XC Run Days 27-33 Pt. 1

7,297 miles. 33 days. 16 States and 42 tanks of gas.

There's a lot to talk about. The Rally, the HUB, the Brethren and the story of wind and rain. Now, too, there is the saga of Bear and GloJoe --they're in Minnesota, Bear called yesterday afternoon -- as they make their way over to, then down, the West Coast.

And talk about it I will. Now that I'm off the road, I intend to post several times a day till I catch up. But, I also have the inevitable detritus that occurs when one is gone so long to deal with.

Piles of laundry. Re-configure the 'scoot (don't usually run about with all that stuff hangin' on it. It's an old school bobber). And, oh by the way, tonight is Stated Meeting and I've got to put the Top Hat back on. I've a Lodge to run. And a Chapter -- we've got two runs coming up and we need to figure when we're meeting Bear and GloJoe. There's a mountain of mail sitting on my desk.

Don't ya just hate it when reality grabs that baseball bat and whacks ya up side th' head? Even when it's good reality.

Bein' a 'scooter tramp is easy; bein' a responsible adult is hard (at least the few times I've tried it, it was) but both are fun if ya let 'em be.

So, I'm gonna get woke up, get some things done and start the post on the rally.

Maybe I'll even talk more about the best part of the trip.

See ya in a few hours...

XC Run Days 27, 28, 29 Pt. 2

More excuses tonight.

I'm in Silverthorn, CO high in the Rockies and I'm beat.

'Couple of posts back, I mentioned I expected a price to be paid for all the good weather I've had. Today I paid it. Not in rain or snow as I expected. In wind.

The forecast today was for winds 20-25 kts. - gusts 30. Just checked the weather channel. It was 50, gusts 65. All day, a quartering headwind. There were times I was taking curves leaning the opposite way just to hold the road. Saw several big rigs on their sides. Just blew 'em over. Found out they almost closed 70.

I only made 500 miles today. Had to break it down to 100 mile pulls. Slows ya' down, doing that.

So I'm going to bed.

Talk to you tomorrow.

(But, it still was a good day on the 'scoot!)

XC Run Days 27, 28, 29

Been a while.

So much was going on at the Rally that I just didn't have time to write. And tonight I've just finished 11 hours in the saddle gettin' beat to death by that doggone Kansas wind.

Excuses, excuses.

So, I'll make a deal with ya'... I'll put a little bit down on this tonight and do a Paul Harvey ("The Rest of The Story..." for you kiddies) tomorrow.

Lessee -- when we last left our young hero he was blissfully contemplating running the "Pig Trail". (OK, the old goat was tired and wet, holin' up in a Best Western in Russelville, Arkansas.)

So we continue...

I didn't trust the road or my tires.

Came out of Russelville  on Hwy 7, The "Pig Trail" and had one of those rare days when the 'scoot just didn't feel right. Tires felt squirrelly. I know they weren't, had good air in 'em, they've been wearing well, just felt that way. Have days like that sometimes. Can't get right in the seat, handlebars feel wrong -- a myriad of things that I know are all in my head. Usually I just feel the 'scoot in my butt. It's just a part of me. Think something and it happens. But every once in a while...

First thing I noticed was that there were wet patches on the road, that the pavement wasn't too even and that you couldn't trust the camber. And then, in the first decent curve, nice little semi-sweeper, I see (just at that point, about half way through, when it really starts to tighten up, ya know?) a wonderful orange sign:

"Fresh Oil".

Perfect, just bloody perfect.

So I slowed down. Don't think I hit better n' 70 that whole run. But, slowing down I was able to enjoy it. Sometimes it's nice being an old coot. Don't need to impress anyone and, maybe more importantly, one need no longer try to impress one's self.

So it was pretty in those hills. Small, soft mounds, the occasional vista of rounded earth sliding into the haze that was the horizon. Colors easy on the eye as if they were being quiet so as not to disturb these sleepy hills.

I kind of rode that way, too. Easing through the curves, just letting the Ozarks seep in to me.

Then I'd run into some typical Arkansas weirdness:

John boy, I'll never wonder where that off the wall sense of humor of yours comes from again (family joke).







Ran 7 up through the little towns, finally through Jasper and the tight curves runnin' uphill out of town, to the turn off for 7s. A short climb up that steep little hill to the Hub. Turn in, see the 'scoots and Brothers wearing vests with Shields like mine on the back.

And for the first time in 5,100 miles, I wasn't alone.

More tomorrow.

XC Run Day 26

De gustibus non est disputandum.


I can not find the beauty in Alabama nor Mississippi. I know it's there, but my eye slides by it. Restlessly searching the close trees, draped with the all invasive Kudzu, the small fields peeking from tiny cracks in that green wall, the occasional garishly red scar of dirt road, it finds nothing that penetrates beyond the retina to the brain and certainly not the soul.

It is not the land. It is me. Just not my cup of tea. But it did give me the opportunity to use the opening quote -- and that, especially for those of us who suffered through all those years of Latin, may be worth the price of admission.

Memphis is a three ring circus of trucks.

Trucks own Memphis. And they drive like it.

It reminds me of La Guardia years ago, when we'd be stacked three deep in the "Allys", watching the fuel gauges, shutting down engines when we could, waiting for the sound of freedom: "Mall 57, got your power spooled up?...you are cleared for short take-off, from taxiway double Julie, runway 24 --- good luck, five seven.". (Found out, years later, the controllers used to take bets, especially on hot days, on whether we'd make it or not.)

I rolled out of Columbus, MS this morning under clear blue skies. Temps in the low 70s. Perfect. It's only about 200 miles to Memphis, where I was to meet Bear & Co. the next morning, so I looked forward to an easy day rollin' through the middle of Mississippi, on roads I'd never traveled before. And it was.

Until Memphis.

Oh, nothing terrible happened. Nothing at all, really. Except trucks. I'm certified to teach, and for a long time in my career did teach, the National Safety Council's Professional Truck Driver's Defensive and Safe Driving Course. I believe I can assert, without fear of error, that none a them *$#@*! bozos in and around Memphis ever took my class.

There, I feel better now.

Memphis is, in many ways, America's distribution center. The nexus of a huge railhead for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (probably the only time anyone will see Vermont and New Mexico in the same name) and several major Interstates including I-40, probably the biggest East-West artery in the country. So it's full of trucks. Lines and lines of trucks, in every lane, passin' each other, runnin' wherever they want. Ya just about have to run on the shoulder to see the road signs.

Obviously, I survived to merge onto 240, thence to I-40 and over the Mississippi to Arkansas and West Memphis, where I was to meet Bear at the Flying J at exit 182. Except the exits in West Memphis (which, Bear, until last night I had never heard of -- you did say Memphis, LOL) were in the 280s. So I took my life in my hands, pulled into the right lane, managed to find the Arkansas Welcome Station and got the heck off that insane road to call Bear.

Turns out he meant Nashville (heck, they're both in Tennessee) -- several hundred miles in my rear view mirrors.

Yup. I am now officially on the FMRC part of the trip, that's for sure. When it comes to runs and events, we are the most disorganized bunch on the planet and, to tell the truth, we, me included, like it that way. Drives the Gold Wing riders amongst us nuts (You were riding a quarter inch outside of your assigned place in the formation. My God, man -- look at the diagram, look at the diagram!) and makes the Harley Gods happy.

So, after Bear and I got done laughing, I pulled out onto that damn 40 -- and found a parking lot. Don't know what happened, but the few 4 wheelers had shut off their engines. Nuthin' but trucks as far as you could see and the sound of idlin' diesels. Fortunately, I was just shy of the turn off for 147, the way to old US 64 where I wanted to be anyway. Hit that aforementioned shoulder and headed Northwest.

I like Arkansas. It's soybean country in the eastern part of the state. Got some vistas -- big fields that stretch way out. Flat here, one sees, in the far distance, the hazy outlines of grain elevators miles away. I keep looking for the mountains, perhaps thinking I'm back in California, awaiting the sawtooth of peaks cutting into the horizon. But the Ozarks don't appear. They're old hills, stoop shouldered, worn down by eons. Little more than hills, really. They'll pop up eventually and they're pretty, been in 'em before.

So I ran the old road through the state, enjoying the cool of that big front moving through the country to do battle with Earl out in the ocean. And I hope it keeps him out to sea, but I worry too. This kind of collision breeds those big storms in the North Atlantic, especially off the Grand Banks. The kind that have made so many New England widows. Hope those little 'liners and draggers have found a safe harbor.

The Navy Hymn goes thus:


Lord, stand beside all those who sail
Our merchant ships in storm and gale,
In peace and war their watch they keep
On every sea, on thy vast deep.
Be with them, Lord, by night and day,
For Merchant Mariners we pray.

Ten miles out of Russellville, back on 40, I felt the wind shift and knew I'd crossed the frontal boundary. The rain came and I pushed on into town and hunkered down for the night. Right at the beginning of the "Pig Tail", Highway 7, runnin' through the Ozarks to Marble Falls, the Hub and the Brethren.

So tomorrow I'll make that run. Might be wet, hope it'll be dry but I know it will be good.

And, a thousand miles or more from that storm tossed sea, my thoughts will still go, as they often do, to those men who go down to the sea in ships.