Plans, and the fluid nature of them.

I am not making it to OKC today. It was a long drive, and I had too pleasant a visit with Serge to rush for the road. I have a GPS, and the North American Map Cities card (USA, Canada, much of Mexico, as well as the Bahamas, Caymans, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands). I will now have excruciating detail of where I've been, and can plan how to get to more specific locales.

But setting it up, packing, etc. are going to eat some time.

So the plans are changed. I might lose a day, but I might not.

The new itinerary. I've shortened today up, and slipped the rest of the trip (downstream) a bit eat. Amarillo today (4 1/2 hours saddle time, at 65), Little Rock tomorrow, and Oak Ridge (probably; though If I am late out of Little Rock/worn out, I'll layover in Nashville).

... interlude of about half an hour.

Plans changed, and not. I shall lay-up here for a day, rest; maybe get a massage, see some friends of Les, visit a bit more with Serge. Then I shall leave first thing in the a.m. for OKC (and I've lost the contact info, in somewhere in the strange files which are my internet correspondence, for where I was going to stay in OKC, if it's still doable, I'd like to, but I'll need the contact info again. I'm sorry).

I have hope to meet some friends of Les', get a massage, set up the GPS (I seem to need a micro SD chip, or somesuch, to get the city maps loaded), and be in better shape to leave at an early hour tomorrow, for a long day in the saddle.

This is perversely wonderful

The Fellowship of the Vuvuzela

In the same realm of the previously uplifting

The Feds won't recognise same-sex marriages. It imposes a number of functional discriminations and inequities on same-sex couples, even when their employer recognises the relationship.

Google is trying to fix one aspect of it.

Filling in the Marriage Penalty. To make up for the hit a couple takes by not being able to claim aspects of joint benefits., Google is paying people a little more money.

The bigots will howl. They will say, "look, see... the fags and dykes are getting special treatment." Which is bullshit. They are getting shafted by stupid legalisms. This is redress. Stop punishing them, and Google won't have to pay them extra, so they can have the same amount of money a straight employee has, after taxes.

Day three

The Hostel, and Flagstaff were too charming; and I forgot the time shift (from Mountain Standard to Mountain Daylight Saving Time), so I was behind when I left.

I didn't get on the road until 11, and I didn't get to the open road until 11:30... the road I needed to cross to get gas was horrid. It took me four minutes to make my left. Then it took me 12 minutes to get my pump working (the clerk didn't know how to run the system, I think it was recently installed). The ride itself was uneventful. Noodled down the road to Winslow, famed in song for, what, fifty years, maybe sixty.

Winslow Arizona, don't forget Winona, Flagstaff, Barstow, San Bernardino... get your kicks, on route 6 6

Then The Eagles had a song with it. Well, it's the latter which is being used by Winslow in the pursuit of the greenback dollar. "Standin' on the Corner Park", with two shops, and a Statue of Don Henley (with guitar) in front of a mural of a "girl in a flat bed Ford", slowing down and looking. The shoulders shine from the arms of tourists who drape themselves on it to be photographed. As I drove up the road I saw a crew using a giant heat gun to weld large sheets of some sort of plastic to the center of the intersection... with the icon of Rte 66.

I wandered up the road, and had a ceasar salad with chicken in The Turquoise Room at La Posada Hotel (which my mind insists is the Hotel La Posada). The waitress asked what I was riding (helmet in hand, and armored jacket, it's hard to hide that I'm on a bike) and crowed an "I told you so," to the other waitress when I said a BMW.

Lunch took longer than I expected, and then I had the walk (longish, about half a mile) back to the bike. I got some more gas (I'd gone 122 from my last fill), and looked at the weather. I can't say for others, but I look at the clouds like a sailor now. The slant of the rain tells me if the wind down low is hard, or not. The angle also lets me know a bit of the way the upper atmosphere is moving. The clouds were dark. I stared, and wondered about lightning.

It was getting late, but I didn't want to let my desire to make it here cause me to push into a storm. I didn't want to need to pull over and lay the bike down, while I huddled far away.

The clouds were still, and I decided I would probably be racing along in the wind, but not the rain. I was right, but the wind was fierce. I saw a rainbow... at first a little scrap, hidden in the twisted folds of the dark edge of the storm. On the other side of the road... vermilion cliffs, rising out of dull green grass, awash in golden light.

As the road moved, the rainbow grew. I was being paced, with it running just ahead of me, for about ten miles, teasing me from the clouds, until it slid next to me and trailed the distant ground alongside the road.

I got to Gallup, and realised the time was shifted. I was going to be in about 6:30, or 7 p.m. I called Serge, and let him know. Albuquerque proper felt nice. The freeway was well done, marked plainly and I wasn't trouble to find the exit I'd been told of. Got some gas, thought about calling to make sure I had the right directions, but they'd been simple enough.

I should have called. An intervening street had been left out I cast about for about 20 minutes, and decided I wasn't going to find it. Seems I needed to turn onto the street where I'd found the gas station.

So that was the day. Mostly a stately ride. No drama, no worries about navigation (from here it's a straight line on I-40 to the Oak Ridge turnoff). The weather was hot, but not withering, there was no horrid traffic, creeping through a detour.

I got up this morning, and checked the fluids (brakes good, coolant at the low end of acceptable... I could get some distilled water and add it, but that will screw up the ratio. It's not generic coolant, so I can't just add some, and I don't feel like going to a BMW dealership to get a half cup. If it's low in OKC, I'll add some distilled water; but it's been running in the normal ranges, so I'm probably Ok) and the tires.

Then I adjusted the pre-load on the rear suspension. I'm light, and the "no-load" weight is about what I, and my luggage weigh, but more of that weight is at the back of the bike, which increases the effect. I felt what seemed like the rear end bottoming out on a couple of dips and bumps. There are some things about the BMW which are a pain to work on. This was not one of them.

Which meant the entire set of adjustments took about 15 minutes, including work on the throttle lock.

It wasn't locking yesterday, which was a great nuisance, as I've been using it to 1: reduce the amount of strain on my hands and 2: prevent me from going faster than I think reasonable. As a rule, a bike is pretty much safe at pretty high speeds; under ideal conditions, one of if which is a lack of other vehicles. When some of those other vehicle are cops... well discretion being the better part of valor, I don't think tripping down the road at 90 mph is wise.


So Serge and I went to breakfast, hit the REI, and I made a lazy day of it. The massage I tried to line up didn't happen, but it's a day I'm not in the saddle, and, despite his protestations to the contrary, he has been a wonderful host. Leaving me be when I was retreated into my chamber, and helping me to run errands. He even when out the night I got here to fetch Guinness.