The ‘Course’ Of Events…
Ahhhhh, navigation! A good skill to develop, most would agree, and some would even argue an absolutely necessary ingredient in any successful ride undertaking… I’ve found it ain’t always all it’s cracked up to be… For example…
A couple of years back, Troutdude and I departed the southeastern quarter of America in-route to Billings, MT, for the InZane confab that year. Simple enough, and any normal rider could have made that ride in around two thousand miles or a bit less and in less than a week. We did it a mite different… More than a month and more than twice that many miles just to get there… No, we didn’t follow the most direct path…
Well, we did get there all right, and we did have ourselves quite an adventure! Alas, Dennis has other obligations and encumbrances in his life, things I’ve managed to get shed of, so we parted ways and he headed home… I just wandered off… I rode through Idaho and over into Oregon, then up to Washington. I decided to lay over a few days to fry up some bacon and burn a few ribeye chunks mostly, but also to regroup and see where we might go next…
Looking over rental options in that general area, a unit in British Columbia caught my eye. We rented it and spent four or five restful, lazy days perfecting the ‘art of ease’ but a ‘plan’, a direction to head next was sought in vain. Nope… Nothing… No inspiration at all… Time to defer to our girl and follow her front wheel… She’s never let me down before, so I was predictably optimistic and quite comfortable leaving things up to her…
Only a few blocks from that rental unit, we stopped to top off the tank. Off the parking lot/tarmac of that station at the stop sign for a major road… we confronted our first choice-point… Right would take us south towards Idaho… Left… north… ALI banked us to the left so… Now you should bear in mind, in British Columbia there are no 'wrong' turns or un-good routes to take! Any will do, so I felt no alarm or twinges at this unexpected ‘turn of events’… However, an idea did begin to form…
Well, to make a very long story shorter, a week or two later, we wound up in an unexpected locale… We’d made no lengthy ride preparations or plans, none of the usual things one normally does for such a ride… We simply wound-up there… Heck, the rear tire even had a plug in it, put there by Dennis back in Wyoming on our way to IZ… “But… but… You can’t do that!”, the ‘experts’ would say, "It simply ain’t in conformity with… correctness!!! Heck, you ain't even using the correct oil!"
"...Should we?" "Oh why the heck not!"
Navigatin’ And Such…
I threw in that little rendition of an old story to remind any who might still be reading this that… Well, navigating, planning, purposeful travel, anything ‘normal’ or usual, doesn’t always apply to the things we do… This will give you an idea about how we could be in Del Rio, TX, headed west… only to reverse course and head towards Wetumpka, AL, at the drop of a hat. Yes, there is more to this story…
Our ‘SROTY’ had begun with us pulling out of the driveway at our landlady’s house going… someplace… any place! Who knew? That would all become clear, naturally, in due course… For now a westerly direction seemed appropriate. Weather, and more precisely rain, was driving choices at this point more than anything else… The idea of things usually being drier west of I-35 has influenced many of my ride selections, and this was certainly some place to start… Besides, that route would take us right by JP & Bobbie’s place in Lake Charles, LA, and I was overdue for a visit with them…
It’s An Acquired Taste… (Community Coffee)
JP (Jerry) & Bobbie…
Another rain cycle was due to pass through, so I needed to either lay over with JP & Bobbie or ride a day, then hunker down in a motel for two or three days… Not a hard call at all! Well, Friday was to be the expected day of departure, so imagine my surprise when early Thursday morning the rain had stopped… and the forecast had changed with no precip return anticipated!
Jerry had returned from rolling the garbage can to the curb, when I learned the cover on ALI had ‘blown off’ during the night. I went to have a look. Hmmm…
ALI Grows Restless… (Thrown Off Cover)
I went back inside to correct JP… That cover had not blown off… ALI had thrown her cover off herself! Yep, she was restless, and all the delays so far this season had made her a bit antsy… she was simply letting me know… “Yes, dear… Let me get ready, and I’ll be right with you…”
We headed north at first to get well clear of the I-10 gauntlet… to avoid Beaumont, Houston, and San Antonio… Instead of riding south around Houston we would ride north this time… a little variety, so to speak. We made the turn west at Deridder, LA, then through Jasper and Conroe, TX, and on to Johnson City… Not bad, even though we had been in and out of sprinkles most of the day, and the expected warm-up never materialized!
We made the I-35 crossing between Austin and San Antonio at San Marcos… Man, the traffic there is not what we like to find, but it is so much better than most other crossings… That entire corridor from the Red River to south of San Antonio is filling up and presenting a very formidable barrier! Oh well, we made it to the Hill country, and things were looking up once again. Heck, I even had fried catfish for dinner that evening to compensate… and to reward myself for not having missed more than a couple of turns all day!
The improvement in weather would not occur yet again on the following day! Funny, I do tend to rely upon forecasts, but… Yep, I’m frequently surprised and even disappointed now and then. All day long I kept my eyes peeled for the expected break in the clouds and warming said to be coming… but never did! In fact, the clouds seemed to be getting darker, and if I weren’t prepared with a favorable forecast and therefore knew better, I’d have sworn it looked like it would rain…
I could see down the road far enough to realize there was 'descending moisture' in our immediate future… My bladder was also letting me know that our making it to the next stop opportunity was not likely in the cards… I decided to get that taken care of before we encountered the nasty stuff…
Not much traffic this day as we were nearing ‘The Three Sisters’, so when I spotted a paved side road with trees and bushes… We made the pull-off and addressed the task at hand. Just about the time that second sigh was being uttered, I noticed a longhorn nearby had turned to give me a serious look-see… Hmmm, that surely deserves a picture, I thought, so the I-Phone was retrieved to capture a portrait of one of Bevo’s relatives… That’s when I noticed…
“The Eyes of Texas Are Upon…” (Bevo’s Kin)
Somebody had texted me… I had a look. It was Suzie, Jim Dorman’s wife… Jim is one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and he is one of the few riders I truly enjoy making a road trip with for indefinite periods… He was the one with ALI and me when she’d broken down in Calgary, AB, and that epic story had begun. He’d been steadily going downhill health-wise for several years, so I’d really been dreading this message… He’d been referred to Hospice, and he wasn’t doing well at all… Dang!
We got a room in Del Rio, and I started returning calls… It came to me that I really needed to go tell my friend face-to-face that he has made a positive difference in this world, and that his life has mattered… I love that guy like a brother, and it pains me to have witnessed what has been going on, what is happening now, and what surely lies just ahead… Nothing going on in particular with this ride other than wandering around anyway, so the next morning we reversed course and headed for Wetumpka, AL…
DDT
