Prologue

May 3, 2012. Day –15. 

Call us crazy.  60 something and planning a cross continent motorcycle/camping trip. No fixed address, no fixed timetable. Tsk. Tsk.  But that doesn’t mean no plans. Planning.  Now there’s a joke and we haven’t even started.  As the Yiddish expression goes, “Man plans and God laughs.”דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט . Der mentch tracht un Gott lacht.  Or, as President Eisenhower put it, "Plans are worthless but planning is everything." Slavish adherence to plans defeats the purpose of the trip, preventing serendipity from leading us to happy surprises.  Poor or no planning leads us to places we don't want to visit.



Maybe the best place to start is not with an itinerary or destination, but with an objective.  For us, the purpose of the trip is to have an adventure and to see and feel what is left of our country, while we are still able to do it.Why are we going by motorcycle and not by car?  If you have to ask, you won't understand.  There is an intimate immediacy that one experiences on a motorcycle that cannot be experienced in a car.  There is no easy or accurate way to describe the experience of being hurtled through space at 88 feet per second with neither glass nor steel separating your five senses from your environment. However, this is a good thing only if one can manage to keep the shiny side of the bike up and the rubber side down. Trust me on that one. 

Jo Ann at mile 0

And that begins with a safe and sound motorcycle. Having the motorcycle fail or breakdown in the middle of nowhere no fun. And we riders have to be in good enough shape too--physically and mentally.  We are in as good shape as we are going to be.  And as for the requisite mental toughness, Juanita and I have a simple rule of thumb for when bad stuff happens.  No whining.  A couple is rarely as together or as isolated from one another as when they are traveling two-up on a motorcycle.  What happens to one, for better or worse, happens to the other. We have a passenger to passenger intercom that will help us share our thoughts while we are riding, but with the turbulence caused by winds, communication will not always be 100%.  Frequent stops will help alleviate the problem.  They will also give us the opportunity to rest and stretch before rigor mortis sets in. Rest stops also prevent another type of accident.  

We begin the voyage Saturday, May 19, God willing and the creek don't rise.