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!