops, and I feard the sort of gully washer that Denver gets. *I have been in rain in Colorado so bad that I could not see well even with window washers on full. *On a bike that would be suicide. *

I stopped and put on my rain jacket. *I kept going. *This rain got pretty bad. * I was fast and heavy. *I had left the damned vents on my pants open, so my legs were instantly wet. *The collar of the rain jacket must have been ill aranged, because my torso also got wet. *It never got below 60, and was mostly about 65 through this storm, so I never actually shivered, but I probably came close.

The bad thing was that the mist from this rain was really bad. * I am not sure what was causing it, but it was almost like riding through a light fog while it was raining really hard. *It became very challenging to see. *I rode with my eyes deliberately held very wide open and trying to include the edges of the retinas in motion detection by moving my head around a bit. * I focused on brake lights on the vehicle in front of me and rode on thinking about how this situation really was not quite the thing. *I was thinking how stupid this was, but it never got to the point of pulling over, besides it was to the point that I kind of felt just doing what I was doing right then was probably the only vaguely safe course of action I could pursue. *I had, of course, turned on the hazard lights to increase my visibility. *Somehow it all ended well.

I am fortunate the rain eventually did slack. * It rained for quite awhile, but the worst of it could not have been for more than a half hour. * I actually was quite concerned I might have to negotiate the mazes in Kansas City with the rain coming down like that, but it slacked off a lot before I got there and I nodded at *Kansas City's handsome grace sitting there on its proud little hill. * Fucking bitch.

After that it became about picking a place to drink. *I wanted to get close to 600 miles, so I ended up choosing Nebraska City in Nebraska. *The hotel situation here is grim. * There are only three or four that I found on yelp, which seems a small number for a city as large as this seems. *And they all seemed to have something wrong with them. * I would have snatched at the Best Western, but there was no acceptable restaurant within miles. *I went into the town proper and the places there also had no acceptable restaurants right near them. *I eventually grabbed a room in a place that has a sports bar about half a mile away.

I set out on the walk, really not looking forward to it, but not because of the walk, but because it was across a bridge for a four lane city thoroughfare not meant to be crossed easily by pedestrians. * And the place just feels kind of blighted. *But while walking along I noticed an area clearly being cleared for construction or something, but it was kind of a large cut of mud through a hill that was otherwise covered with short, sword shabed, and highly saturated green grass. *I looked across the street at some trees and decided to photograph them. * As I started to do so I realized I was looking at beauty.

There was a small group of very large trees of the type that english painters used to like to paint, large, serious trees that are intensely gnarled but decked with lavish leaves. * Behind them a bright green field receded to a line of trees much rarther away and to a blue water tower that peeked over them, and in the far back ground are the massive banks of clouds that will make tomorrow's thunder and lightning, although they are bathed in salmon and blue pastel at the moment. *It was heartbreakingly lovely, like a matte painting to be used for a genteel comedy about happy commoners living a life of bliss in a fabled English Shire. * But this is Nebraska. * Admittedly I have much Nebraska to come, but if it can hand over a scene like this to seduce my optic nerves then it has been much slandered by those who have reported to me on its lack of charms. *It is easilly one of the most beautiful things I have seen on the trip. * I used the Canon G11 to take quite a number of pictures. * I do hope that some of them are usable.

I got to my destination and had food that was not bad at all, wings and a hamburger. * I expected worse. *I will head back and sleep for the ride home tomorrow.

The title may be misleading as I do not intend to focus on my favorite things, but to list a few things I will not miss.

I will not miss being rained on.
I will not miss being slapped by wind for hours on end. *I feel battered
I will not miss sore shoulders, well sore everything really.
I will not miss an endless roadway carpeted with dead deer, and armadillo, and possum.
I will not miss the race car drivers on I95 in florida who must be goaded on by some Dayton demom of speed.
I will not miss tailgaters in New York City.
I will not miss shivering.
I will not miss exhortations to buckle my seat belt, state brags about the number of traffic deaths, and large billboards all through the south advertising adult super stores. *Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I will not miss the epic balttle between Dollar General and Family Dollar*
I will not miss the fantastically stupid toll technology that stitches the east like a badly sutured wound.
I will not miss being so tired I almost drop the bike and too tired to search for a cheaper hotel.
I will not miss the creep of the week.
I will not miss missing my wife.

Of course there will be things I do miss, but maybe I will do those tomorrow.

A Long Cold Road:

Yesterday was Friday and I arrived home at around 3:30 PM.

The experience the nightt before that in Nebraska city was pleasant enough, and I had some of the best chicken wings I have ever had in the divey sports bar that I had to walk a fair distance to reach. *THey had a light bredding that had the overall effect of a dry rub, and it was fairly spicey. They were not gooey as chicken wings always are. *In the side they did serve a hot liquid sauce that let you goo them up on your terms. * It was kind of like a relationship.

I checked the weather in Kearney Nebraska and it said 74 degrees and windy. * Nebraska City was supposed to be warmer than that, but this forecast encouraged me that the day may end up being on the bearable side of unpleasant. * As usual I was completely wrong.

I believe I was underway by seven, but I am not sure. *That made it six Denver time, so I knew I could make it in the mid afternoon. * I was pushing a bit so I could get home in time to have dinner with Lori's mother and aunt who were visiting while I was gone. * Original plans probably had me spending another week on the road, but I was done and just wanted to get home.

It was certainly pleasant enough in Nebraska City, a little cold as usual. * But I did not put on the electric jacket. * For some reason I was just dead set against it. * My sweat shirt was still damp, so I did not put that on either.

But I was ok for a few hours. * Again I listened to hour after hour of podcasts to corral my mind from the boredom of another grind. *It does work pretty well. * I think that Eastern Nebraska is really quite beutiful, and not so different from the part of Indiana that it is near. *It is best when you just enter the state. * Shortly aftter that you enter the area that becomes ultra flat though still green and tree-ish. * I think that if you lived in this place, you would probably need to invest a lot of emotional energy into elaborate tree scapes and how they interact with monster storm clouds.

I remember walking back from the sports bar last night. * Back in the direction of Indiana and Missouri, in the deepening evening, there were what must have been hundreds of miles of monstrous storm clouds, the tops still white, but the lower areas all manner of greyed out purple and blue. *The bottoms could not be seen as a line of trees intervened. * But there was lightning fretting and flashing, and the whole thing has a powerful and ominous aura. *I am't surprised to learn there were tornado watches and warnings in Missouri on Friday. * I am damned glad I got through on Thursday, although the storm I did ride through was damned bad all itsownself.

Many miles into the ride, before I got to Kearney the wind got really bad. * I am sure the worst gusts must have been in the 40-50 mph range. * The day in Nebraska never warmed much above 66, and it spend a great deal of time nearer 60. * So it was cold. *It was dry so the cold was endurable, but that is what it was, endurance. * I never got quite to the point of shivering. *Had I, I probably would have put on the electric jacket, but I was determined not to unless I had to.

I had already determined to take a break mid-day, and I did so in Kearney. * I stopped in a town 40 miles before that to look for a Starbucks, but apparently the demographics in smallish town USA cannot distract them from paving larger cities with the damned things. * The ipad told me that there was a coffee house in Kearney called Barista's Daily Grind. *It had 5-star reviews in yelp, so I headed there. * I had cappucino and a pastry. *The place really was nice, and I am sure I would find myself a great deal were I condemned to this frozen hell. * The coffee had som slightly sweetened whipped cream with a mild coffee bean in it. * It was really nice, rather like a kiss before coffee.

I enjoyed the coffee, but did not linger overly long.

Somewhere along the freeway is a massive arch built over the freeway that is a memorial to something or orther. *I did not bother to memorize what as I was struck by the utter ridiculousness of this bridge both two and from nowhere,, but I am probably being less generous than I should. * I thought the St Louis Arch was cool because it was both striking and unusual. * And this was unusual and at least a little striking all by itself across the freeway. * I will look up what the hell it was some time.

The latter half of Nebraska was more of torture all too common on this trip. *Heave wind and cold temperatures combined with the return of flat desert landscape to make this another get through it experience, but at least it was dry and my mind was relatively quiet despite haviing run out of interesting podcasts to distract me. * I stopped about 15 miles east of Cheyenne, because Lori had asked me to call when I was getting close. * I suspected they wanted to do some welcome thing for me, so I called and told her I would be there at 3:30. *I nailed that time despite the fact I had to stop at work and pick up some paperwork so I could get some money that my nephews requested from their 529 plans.

I managed to get in and out of the building without running into anyone who I did not particularly care to engage in conversation with for the next month. * A freind did encounter me rummaging through my desk even though I was trying to be quiet. * She was horrified that I was in the building during my sabbatical, and I assured her that it was necessary and that I shared her horror.

I got home and Lori and her mother had made a huge banner welcoming me back on the garage door. *It was very kind of them to do so. * I am sure many of the neighbors must have thought someone was coming back from Afghanistan or something.

We had a nice dinner and then I introduced them to Doctor Horrible's Singalong Blog, something I have almost an evangelical fervor to do.

It seems a suitable end to the ride report would be some sort of summation of how I feel about it. * The honest answer is that right now I cannot tell. *It was quite long and often unpleasant. *I don''t think I have a coherent conception of the whole thing yet, and it will take time to manufacture one. *I am not making any progress now, because I am distracted by the funk that has been plaguing me since North Dakota. * There are to many other issues and emotions buffeting me now. *At times in my life my brain itself becomes like a long cold road with no home to which I can ride. *I am trying to resist slipping into that mind set now.

I do want to mention some of the best things. * The early trip was gret because of the novelty and the need to get to Lori. *Fort Lauderdale was paradise, and swimming in the ocean was just the thing. Meeting Brian, Jeff, Jean-Anne, Heather and Mike was great as was staying in and making dinner in the Suite the night after. * Going to Key West was everything I expected, and Key West itself is great. * I will always remember the lightning ride into New Orleans. *New Orleans also was very pleasant. *Things got pretty rougg after that, but Highway 1 in California was very good. * I loved Death Valley. *Chris letting me stay with him helped a lot. * I did not realize I was in for some of the roughest riding in my life in the next couple of days, and being able to stay with Mary and have dinner with Mike, Sherry, Marge, and Amber was, again, probably more valuable in moderating the funk that started to invest me in Milwaukee. * Although I do have to say I want to go back to Milwaukee. * The riding throught the mountains of the northeast was every bit as lovely as Arkansas and Tenessee. *The thunder storm in Missouri was bad, but I know for a fact I will be glad I experienced it some day. * Right now I am merely surprised I survived it after looking at my back tire after getting home.

I am sitting in my back yard looking at the dramatic cloudscape over the Rocky Mountains as the day has finally calmed enough that I can sit outside as I type this. *I just watched two small black birds attacking a hawk in the sky behind my house. *The hawk would glide slowly higher as the two birds would fly in to peck at it. * One little bird was much more agressive than the other, and the less aggrressive one soon gave up. * But the other one harassed the hawk forever driving him *higher and higher and flying in to peck at the hawk's head. *I think the hawk knew that if it just kept gliding higher, the small bird would have to give up its franting flapping to keep up. * Eventually the little bird did disengage and then it could glide rather than flapping, but its glide as at a pretty steep angle, not like the flat laziness of the hawk's glide at all. * It ended up in a group of trees out in the wetlands where I am sure it is fretting about whether the experience was really all worth it.

You made it. Congratulations.
Hope your body recoops quickly. I'll be passing thru Denver next Monday. Will wave a Hello. Sorry our paths didn't cross in the SE but I was a little behind your time schedule.