2019 Prefrontal Tour

Day 10 of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour is dedicated to the wee shits... The storm we dodged hung there all night, pummeling that pass like an angry troll daring us to cross the bridge again.  By morning it was gone and we could see all of the mountains, although as usual it's sometimes hard to tell where the snowy mountains end and the clouds begin. We left Montrose and passed through the beautiful town of Delta, with its orchards and vineyards, and of course a marijuana dispensary with a creative name, this time the "Delta Dab and Doobie". Probably because of the orchards and all of the blossoms I noticed an uptick in the bugs hitting the windshield, mostly bees.  Snoopy 2 has seen more insect impacts than her namesake, but to her credit she's carrying far fewer dump duck droppings.  After all this time and miles, sad to say, I still haven't seen more than a couple of butterflies. It's no secret that dad drove so slow the bugs splattered on the back wind...

If snow is white, I wondered, how can it be so black?... We started out the day with a drive through- and a few hikes within- Arches National Park, a cool stop just outside of Moab, Utah.  Arches NP is apparently where God spat his bubble gum when he was done with it - a profusion of pink swirly blobs down low and the most amazing spires, balancing rocks, and of course arches up above.  Our first stop in the park was a giant balancing rock which I wryly commented was so aptly named by our governmental park overlords - "Balancing Rock". It was clear we weren't going to need the heavy artillery today, so we stripped out the thermal liners and switched to the warm weather gloves, also opening all of the vents in the jackets and pants. We left Moab and headed back to Colorado, hitting even more awesome roads and straightening out on Colorado 90 through what must have inspired the TV show "Big Valley".  I've never seen such a thing. It was apparent from ...

"Note to self"... On the 2018 Prefrontal Tour I'd say that 20 times per day, or every time I saw something I wanted to remember for my daily update.  But now thanks to Google and their ever-shifting landscape of features and products, I have to say "Add to my shopping list", and hope that Google actually transcribes my voice and stores it away.  The success rate has been between 10 and 80 percent, depending on cellular service. As you can tell from the varied list of topics I cover, (and some of the more interesting topics that don't make the update), whoever at Google and the NSA is assigned to monitor my account is probably wondering what the hell I'm up to.  Today, for instance, I added yaks and llamas to the list of large mammals we've seen, and in that vein I created a quiz for the 2019 Prefrontal Tour (no search engines allowed)... What species is the DEER XING sign, most likely? How many points on the rack of the 2D deer? BONUS: Why i...

It's a big, big world.  But in some places, the world is just,... bigger. After yesterday's hard-won 100 miles (the hardest yet on the 2019 Prefrontal Tour), we needed a day to get our mojo back.  We left Cortez after a heavy rain passed in the night, the tops of its mesas hidden in low-lying clouds, and turned west for Kanab, Utah. In 325 miles we had a lot to do and see, and we needed to traverse the rest of Colorado, parts of Arizona, and a handful of Utah.  Off the cuff, if Colorado is marked by elk and bison jerky, then Arizona and Utah are Indian jewelry and millenials sitting on the yellow line getting a righteous selfie.  Jack and I stopped and got a selfie of ourselves just for good measure, and to document their untimely deaths if necessary.  We're helpful like that. We went through Page (the home of Lake Powell and that iconic riverbend photo), and rode amazed through Monument Park and the Valley of the Gods - all variegated red mesas and peaks...

It was at that exact moment, at about 10:00 AM on the morning of Day 6 of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour that the universe decided to send me a message.  I licked a stamp and RSVP'ed "Loud and clear.  Over and out.", then pulled to the side to let a tailing truck go past and turned to descend back below the snow line... We left Ouray early, to multiple "Special Weather Statements" and "Winter Storm Warnings" above 9,000 feet, not that you could tell from the beautiful sunrise reflecting off the cliffs above.  Destination - Silverton, then Durango, and ultimately Cortez.  But we'd need to make it through Red Mountain, Molas and Coal Bank Passes first, all near or above 11,000 feet. We hit the first switchbacks literally at the end of Main Street and climbed quickly above the town, all matchbox houses and early morning shadows.  It was 34 degrees with driving snow and we had a lot of climbing to do if we were going to make it over the first pass.  Sus...

Knowing today would be a carousel of sights and smells as opposed to a marathon, we departed South Fork at a reasonable 8:30, and headed a whole half mile down the road to the Tiny Timbers Coffee Bistro for a fill-up.  Tiny Timbers was supposed to be closed today, but the gracious owners couldn't turn us away and they served up a great day-starter and some welcome advice about coming road conditions. It seems it was a record year for snowfall in the mountains and the net result is avalanche damage, boulder falls, flooding, and 100+ feet of snow still on some of the passes and roads we hoped to traverse.  Best laid plans. In the end there's so much to see that having a road or two closed matters little - we left for Creede with clear skies and little wind, turning there toward Lake City and the first significant elevation of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour, our path entwined with the Rio Grande.  We passed over the Continental Divide at about 10,900 feet, dipped momentarily ...

What do "men working" and "rivers in the southwest" have in common?  Both require a sign to let you know they exist.  Yes, we're back in the dry zone, having passed through the remainder of Kansas and a good portion of Colorado.  And holy flat, Kansas is flat.  Fluh-HAT.  Like, Kansas puts the "eff" in "flat".  God must have made Kansas, and then made the Rockies by way of apology. At one point we just pulled over and looked around 360 degrees, the world falling away in all directions, and we both remarked about the curvature of the earth.  To the south, a long low (yes flat) line of white clouds marked the horizon, looming like a distant wall of ice just visible through the haze of several hundred miles. We'd left Colby just after 8 AM, and headed southwest toward La Junta.  We spent much of the morning being dive-bombed by swallows, intent on picking the bugs off our windshields, or maybe just showing off for their feathered friend...

There, on the right.  A brilliant arc of white violence flashed to the ground.  And on the left, another leapt into being.  Above in the gloom, muted flashes betrayed the presence of others, kept aloft. We sped westward from Williamsburg toward Des Moines, betting on catching a narrow break in the storm front where the rains would be heavy, but hopefully not biblical.  The rain fell harder, mixing with road spray and making the air a veritable sauce. More lightning, and raining harder still.  Jack in the lead, probably thinking nothing of it, and me as the rear guard, calculating the risk of abandoning Faraday at such a critical juncture, and building a small shithouse with newly laid bricks - but enjoying the hell out of it at the same time. The animals fell just short of pairing up, but cars and trucks were vying for position on the edge of the highway, hazards flashing, victims of their own windshields and futile wipers. We pressed on and broke free ...

I drove past the mud hole the first time, not wanting to believe the GPS was right.  It had failed me before. Circling back I came to the conclusion it was correct, and this was the only way to get to the dock and the Fast Ferry from Muskegon, Michigan to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  A two and a half hour journey that would cut about eight hours and a bunch of cities off my itinerary. But the hidden cost was a hundred yards of mud and water of unknown consistency, with deep ruts on the edges from trucks gone astray.  There was nothing to wait for, I slipped the clutch and dipped the front wheel into the mess that passes for road construction these days.  In the end I got lucky and it was two-inches of muck - a 1,200 pound bike and rider don't do well in the squishy stuff.  But it could have made for an epic photo montage.  Amirite?! Day 2 of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour was,... leisurely.  My schedule was predetermined and beyond my control so I departed ...

Launch day came early - too early by my estimation.  When I first stirred I could tell it was still dark through shuttered lids.  Prying one apart I directed my gaze to the clock.  Three twos in a row?  No matter what order you put them in, it spells "No." When next I awoke it was already 5:45 and past time to get up, although there was precious little else to prepare, having done it mostly the night before. Duly christened on the eve of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour by a sea captain's wife, Snoopy 2 departed at 7:15 AM 'neath a cloudless cerulean sky at a brisk 50 degrees. Angling west on Route 67, I headed for Amsterdam, avoiding the morning rush of cagers at the Twin Bridges trying to beat each other to the office.  It was mundane at first, farms and houses in the low-light of morning, until I crested the eastern lip of the Mohawk Valley and it felt like the Tour was on. I picked up the peremptory slab and headed due West for Niagara Falls, crossing the b...

Sometimes, a thing must be done.  As my friends in India would say, "I'll do the needful and revert".  That sometime was today, one day before the launch of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour, and the needful was getting Snoopy 2 back to Maine to be christened by the only woman on the planet who could. I departed at 7:15 AM, a bit later than planned, but still at a chilly 52 degrees.  I plotted a course through Whitehall, NY - the landlocked birthplace of the U.S. Navy - then through the stone totems of eastern NY and temperatures colder still.  Destination Sanford, ME - having finished forwarding my mail to Sanford, NC two days prior, and getting back from Sanford, FL yesterday, today would complete the Sanford triumvirate - three Sanfords, in three states, in three days. Killington, VT saw the temperature plummet by ten degrees in almost as many minutes, but it was no surprise, for a very scientific reason...  You see, a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a "useful...

Now that we're configuring the load-out for the 2019 Prefrontal Tour, it's time for a few fun facts about "conveyance capacity". Fun fact #1: The Honda Goldwing GL1800 has a lot of liters.  More than 1.8 liters of displacement, a 7 liter air box, and a 25 liter fuel tank. Fun fact #2: My first car, an early-80's Ford Escort, only had 1.6 liters of displacement, and half as many horsepower (65 vs. 120). But the Escort by comparison had plenty of storage, while the Goldwing is split into a measly 61-liter trunk up top and two 40-liter saddlebags on the sides, for a total of 141 liters of factory-standard storage goodness.  Whatever else I need to carry will have to ride along strapped in dry bags, or be exposed to the elements. Now, subtract one of those saddlebags for tools, supplies, and a half-cover to discourage dew and curious lookers-on, and we're down to 101 liters... Subtract at least one more saddle bag for all of this camping equipment, and ...

The 2019 Prefrontal Tour is about a lot of things, from new beginnings to final destinations. One of the new beginnings for 2019 was the naming contest for the bike, and based on thousands of creative entries, and after careful consideration, we've selected the winner and it's time for the grand unveiling. The Internet being a "font of all things", I used it to dredge up old photos that rhymed with the winning entry, and through a little bit of photo manipulation magic and a printing company in the Netherlands, the new ship has been duly christened. Say hello to "Snoopy 2", emblazoned with the same likeness that bedecked Dad's lobster boat all those years ago, in memory of where we began, and to take a little piece of the past where we're going. The decals are a special vinyl applique that should stand up to the wind and waves between here and who-knows-where, but only time and miles will really tell. Thank you to everyone who vot...