Moore

My motel is in Moore. I had forgotten the significance of that until I met some people in the breakfast lobby. They were all geared up in work clothes, part of a Bay Area group that does good works in disaster areas. They were here to build houses, fences, and other structures as part of the recovery from that F5 tornado that hit the town in May 2013.

I just want to get out of Tornado Alley as quickly as I can today. It's gray, cool, and windy right now with threats of residual showers. Severe thunderstorms are still a possibility along the way. A 25 MPH west wind will hamper me a bit. I'll get to Amarillo and then see how close I can get to Albuquerque.

OK, gotta go, packing up.

Nurse, I'm Ready for my Medication

Today's "stretch goal" was Amarillo. Instead I'm in Oklahoma City, about $400 poorer than I expected to be, and grateful to be here.

I left Little Rock headed for Fort Smith on the Oklahoma border. It was a pleasant ride, and I have to take back some of the comments I made yesterday about wondering why Arkansas was even a state. There was considerably more civilization on this route, along with some lovely lakes and hills. A brisk wind came sometimes from behind, sometimes from the side.

I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of Arkansas, unless you count this one inside the Flying Saucer pub where I dined last night.

To get your name on one of those plates on the ceiling, you must consume 200 different kinds of beer in the establishment. I regretfully declined.

To take an outdoor picture in the state, I stopped at an overlook along the way to Fort Smith.

Note those scudding clouds up ahead, driven by the wind. They will come into play later.

I gassed up in Fort Smith and crossed into Oklahoma. OK was just as pretty as AR. Immediately Interstate 40 began traversing Indian nations - the Cherokee at first, later many more. It added meaning to the stories I have heard of the Trail of Tears and other forced migrations where tribes were dispossessed. The countryside was open and lovely.

The crosswind continued, the sky grew darker, and it looked like there was rain ahead. I pulled off 40 to put on some rain gear and at that moment a brief thunderstorm rolled through. On I rode, through mist thrown up by trucks on wet pavement. I passed Lake Eufaula, featured in the lyrics of "Choctaw Bingo" by James McMurtry, a wicked and clever songwriter. Worth checking out. I got closer and closer to Oklahoma City. About 20 miles out, it looked like more serious rain threatened. I stopped at a gas station, looked at the dismal weather forecast (100% chance of heavy rain) and booked a motel in Oklahoma City.

The Ninja was riding funny. I thought perhaps I had a kinked chain. But I did my 20 miles at a slow pace behind a truck that was also going slowly. Just as I turned off the freeway, then the service road, then the driveway of the motel, I could fell something going very badly wrong in back. It had to be a flat tire.

It was a flat tire. I was expecting some delays on the way to California, but this had the potential to be a big delay. It was 5:00. Dealers close at 6:00 around here. There was a Kawasaki dealer two blocks away that didn't want my business. "Call House of Kawasaki," they actually said, naming another dealer on the far side of town. I did call them, and they promised to stay late to get the bike turned around today.After a great deal of conversation with the American Motorcyle Association, a tow was dispatched.

Pretty cool, huh? The entire flatbed lies on the ground so that the bike can be pushed onto it, then secured. Then the entire flatbed is lifted and inserted into the truck bed.

The dealer didn't have any performance tires in my size, so I had to get the OEM tire that comes with the bike. It's not a very good performer. But I was grateful that anyone would work on my bike at this late hour, allowing me the possibility of making some miles tomorrow morning. The previous tire had developed a bad bald patch very suddenly, just on one area of the tire. That was the reason for the flat. As they were tidying up, the technician noticed that the front tire, which had plenty of tread left, was undergoing some kind of tread separation - severe cupping and blistering. It was about ready to fail, too. And a front tire failure would have been a bad accident. So I got an OEM front tire. I can't say enough good things about these guys who stayed late to help a fellow road-tripper get back on the road.

New tires are unusually slippery because of the "release compound" that manufacturers use to pop tires from their molds. It wears away in about 50 miles (opinions differ on the mileage.) But I had to leave the dealership directly into heavy rain. I got on the freeway at a cautious speed, in the slow lane, but I was repeatedly tailgated. Very disturbing. On the drive back to the motel I passed two horrendous chain-reaction accidents. And people were still zooming through the rain. Oklahomans aren't too bright in that respect.

The sobering nature of the tire failures, the scenarios of how badly it might have gone, and the dramatic accidents on the ride back took their psychological toll on me. Heavy rain is forecast to continue all night. The wind is howling slightly through the motel room door that doesn't quite seal. I'm popping a benadryl and heading for sleepytime. I will get on the road relatively early tomorrow, fighting a strong post-front headwind, and rack up some miles westward to get back on track.

Night Wind

I'm just back in my hotel, on the north shore of the Arkansas River. I walked across a bridge over the river, nearly 400 yards wide, to downtown Little Rock. I had some food and three beers and walked back across the bridge. At 10:00 downtown Little Rock was already very subdued; a car crossed the bridge every minute or two. The humid, still-warm wind blew from the south. A child of Southern California, I've learned to associate warm, humid wind with vacation, somewhere far away from SoCal.

There was an internal combustion noise from somewhere and then a speedboat  streaked out from under the bridge on the dark water, paused and circled a quarter-mile upstream, and streaked back again. No lights; probably no brains, either.

OK, so... Arkansas. My ride from Knoxville to Memphis was pleasant. Tennessee seems to never run out of hills, big or small. Interstate 40 was seldom straight and seldom level. As I got close to the Mississippi River the landscape got more formal and flatter. On the far side of the Mississippi, Arkansas started out as a flood plain. Lots of fields and very few buildings. Flat as a Pancake. Interstate 40 was dead level and mostly straight. Tomorrow I'll get into the Ozarks, so my impression might change, but for now? I have to admit, my overriding impression was, why is this a state? Lotsa Mississippi floodplains, the very infrequent range of hills, rice paddies, fertile fields – this could be Mississippi or western Tennessee. I went 120 miles from the river crossing and never saw much in the way of civilization until I hit Little Rock.

Today was a ride of about 540 miles. It was interrupted pretty early on when I got too optimistic about the bike's range and ran out of gas about half a mile short of a service station. I walked there, only to learn that they did not lend fuel containers. I had to call for roadside service and lost over an hour in that incident. Live and learn. As the miles wore on I got pretty tired and sore until my last fuel stop, about 30 miles east of Little Rock. Then, after some stretches and some attention to my riding ensemble, the last bit was very tolerable. My left leg, the one hurt in the crash in the Texas thunderstorm, is much better but is still quicker to get sore than the right leg.

I'm 1661 miles from home. That's four 400-mile days, which would get me home Friday night. I'm pretty sure I can do that. It might even give me enough time to make one or two detours. I'm really riding past a lot of interesting stuff in the name of getting home for Mother's Day.

Westward

I'm falling behind on my blogging! And I need to hit the road. I'll catch up tonight. For now, let me note that I'm in Knoxville, TN with a "stretch" goal of Little Rock, AR, today. I'll list a few bullet points that I'll fill in tonight.

OK, that's today. Here's the details of yesterday

Church

Jim and Jackie took me to their church, half a mile away in the back of a multi-unit commercial/industrial building. The service was an upbeat performance with guitar, drums, and vocalist. At the end there was a breakout session where members would pray with you, and Jackie and her daughter prayed a lot. I did, too, although I did it on my own. A whole lot of praying.

Atlantic Ocean

Yeah, it's corny. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna ride this far and then not take a picture. Next to me are Jim, Jackie, and Jackie's daughter Shelley. Making it to the Atlantic means this trip is a double continental crossing.

North Carolina road culture

So... automobiles tend to reveal the emotional makeup of the driver, stripped of public niceties. That being the case, North Carolina is screwed up. I spent a lot of non-quality time on Highway 74. One after another, a series of passive-aggressive creeps would occupy the left lane, pacing the car in the right lane without passing it. When they eventually passed, five or ten minutes later, and pulled to the right lane, they also sped up to prevent the folks behind them from passing them.

Some people addressed this problem by simply tailgating the bejeezus out of the person in front of them, until that person pulled over. Then they would advance another 80 feet and tailgate all over again. All in all, a princely collection of citizens.

Helmet Shield

So, I lost my helmet shield late on Saturday, nearly to my destination in Longs, SC. On Sunday I rode a couple of hundred miles to the motorcycle accessory store to get another shield. Over and over I got pinged by sand, gravel, and bugs. I was extremely grateful to find another helmet shield, even though it was a mirror finish, something I would normally never touch.

So Many Hayabusas

At that motorcycle accessory store, there were a huge number of Suzuki Hayabusas – until recently, the fastest production motorcycle in the world. There were many other kinds of bikes there too, all sharing a sort of show-bike quality. The owners were all black. I didn't know that motorcycle clubs are still segregated, but apparently in North Carolina, they are. They were pitching a charity fish fry in the parking lot, and there were at least a hundred hot bikes there.

The Smoky Mountains

After all the meal breaks and bad traffic (horrendous, really) near Charlotte, and the stop at the motorcycle accessory store, I got to Asheville kind of late in the day. The run from Asheville down to the low hills of Tennessee was epic. The Smokies are gorgeous. The highway has tighter curves than your typical insterstate, so I had to pay some attention to the road. But the lush green mountainsides were mesmerizing. The fast, clean rivers really made an impression.

From Sea to Shining Sea

I'm in Longs, South Carolina. I got here just at sunset yesterday after a 420-mile ride. It featured some wrong turns and another amusing mishap. At about 400 miles, zooming down a lightly traveled freeway through the pretty coastal plain, I was feeling very stiff in my neck and shoulders. I started rolling my head around, shrugging my shoulders, and making other moves for some relief. I tilted my neck back a little farther than usual and, with a minor sound, my face shield detached and tumbled down the pavement behind me. There was distant traffic following, with no place to turn around for many miles, and I doubted that the shield had survived in good condition anyway. I rode on wearing my sunglasses, but every now and then a bug, or grains of sand thrown up by another vehicle, would sting my face where the glasses don't cover. I am going to get another shield at the earliest opportunity but, here in the South, a very large number of merchants close on Sunday, including all the motorcycle dealers and accessory shops.

Yesterday's ride covered a lot of beautiful country. My no-freeway vow is over, and I tackled Interstate 20 with a vengeance, but the ride through Georgia before I hit 20 was very pleasant. I didn't stop to take many pictures, but this pasture outside Monticello was typical.

Last night I took Jackie and Jim to the restaurant of their choice, the local Outback, where we feasted on many desirable food items. This morning, I'm going to church with them.

I haven't been to a church service in so long, I can't remember the last time. I'm not a church person. But I'm glad to go to this one, because I want to pray alongside them for God's grace and mercy as Jackie battles her illness. She's a fine person and she deserves some grace and mercy.

I started this ride in Los Angeles, on the shores of the Pacific. After church, I'm riding six miles down to the local beach, the Atlantic. The freaking official checkpoint. The shining sea. Then I'm going to turn around and see how many miles I can ride toward the northwest. I hope to cross the Smoky Mountains and get into eastern Tennessee today. I have one week, almost to the very hour, to get to San Clemente, California, on the shore of that other ocean, to be with my mom on Mother's Day. Lots of miles every day, and I've done about 4000 miles already.

No pictures today. I'm kind of disorganized. I should be able to catch up a little after nightfall and beef up this post a little bit, talk more about the ride from Georgia over here.

Plot twist

I'm in Manchester, Georgia, not far from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Little White House. It's 150 miles east of my daughter's house in Alabama, a nice ride most of the way and especially pretty toward the end. I'm staying with a friend who until now was just a virtual friend, a fellow member of the Ninja 250 internet forum. He's a motorcycle mechanic and I wanted to chance to get my little Ninja's condition checked out before I turned west for home.

We'll do some more checking tomorrow, but so far so good. However, I won't be turning west yet.

I didn't start this trip intending to go coast to coast, but that's how it's going to work out. There's a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina who's fighting a tough medical problem and I want to go visit her and her husband. At 400 miles, it's not exactly next door, but it's do-able and I want to do it. No country roads tomorrow, except the ones that lead me to the nearest interstate. Time matters now.

I had a nice visit with my ex, who provided great hospitality, and I cherish the time I had with my daughter, the original goal of this big old trip. I'll find a way for us to get together more often.

After the Fact

I wrote the paragraphs above on Friday. This is Sunday. I wanted to talk a little about the drive to Georgia. After several miles of pleasant Alabama countryside I got on U.S. 280 southeast, the major artery in this area. It was prettier than an urban setting, but not particularly nice compared to the smaller country roads. At Camp Hill I finally got onto one of those country roads, headed toward Lanett on the Georgia border. Along the way I passed a modest church with a modest graveyard across the road.

As a long-time Californian, one of the things that surprised me about eastern states is how frequently small graveyards appear. I grew up thinking that people had to be shuttled off to one of those huge cemeteries when they died.

In Lanett there was an enormous complex of brick buildings, a few blocks long, that seemed to be undergoing long, slow destruction. A server at a local cafe told me that it had been a cotton mill. I kept thinking that all that used brick must be worth quite a bit on its own.

After Lanett I headed up into the more mountainous region around Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Little White House" near Warm Springs. In Alabama and Georgia it's rare to get a long view of the landscape, but up on the summit ridge of that mountain there were a few.

I was conflicted about that road. It was so beautiful up there, with the tall pines and the broadleaf understory, but the road was also alluring, with constant curves, dips, and rises. There had not been much in the way of twisty roads since way back in the Big Bend. I elected to ride instead of gawk and I was quickly in Manchester.

My host was a fellow member of the Ninja 250 owners group on the internet, www.ninja250.org. I had never met Bryan in person. His house was immaculate and attractive - he and his wife had spent many months refurbishing the just-purchase, classic brick house. I was also treated to excellent homebrew beer and handmade pizza. Quite a contrast from the accommodations and cuisine that I often experienced on the road. Thanks very much, Bryan.

Out of Sequence

Several times now, I've had observations that I forgot to put in the then-current blog post, so I'm making this catch-all post to put them in after the fact. It will start small, but I'll go back and update this post once in a while as these random thoughts float up to the surface again.

California's stricter smog regulations can be a pain in the butt and in the adjacent wallet. But I noticed on this trip that as soon as I reached Arizona, and for all the rest of the trip east, traffic smelled different. Particularly in slow, congested spots, you could really smell the extra hydrocarbons and such that came out of exhaust pipes.

People think of California as being quite liberal but I've noticed that it's the South where you see all the drive-through liquor stores.

Cows won't turn to look at a passing car, but they will turn to watch a snarling little motorcycle go by, buzzing at 8000 RPM.

Large signs on restaurants that say "Good Food" are a clear danger signal.

Did I mention that my lovely and talented daughter got five As on her recently completed semester, following up on her 4.0 average in the fall semester?

The essence of the East, for me, is water. Water flowing everywhere, in tiny trickles or massive rivers. Every gentleman farmer with a pond in his yard. Woods growing rampant, everywhere that they haven't been cleared. At times during the ride I tried to imagine what it was like for the early pioneers, pushing through a thousand miles of dense forest across the Southeast. What a huge task that was, to clear the first roads and trails.