The Dixie Pixie's Blue Bike undoubtedly wins the "showbike" of the trip award. No picture can do justice to this marvel put together by Husband and forum leader MoccasinMike. From the double ghost flames and custom fenders to the lighted and mirrored air cleaner to the turquoise conchos, this bike is really something.

And fittingly, the Dixie Pixie and Moccasin are the last to leave the Hotel Prytania:

However, a small group of us linger to join Big Daddy in his Monday ritual of a Red Beans and Rice lunch, before taking off.

Anyway, when I last checked in and brought all up to date I was in the town of Mojave, CA...right on the edge of the Mojave desert and ready to commence the last leg of my journey home...500 miles (roughly) over the Tehachapi's, up I-5 across the Bay Area and then Northward and home.

May I ask who here doesn't understand the concept of DESERT!? At 4:00 a.m. I am awakened by the sound of wind driven rain rattling the motel windows to the tympani accompaniment of thunder and lightening. By about six a clearing appears to be developing so I hit the road and successfully manage to progress through the morning without serious weather to contend with. However, by early afternoon I'm within sight of Northern CA, and the rain begins and continues on and off for the rest of the day. Ah well, I've been very lucky on this trip when it comes to weather, so the last day is the best place to hit me with some adversity.

I'm home by 5:30 that evening, in the shower by 6:00 to warm up, and at our neighbor's for their annual pumpkin carving party by 7:30. Tomorrow is Halloween, and I seem to have returned to normalcy. And don't think I forgot about Halloween on the trip. Mountain Rick and I stopped by the World's Largest Harley-Davidson dealership in El Paso Texas --

--and I got a flaming pumpkin/skull Harley T-Shirt to scare all the kids!

It has been a fantastic trip, with good camaraderie, great scenery, great food and great riding. On top of this, we accomplished something to help out the folks in the New Orleans parishes, who have been double battered economically over the past few years. As serious as our ultimate purpose may have been, though, if I had to pick one photo that summed up the experience, I guess it would have to be Big Dave from New Jersey showing off the signed flag of the Road King Riders, which has now been twice (at least, that we know of) around the country, and probably will make the trip many times again. (p.s. The red hair is fake...)

I'm not back, but I have internet again! I've been either without access (mostly) or without time to post since I hit New Orleans.

Big Daddy proved to be as pleasant and entertaining a person as imagined. Here he is with his hair and beard dyed orange as part of a personal fund raising bet he entered into and fulfilled to raise money for the animals. An old school biker who together with his first wife fostered more than sixty foster kids back home in Texas, he proved to be a great companion in his newly adopted home of New Orleans. Here he is sporting the tattoo on his right leg that inspired the pins. (He's also something of a Saints fan.)


We did the predictable touristy things and some not so touristy, getting a first hand tour of the ninth ward and a first hand introduction to some out of the way restaurants. In total we had about twenty bikes show up, with about thirty people. I have to say that although I did a lot of walking and even got a museum tour in, most of my time seemed to have been spent planning where to eat, eating, talking about what we just ate and then planning the next meal. As used as I am to having fine restaurants available, New Orleans sets a new standard. We stayed in the Garden District, not 'downtown' and ate most of our meals at restaurants within a few blocks walk. We only repeated on restaurant. I'm going on a diet as soon as I get back.

New Orleans just keeps bouncing back. While the Bourbon Street scene is not my idea of fun, the French Quarter is still a charming walk, and still offers cafes and restaurants that are worth visiting.
> And of course, the Old Man River is still the nerve center. We spent part of an afternoon just sitting by the river watching the freighters moving up and down the river. Non stop commerce.
























Reluctantly, I got back on the bike with the rest last Monday to head out and home. With a small number of others that could afford the extra time, I followed Big Daddy to his favorite spot for Red Beans and Rice, a New Orleans Monday tradition. But after lunch, there was no longer any excuse, and Mountain Rick and I saddled up and headed west.

Coming down into NOLA Rick and I kept to the side highways as much as possible, and we did the same thing going out. Avoiding the industrial crunch of Baton Rouge altogether, we headed West through the bayous and cane fields of south Louisiana. The smell of an occasional sugar refinery sure brought back memories of Honolulu during the fifties and sixties when it still had a cane refinery. Rural Louisiana is cane, fishing and oil, in what seems like an about even mix to the observer. Not so South Eastern Texas.

Crossing the state line that first night away we were immediately aware that it is oil, oil and oil that drives this part of the world. Coming into Beaumont TX for the night, the air is saturated with the perfume of the oil refineries. Again, everywhere we stay we are accompanied by workers occupied in some fashion in the oil business. I wish I'd had the chance to photograph it, but I will always remember the "Welcome to.." sign over one town was actually hung from three foot diameter refinery pipelines that crossed the Freeway exit from one gigantic facility to another.

That second day also was another reminder of the size of this place. We did 601 miles between breakfast (first light) and dinner (after dark) and we're still in Texas. We hole up in Fort Stockton at a very pleasant Best Western motel. West Texas is more open range and cattle....mostly open range!

The next morning we cannonball 250 miles into Las Cruces where we have lunch and I bid farewell to MountainRick who turns north up I- 25 towards Salt Lake. It has been nice having company, but at times its a bit like trying to dance with a partner who dances to a different tune! Its nice being back on the road alone. From Las Cruces I aim the headline down I 10 West towards Phoenix, where Elizabeth and Kathy await. Alas, I run out of energy or they have plans that night, take whichever version you like -- but I stop 140 miles short of Phoenix after a 530 mile day and gratefully crash for the night. After, I must add, finally locating a car wash and using it to knock the bulk of road grime and insect build up off the bike. (Best Westerns are really cute, I have to say....Harley has a deal with them that provides us with a discount, but with some the agreement goes further and includes the provision of facilities to wash the bikes. A "deal" by the way that saves thte motels a lot of money in towels not being used for the purpose. This Best Western clerk checks me in and then says 'wait, I have something for you" ....She comes back with a hanky sized towel for the bike. Looking at it and at the bike sitting there with 5000 miles of dirt and grime, I say " Could I have a glass of water?" At least she told me where the car wash was.

That night I woke up with the chills and shakes. I self diagnose dehydration. It hasn't been that hot, but Its has b been warm and winding and I'vee been riding for two days with my mesh jacket for best ventilation...I haven't been very good though at hydrating. The next a.m. therefore, I sleep in, find some gatorade, and head into Phoenix leisurely after a good breakfast. We ehad a very nice visit, and then I took off for home this a.m. I write this from the desert town of Mojave, having circled around the LA basin by heading north off of I 10 into Palmdale. Still have about 500 miles to go to get home, so its to bed early and up and at em early. Today was fantastic desert riding, going from Yucca to Saguaro to Joshua Tree environs in one day. Pretty spectacular.

There is a lot more riding to do to see this country. I was going to work in a side trip from PHoenix up to the Grand Canyon today, and then head home via the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, but the threat of that nevada deterred me. Predicted low for the South Rim was going to be 32 today, with even lower temps forecast for the Tahoe basin. At a minimum, this would curtail my riding hours....at worst, well you don't want to know how an 850 pound Harley handles the snow. So I either chickened out, or left more roads and rides for the next time--take your pick, I'[m cool with either.

All we have to do now is find Harley, Oklahoma and we're all set. This is Rick and me entering Davidsson, Oklahoma. All I can say is that Wednesday was a 520 mile day through four states. We headed North from the Texas panhandle into Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plain). No surreys were sighted, although a dulcimer factory was. Southern Oklahoma is very pretty and without a lot of people...its like the Joads left and nobody moved in. We headed due east across the state, finding increasingly prosperous and pretty country, and then ducked back into Texas briefly and into Arkansas (again briefly) where we turned South into Louisiana. Got into Natchitoches, LA in time to grab dinner at Mama's Oyster Bar.

Thursday we had left ourselves a short run of only 250 miles into New Orleans, so we had some time to play around with. We decided to take the back bayou routes as far south as we could towards Baton Rouge before picking up I 10 into NOLA. All in all it was a pleasant run with stops at various restaurants recommended for their pie, and at the Harley Dealer in Arlington where Rick wanted to put his bike on a Dyno and measure his Air/Fuel ratios (he's running too lean).

New Orleans is BUSY. We spent today in the French Quarter doing touristy things, like getting soft shelled crab Po' Boys for lunch, going to Cafe Du Monde for beignets and coffee, and -- of course-- a visit to Voodoo Harley of New Orleans for a souvenir T-shirt. A vist to Marie Laveau's produced these charming pin cushions shaped like little people! Very quaint place New Orleans! I'll report more later. Right now I'm being called to dinner!

Man is the Texas Panhandle Flat!

That's about all I can say about 472 miles of straight flat road. I can also say that the people of Texas are well protected, as there appears to be one State Trooper per person in Texas and they all live along Interstsate 40. This adds significantly to the boredom of riding the Texas freeways. I am in Vernon TX to catch a few zzzs before tomorrow's run into Louisiana. I am here at a motel operated by the Patel family, apparently an old Texas family name in motels, and occupied principally by Contract Landmen from Houston, oil exploration drilling teams and the like. Our Harleys prove very popular, and we sit around the flaming barbecues which the Landsmen have set up outside their motel rooms and chew the fat for a couple hours until we need to find something to eat. (They woulda invited us, but didn't know we were coming.) Anyway,l oil exploration is alive and well in Texas! Not that they are finding any, but I guess it never hurts to look. Where direct exploration is not in the picture, there is always litigation. The Landsmen crew has been moving from Best Western to Best Western for the past three weeks, visiting the county courthouses in fifteen Texas Counties -- not on behalf of an oil company (their usual client)-- but on behalf of a Dallas law firm. The firm is representing the kids in a lawsuit against their mother's guardian ad litem over mineral rights which were apparently deeded back and forth by their deceased father and his cronies, and eventually secured as winnings by the father, during an extended poker game. I know some of you will think I am making this stuff up. I am not.

Larry, the Landsmen chief, sends his regards to California, even though Houston apparently has a lock on the "purtiest women and the friendliest people" market. Larry is garrulous to a fault, and is a former computer systems manager turned entrepreneur. As I leave him to come write this, Gordon -- whose profession is unclear but whose uniform suggests garage mechanic -- is still trying to figure out how to explain the best way for us to avoid all the traffic lights in Texarkana, a feat which all agreed is devoutly to be desired. Gordon, however, has difficulty in giving directions that do not depend on a local knowledge of the location of truck weigh scales.

Most people would probably think you could get to LA from TX by just going due East, or -- God forbid simplistic minds -- going in a beeline Southeast right into New Orleans! But no, we are going north in the morning to poke our noses into Oklahoma, then reversing course, heading back down south and then turning east for a while, and then heading north again into Texarkana, which happens to be located in yet another state in which my present companion has never ridden a motorcycle. Apparently there is fetish for counting the number of states you have been through (or at least in) on a motorcycle that is deeply rooted and readily outvotes any other call, such as the voice that murmurs "cafe au lait and beignets await you in New Orleans". To my horror, I discover that Rick is on a diet, so thoughts of several lungfuls of Oklahoma dust followed by Arkansas dust are all that dazzle in his eyes.

There at least will be some reward for our madness at the end of tomorrow. We will be shooting to land in Natchitoches Louisiana, mostly because of the great name, but also because from there we can drift down on Thursday along back Delta roads and into NOLA.

Today's riding sing-along list, by the way, was New Mexico and Texas town name songs--"Weed, Whites and Wine" (yes,Tucumcari is featured in that one) and "I want to go home with the Armadillo, sweet country music from Amarillo and Abilene....." etc. Thursday has gotta be Delta Blues stuff. But what to sing to myself tomorrow while roaming around Oklahoma, Arkansas and the rest of the NE Texas Panhandle? A puzzle indeed. Suggestions would be welcome.

Takin' It Eeeeasy!

Today was an easy 325 miles into Albuquerque, with a VERY important stop on the way.


But I didn't see her, although I waited by her truck for at least a half hour!



Anyone who doesn't get this should email one of their grandkids,as significant generational separation from this icon of American music is the only excuse!

I have never really spent time in New Mexico before, having just flown in and out of ABQ airport. It rivals parts of Utah for its buttes and mesas. Lots of Navajo, and I took a brief detour up into some of the place of the Dineh (if I recall my Tony Hillerman books correctly.) Maybe it is just this southern part, but it is nowhere near as arid as I had pictured. It is big and desolate though. Next trip I am going to get up to Shiprock and the Four Corners and some of the places that are cornerstones of the tribal holdings. It is purty though:



Tomorrow will be a long run as rick and I (he is due in from Salt Lake sometime tonight) will take off for Texas and thence into Louisiana on the following day. This sure is a big, wide open country. I forget how much plain old Space there is out here! And the goods we move around! I -40 must parallel one of the main freight routes, because the trains are non-stop and reach from engine to horizon. I saw one today and I swear it looked like some enterprising soul had figured that the overpasses would allow the freights to pull 1 and 2/3 containers in a stack! Was this an optical illusion? So anyway, today was my day for singing train songs as I rolled along. Someday I'm gonna have to get me speakers I can hear on the road. For right now, all I got is me and the high lonesome.

Out of California at last!

I post tonight from Flagstaff Arizona. The good news is that today was -- relatively speaking-- completely non-eventful!

I awoke this a.m. to a fogged in Riverside, and rode for the first hour of the day in very dense ground fog. This became sun quickly though and all in all it was a pleasant ride. I did feel a bit like a stripper at an Ambivalents Convention--take it off/'/put it on! Going from fog bound coast through desert and up to the 7000 foot range, with classic summer mouuntain thundershowers and hail, I wore every bit of gear I had with me--several times!

Tidbit for today:
Southern California never ceases to amaze me. Did you know, for example that there is a community (Norco --North Coventry perhaps?) where all the streets are equestrian paths, and where all the buildings have hitching posts in front? All well and good, I say; to each his own. But only in Southern Cal would the City Planners have approved --can you see this one coming?--a ride through McDonalds! Yes! I know this from the horse's mouth, as it were, as one of the sales ladies at Riverside HD lives there.

Off to Albuquerque tomorrow!

Getting TO New Orleans turns out not to be the Big Easy!

i didn't post last night because I hit the sack 120 miles short of my intended destination, and many hours later than planned. Rolled into Lee Vining at nine, grabbed a burrito at the store next door and crashed. Here's why.

I left home yesterday bright and early--HOly CoW! I'm typing this and some kid is playing God Bless America at the NLCS on a Trumpet as big as he is...pretty cool! (Sorry, but GO GIANTS!)

...anyway, I was at the bright and early departure. All went as planned --beautiful bride there to see me off (as was our dear friend Becky. Thank You!) and things went swimmingly for 1 hour and 17 minutes, when my front brake calipers seized bringing me to a sudden and complete halt in the middle of a freeway over pass with shoulder space of about two feet. I managed to come to a stop with most of the bike out of the traffic lane, but about a foot was still in the lane. Semi truck traffic was heavy yesterday a.m., including several oversize loads that fortunately did not come from opposite directions at the same time. Since the front brakes were locked on, I could not move the bike an inch. Putting it on the side stand would have leaned it even further into traffic and increased the danger to all. I tried to pop it loose with the engine and clutch (more on this later)...no luck. So I was sitting there un-calmly trying to figure out what to do when...

..... the CHP happened by pretty quick and slowed oncoming traffic and called in for a tow. Getting a small harley secured on the back of an oil slick flatbed tow truck with a bed large enough to hold a semi tractor trailer is an interesting experience but the two drivers sand i managed. Equally fortunately, I was only two miles from our local dealer, who because of the economy had cut back to one mechanic. Even more fortunately, the economy was so bad this one guy had nothing pressing to do except attend to me. Nevertheless, it was 3 1/2 hours later that I was on the road with a new set of front brake pads and a 'new' master brake cylinder. It turned out that the cylinder in the master had corroded sufficiently --probably due to the fact that I live 80 feet from the ocean-- that the spring could not return the piston to the "off" position, thus effectively locking the brakes on, leading to over heating, leading to complete seizure. It took the time it did to fix because the mechanic had to go home and get a used master cylinder out of his garage to "sell me" for cash under the table, as the dealer did not have a new one in stock. So all in all, it could have been a hell of a lot worse both in terms of results on the road (which is all that is really important) and financially. (However, see clutch below).

Most irritatingly, my first day towards NOLA was more than half over, and I was only 36 miles closer to NOLA than I had been the night before. I was also not in as good a mood as I had been the night before. I decided I had to cut my objective short, but still get over to the east side of the Sierras, which I did at 9:00 that night. It is difficult to make hotel arrangements while riding, and I am not equipped to do so. Enter Elizabeth with mapping software and telephones and --it turns out-- access to the hotel reservation/'confirmation information which I had carefully compiled, and then forgot at home. So I know where I'm supposed to be, but only she knows at what hotel! She comes through like a trouper and makes cancellations and new reservations for me. otherwise, I'd be frozen somewhere like the Donner Party in the high Sierras!

In case you are ever tempted to try it, let me tell you that the Tioga Pass (10,000+ feet) at night, in October is cold and spooky when you're the only vehicle on the road. I kept thinking, do these other people (those that aren't here) know something I don't? As if getting to the motel frozen and hungry at 9:00 wasn't bad enough, the motel parking lot was steeply sloped, leading to the discovery that I didn't have much going in the clutch department.

The mechanic who fixed the brakes alerted me to watch the clutch, as he had adjusted it but wasn't confident that it wasn't toast. Sure enough, I adjusted it periodically during the day today, and it ran just fine, but you sure could smell it. I called ahead and located four dealers within a reasonable perimeter of he general direction of travel I had planned. Each of them said they could work me in (on a Saturday!) to look at it if I could get there by 3:00, but on checking, only one of them had the parts as well, should they be needed. Sure enough, it was the dealer furthest to the west (NOLA is EAST of me).

So at 3:13 p.m. this afternoon I rolled into the Riverside HD dealer and rolled out two hours later with new clutch plates and a bank account that was $525 lighter. 9Not that there is or was anything IN that account, but lets not advertise that.) Riverside is the second largest Harley dealer in CA (first being San Diego) and it is HUGE. I have to say that they were very nice, went out of their way to work me in on what was obviously a very busy day, were very professional and brought me the burnt clutch plates to see and take with me (a practice, by the way, that I hope surgeons do not get enamored of)...and very expensive!

The cause? Well, obviously my --quite frankly a little desperate-- attempt to "pop" the front end loose to get the bike out of the traffic lane undoubtedly is a principal cause of the burnt plates. However, the wrench in Riverside said they had been slowly toasting for some time. I have earlier shared with mechanical mentors of mine that I was experiencing a pungent oil odor out of the clutch/transmission area. I think this may be the explanation. The mechanic said he replaced a bent piece in the clutch mechanism that because of its 'bentness', meant that the bike had been constantly 'riding' the clutch for some time. He believed this alone could explain the condition of the clutch plates. I'll never know, or really care. I do know the clutch feels far better that I can remember it, the smell is gone entirely, and tomorrow is a new day and will be one with NO mechanical problems!

Ah well, in a parallel universe I am actually in Williams AZ tonight getting ready to ride around the Grand Canyon, instead of alone in the Motel 6 next to the Harley dealer in Riverside (gotta be a song there!). However, I will wind up in Flagstaff AZ tomorrow night back on schedule. Somewhere, sometime tomorrow I will catch up with my doppelganger and at least by , say 7:00 pm. will be relaxing in the same room in Flagstaff.

The Giants just WON game I!!!!!!

It was odd chance encounter today that made all this worthwhile. Here I am in the middle of the high California desert, with the wasteland of the Mojave to my left and the wasteland of the LA freeway choked basin to my right, doing nothing but stressing out over how I was going to get the bike fixed on a weekend and salvage the trip, when I stopped for fuel at a middle of nowhere Texaco station. I was inside paying for fuel and a couple of bottles of water, when this "skinny little thing" (as my grandma used to say) who was seventeen if she was a day, walked in and asked the station manager if he had any plastic bags, as she was sleeping in her truck on her way to join her family in LA, and her dog had peed all over the only sheets she had! (I am not making this up!) She needed something to put the sheets in.

Alas, the station manager had none, but I did (as I carry extra for rain protection) which she could have. In this delightful East Texas drawl, she asked me where I was going and when I explained said something predictable, like "how cool!" Ten or fifteen minutes later, as we prepared to pull out on our respective trips, she stopped as she began to get into her car, looked over at me across the pumps and with this very longing look said just: "livin' the dream, huh?" Because of my mood I replied, "some parts don't seem so 'dreamy" lately!", to which she replied --"but its an adventure, still!" And that seventeen year old sure was right.

Here is HippieDave at the Harley hippie (wouldn't you have capitalized that?) Coffee Shop and Internet Cafe in Lucerne (Lake County) CA. Taken a couple of days ago on my way back to the coast from Lake Tahoe, I am symbolically facing east along the route that will take me out of home territory and on to New Orleans, and contemplating all the internet postings I will be making along the way. Isn't that cute?

Right now, it is the eve of departure for all practical purposes, and everything is total chaos. I have potential gear scattered all over the place, with only 1% actually packed in its appropriate place on the bike. I have taken gear on and off the bike a dozen times. I feel like I'm about to embark on a trip to Hawaii via Antarctica. Not having a car shell around me and planning a route over the 7,000 to 8,000 foot elevations of northern Arizona and New Mexico means I have to plan for riding in the coldest and wettest weather reasonably imaginable, and also plan for the sultry equatorial-like environs of New Orleans.

After rethinking and re-planning my route, now that I'm soloing it all the 1200+ miles into Albuquerque, New Mexico, last minute preparations continue to plague me. I like to assume that I can find some accommodations along the way, but certain areas were starting to worry me. Good thing I checked. The eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas, you will be pleased to find out, is fully booked this time of year. This has forced me to re-route and add another 120 miles to day 1. I will now be heading 535 miles on day 1 into Tonopah Nevada. Having gotten that far, assuming I do in fact get that far, forces a recalculation of day 2 etc. My only fixed obligation is to be in ABQ (airport speak for Albuquerque) by Monday night, Oct 18. So I can do it the easy way, or the long and hard way. I opt for long and not too hard, and fun. Day 2 will now take me all the way to Williams, AZ gateway to the Grand Canyon, and I will play around all day on Sunday riding around the South Rim and then poking an exploratory nose up into the Navajo Reservation territory that I know only because of Tony Hillerman's books. By the end of this Sunday I will have ridden several hundred miles, but will have advanced only 35 1/2 miles along my route to New Orleans. I have always wanted to see Tuba City, however, and discover whether it does in fact have any connection with that most marvelous of horns.

While The Bike appears poised and ready for the trip, other equipment continues to plague. I can't figure out how to program routes into my GPS easily. I sort of tricked the unit into accepting the route for Day 1 into Tonopah, but there has to be an easier way! Also, this blog was only going to work if I can get my old laptop up and running so that I can post as I travel. The wrong memory upgrade was ordered, returned and now the right memory is installed. It looks like it may work, although it is making very un-laptop-like noises as it installs Windows. This is a sad compromise, as I am not used to using Windows, but it seems this old laptop will not take, or I cannot figure out in the time available how to force feed it, Ubuntu --which is the Linux based OS I had hoped to take with me. Ah well.

The bike is purring and not spewing oil everywhere. Tour pack luggage has been glued and mended so that it won't spew my belongings everywhere. I suspect I am over preparing and will feel really silly at some point. On the other hand, I have just enough experience in being caught out in bad weather on a bike to know how fundamentally miserable it is to be going 60 mph in driving freezing rain without waterproof gloves etc. So, better safe than sorry, I guess.

I have given up the thought of camping, having spent hours planning how that was going to work. The classic Gypsy Tour was named that because the riders camped out (like gypsies) along the way, so I feel a little guilty abandoning the concept. But I was the only one of our group that had the interest or perhaps the time to do this, and I have decided it just isn't worth the hassle of taking all that gear with me if I would be able to use it only the few solo nights I will have on the trip.

So it is: Day 4 (remember Day 3 was play day at the GC?) will take me from Flagstaff AZ into ABQ, where I will meet up with Rick, a pilot for Air India based in Bombay or some place like that, who lives in Park City, Utah -- go figure! (I don't envy him his schedule! He flies home from Pennsylvania Sunday p.m., hops on his bike as early as possible Monday a.m. and rides 600+ miles through Utah, Colorado and New Mexico in to ABQ!) From ABQ (I'm not sure which is worse, the airline-speak or typing Albuquerque dozens of times) it is on to Vernon Texas, then Wsomething Louisiana and finally into the Garden District of the Big Easy.

If I don't have the energy/time to post tomorrow night, my next post may be at the close of Day 2, as I will be in hotel/casino land in Tonopah Friday night, and they don't seem to believe it providing internet access. Perhaps it keeps people in their rooms and out of the casino. Anyway...much more to come!

Engine Sputters

Before we even hit the road, complications arise.

First, and the only serious one, is that I ask for your thoughts to be with our good friend Burt Mitchell and his wife Diane and their family. Burt was to meet up with me this Saturday in Northern Arizona and join me for the ride into New Orleans. Sadly, Burt experienced a ruptured cerebral aneurysm on Friday. At last report Burt was doing well, the hemorrhaging having been successfully stopped by the surgery, but prognosis is difficult to make until the immediate situation settles down. Our third rider from the West, MtnRick of Park City Utah fame, will still join up with me in Albuquerque and the two of us will complete the last three days of the ride into New Orleans. We hope Burt will be able to follow our adventures through this diary and join up with us for some future galavantin' around!

Second, The Bike also began hemorrhaging oil this afternoon, three days prior to takeoff. Thankfully, the only thing I know for certain about it is that it isn't related to the mechanical work I did to get the bike ready, as it is occurring in a completely unrelated system. The Bike goes on the lift tomorrow bright and early to see if early hypotheses about the problem are correct. If they are, then it will be just a little glitch and not a serious problem. Let us keep our fingers crossed.

We have been asked by the Best Friends Animal folks to make our charitable target a bit more specific. Rather than have the money we raise go into their general aid program for shelters in the New Orleans area, they have asked us to make it all specifically available to the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter's Animal Relief Project. We readily agreed, as it is a change in emphasis rather than kind, and means our dollars will perhaps have even more of an impact on the ground in one concentrated area in need of help. I understand an article about our little project will be coming out in the Best Friends Magazine, which is widely distributed, and we look forward to a surge of participation as a result. We thank all of those who stepped up to the plate early and really got the ball rolling with the substantial amount which has been raised already.

Oh Brother, Where Art I?

This is the approximate route I will be taking on the way to New Orleans. The little flags are where I'm either meeting someone, or staying over a night (or both). It shows me starting in SF only because I was lazy in making it, and I already know the way to SF -- which offers me a segue into the subject of maps.

One thing you learn fairly early on...usually on your first motorcycle trip out of familiar territory... is that it is difficult to read maps while riding a motorcycle. People have made all sorts of attempts to create useful map holders that secure a folded map under plastic onto the tank or windshield, but none of these has ever offered a very useful solution. Maps never have the correct resolution to be read at a distance of some three feet or so by a pair of eyes being buffeted around by mother nature.

The alternative followed by many, including myself, has been just to "wing it" and find out where you are (and how far away from your intended target you are) when you get there. Generally, this is an OK if not entirely satisfactory approach. Its primary advantage is that it adds to the romance of the 'travelling the open road/adventure' aspect of motorcycle touring and does, in fact, result in your going places you never would have thought about going. It is not as dumb as it might sound at first to the uninitiated. Its drawbacks become most noticeable, however, when you find yourself in the middle of AbsolutelyNowhere Nevada at 11:00 at night and wish you were A) at a gas station so that you could go somewhere else B) at a restaurant or C) at a motel and in bed. On balance I decided some time ago to let the serendipitous adventure happen within a more controlled context, and to have some reasonable idea of where I was and where I was going at any given time. Which brings us back to maps.

The other highly irritating thing about maps and motorcycles is that on any trip of any real length (other than through Texas) you are constantly discovering that you have driven off the edge of the map. Map makers seem unusually fixated on the concept of artificial political boundaries. It seems to matter not a whit to them that you want to get from Lee Vining, California across Nevada and wind up in St. George Utah. They will happily take you to the state line, whereupon they abruptly abandon you with no recourse but to find a gas station and purchase another map. Gas stations, it seems, are equally fixated on political boundaries and cheerfully make available maps of where they are. They also do not seem to realize or care that many people (depending on the state, often justifiably) wish to cross over their little patch of the world and be somewhere else. So you buy a map that gets you to the next state line, and then repeat the process.

As early as 1924, Rand-McNally recognized this problem, having -- with a typical New Yorker's view of the world -- started out their map-making business with the world map "New York City and Vicinity". (You learn fascinating things researching a trip: Did you know, for example, that -- counter-intuitively -- Rand McNally did not make maps of our highway system, but rather helped the government make our highway system match the maps they made? They got the government to implement a highway numbering system they made up from whole cloth, so their maps would make sense to purchasers. They even went around putting up highway signs so that the numbers on the ground would match those on their maps! Ingenious, and so very American. If you can't get Mohammed....) Anyway, the Atlas did not help the motorcyclist, either in its nascent form in 1924, in glorious color in 1960, or in the full modern style of 2010. Manipulating an 18 square inch paperback book on a motorcycle is worse than working with the simple map; plus, where ya gonna put it when you've already filled every nook and cranny of the bike with useful stuff like tools and spare parts, bottled water and socks?

No, it turned out there was no good answer for the motorcyclist until the Department of Defense loosened its death grip on the Global Positioning Satellite System, and Moore's Law resulted in the biggest directionally challenged individual with a few discretionary bucks to spend being able to tell you where he is anywhere on the planet within a couple of feet! The GPS has arrived!

The state of the art GPS device is a miracle, albeit one with a few idiosyncrasies that must be accommodated if one is intending not to wind up in the Pacific Ocean but rather at its shores. For one thing, its extant maps are not perfect, and although I doubt the marketing story that 18% of America's highways change every year, surely there is some change which must be anticipated and accounted for (by updating your map info at considerable cost). But nevertheless, securely fastened to my handlebars via an ingenious multi-swivel device, and plugged into my 12 Volt power outlet (...well OK, installing that was another expense), the GPS more or less guarantees that I will know exactly where I am at any given moment. Whether this is going to be useful information to me or not is one of the things I will find out on this trip. (Reminds you of the old joke about the balloonist asking the lawyer to tell him where he was?)

In fact, the reason you haven't heard from me here for a while is that I have been installing this wonder on The Bike and trying to figure it out. I haven't figured out yet exactly how its going to get me from here to New Orleans, although I have some hope. For starters, I found out that it lets you tell it where your "favorite" locations are, and then when you punch the button that says "Go There" it gives you step-by-step directions as you go along. So I typed in "New Orleans" and punched "Go There". [Fn. If a location is one of your "favorites" you'd think you'd already know how to get there, wouldn't you? I think this may be the geographical equivalent of the concept of "friendship" on Facebook. I'll learn to live with it.]

One of the first things you learn about these devices is that the lady who is giving you directions (yes it BOTH draws a map and tells you where to turn, just like your mother-in-law) seems to get a bit petulant when you fail to follow them. She and I discovered this not too far out of the driveway on this first attempt to find New Orleans, when she expressed a preference that I turn right, and I --admittedly with the benefit of local knowledge-- turned left. As she patiently informed me of several opportunities where I could make a U-turn, but failed to do so, she appeared to get more and more upset. It wasn't that her voice changed; in fact, it was the fact that it did not change that I found distrubing. You know that "conversation" you get into with someone close to you -- let's just say a spouse, for convenience -- when she is giving you directions? Well its that controlled, flat, un-inflected, very precisely enunciated tone....you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know very well that you have erred, and there's just no use talking about it.

The second thing you learn is that there are many, many ways to get from Caspar to New Orleans, many of which -- often the most attractive -- are not the GPS device's first choices. I learned that we need to shorten our vision here, and perhaps just ask it to guide us as far as --lets say -- Sacramento, whereupon we will regroup and formulate a new objective. In truth, it is probably OK to punch in a local address and follow the GPS directions getting there...I mean, how lost can you get? But apparently more detailed planning is necessary on your end of the stick when talking about long-range targets. Important clue: many of the less expensive devices out there do not permit this and limit you to how they (the devices) believe you should proceed. Do not purchase these, they will drive you insane very quickly.

Fortunately, having researched this ahead of time, I made certain that my little unit could take ".gpx" files and express them as a travel route and directions. Therefore, I can (in theory) sit down at this computer I am at right now, call up the appropriate software, and create a planned route using MapQuest or other of the mapping software systems out there, export it as a file into my GPS and I'm home! (Well, actually, successfully away from home -- the GPS unit is as good as a rental trail-horse in getting you back to the stable.) Thus can I predetermine the route I wish to take: I can continue to be "...the master of my fate...the captain of my soul" and not be haplessly dependent on the GPS to anticipate (usually wrongly) my route preferences.

Of course, nothing is that easy. For one thing, since I adamantly refuse to use Windows unless absolutely compelled, none of the readily available software works for me. While most other major software systems now accommodate Linux operating systems, the leading company in the GPS field -- Garmin -- does not: In fact, it continues to turn its nose up at its Apple users. Tch,tch! But there are ways around this. Astoundingly, the easiest and most straightforward mapping system is that maintained on-line by the Harley-Davidson Co. as a service to its devotees. I am saved. The MoCo and I, together, can create a .gpx file I can download onto my GPS device.

Whether this will in fact work will be the subject of ongoing discovery and commentary as this blog unfolds. In the meantime, as the map above shows, I have my course charted, and its now on to discover the devil in the details to come. Happy Trails!

And Just Why New Orleans?

Last night I watched the New York Philharmonic and Jazz Orchestras play the U.S. premier of Wynton Marsalis' Third Symphony: Swing! and was struck at the level of New Orleans influence in that bluesy/swing/jazz sound that is America's unique contribution to the world of music. He even had one movement obviously based on the New Orleans funeral processional. I have always been intrigued by New Orleans, but only have had one very brief visit, years ago and for just one night. I have always longed to go back and absorb a bit of that culture which is so different from the rest of the U.S. and yet has contributed so much to it.

This trip was obviously planned long before last night. It grew out of some casual on-line conversations among people involved in a common interest on-line forum The Road King Riders.com -- the common interest? Well, Harley Road Kings, naturally.

We (that is about 60 people from the forum) gathered last May in Kanab Utah and spent several days riding around the National Parks (Zion, Bryce and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon), enjoying the sights, the sounds (sixty Harleys starting up in a parking lot is impressive!) and the socializing. In post event conversations the subject came up: "Why not meet in New Orleans sometime?" Also raised was the notion: "As long as we have people from all over the country gathering in New Orleans, why not see if we can contribute something to the post -BP Oil Spill/post Katrina economic disruption?" Our youngest daughter has spent some time in N.O. in conjunction with a graduate thesis which is, in a sense, about how communities can respond to traumatic social/physical events. The idea was quickly picked up by one of our members who lives in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, and by one of our members in Pennsylvania who had been following certain aspects of the economic and social upheaval caused by the BP Oil Spill. Over the next month the outlines of Big Daddy's Gypsy Tour all came together with a plan to raise money for the Best Friends Animal Society which had a program in place for providing economic relief to prevent animals suffering due to the economic dislocation of Katrina/BP. We Launched the NOLA Pet Relief Project and started raising money. So, we will gather in New Orleans in mid October to celebrate motorcycle Riding, New Orleans itself, and the charity and graciousness of the many to have contributed already, and those that will have by then. Anyone that wants to contribute can do so by clicking HERE.

Preparing for New Orleans

It's late September and only three weeks 'til I hit the road for New Orleans -- 2500 miles from the Mendocino Coast to the Big Easy! I will be traveling as part of a well organized fund raising effort for animal shelter relief in the Louisiana parishes most impacted by the double whammy of Katrina and the BP oil spill but with a relatively dis-organized travel plan.

On October 15 I will pack up my Harley Road King and leave to cross the Sierras and into the high desert of the eastern Sierra Nevada, and then on into Southern Nevada. There I will pick up a couple of riders coming down from Utah, and head east through Flagstaff (with a side trip up to the South Rim of the GC), Albuquerque, Abilene, Houston and into New Ordeans, arriving October 21.

So far all efforts have been on fund raising and on getting the bike in shape for the trip. On my to do list is to get myself in shape for the trip, but that keeps drifting down the priority list! Will get to it soon. Honest.